8 Great Camera Technologies Yet To Come
by Andrew Reid

1. Global Shutter

In DSLRs with CMOS sensors like the Canon 5D Mark II a mechanical shutter is used to produce an exposure. When the exposure is done 100% electronically like in video mode, the exposure is done line-by-line from top of the sensor to bottom. The top of the image is therefore exposed slightly earlier than the bottom and so moving objects tilt and camera movement cause a distorted wobble like effect - as if looking at a video through jelly. That's why you need a mechanical shutter for exposing photos, to avoid distorted images. Global Shutter would exposure the entire sensor all at once.

Global Shutter is an entirely electronic exposure with no moving parts - it does away with the final mechanical part of modern cameras. It's also the sports shooter's most coveted advancement. Since the exposure is electronic, you are not bound my mechanical limitations. 60 frames per second continuous shooting at full resolution would be a reality. Panasonic's camera engineers have publicly said that they 'dream' of such a feature becoming reality, to produce a 100% electronic-optical camera with no moving parts or mechanical systems.

In fact Global Shutter is already a reality in industrial CMOS imagers, but has yet to grace the DSLR world because image quality is not yet optimized. The other current roadblock is that the type of image processing chips needed to deal with close to 22 megapixels all coming at once from the sensor are too power hungry and run too hot. So don't expect the 5D Mark 3 to feature one any time soon although smaller cameras at lower resolutions (Panasonic GH2 a rumored to be first) and camcorders may be the first to feature such technology!

2. Tactile Shutter Feedback

So you have Global Shutter, a completely silent and 100% electronic camera system with no shutter and no mirror flip. That creates a new problem. How do you get a feel for when the shutter is exposing an image if it no longer really exists?

I propose a silent tactile vibration through the shutter button to signal the start and end of the exposure. This would be much neater than the noisy swoosh-slap sound of a mechanical shutter or the toy-like 'beep' of a compact camera (which has a quieter mechanical leaf-type shutter) to tell you when the image is being taken.

3. 3D Screens

Sensing depth in the photograph from the rear LCD - a game, a gimmick or actually useful? With the Nintendo 3DS having one of the first portable 3D LCD panels, it is surely only a matter of time before this one reaches a camera near you. But it could come in handy for checking focus on an otherwise small 3 inch screen.

4. Wireless iPhone Follow Focus

When shooting video with DSLRs, manual focus is a must-have. Movies are always shot with a focus puller guy controlling focus, drawing attention from one actor to another and shifting focus when the time is right. Instantaneous point and shoot auto-focus is not a nice aesthetic for cinema.

To rack focus on a DSLR lens we must lay our hands on the lens which risks nudging or shaking the camera. An iPhone app which communicates with the camera via WiFi would have a virtual focus wheel, or a slider on the phone's screen which could be smoothly adjusted under one's finger to gently rack the camera's focus using electronic servo motors inside the lens.

Many current lenses focus 'by-wire' already with a physical focus ring on the barrel controlling internal motors to adjust actual focus. This customized iPhone app and camera firmware update would already be possible to do on current DSLRs.

5. Auto focus improvements

Whilst focussing accuracy and speed are always steadily evolving, sudden revolutions have been almost non-existent recently.

I have thought of some more adventurous features that we could be seeing in the future. Future Focus would allow you to select focus after the photograph has been taken. It's an editor's tool in the same way that a RAW file allows you to change white balance and the multiple bracketed exposure feature takes a rapid succession of photos at different exposures so you can select the best one afterwards. This would use the super fast focussing speeds now possible, combined with much faster continuous shooting rates from a Global Shutter to produce multiple exposures throughout the focus range. It could also do so within an 'error margin' of where a manual focus ring is set, to allow manual focussing mistakes to be corrected later and allowing faster shooting without the need to be so precise with manual focus. This would be like a semi-automatic focussing mode.

Laser AF - as cameras get more and more sensitive in low light, often the dreaded focus assist lamp is used by the camera's primitive AF system to gauge focus. Instead, the camera could use a laser or infra-red beam to gauge the distance of objects and adjust focus based on the results. We already have inexpensive distance sensors on car bumpers so why not on cameras? However, it would have to be very precise.

Pelix Mirror - first featured as far back as the 1970's, this is a semi-transparent mirror which doesn't flip, instead it splits a beam of light so that it goes both to the image sensor and AF sensor at the same time, allowing super-quick phase detect AF in live view mode without a mirror-flip, and during video recording. According to rumors, this is set to be introduced by Sony on their forthcoming high end 'HD' Alpha DSLRs.

6. Built-in Electrochemical ND Filter

Filters are a pain! So what could be better than carrying around numerous screw on filter containing finger prints and an awkward tendency to also require 20 different stepping rings? How about a built-in electro-chemical filter made of a 'special substance' which varies the amount of light passing through it when an electrical charge is applied? It sits over the sensor and would be used like a 3rd manual control alongside the big two, aperture and shutter-speed.

7. Electrochemical Optical Zoom

The problem with optical zoom lenses is that they're large. One only has to look at the diminutive and sexy Sony NEX 5 body, and then it's comparatively huge zoom lenses to see there is a problem!

A new optical technology which uses chemical or electronic light manipulation to mimic an optical zoom (not a digital one) would produce much smaller zoom lenses.

8. All features in the same camera body

Sorry, I am only dreaming for this one!

Andrew is a part time DigitalRev contributor and DSLR filmmaker from the UK whose website EOSHD.com focuses 100% on DSLR video. He is passionate about both the science behind camera technology and the art behind a good film and photograph. He enjoys watching Formula One, travelling and taking his pet greyhound for walks in the English country side!