What's Next - Cameras

The online edition of the International Herald Tribune on February 2nd has an article about the upcoming annual Photo Marketing Association convention and where the camera market is going next (For cameras, it's a digital world) . The highlights are:

• The market for film cameras is (almost) dead - 92% of all cameras sold now are digital.
• Digital cameras are evolving away from looking like film cameras.
• Multiple lenses - dual built-in zoom and wide-angle lenses are available.
  
• The end of the megapixel race - similar to what happened in the PC market, most people have enough pixels to do what they need.
• Wireless - some models will lose their cables in favor of wireless downloads/uploads.
• Image stabilization - "steady shot" comes to still cameras to eliminate problems with shaky hands, high zoom ratios, and holding the camera away from the body, all of which cause jittery images.
• Video/still combos - already available but coming even more common to have video capable 'still' cameras.
  
• Bigger, faster, better - larger image sizes and faster video frame rates on some makes/models.
• GPS - automatically tag each image with location (along with traditionally time/date).
• "Blink Shot" - recognize when subject's eyes are closed and prevent the picture from being taken.

The article is written for the non-technical masses, but still does a good job of capturing and communicating the trends in a clear, accurate manner.

To Read