Digital Cameras Threatened by New Technology

I would imagine the lack of hardware zoom is something that you can't really compensate for easily. But a lower end point and shoot digital camera with non-SLR lens or non hardware zoom lens would likely be on the chopping block if this is true.

seems too good to be true! lets wait and see.

Would be nice to see the quality of images captured on a mobile phone increase by the amount discussed here. This obviously won't pose any threat to the mid- to high-end camera market, but it would be nice to see phones taking pictures comparable to half decent point-and-shoot cameras.

I fail to see how this "threatens" digital cameras; looks like it will improve newer cameras.

an APPLE lawsuit is eminent.

If the tech on camera phones is good enough, why buy a separate digicam?

Graphics cards and audio cards have the same problem-- if the on mobo solution is good enough, why buy an expensive separate graphics card or audio card?

A high quality, 12 MP low-light-sensitive (so you can take great photos w/o a flash) camera in the next iPhone would be awesome. =D

"imagine your 3 megapixel camera getting upgraded to 12 megapixels"

This doesn't increase the resolution of the image, just the effective ISO right? So a more appropriately your 50 ISO sensor would act like a 200 ISO which is good because as you crank up the sensitivity you get more noise so if you can keep the sensitivity of the sensor lower for the same amount of light you get much cleaner pictures.

Anyone who understands digital cameras will tell you that increased megapixels do not mean better/sharper looking pictures, increased megapixels just means more sales because marketing does such a great job to fool people to accept it as necessary. There's great articles on the web by photographers who actually prove this beyond any doubt. Start with this ( http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm )

Still keeping my DSLR thanks...

i thought this article was about an integrated camera in your brain that could capture what you are actually seeing and then transfer it by an usb placed in your head to a pc, now thats the end of digital photography

Digital cameras threatened...

Why not "Getting closer to the all-in-one mobile device"

After all since the consumer is the one spending the money on all this tech stuff, shouldn't it be from their perspective?

watch + GPS + phone + video&music + camera + web&email

Light sensitivity is one thing, and improvements could help the image quality of real digital cameras.

But the limiting factor in cellphone cameras is the size and the lens. Packing more pixels into a tiny sensor doesn't automatically improve the image, and the point where we are at now it might actually degrade the image. For instance the sweet spot in consumer digicams is something below the 12mp where they are at now. You want more megapixels, at some point you have to increase the size of the sensor or it doesn't help the final image quality. More megapixels is only used these days for marketing and to convince people that don't know any better to buy something new. And a better lens would help too. It should be obvious from the fact that a good camera lens along is bigger and costs more than the most expensive smartphones.

totally agree with darkwingz24.

The statement on the article is seem a bit misleading. The improvement has no relation with megapixel but more to the sensitivity of the new sensor.

I love it: people claiming this will allow high quality images off a phone cam.

The front of the lens for a typical phone camera is ~10mm, a decent point and shoot is maybe ~35mm and an SLR lens in the range of 60mm. Light capture area is 78mm^2, 950mm^2 and 2800mm^2. Doesn't look like a factor 4 is going to help that much.

Typical optical quality of a phone cam is slightly better than a disposable film box, Point and shoot digicams range from fair to very good and SLRs are very good and up. A serious SLR owner will have several times as much invested in lenses as they do in bodies. Then there is metering and lighting...

A 20MP imager with a tiny crappy lens is still going to produce phone cam quality pictures, but it will sure eat up the memory space.

If you can capture more signal than you can use smaller pixel sizes and achieve the same signal to noise ratio (SNR) which can improve picture quality. Thus if you increase your SNR by a factor of 4 then you can afford 4 times smaller pixels and achieve the same SNR which is why the author says that you could increase the resolution from 3 to 12 megapixels.

Certainly it is not always true that going from 3-12 megapixels alone improves the image quality. But saying things like megapixels dont matter is incorrect. They certainly matter but they aren't the only part of the equation.

Making sensors that are more sensitive to light won’t mitigate the generally poor optics on phone cameras.

Sure it’ll be nice to take more usable pictures in low light at parties and the like with a phone.

But the tiny lenses and apertures on phones will still suffer from heavy refraction effects, effects which you can only get around by changing the laws of physics.

I'm OK with my 3 megapixel iPhone 3GS camera performance in bright light. Where it starts to really fall down is in lower light environments. If this new sensor will help with that, then that would be great. A better sensor plus a somewhat better lens would probably do wonders for most cell phone cameras.

Does my digital camera cost $79 a month? no.
Case closed. No threats found.

I think eventually the cellphone will become the everythingphone, and entire computer, with fancy full color hologram screen/keyboard etc.

I wonder how the battery life would be for it. My camera phone has a 5mp camera in it and the battery is pretty lacking in comparison to my older phone that can go for a week+ without dying.

they said the same thing about analogs being threatened by digital camera's but i find using my analog camera way better then the digital one because it's easier. aim, shoot and develope.

it is not a threat because it's how the technology is used. digital cameras are very complicated and the ones less complicated, flip video, are the ones selling. so it's how the technology is used. it's similar to video games, sony and microsoft have said they have better tech consoles, but the less powerful wii is making the sales because it's how you use the technology. in this case, the motion control.

That just makes REAL cameras better doesn't it? Or can it only be applied to phones?

Wow! You mean I could take this new sensor, put it in a box, punch a pinhole in the other end, and I'd have the same quality as my $$$$ SLR? Sounds like time to throw the old expensive clunker out!

I guess Jane didn't take into account the fact that LENSES are at least as important as the sensors. Nothing can compensate for a bad lens, except a better one (just ask the Hubble telescope guys) and a cellphone company is not about to put anything other than a really cheap plastic lens in their package. It's no wonder those pictures uploaded from phones all look more faded than photos from the Civil War era.

this couldnt even match the nikon D60, and thats kinda old tech.

however, this is interesting for those times you forget to bring your 500-100 dollar camera

It is cheaper to manufacture. But better products mean the large phone companies will undoubtedly want to charge us more for them.

Think about it. You ever see a company lower their products prices because they can replace their current line with a better product? No. This will just use the cheaper technology to upgrade their line and charge more for the "top of the line" product. Sorry folks. This won't mean better cell phones cameras or better digital cameras.

I am no Apple fanboy, but you have to give them credit. The iPhone is the first device where I can "pay one price" for many "software" type things to be offered in their appstore and not feel like I got stiffed in the pooch.

I mean I already got rid of my Garmin and have a very nice GPS (Navicon).

I can only hope that someday the US would make stuff like contracts and "locking" hardware illegal, then people would be able to buy the hardware they want.

Its blueblockers for your cellphone! LAWL!