What Next?

Autumn still lingers in southeastern Virginia; from Saturday (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 lens @ 100mm; 1/40th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

With Thanksgiving here in the United States just passing, over the weekend I found myself thinking about how thankful I was for the wonderful photographic tools we, as a photographic community, now have as compared to anytime in our photographic pasts.  It seems to me that every piece of the photographic equation is so much better than in the past.  But...I also notice, that no matter how good we have it now, many seem to find ways to complain about their cameras, lenses, software, etc.  Never enough and never good enough. That includes me, at times.  I find I'm not immune from complaints.

When film was the center of the photographic universe, one achieved technically better images (of course, that is subjective) by going to a larger format camera or changing to the latest and greatest films which were a result of chemical engineers and their magic.  The newer films had better color reproduction, more dynamic range and less grain.  You didn't need to buy a new camera to realize the improvements in image quality.

When digital came along, the big debate became, "Which is better, film or digital?"  It wasn't long before digital imaging far surpassed almost any kind of film capture.  One can still buy and use an 8" X 10" film camera and, I suspect, the images from those cameras will still rival the best digital cameras.  I may be wrong, however.

After we settled the film versus digital question, the photographic community started to complain about not having enough pixels.  Six million pixels certainly wasn't enough, nor 12mp, nor 16mp, nor 24mp, nor 36mp.  We are now seeing cameras in the 35mm form factor with 45mp and 50mp.  We have medium format bodies with 50-100mp.  Some of the 50mp medium format bodies are even affordable (again, a very subjective statement).

My sweet spot was and continues to be about 24mp.  That seems to allow me to make any size print I would want as well as resolution fine enough for stock photography.  If I ever choose a camera with more than 24mp, I think it would be for the ability to crop in closely, on occasion, so I could save some money by not having to buy really long lenses that aren't normally needed for the types of photography I practice.

Okay.  We've now achieved enough pixels to satisfy all but the most demanding curmudgeons, so the community moved onto "needing" higher and higher and higher ISOs.  That is even though we almost never need astronomical ISOs in the real world.  Some do, the vast majority of us don't.  Sony came out with the A7S and then the A7SII and the other manufacturers have come out with cameras capable of making "good" images (yet, another subjective statement) with ISOs up in the 25,600 range.  Do any of us, albeit a few, really need that?  Is it pie in the sky and not reality?  Is it an ego thing?  Anyway, the industry has solved the high ISO issue.  What next?

Well, the next complaint was not enough dynamic range.  Just as we found in having extremely high ISOs, we seldom need extreme dynamic range and, when we do, we have the wonderful world of HDR or compositing a few images together, pretty much automatically, to capture all of the detail in the highlights as well as the deep, deep shadows.  On occasion, someone will need extreme dynamic range and will find themselves in a situation where multiple image compositing techniques just won't' work.  Surprise!  Nikon invents the D800, D800E, the D810 and now the D850 with about 14 stops of dynamic range.  Then Sony puts out the A7RII and now A7RIII and the dynamic range seems to top even those incredible numbers.  Fourteen and fifteen stops of dynamic range?  Are you kidding me?  Try Kodachrome with about 6 stops—if you are lucky.  Even the smaller, less expensive cameras have more than 10 stops of dynamic range.  I would say that the problem has been solved.  What next?

We want more features, the community says.  We want to be able to focus stack in-camera.  You got it.  We want to be able to take multiple images in-camera with sensor shift resulting in an extremely detailed 80mp RAW or JPEG files.  You got it.  We want to be able to correct converging parallels in-camera.  You got it.  We want to be able to shoot at 20 frames per second with follow focus.  You got it.  We want our focusing systems to lock on to an eye and track it as we shoot continually.  You got it.  We want our focusing system to lock on in 0.04 sec. and be accurate and precise every time.  You got it.  We want, we want, we want. The manufacturers responded by giving us incredible features in our digital cameras.

Are we, as a photographic community, ever going to be satisfied with the remarkable tools we have at our disposal?  Are we ever going to start to focus on creating the images themselves?  I'm not even getting into the editing, compositing, HDR, Panorama, Focus Stacking, Black and White conversion, Resizing, Noise Reduction, etc., etc.,  software and others that is available to us.

Back to the beginning.  Thanksgiving is a time of pausing and giving thanks for everything that has come our way.  I think we all should be thankful for the wonderful photographic tools that are at our disposal, affordable and allow us to make images in ways our predecessors could never have imagined.  But that isn't going to happen with the majority of complainers.  Now, I don't believe they are bad people.  I think it is just their personality.  I guess one positive thing we can say about the complainers is that they seem to drive the industry to create better and more in the same way as competition drives innovation.  So, I guess I'm kind of thankful for them as well. 

My question now is, "What next?"

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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