Canon Wonder Camera Concept displayed at Expo 2010

[Shea Design]

Canon Wonder Camera - concept camera demonstrated. You gotta see this!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfsGb9SDcCU&annotation_id=annotation_2 51005&feature=iv





-Shea

[zacotton]

While I think it's an interesting idea/design, it's actual implementation is something that would have to be seen. The idea of camera's built into cellphones overtaking photography is just silly, and an argument I find hard to understand. Sure, maybe it can beat out point and shoots, but it's certainly nothing to dSLRs.


The actual implementation, from what we got out of the Expo, seems to me like something that could be a replacement to the point and shoot design. There's much more to photography, as all of you know with the work you put into it, than just taking photo's and hoping for the best. Also, I don't care for the video recording, and thengoing through to pull out still frames. It defeats the purpose of creative vision if you can just have a constant recording, and then go back and look for the perfect shot. Guess we'll see in ~20 years?


Though i wouldn't mind having that lens. :P


Zach

[Jon Ruyle]

I agree that the idea of cellphone cameras replacing dedicated cameras is silly.


Still, as IQ increases, the need for removable lenses for the average consumer may lessen.

[realityinabox]

With the current trend of thinner/smaller P&S cameras, that thing will have to find a way to shrink a bit. I can't imagine swapping a P&S that fits in my pocket for a huge white dSLR wanna-be that has to hang from my belt.

[wickerprints]

Certain features and design specifications of cameras are strongly limited by the laws of optics and physics. The narrator in the video talks about this future camera without any apparent understanding of these limitations, or the very notion of photography as an art form.


I realize I am probably not the target demographic for these demonstrations, but nevertheless I find it little more than marketing-speak. I don't care about touch-screen interfaces. A white body would NOT be a good idea. A lack of interchangeable lenses is a deal-breaker. What I want to see are substantive developments in optical engineering, sensor design, processor efficiency, and AF system design. These lead to real improvements in imaging quality, creative flexibility, and camera performance. But you can't make a sexy presentation to laypeople about how you overhauled your production facilities to increase your glass yield by 50% while simultaneously reducing your tolerances by an order of magnitude and halving your costs. You can't tell them how you invented a new type of glass or designed a new optical formula for a 135/1.0 lens. Nobody but a handful of people (like us) would even know what that means, much less understand how to make use of it.


I mean, who really wants a 24-500/2.8-13 superzoom bolted onto a 30MP APS-C ISO 100-6400 sensor? It will still be crap even if made 50 years from now, simply by virtue of the fact that a lens that small can't admit enough light to fight diffraction and noise.

[Jon Ruyle]

It will still be crap even if made 50 years from now, simply by virtue of the fact that a lens that small can't admit enough light to fight diffraction and noise.

I agree. Noise is limited by the laws of physics, and to get the "whole picture in focus all the time", as the man said, even if it were desirable, would mean good light or high noise, and would also mean diffraction would limit resolution to not much higher than it is today.


OTOH, I believe our current lenses are far from diffraction limited, and there is possibly a lot of room for improvement there (maybe not, for all I know lenses are limited by more complicated laws than diffraction- this I know nothing about). A 5DII has a DLA of f/10 or so. Thus a diffraction limited f/2 lens should work well on a 500 megapixel full frame sensor, and thus a 135 f/2 could be cropped to give a 20 mp image with about the same angle as a 700mm lens. Such a high quality lens would be so versatile that many people could live without changing lenses (albiet most would want something wider... maybe a diffraction limited 50mm f/1? ).