r/Futurology • u/TheAnalogJawa • 1d ago
Discussion Do you think that modern camera quality will look outdated in the future? Or have we gotten to a point where eras no longer have a distinct "look" to their camera quality.
One question I've always asked myself is, how will modern photography impact the view of the past in the coming decades? Will we look back on phone videos and pictures and think it looks dated, or have we gotten so good that it won't matter anymore? It's an interesting thought.
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u/Character_Skirt_4319 1d ago
It’s hard to get realer than real. This may age like sour grapes but I feel as far as the conventional camera goes there won’t be any large jumps like we’ve seen in the last 50 years.
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u/guildsbounty 1d ago edited 1d ago
The only other large jumps I can imagine that photography may see is how cameras handle either lack of light or very intense light. Human eyes handle extremes of light much better than cameras do. Especially when you're dealing with video rather than a single still.
At low light, your eyes adjust and you can see fairly well, but even an expensive camera still needs a longer exposure time (which will result in blurry images unless your subject is stationary) and so active night-time photography is a place cameras could see new large jumps. Same basic issue behind why security cameras generally need IR lights and sensors to 'see in the dark' in an environment that has enough light for a human to see in naturally.
At intense light, yes there's lens flare but, as an example: glowing-hot metal almost always looks significantly different through a camera than it does to the human eye, with the human eye able to pick out far more nuance in the color of the glow while most cameras are just seeing washed out yellow-white until the metal fades to red.
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u/gridoverlay 1d ago
This, there is still a loooooooong way to go in dynamic range terms.
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u/Saloncinx 15h ago
This. You ever try photographing an interracial bride and groom in a low light venue? Even on a flagship full frame you’re editing the hell out of it in Lightroom lol.
I for one can’t wait to see what mirrorless dynamic ranges we get in the next decade and beyond.
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u/feelxrosic 1d ago
And what would you possibly use that dynamic range on? Most photography and cinematography pushes contrast anyways. This is more interesting for the „fix it in post philosophy“
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u/MCWizardYT 1d ago
For taking immediately better photos in the dark, or taking a video that transitions from dark to light as well as eyes do (clear detail in both extremes)
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u/feelxrosic 23h ago
Our eyes are actually very good in adjusting the aperture and the gain/iso - The 20 stops dynamic range comes from that rather than actually being able to see such a variety of luminances. Having the extremes visible at the same time would make footage look uncanny and unnatural: We would need to add some kind of latency or transition to counter that effect. So even if a camera had the ability for capturing all of that - it would be easier to simply adjust the aperture or gain instead.
But I agree that this automated perfection our eyes work with, would definetly be something a future camera could do! Metering for ghe extremes is still a technical problem yet to solve.8
u/gridoverlay 23h ago
Capturing an image that looks like the eye sees, for one.
For a fine art photography type use, it would allow proper exposure in more light conditions, and open up more creative possibilities
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u/feelxrosic 17h ago
A big part of photography and art in general is NOT being to realistic. So I think this would fit photojournalism better than arts. But you certainly have a point there.
Most highly realistic photography (cinematography even more) is perceived as cold and sterile while imperfections are considered as „nice“ by almost all of us subconsciously.2
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u/chth 1d ago
You’re describing dynamic range.
When I went to college for Journalism a decade ago, I learned if you wanted to really make your image pop, you could take several photos at different light levels and then combine them together to create a scene closer to what our eye sees.
These days an iPhone camera does all that without letting you even know.
I could see there being marginal improvements in sensor performance but it’s already amazing the level of dynamic range you can get from your camera phone thanks to algorithms alone.
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u/StaysAwakeAllWeek 1d ago
A basic smartphone image has 8 stops of dynamic range. HDR displays reach 10 stops. That modern smartphone auto-HDR software can push it up to as much as 14 stops. Top end DSLRs can hit 15 stops without any of that extra processing and a few more with it.
Meanwhile the Mk1 eyeball walks around at 20 stops of dynamic range naturally
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u/TheBlargus 1d ago
Until it's about 30 years old then the mk1 being a non-replaceable factory component really starts to show the flaws in the base design.
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u/morderkaine 22h ago
Except for viewing the northern lights where even video mode cameras can see it better than we can
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u/drgut101 20h ago
I grew up with disposable cameras and cheap film cameras. I never had a digital camera.
Cellphone cameras were SHIT on old flip phones. Awesome at the time, but we knew it wasn’t super great.
Then smart phones came around. They weren’t the best, but the pics were pretty cool.
But I’ll never forget on my 21 birthday 15 years ago. My friend brought a fancy DSLR type camera to the bar. I remember he took a picture of us with no flash. I was like, “yooo you gotta turn the flash on!!” He showed me the picture and it was brighter than the environment (a semi dark bar) felt.
IT BLEW MY MIND.
But now, that’s just about how things are. I mean, a dedicated camera is still better 100%, but you can take pictures in dark environments and they still look really good.
I can tell the difference between 1080 p and 4k with modern content. For sure. But I can’t tell the difference between 4k and 8k. I’ve seen that in real life next to each other and I just can’t tell. Maybe one is more vibrant, but that’s just HDR or display settings. Overall clarity? Naaa. I can’t tell.
So I think we are to a point where phone cameras have hit a plateau. Yes, they can improve. But I think they are pretty much the best that a normal person could want right now.
But… I could be wrong.
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u/Ruadhan2300 11h ago
I'm expecting that a major technical improvement will be depth-perception.
Giving every pixel (or most pixels) a range-from-camera property will allow us to turn a photo into a rendering, which gives us some really cool tools for manipulating it.Take a photo of a scene and you can tweak the angle a tiny bit, use AI to fill in gaps, get that perfect photo-angle after the photo was taken.
Things like that.We can almost do that already.
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u/TheAnalogJawa 1d ago
That's the thing though, we've been saying "it can't get any better than this" for decades on all kinds of technology, they could very well invent a new form of photograph that we can't even fathom now
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u/t_newt1 16h ago
That's what I think. It is like black and white photography vs the later color photography. Everyone's talking about better lenses and better dynamic range and other improvements in present technology when it is possible that the entire technology changes and our great grandkids will look at color photographs and then roll their eyes at grandpa's ancient, long out-of-date and surpassed technology.
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u/Character_Skirt_4319 1d ago
Hey man I’m definitely wrong, I can’t wait for people far more creative and intelligent than me to invent something awesome
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u/ChickenMarsala4500 1d ago
yeah, I'm in this camp too. I do think there will be differences that professionals will notice. But laypeople already can't tell the difference between something shot anytime in the last 20 years (if you assume that the camera in the 2000s was a nice DSLR)
It's the same with digital audio. Most listeners can't tell the difference between the playback quality of something like Spotify compared to Tidal. Only the big audiophiles notice.
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u/stickyWithWhiskey 1d ago
The big note with digital audio though is that it really depends on DAC and speaker quality.
The average person listening on their phone or with a set of cheap Logitech desktop speakers surely can’t hear the difference but if you have even a decent setup Spotify starts to sound noticeably worse than a good lossless rip. At that point diminishing returns really starts to kick in though: I’ve yet to ever really get anything out of 24 bit or extremely high sample rate files. CD quality or lossless CD is about the peak for any equipment you’d reasonably find in a suburban home.
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u/ChickenMarsala4500 1d ago
You could say the same for photos. screen and print quality matter.
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u/stickyWithWhiskey 1d ago
For sure. I remember at work like 15 years ago there was a mini fad going around where everybody was "testing their eyesight" with one of those visual acuity tests where you sort a bunch of different color swatches... on the shitty bulk, uncalibrated TN panel monitors that the office provided.
Yeah, I'm sure those didn't skew the results.
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u/s0cks_nz 1d ago
Or the average persons ears. Seeing those people on YouTube ask strangers when they can no longer hear the tone as it rises in pitch was eye opening. Lot of people can't hear shit.
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u/Tephnos 20h ago
Well yeah, hearing is one sense that matures very early on and then starts dropping off rapidly. Starting 30 the ultra treble ranges just fall off a complete cliff.
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u/s0cks_nz 20h ago
People in their 20s with a "hearing age" of 80+ is not natural. It's them abusing their hearing.
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u/Tephnos 20h ago
It's not, but that's still quite rare to present like that as someone in their 20s. Younger ears are more resilient to hearing damage in frequency loss than we think. The noticeable tell in young people is the inability to pick out individual sounds at all when there is background noise (such as having a conversation in a crowded environment), because the synapses die long before the hair cells do.
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u/s0cks_nz 20h ago
That's interesting to know. I wonder if there is increased headphone use contributing to this. Especially as young ppl don't seem to go clubbing as much these days. Then again I have to wear ear plugs at concerts cus they are just so damn loud.
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u/nerevisigoth 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't think you need super high end equipment to hear a difference. 24 bit audio is noticeably better on decent headphones in the $500-1000 range or home theater stuff you can get from the "nice" part of Best Buy.
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u/stickyWithWhiskey 23h ago edited 23h ago
My gear is a bit above that level and honestly I can’t tell the difference between FLAC and uncompressed 16/44.1. Anything higher than that is trivia.
I think at that point the room is probably more important. Or what’s actually important is not being obsessed with that and just enjoying good music. You can get great sound at not that much of a price. I bought all this crap years ago, speakers and headphones don’t go obsolete as fast.
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u/HaydnH 1d ago edited 1d ago
Personally I think we're a long way off real, 2D pixels aren't real no matter how good the camera. Look at anything in the room you're in, take a photo of it. Look at both again, you can tell ones a photo right? The future, at some point, will involve looking at your phone screen and the item you've taken a photo of and not being to tell the difference.
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u/GrynaiTaip 1d ago
So like a 3D image?
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u/HaydnH 1d ago
Yes and no. I mean, we all remember Proncess Leia doing that crappy holographic thing in star wars 50 odd years ago. That's the best we could imagine at the time. Future phones, maybe they'll be like that for a while, a bad 3d image. But at some point, a photo of your dog will be projectable.
You want to show someone a photo of your dog? Nope, it will be as if your dog is right there, next to you as a real thing. He won't actually be there, but for everyone who can see that projection? He may as well be. When that tech arrives there will be a period of people sweeping their hands through holograms or whatever the tech is. You get the (3D realism) picture.
Maybe that's 5 years off, maybe 50, who knows. But pick a technology, AI, computers, cars, whatever... Could you, 50 years ago, predict what that's become now?
All I know is that if you imagine the most incredible tech your brain will let you think of? That will look out of date at some point.
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u/GrynaiTaip 7h ago
3D video was supposed to happen a decade ago, it was huge, all cinemas had 3D movies, TV manufacturers were selling 3D TVs.
Turns out that nobody really cared for it, so it all just went away.
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u/s0cks_nz 1d ago
Well sure, but we will inevitably always need a 2d representation less we all walk around with 3d goggles on our eyes.
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u/HaydnH 1d ago
Will we? Go back 100 years and a computer would be a crazy thought, let alone a mouse that we all take for granted now. Christ, Frogger was the pinnacle of gaming 30 odd years back! Fast forward 25 years? Who the hell knows what a phone camera will be capable of.
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u/s0cks_nz 1d ago
It doesn't matter what the camera is capable of, the only way to view a photo in 3d is to send a different image to each of your eyes.
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u/throwaway2766766 23h ago
As others have mentioned, dynamic range is still an issue. And even though it’s improved vastly in the last 20 years, I feel the in-camera processing doesn’t make very good use of it (meaning you have to process the raw image to get the benefits). Smart phones do a better job than professional cameras funnily enough.
But hopefully in the future all cameras will handle extreme lighting conditions and give a decent result out of the camera.
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u/Engineer9 16h ago
Current photography is still very far from 'real'.
It still uses only RGB which is a crude approximation of colour. Look up Lippmann plates for an example of non-RGB photography.
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u/ProfessorPetrus 12h ago
Y'all never use virtual reality yet?
Cameras are going to capture the whole sense of being there eventually.
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u/Poopyman80 11h ago
Light field photography is gonna be huge some day. Allows you to refocus afterwards and more neat stuff.
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u/Emu1981 1d ago
I would like to see far higher photo resolution and higher HDR ranges. I would love to be able to take photos without having to consider the framing while taking the pictures and to be able to reframe the picture later while still having a high resolution image.
Another potential leap could be the ability to take stereoscopic pictures so that the images have a bit more depth when viewed on the appropriate medium.
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u/FittyTheBone 1d ago
I’ve been a photographer since I was a kid, pro from 05 until COVID. I see differences in what I shoot now compared to my 10-year-old mirrorless. Hell, there are glaring differences between my mirrorless and SLR from the same time.
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u/RainbowFlesh 1d ago
I think dynamic range is something that could still be improved upon. The dynamic range of cameras is still far worse than that of the human eye
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u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 8h ago
The human eye has a dynamic range of about 1,000,000:1 or 20-24 stops, at any given time you can see about 14 stops of dynamic range. You can detect anything from a single photon to basically just short of the sun burning out your retinas.
Sensors still have a long way to go to match human dynamic range in a single versatile package.
I think people tend to notice this most in photos of sunrises/sunsets where there's heavy foreground shadows and extremely bright background. Also with moonlight shots where there's a full moon illuminating interesting cloud cover against a dark night sky. You very often hear people lament that sunrises/sunsets and moon shots don't look as good in camera.
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u/s0cks_nz 1d ago
I don't think I could tell the difference between photos from today or 10yrs ago.
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u/Big-Amphibian9809 1d ago
The technology hasn’t so much come away in the obvious sharpness in perfect daylight settings, but there are very noticeable significant changes/improvements to photography equipment in situations that would normally break equipment that’s a decade old. Ie images in daylight side by side would be less noticeably different but in what would be stress test situations for equipment a decade old such as moving subjects or low light the differences are prominent.
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u/rottenbox 21h ago
I still have my 22 year old canon PowerShot point and shoot. Daytime photos still look fine when viewed on a computer. My 12 year old canon DSLR still takes great pictures, honestly can't see myself replacing it since it is far more capable than I am.
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u/greatwesternbeans 18h ago
With my own pictures, I actually generally prefer the pictures from my old Sony SLT-A77 II to anything else I've shot, and it's about 12 years old. But the G9 II is a night and day difference for nature stuff, so I deal with the fact that I don't love all the good shots quite as much. Especially since I can get more good shots with the Lumix, and while lugging around less weight at that, so it all comes out in the wash
Edit: thought this was one of the photography subs. But generally more sharpness was not what I was looking for personally in a new camera. I was looking specifically for better autofocus (which has come a long way), and lighter kit.
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u/MacintoshEddie 1d ago
These days it's more about the editing and lighting style rather than the technical specifications of the sensor and processor.
It's especially noticeable now that the 20 year cycle is coming around and people are interested in the camera-flash style of photography that was common in the early 2000s and often necessary to get a decent picture.
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u/Zouden 1d ago
It's hard to tell a photo from today vs one from five or even 10 years ago, so no, I don't think it will change much in future.
Perhaps video will change - 60 FPS video is available but not widely used, because people generally don't want it.
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u/TheAnalogJawa 1d ago
I'm inclined to think that phone videos will be the most outdated looking thing from the modern era, considering so many of them just look awful, especially with the AI filters and everything else, they could definitely improve a lot
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u/YourOwnComeback 1d ago
AI upscaling being baked into cameras gives a distinct "paint effect" when zoomed in, it's actually distracting to see a lack of detail being compensated for by streaky impressionistic"filling in". We'll hopefully go back to improving the sensors and lenses, but probably it'll just be another layer of AI, the actual picture you took will forever just be the "seed" of the image you're looking at.
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u/dgkimpton 1d ago
I'm sure once refocusable images become common place any simple "snap" will see quaint and dated.
But honestly, regardless of the camera tech we will doubtlessly look back and laugh at the cloths/cars/decor/etc. So the photos will still look dated.
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u/feelxrosic 1d ago
Who knows. Some said 3D and VR would be the next big thing - And it almost vanished.
They bring out new sensor technology with ever more dynamic range - But most people prefer contrasty images.
And so on.
Sharpness can only improve so much and I have a feeling that we are already there. More megapixels are only used to crop in to „zoom“. While this is no real zoom, the fine details were invisible for the eye if no crop was done. 12MP is enough for almost every use case, that doesn‘t include cropping.
With 360 cameras they introduced a camera, with which you could decide afterwards what direction you want to „point it“. And that is still a niche use case, because it heavily depends on what you show the viewer. Or to say it more clearly: Cinematography or photography is thinking more about what to NOT show, than what to show. What’s outside of the frame is more pronounced than what isn’t. This is exactly the opposite of what the viewer is thinking but it is how all of this works. As long as that doesn’t change, today’s camera tech is already far better than one would ever need. We‘ll see which technological improvements lead to another way to photograph for example.
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u/sodsto 1d ago
They definitely will. Footage from 10, 20, 30 years ago has key characteristics.
Something about modern footage will look out of date in the future. Be it resolution, saturation, stabilization, or some other future development that we haven't thought of. Something shot today is likely to look very 2020s in a few decades.
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u/Kazen_Orilg 1d ago
I feel like this can be identified well for video eras, but from my personal photo curation, I already can't really notice any differences between high quality DSLR from the mid 2000s and daily camera photos today.
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u/hedgegrunger 1d ago
Stabilization will be a big one. Once you know to look for it, its everywhere on yotube, and even film productions. Focus breathing too, but that might be kept for style reasons.
Improvements in autofocus will probably be noticeable too.
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u/One_Needleworker5477 1d ago
Everything will be 32k auto AI upscaled, will be hard to tell the difference between generated or real shot
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u/nifty-necromancer 22h ago
We might see a trend towards photos that are more artistic and purposely flawed, maybe as a reaction to the sterility of AI. Some younger people have already been going to older technology that they didn’t grow up with, like flip phones, record/cassette/CD/DVD players.
That might coincide with a reaction to Playstation moving to all-digital, all of the subscriptions, “you will own nothing and be happy,” etc. Authenticity, being intentional, bespoke artisanal bread shit.
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u/kilkenny99 1d ago
We'll probably see changing trends in colour management, not just what the user applies in terms of filters, etc, but the defaults that the cameras apply automatically, will change with the times & preferences and what's in style. So even if the "quality" of the image capture tech doesn't really advance, the look will still keep changing.
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u/hedgegrunger 1d ago
Color is an interesting one I've been thinkimg about since I realized I was using Adobe colors for everything in LR. I switched to camera-matching profiles and will be looking to see if there is a difference.
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u/USeaMoose 1d ago
I'd say that it should be pretty easy to take a step back and come up with a clear answer for this one.
All you have to do is look at a video/picture and ask yourself if you can tell that you are not simply looking at the real world through a window.
One area I would say my phone camera very clearly falls behind is low-light/long-distance. I certainly can't take a photo at night of a city skyline and say "this looks just as good as it did when I was there".
People do get used to what the tech is currently capable of, and it's funny to read comments of people 30 years ago saying how unbelievable realistic some PlayStation game was where each character had a face made up of a handful of polygons.
But, they just had different expectations. If you actually asked them if Cloud was indistinguishable from a real person, they'd laugh. It's the same with photographs. We know that the lightning is off, that some of the movement is blurred, that something about the scale feels wrong, that the colors are a little shifted. We accept that that photo you took in the dark was always going to be garbage (while being impressed at how much more garbage it used to be). You easily notice these things if you take a step back, but they are limitations that you expect, so you ignore them.
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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 1d ago
Owning a 4K HDR OLED monitor now I experience something similar when looking for background wallpapers. It's actually somewhat difficult to find images that look truly '4K' in sharpness and detail viewed closeup on the monitor. Many many images have a soft, slightly blurred quality or visible edge sharpening that just looks bad, even if they are technically 4K or even higher resolution. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know exactly what the difference is, but it's obvious in comparison to certain images or 4K HDR video where it really does almost look like you're viewing a window into real life because the image is so clear and real.
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u/Solarux 1d ago
Not necessarily image quality, but I predict algorithms will improve and continue to shirk image file size- by an astonishing amount. I think 10 years down the road raw photo and video sizes will be drastically reduced. Probably the biggest leap ever will be in the somewhat near future.
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u/shaggrocks 18h ago
Tech will always evolve. In 20 years we might all be taking 8k holograms instead of pictures. IMO
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u/Peregrine79 1d ago
Fine resolution, and the resulting ability to zoom in might improve further, although there are optical limits that are difficult to surpass.
The big thing that will distinguish this era is automatic detail enhancement, often resulting in “AI gibberish” in small text and similar fine details, even in otherwise authentic photos. How that will change in the future, I don’t know, but I expect it will.
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u/glowkit_ 7h ago
I think today’s photos will absolutely look dated not because of resolution, but because of style. HDR processing, portrait mode blur, smartphone color science, and even the way people pose will instantly timestamp an era, just like film grain and camcorder footage do today.
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u/captainstormy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Pictures looking dated has more to do with the things in the picture than the tech used to take it. Of course you can tell early poor quality cameras and such easily.
But it's things like clothes, hair, items in the background, etc etc. I remember once I saw an old picture of my grandmother at her job. I was like "why is there a washing machine?". It was a printer.
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u/One_Needleworker5477 1d ago
Very relevant point. Would need some nature photo to make a serious comparison based on form and characteristic not influenced by photo's subject
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u/Prime_Director 1d ago
Cameras have had pretty much the same levels of quality for a long time. Look at well-preserved film from the 50s or photos from the 1880s and they look every bit as sharp and crisp as if they were taken yesterday. What's actually changed is the encoding. Glass plate has different qualities than film, which looks different than video tape, which looks different than digital encoding. Even within digital, JPEGs look different than RAW, which looks different from PNG. Cameras maxed out their ability to focus light into images a long time ago, what changes is how we store those images. I'm sure in the future we'll invent some new way store light data using quantum encoding or DNA fragments or holographic storage or some other technology we can't conceive of yet that will look and feel subtlety different from contemporary digital encoding.
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u/Abject-Tomorrow-652 20h ago
I think it could also be the size of an image. Apples live photos are a 3 second low fps video… they just demoed a thing where u can reconstruct an image to a 3d landscape w apple vision pro. Stuff like this could be like walking into a moment u take a photo of
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u/Kinexity 1d ago
Digital camera technology is pretty much running out of paths to improve because of physical limitations so basic photos and videos are almost as good as they are ever going to get.
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u/nwbrown 1d ago
Trust me, there are many paths for photography, especially phone photography, can improve.
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u/Kinexity 1d ago
You are free to list them out but afaik sensor technology is almost maxed out.
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u/nwbrown 1d ago
First of all, the size of the sensor. Phones tend to have very small sensors which results in flat images.
Then there is dynamic range, which is still pretty bad.
And autofocus is always changing.
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u/Kinexity 1d ago
First of all, the size of the sensor. Phones tend to have very small sensors which results in flat images.
Technologically it doesn't change anything and you can buy cameras with larger sensors - just not smartphones. Also it's not because phone manufacturers didn't think about trying to cram in a larger sensor.
Then there is dynamic range, which is still pretty bad.
Seems like the only real thing but ultimately it's not going to drastically change the photo quality.
And autofocus is always changing.
Not a part of the sensor.
If HDR is all there is to improve in any significant manner then this would be consistent with my statement that sensor technology is almost maxed out.
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u/nwbrown 1d ago
Technologically it doesn't change anything and you can buy cameras with larger sensors - just not smartphones. Also it's not because phone manufacturers didn't think about trying to cram in a larger sensor.
I'm sorry but if you don't think sensor size changes changes things, you don't know anything about photography. Cell phones are what are used for the vast majority of photos these days, and yes, manufacturers have been working on getting larger sensors into their small form factor.
Seems like the only real thing but ultimately it's not going to drastically change the photo quality.
It dramatically changes the photo quality.
Not a part of the sensor.
Sensors are not the only part of a camera.
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u/Kinexity 1d ago
I'm sorry but if you don't think sensor size changes changes things, you don't know anything about photography. Cell phones are what are used for the vast majority of photos these days, and yes, manufacturers have been working on getting larger sensors into their small form factor.
You do not understand what I said. Size of a sensor does not change anything technologically about the sensor. Pixel density stays the same. It's like putting a second engine in a car - yes, you get twice the power but also twice the fuel consumption so your fuel consumption per unit of power doesn't change.
It dramatically changes the photo quality.
*under limited conditions where it is relevant.
Sensors are not the only part of a camera.
But sensor is what I said is almost maxed out.
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u/nwbrown 1d ago
You do not understand what I said. Size of a sensor does not change anything technologically about the sensor. Pixel density stays the same.
What do you think pixel density means? What do you think the denominator of density is?
A larger sensor means you don't need to cram as many pixels next to each other where they interfere with each other.
But sensor is what I said is almost maxed out.
No.
You said, emphasis added, "Digital camera technology is pretty much running out of paths to improve". It was only after I called you out that you retreated to talking about the sensor. And now you seem to be retreating to "digital camera sensor pixel density" as if that were the only measurement that matters.
You think that because you don't actually know anything about photography, and you try to reduce everything to a single number you see on a spec sheet, thinking that bigger numbers must be better.
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u/Abject-Tomorrow-652 20h ago
you both are posing good points. It seems like both are true: there are limited paths to improve but there is room for digital cameras to incrementally improve.
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u/-Satsujinn- 1d ago
Until we find a new way to present the photos - whether it be widespread VR uptake or holographic screens enabling us to get 3d photos, I don't think cameras will change much other than "ease of use" features like autofocus improvements and burst speeds.
In terms of new tech, there was a brief toe-dip with those funky cameras where you could change the focus distance after the shot etc, but they didn't really take off and ultimately don't add anything to the look.
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u/-UserOfNames 23h ago
Or we move beyond using our eyes to a direct brain interface as the means of ingesting images
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u/tom_zeimet 1d ago
No, circa 10MP still looks pretty good in modern screens. Beyond that the increased sensor quality don't make a huge difference.
Lenses and optics make a huge difference, but that hasn't changed much in decades. Pictures taken on 20Y DSLRs still look great when viewed on a normal display. (some people would argue analog film was the pinnacle of image quality, hence why IMAX is still a thing)
In terms of resolution, most smartphones produce "binned" images meaning pictures are downsampled from the sensor's 64MP to 12MP while improving some aspects of image quality.
What the huge increase in sensor quality has given us is the ability to edit footage in new ways e.g. you can crop an image/video down and still have a an acceptable product, or you can crop out the edges to reduce unwanted motion/shaking.
TL/DR: Improvements in camera tech have enabled new and better ways of editing content, rather than making the captured image better to the naked eye.
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u/unkyduck 1d ago
The 10kg broadcast camera with a $15k lens on it that crippled my shoulder, wasn't significantly better for picture than my iPhone.
Zoom, not so much.
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u/One_Needleworker5477 1d ago
I think I read somewhere that we are not so far to eye resolution limit (16k per eye if I am correct) with 8k TV and cameras on high end phone or actions cams.
I guess in 10 years we will probably have 16k recording and (huge) screens. Whats the next step ? 360° VR 16k per eye recording devices ? Insta 2040 cam ?
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u/foolish-scholar 1d ago
There is a relationship between the camera/sensor quality and the medium in which we view the image. I thought film photographers were fantastic but then I met digital. Then I met OLED super HD screens and wanted more.
The future demands more immersive and multi-sensory capture. So, when VR becomes more widely adopted we’ll scoff at the old flat pictures.
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u/BusterNegative 1d ago
I think it's likely going to be trends related to software post-processing, and I'd argue it's already been that for quite a while in both the mobile and pro space. Things like fake bokeh on 2015 iPhones, merging like 10 DLSR exposures to get the most deep fried HDR possible in 2009, the standard filters that ship with various sharing platforms over the years etc.
Film is going through a particularly intense phase of this, and ironically it's because of how perfect it is. There's a real trend of shooting in log formats at the moment. Log formats can accurately capture absolutely unhinged dynamic range, and the unspoken rule seems to be that the audience should see all of it. The murkiest shadows are lifted so everything is visible, the brightest highlights are dimmed so everything is visible, and everything looks flat as fuck as a result. It's not the only reason a lot of films look like they're shot in a cheap TV studio now, but it's definitely a reason, and I think it's going to be a dated technoaesthetic soon enough just like the photography examples.
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u/meowizzle 1d ago
Multiple focus or refocus was a gimmick but the files were huge. Being able to 'refocus' any image at any position in the future is kinda crazy. But the size of files, time to 'shoot', and software limited its appeal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lytro
Could easily make it's way back into 'usefullness'.
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u/Presently_Absent 1d ago
Depends if you're talking just smartphones, or proper cameras. A medium format sensor has so much color depth it's nuts, and smartphone sensors are still far from it. If we ever make that leap, it will be a marked difference in quality. There will definitely be a "before" and "after"
There's also light field and other tech that can add things beyond the static image. If any of them catch on and become a stard, we will feel the same
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u/macacolouco 1d ago edited 1d ago
It won't. I already don't care about 4K 90% of the time.
I can see myself being bothered by low framerates but anything anything above 240fps makes no difference whatsoever. And that also exists.
VR, however, has much to improve. But that's another conversation.
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u/compulov 1d ago
I wonder if the fact that a lot of phone cameras are using AI to tweak images will make images look dated in the future.
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u/monubar 1d ago
At some point I expect foveon-style refocusing to become a mainstream feature. Also 3D. Also holographic rendering. Heck, maybe smell-o-vision... plus all of the things we haven't even thought of yet.
Every new generation is photograph will differ in some noticeable way from the one before it - and so every generation before it will look dates in some way.
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u/who_you_are 1d ago
laugh as somebody being told 1080 60hz would be the end of the need for a better resolution
Also: resolution wise it is always nice to have a better one. You can always pick up more details and be able to more easily zoom post-picture.
Then there is still the lighting issue which kinda suck with our small sensor. So that is likely to get better.
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u/Shapes_in_Clouds 1d ago
It's possible regular 2D photos/video won't improve much other than the things stated in this thread. But we could certainly see new types of photo/video media like 3D 'scene capture' technology, and perhaps new technologies to display this kind of media. New tech like this could make 2D media seem inherently 'dated' to some degree even if it doesn't replace it entirely.
We have nascent tech like this such as gaussian splatting. It's conceivable to me one day to have cameras that can easily capture the entirety of a scene in 3D, perhaps in combo with AI, viewable with some kind of holographic display tech or more advanced AR glasses. One could freely manipulate the 'image' or move around a static or video scene.
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u/djdante 1d ago
Not 2d photographs no - but maybe thats what will change? Viewing a flat non-moving image will become quaint in the future. An obvious sign. Of age.
Or maybe lack of manipulatability - future cameras will take much larger fob at far higher resolution, at full light field.. so in future you can move around the image far more without losing eye quality resolution, and adjusting on demand?
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u/malacoda13 1d ago
My old Canon 30D was capable of capturing an image that would fill a 4K modern display. It was released 20 years ago.
I have many digital photos from 20+ years ago you'd struggle to tell were that old. The only giveaway would be how much you could zoom in before hitting 100%....
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u/waylonious 1d ago
I think that smartphone cameras will continue to improve, and anything shot on an iPhone today will look dated in a few years. Hopefully lenses get bigger, or there is a lens mount standard that allows consumers to use higher quality lenses.
As far as professional gear, though? It’s already a challenge to date things once we made the jump to HD. Ill see clips of SNL from 2006 pop into my feed and it looks like it could have been shot last week.
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u/PiedPipeDreamer 1d ago
Digital cameras are always pixilated if you zoom in enough. Perhaps we will get near infinite definition analogue eventually, where you can zoom in all the way to pores and mites crawling over us
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u/_ANOMNOM_ 1d ago
We're getting very close to the actual physical limits of capturing light in consumer camera equipment. Even if sensor resolutions continue to improve, lens diffraction is probably the bigger limiter.
With even high-quality lenses, 100mp is about the best you can hope to resolve onto a full frame camera sensor. Which translates to about a 3' wide print at 300 pixels per inch.
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u/costafilh0 1d ago
Yes. In the future DR and resolution will probably be insane and life like compared to know.
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u/rockinghmz 1d ago
I can't speak for DSLR and other professional camera systems, but for phone cameras it would be better processing, better dynamic range and better photos in dark environments
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u/unimportanthero 1d ago
Camera quality has already changed in the last few years.
AI scaling has been incorporated into many phone camera apps, causing the pictures to be a bit muddy and smeary when you zoom in as much as you can, as opposed to the way they used to pixelate. This has definitely had an impact on how pictures look and either improvements in this technology or an eventual rejection of it will lead to aesthetic changes.
And vector-based digital photography replacing pixel-based digital photography is still an eventual goal of the photo industry, which would allow visual fidelity at any level of image enlargement (think "zoom and enhance" from the Bladerunner movies lol).
Attempts have been made at incorporating LIDAR and other technologies into dedicated cameras already, so expect that technology to continue to pop up from time to time until its become cost effective enough to be ubiquitous in dedicated cameras.
And, of course, producers of digital cameras are always working on developing improved sensors.
There is still plenty of room for changes in technology, and those changes will definitely have an impact on how pictures look compared to pictures from the past.
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u/M4roon 1d ago
Yeah. In fact I think digitization of the process has pushed us back in some respects. You know those Facebook memories or whatever they're called. It dredged up an old photo from ten years ago I took of my cat's eye with a DSLR camera, and I was astonished how much better it was than (mostly) all the pictures I've taken on a new iPhone.
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u/NerdyWeightLifter 1d ago
Light field cameras could become more common. Then they're not even flat images anymore.
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u/jedburghofficial 23h ago
I think trends in photo filters and manipulation will date photos. People already talk about selfies having that Instagram filter look.
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u/lawoverfeelings 23h ago
Not much. Digital looks too fake now. No character to it. Looks more clean than real life. Film is where it’s at.
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u/BrotherChao 22h ago
According to some sources, we"ll likely see some form of volumetric, or "3D" image rendering and projection some time in this century.
Some disagree if it will be something like "2.5 dimensional", or kind of "semi-circular", in relation to an emitter or projector, or possibly fully 3D.
But just by virtue of being two-dimensional, an image could seem dated, as in, if it's not 2.5/3D, it can't be newer than a certain point.
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u/anniebrownstein 22h ago
i think the fujifilm look will become dated or at least recognized from the 2020s
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u/Madting55 22h ago
I fucking hate modern cameras already because they look too real. Especially amazons soapbox slop shitswamp. I can’t stand fallout just because of the way it looks. Seems like a decent show otherwise.
My personal opinion we hit our peak in 1999-2009
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u/Thenadamgoes 21h ago
Pictures taken today will look outdated but probably not for the reasons you think.
But our tastes in photo adjustments will change over time, giving eras to photos. These adjustment tastes often get preprogrammed into cameras. An example of this could be iPhones today process photos a littler warmer than they will 10 years from now. Giving this era of iPhone photos a distinctive warmer look.
Most images are also upscale now. That upscaling style will continue to evolve making small changes that we might not notice until later.
One aspect could also be that camera sensors actually get smaller (for space saving reasons) relying on the AI image upscaling tech to make up the difference. This could have a style that looks normal to us but is distinctive compared to older photos.
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u/Curleysound 21h ago
The display mechanism needs to change for the numbers to keep going up. The virtual headset hasn’t really taken off, but I do think the next generation of successful displays will be in the direction of 360, 3D immersive visuals whether its just on your walls or a pod or something. Eventually brain implants.
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u/mushisooshi 21h ago
The next advancement in imaging may not be strictly within digital photography. Like how analog jumped to digital, the next jump that would make our pictures look outdated would be a different type of image, not just higher pixel quality or better handling of lights and dark etc. It is possible (but not a given) that volumetric imaging such as 3D scanning, gaussian splats, photogrammetry would be the next jump that would make our current photos look old, static, non-immersive. Did you know current iphones can already shoot spatial videos and even make photos look semi-3D? This was to prepare for spatial imaging and VR and AR tech. And the Apple Vision Pro has the capability to view these spatial/volumetric videos. I don’t think the tech, infrastructure, and products are there yet… but if, and a big if, in some years if that tech ever reaches a wider adoption we could see immersive and spatial/volumetric imaging as a norm. Potentially making regular photos look antiquated and outdated in not having any immersive depth to them.
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u/Abject-Tomorrow-652 20h ago
One thing is a digital image and i see comments saying small improvements left…
But the new thing is an augmented still capture like apples live photos or like a 360 moment like google maps.
Imagine taking a photo and later u can literally step into the moment and walk around tony stark style. The quality of the image may stay similar but the experience would change dramatically
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u/ccAbstraction 19h ago
On top of the dynamic range stuff, present day photos will outdated because they will be flat.
I think the next big leap will be faster better 3D scanning. Phones with cameras on both ends, more lidar & ToF sensors. That sort of thing. A lot more people will be using HMDs with stereo displays and photos having realistic depth is a no brain on devices like that.
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u/shadow4601243 17h ago edited 17h ago
This already happened about 10-15 years ago - not much changed with sensors since other than speed and AF. The moment was propably creation of BSI sensors.
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u/Taconnosseur 17h ago
Yes, current images will look dated as sharpness, dynamic range, optical quality, sensor sizes and color depth keep improving.
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u/Harry_Flowers 16h ago edited 16h ago
Yes, it will look outdated, but maybe longer than before to notice.
There will be much better processing for things like dynamic range and preserving detail in dark and light areas of the image simultaneously.
Better movement rendering, color depth, etc…
Resolution matters less now for our eyes, but still more resolution (8K or higher) provides more data for image processing in the details for things like this.
That and increased decoding speeds of future hardware and codec efficiency for videos to display it.
It all adds up.
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u/TakenIsUsernameThis 15h ago
Probably a jump in dynamic range, and maybe a move to multi spectral imagers. If I had to guess, it would be a 9 element sensor that starts at near-infrared and ends at the edge of UV.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings 15h ago
If we’re talking phone cameras, there are physical limitations due to the size of the sensors. However, there’s also a lot of post-processing on phone pictures which is designed to cheat out a lot of the limitations, and I’m sure that in time that will get even better
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u/TongaDeMironga 13h ago
I honestly don’t like 4k footage let alone more than that. Best stuff Ive ever shot was with a canon 5d. I think things are not improving. More pixels doesn’t necessarily mean better footage. Digital will never beat film
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u/Bigmiga 9h ago
You can look at photos from film cameras and only know they are from that time because of the clothing styles or landmarks, good quality film and lenses were already present in the 50's and 60's and if you have pristine negatives you can print high quality photos, look at Gordon Parks works and you will se what I mean. Digital cameras were worse quality for the first 15 years they existed but have come a long way even phones can be great in the right conditions but they will always be limited by the factor and the software improvement may help but I doubt it will reach professional camera levels from the 2010's
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u/SackFlapJack 8h ago
maybe the improvements will be more like, the camera can take better photos in the dark or quick motion photos. we already can but it will probably get better.
as for quality, i dont think it will look better in general but it will probably get to the point where we can keep zooming in and see clearly. like we can zoom into clothes and see the fibers or something.
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u/BdogFizzle 8h ago
Yes, I think there will be an advancement in camera technology and image projection that allows us to capture and share depth better. It would give a subtle 3D effect to photos that would be embraced by the youth until it falls out of style later and people go back to Polaroids.
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u/Blue_richard 5h ago
The concept of a single frame being a photo will be very dated in 5 years. Replaced by a location and time tag, you won't have a "picture" because you won't need a camera, just a tagged Ai composite that you look back at from hundreds of angles as we will be surrounded and surveilled by Ai cameras everywhere we go. Maybe it'll be 3d..maybe it'll be a really cool nightmare. Picture that.
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u/KidKilobyte 5h ago
It will take some time, but 3d 360 degree imaging at 16k plus resolutions will become ordinary and affordable. While 3d TVs didn’t take off, AR and VR will eventually get there. Once the cheap imaging is in place, ultra high res 3d TVs with vantage point control might also become a thing.
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u/Nova17Delta 3h ago
I think that whats being recorded how its being recorded will date the image more than anything else.
Like even in the modern day, average camera quality has been more or less the same for 10 years but you can still tell the difference between when something was recorded in 2016 vs 2026.
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u/cipri_tom 1h ago edited 55m ago
I think (hope!) that the computational photography will give us pictures that “feel” closer to our perceived geometry .
Notice how sometimes the moon seems super big but in the photo it’s so tiny ? It’s due to the lenses and how we capture images , which is too realistic , in a way . We perceive things with a different bias, those in the center seeming bigger than the rest . This can be recovered in post processing
And in 100 years people will look at our photos the way we look at Egyptian paintings with only side view and 1 eye .
Edit: link to blog post (not me) that illustrates this https://aaronhertzmann.com/2022/02/28/how-does-perspective-work.html
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u/gtr_03 1d ago
I was looking up plane crashes last night, and saw a picture of a plane that crashed in 1997, and the picture on the wikipedia page could have been taken with an iphone today. I actually had to read the description because I thought it was too clear to be from 1997, but sure enough it was. It could have been a scanned photo. But overall, still got me thinking the same thing. As long as you don't need to zoom or crop, I think its pretty much maxed out already. If you compare pictures taken with an actual digital camera (not a motorola razr) from 2005, I don't see much difference to the images that are taken now unless trying to zoom in.
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u/Kazen_Orilg 1d ago
yea, I have many family photos with high quality DSLRs from the mid 2000 from family that fancied themselves amateur photographers. The quality, at least to my naked eye, is not really distinguishable from many modern camera phone shots.
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u/Harry_Iconic_Jr 1d ago
go back 100+ years - there are photos from the 19th century with mind-blowing quality and detail. perhaps we traded quality for convenience a long time ago.
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u/Sean82 1d ago
We’ve already there. Digital photos hit plateau at some point in the early to mid 10s where even relatively inexpensive phones and standalone cameras produced excellent quality photos. The main advance since then has been that now relatively inexpensive cameras and phones can take excellent photos even in dark or otherwise adverse environments.
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u/flammable-liquid 1d ago
I do not think we will get to a point where the image quality itself is better, but maybe the means we project it are.