How far away are we from Composition Priority?

[Disaster_Area]

So shutter priority and aperture priority have been around for quite some time and even most stubborn mechanical camera die hards will admit they're useful and not "cheating"... now Face detection and Highlight priority have started cropping up in the latest generation of P&S's and are even making their way into semi-pro DSLR's. How long do you think we are from the camera of the future I've been predicting for the last couple years:

- 15-25mp's
- fixed wide angle lens, ~20-28mm
- Composition Priority Mode

The idea is that instead of making the user fiddle with buttons and modes and zooming etc, how long will it be till a camera comes out that the user just has to point roughly in the direction they want to take a picture, and the wide angle and ample mega pixels grab everything in that general direction, then combining all the bells and whistles.. face detection, highlight priority etc, the camera detects faces and points of interest, crops, straightens and aligns to the rule of thirds etc and pops out a couple shots from the scene it took. Maybe one shot that's close enough to just fit all the faces it sees and one shot that's farther out. Finally removing all skill and soul from photography once and for all 🙂

Well.. not quite.. the next model will just take a 360 degree 3D scan of everything around you and can extrapolate any shot from any angle later at home.

 

[maddoc]

It will be realized with the next but one generation of cell phones here in Japan and then slowly find its way to P&S and later DSLR ... 😉

 

[__hh]

This will only be achievable once the "cheesy smile detection" feature has been perfected 🙂

 

[sienarot]

This will only be achievable once the "cheesy smile detection" feature has been perfected 🙂

Sorry, but that's all I have to offer. That's just the way I look!

 

[Mattikk]

At first I actually thought the Pentax K-7's new feature "Composition Adjustment" is automatic.

 

[JoeV]

In the near future you will not need a camera. You simply download compositional elements from the web -- a background, a sky, some trees, buildings, cars, people, etc. -- and photoshop them into a composition, including defining the virtual lens aperture and depth of focus effects. In this manner photography and graphic arts will have merged completely.

~Joe

 

[__hh]

In the near future you will not need a camera. You simply download compositional elements from the web -- a background, a sky, some trees, buildings, cars, people, etc. -- and photoshop them into a composition, including defining the virtual lens aperture and depth of focus effects. In this manner photography and graphic arts will have merged completely.

~Joe

or just connect your favorite photo software/program wirelessly into your digital memory buffer ... now that's real "photographic memory"

 

[Al Kaplan]

What use would it have outside of landscapes and portraits. As it is, the DSLR's and digi point 'n shoots that I've tried take too damned long to focus or set exposure in tricky lighting or journalitic situations. Check out the May 31 post "Violence At The North Miami Polls ~ Supporters Of Council Candidate Jean Rodrigue Marcellus Tried To Grab My Camera And Then Clobbered Me On The Head" at http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com. The 15mm Heliar on my Bella L took the brunt of the punch but the camera kept on functioning and I kept on winding and firing. My nose and forehead hurt like hell but her hand probably hurt more from impacting with the front edge of the lenshood. I'm OK this morning.

I don't think that I've ever tried an autofocus camera that could follow-focus a rapidly aproaching fist to within inches of the front element.

On some of the less violent shots yesterday I got some interesting effects from rain drops on the front element, little areas of slight blur in an otherwise sharp photo.

These were shot on Kodak Gold 200 at 1/60 between f/5.6 and f/8 in a light drizzle. I should point out that while the events in my blog are true the writing is in a slightly tongue-in-cheek style.

 

[emraphoto]

The current batch of pro nikons I use focus with BLAZING speed.

If it's still not fast enough I can operate fully manual. Just like it was 1977. (I am quite certain though that the nikons outpace me though. Tracking things and people very accurately.)

Not to knock that heliar though! Using adequate DOF I am sure that thing outperforms anything as you essentially don't need to focus.

Today I managed to stay tracking a UNICEF vehicle speeding past us whilst I was in the back of a truck. The roads are next to impassible here so you can imagine the stroke of brilliance the focus tracking in D3 is.

I'm not so sure I am ready for composition priority though. However if it would have helped me sneak shots at the trial of former millitary rulers yesterday (where cameras were strictly forbidden) perhaps I could be convinced!

 

[Al Kaplan]

I'm not really sure that I could handle a DSLR one-handed as easily as the Bessa L, just because of its size, weight, and balance.

 

[camera.bear]

Compositional AE is not such a new thing, at least for Portraits. My Canon Sure Shot Classic 120 that was introduced in Sept of 1999 has a feature that composes the picture when the camera is in Portrait mode. I have also had another photographer mention a different camera of similar vintage that had this feature, but I can not recall the camera.

With the Classic 120, you just set the mode dial to Portrait and then point the camera and press the shutter release. The camera then zooms to frame the person or persons that are the subject of the portrait. I have used this several times and it worked well. Pretty niffty stuff.

 

[nikon_sam]

Okay...How about a feature that tells you when a perfect picture is being formed if you happen not to see it...just a little alarm sound (your choice) and then the camera tells you where to point it...

 

[Al Kaplan]

I'd like an "aproaching fist detecter". I'm putting in another day at the polls tomorrow. I think that I'll bring my M3 along, fitted with that heavy as hell 85/2 chromed brass Nikkor just in case I need something to swing back at them. Or I could use it for shooting at a "safe distance" as the cops suggested. That can be so boring though. I like the feeling of Being There that I get with the 15.

Another thing that I'd like to see is a way for a camera to tell you "Enough already! You've got the picture!" and the advance lever would lock until you pushed the over ride button.

 

[Bike Tourist]

I had a tongue-in-cheek article published by The Photographic Society of America (PSA Journal 07/1991 pp 21 - 23) called Space Aliens, SRMs and Me. The SRM stood for Scene Recording machine. It was a spoof on the then-current cameras' automatic features. Of course, that was before the impact of digital and the ultra-automatics of today.

As I remember, the SRM did it all for you, including reorganizing the elements of the scene if it felt they weren't arranged correctly. If you couldn't get to your photo location the SRM would simply make something up for you.

I think we're almost there and no thanks to contributions from a superior life form!

 

[MartinL]

This will only be achievable once the "cheesy smile detection" feature has been perfected 🙂

Don't you mean, "once the 'cheesy smile perfection feature has been detected'"😉?
Really annoying---all those blurry, ill-framed, goofy-grinned subjects.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

Good idea! While we're at it let's make cameras fully autonomous and self-propelled.
Then just send your camera out on it's own, while you stay safe and warm at home! 😉

Chris

 

[dave61]

For all the reasons previously mentioned on this thread, a Leica Cl and Nikon F2 are the most modern cameras I own.
I shoot photos on sensitized emulsions and process in chemicals. It's messy and primitive. It gets my hands dirty
There will always be people who would rather use their emotions and imaginations rather than let some high-tech lump do it for them.
They can have my film when they pry the Tri-X from my dead, hypo-stained fingers.

 

[amateriat]

Compositional AE is not such a new thing, at least for Portraits. My Canon Sure Shot Classic 120 that was introduced in Sept of 1999 has a feature that composes the picture when the camera is in Portrait mode. I have also had another photographer mention a different camera of similar vintage that had this feature, but I can not recall the camera.

With the Classic 120, you just set the mode dial to Portrait and then point the camera and press the shutter release. The camera then zooms to frame the person or persons that are the subject of the portrait. I have used this several times and it worked well. Pretty niffty stuff.

Actually, my old Minolta 9xi cameras had a similar option via one of Minolta's Program Cards (I actually bristled at the concept at first, but then I started utilizing them in occasionally bizarre and goofy/subversive ways...but this was also close to the point where I felt it was time to get off this bozo bus).

I also remember when, years before this, a friend of mine speculated over what other technological "enhancements" might be shoehorned into tomorrow's wundercamera; my friend came up with something very much akin to "composition priority", with a LED/LCD display with such helpful readings as "boring", "utterly clichéd", et cetera. (He was a Computer Science major at Columbia, so he wasn't exactly a Luddite.) When I got my 9xi, I cooked up the idea of Signature Composition Program Cards, offering the likes of HCB, AA, Helmut Newton ("Cannot be purchased by persons under 18 years of age without parental consent"), and so on. I dubbed this "All the polished accomplishment of high-level photography, without any of the sweat, toil, learned insight or fascination of individual discovery."

To paraphrase a Graham Parker song (yeah, I do this a lot), I saw the future of photography, and it sucked.


- Barrett

 

[blackwave]

I just got a new cell phone last week and it has some surprising and kind of funny features.

First off, it's a 3mp cell phone camera.. 3x the size of my last one. It has a "Smile Detector" mode which fires off a frame when it detects the subject has a smile. I haven't experimented with it much, but it seems to work okay with a single subject, albeit at the level expected for a phone.

Another feature is a three frame panorama photo. I hold the phone up, snap the first picture and pan across the scene. When it detects I'm at the edge of the first frame it will snap another, and then one more. There is a line across the screen that helps keep the panning level. One it's done it stitches them together and Bob's your uncle!

These are novelty of course, but nonetheless fun to fiddle with.

 

[notturtle]

just like a database is limited by the human that designed it, camera technologies will never be able to take over because it can only automate things within the constraints of what it has been programmed to do. Maybe cameras will do what you say, but all it will do IMO is further isolate and strengthen good old film based photography for what it will come to represent (the same as what it has always been but the gulf will leave it standing in sharp relief to what some forms of photography will have become).

It does not matter what technology is developed, the interest in shots skillfully captured by skillful photographers will remain. Photography is not neccessarily reality, but I see the reinforcement of those forms more readily associated with a degree of fidelity, rather than infinite opportunity for 'painting your own image in PS.' More technology will be directed at the amateur 'make it easy' market but I don't see it improving or even changing photography at the top end. If anything I see it further catalysing the interest in the basics.