Old thinking, clean out your brains!
There will be more, much more, to digital cameras than just more. More megapixels, more storage, longer lenses, faster recording, and etc. Those are just improvements on what we already have - which is great, but it is just saying "Cameras will get better and faster and perhaps cheaper" like computers have.
But we are on the cusp of something wonderful. Cameras are about to start doing things that could not be done with any kind of camera in the past. Photography will be stood on its head. This will be revolutionary, not just evolutionary.
A bunch of things in the pipeline, hope they come to fruition:
* Liquid lens. Imagine a lens that is deformed into various shapes by an electrical charge. It changes to whatever shape is required for the optical characteristics you want. Want a pre-war 'cron? There's a button to emulate that optical formula. How about a post-war 'Lux? Same thing. Zoom? How about from ultra-wide to ultra-long, and all at the same aperture? How about nearly instantly, without any motors whirring or mechanical things moving about? What about a 'cron with some of the characteristics of a lens baby as well? Just for fun, how about some of the optical experiments in camera lenses that never got built because human mechanical engineering couldn't build them to those tolerances? Differential focus that leaves large format movements in the dust?
Now, for the sensor. Not just high ISO or low ISO, but a single sensor that can move smoothly between say 50 ISO and 10K ISO, bringing with it things you never saw before, like available light photos with real depth of field, because you can shoot in near darkness at f/16. But that's just evolutionary technology. For revolutionary, how about a single sensor that can have different sensitivities on the same surface for the same photo? HDR like you never saw it. Multiple exposures from the same photo capture, not just PS manipulation after the fact. Real-time IR, UV, and visible light captures, all at once, from the same shutter press, and without special lens filters?
How about some older technology that never worked that well dredged up and fixed? Like Canon's eye motion technology, the camera focusses where we move our eye in the frame. Shutter actuation upon sensing the muscle firing for the trigger finger.
How about an LCD screen that can display a histogram in real time prior to making the shot, and an LCD that can be removed and worn on various parts of the body, connected wirelessly but still live and in realtime? A flip-down widget over the eye that allows you to see what the camera sees for over-the-head shots so you can take photos in crowds.
Intelligent color recognition that allows you to do B&W conversion and group colors as you wish them to be represented in gray tones, not just according to their luminance, no need for conversion or color filters.
Portraits that recognize what should be sharp and what should not be sharp on human skin, make allowances (intelligently and with input from the photographer) for variations in skin town, blemishes, and so on.
Photos that are automatically tagged with geo tags and time/date stamps that will allow (if you permit it) future historians to know with certainty what happened and when at different points in history.
Cameras that cooperate with news services (under the control of the photographer) to feed still and video directly into news services to cover news events as they happen - full credit and payment given of course. If you happen to be at an event, and you take photos and you have elected to be part of the group that can feed data into the news net stream, an editor can select one or more of your photos as they come streaming in, use them as if you were a photojournalist, give you credit/copyright, and issue micropayments into your paypal account on the spot - in real time. Go to a lot of parades - make a couple of bucks. Happen to be where there is a bad wreck? Get a byline and a buck or two performing a public service. Another Rodney King? With dozens of citizen journalists covering from every available angle, the truth will soon be known - could be bad cops, could be bad guy - but more cameras are better, right?
I'm telling you, digital cameras are about to go off in directions we never thought of, because there was no way to do it with film. NOT KNOCKING FILM.
But no, the M8 would not satisfy me. I want it all.
Bring on the eschaton, baby.
