Disruption & innovation

[sunshine51]

Remember when the Walkman was introduced? Many labelled it as "anti social".

Plus Sony didn't invent the Walkman...some German guy did and sued

Sony Inc. for an undisclosed amount....and won in an out of court settlement.

Digital audio...way before the mp3 became commonplace there was the Mini

Disk. Before that it was the cassette and before that it was the 8 track. Before

the 8 track, in a vehicle anyway, it was the radio. If you wanted personal audio

while out & about there was the proverbial Bro Box/Ghetto Blaster.

How about when the first digital cameras hit the market...most all were the "Happy

Snap" type & most photographers of the day (myself & others) said that's where

digital cameras will stay.

Who remembers U-Matic, BetaMax or VHS and the benefits or distractors of

each format? One inch video tape? Ampex VPR 1's?

How about Kodak's DCS-100 system?

The Foveon sensor?

Format Wars...not between nations but between NTSC, PAL & SECAM

and to include Tape Wars between Ampex, Sony, 3M etc...etc...?

Perhaps...like some of us...I have been at the leading edge of this "innovation"

in both the usage and development of these items and have always wondered

just what in the heck these new fangled things will do to benefit us...as the

human race. Or is it that nothing has really changed except the packaging?

Here is an article I stumbled across today that has relevance now and maybe for

the future. Is there chaos amidst the mundane? Is innovation disruptive. Without

where would we be today? It's from PetaPixel...one of my favourite thinking places

and I reckon we all have a few comments to add.

As for myself...I reckon that digital has saved a lotta folks a lotta money but that

doesn't mean that a lotta people are "photographers" or "videographers"...at least

not on a professional level IMO. Digital just means that they no longer have to

spend hundreds and/or perhaps thousands of whatever currency you choose,

to perfect their shots like I did a very long time ago. And to me that's financial

innovation in a very good form. However...along with this financial innovation

came disruption when digital photography (motion/stills) became the norm and

many of us had to tuck away our treasured film cameras.

And had to learn about "white balance"....

Below is the link and comments are most welcome....

http://petapixel.com/2014/02/11/disruption-innovation/

Keep Shooting Folks...Cheers!

Edited February 22, 2014 by sunshine51

[FracturedRabbit]

Very interesting, thanks. I think he is spot on. The camera to have in five years will have on-sensor autofocus which tracks moving subjects as well as current DSLRs. An advanced EVF effectively indistinguishable from an optical viewfinder; but with all the benefits an EVF brings. Electronic shutter; with which no mirror will mean we can 20 (30?) frames a second should we wish.

[sunshine51]

Shooting at 20-30 FPS means that a still camera is no longer a still camera.

At these frame rates all one needs is a decent frame grabbing card to get

a still frame...or the capability of doing this in PP with current software.

"Still" cameras of today can do this albeit with a mechanical shutter.

An electronic shutter will just remove the vibration and most likely the

makers will add a beep or some other idiotic tone to let the operator know

they have made an exposure. And one may not be able to turn that blasted

tone off!

[MJP]

Shooting at 20-30 FPS means that a still camera is no longer a still camera.

At these frame rates all one needs is a decent frame grabbing card to get

a still frame...or the capability of doing this in PP with current software.

"Still" cameras of today can do this albeit with a mechanical shutter.

An electronic shutter will just remove the vibration and most likely the

makers will add a beep or some other idiotic tone to let the operator know

they have made an exposure. And one may not be able to turn that blasted

tone off!

280 mb/s. So I guess at 30 frames per second that will cope with 9 mb images. Still not enough speed unless you have a serious buffer. It's the buffer capacity that makes the difference.

http://www.popphoto.com/gear/2014/02/new-gear-sandisk-extreme-pro-sdhc-uhs-ii-memory-card-worlds-fastest-sd-card

[sunshine51]

Buffer size is totally dependent upon design of the storage card. Think of the buffer as a funnel &

it becomes rather clear. Mind you the cards circutry has to be able to keep up with the flow of all

those ones & zeros. The buffer need not be on the storage card either. I use the SanDisk cards

you linked to they're very good. However...in a few more years we'll most likely be using either

holographic or quantum storage and then read write speeds will be at the Universal Constant....

speed of light, with only the physical size of the storage "card" per se, as a limiting factor in

capacity. Or so the engineers who have been perfecting this new storage medium for the past

15 years state. Just think....Nik D3x owners will no longer have to wait ages for frames to get

jammed onto their CF cards....or whatever the new cards will be named.

Edited February 23, 2014 by sunshine51

[FracturedRabbit]

Shooting at 20-30 FPS means that a still camera is no longer a still camera.

At these frame rates all one needs is a decent frame grabbing card to get

a still frame...or the capability of doing this in PP with current software.

"Still" cameras of today can do this albeit with a mechanical shutter.

An electronic shutter will just remove the vibration and most likely the

makers will add a beep or some other idiotic tone to let the operator know

they have made an exposure. And one may not be able to turn that blasted

tone off!

Maybe it was not so long ago that people were saying that shooting at 10-15fps means that a still camera is no longer a still camera.... I think sports photographers will take all the fps they can get.

[FracturedRabbit]

Here's a bit of disruption for you, the Kine Exakta, the world's first 35mm production SLR camera. Introduced in 1936, but this copy is post-war. Carl Zeiss Jena lens should mean reasonable results, but I have yet to put a film through it.

S2234468 by pattayadays.com, on Flickr

[astral]

Now that brings back memories

My first SLR was a successor to that, the Exa 500

Served me well for many years

[sunshine51]

Way back in 1957, when I was 8 years old, this camera was an innovation and

it disrupted the famed Leica M3 to such an extent Leica AG was forced to do

some serious innovation...

I bought one pretty cheap in HK back in the early 80's for around

6500HK Dollars complete with 35 1.8 lens, brown leather case and

a few scratches on the body. A few rolls of Kodachrome were tossed

in for free. The camera was a second hand jobber and worked as if

it were new outta the box. I used it as trade in leverage when Nik

came out with the F4s....that was a stupid move on my part mainly

because today the SP is extremely rare and when Nik reintroduced

the camera back in 2005 for collectors the price tag was...wait for it

....8000USD! Nik only made 2500 of these reintroduced cameras.

Edited February 24, 2014 by sunshine51