[Pavel]

Recently I wrote an E-mail to a friend who is interested in technology but who is not a photographer about recent developments in photography. I tried not to use photography jargon. I found it easy to discuss developments in hardware, but I found it difficult to tease out major developments in software. I was not into photography when some of the major developments were created (such as early Photoshop versions with all their many innovative new features, such as layers, masks etc.) Much of the software developments in recent years seem more incremental (in terms of features) to me (although very welcome and together having a great deal of impact) and the interface looks less like that conceived by an engineer and more like to one useful to the artist. I am curious what you think. What did I miss/got wrong?

Here goes:

1) Massive increase in sensor pixel count at relatively low cost and small size. Nikon D800, at $3k has 36 M pixel sensor resolution, rivaling in image quality photos from $50K medium format cameras. The resolution with good lenses and good technique are outstanding - mind-blowing actually - totaly unbelievable with the best of film. Nokia 808 (a cell phone) has 40+ M pixel sensor resolution. This allows it to do binning (combining data from several pixels to reduce noise and increase dynamic range (the brightest to darkest the sensor is able to resolve). It also makes it practical to use digital zooming (basically cropping the sensor image to simulate telephoto lens). Although digital zooming is an old technique, it produces usually terrible result, because pixel count gets quickly too small with a telephoto digital zoom. However Nokia 808 has so many pixels, that this is a good method. It allows it to use a simple and optically excellent small lens to produce images rivaling compact cameras and even some mirrorless cameras. Amazing, once they couple the great camera with better OS in future models.

2) Substantial increase in light sensitivity and dynamic range. My new camera (D800) is able to photograph in conditions with 16 to 32 times less light than my previous camera (extremely important for me - more than the resolution) and gains almost 4 fold increase in dynamic range under bright light conditions (when I usually need it most).

3) The processors built into camera must be able to crunch very quickly (video) through vast amount of parallel data (huge resolution) and they are now extremely fast and powerful. That makes it possible for them to provide very sophisticated automatic exposure and focusing as well as do various tricks like scene recognition (and automaticaly adjusting the settings on the camera accordingly)

4) Electronic viewfinders - not long ago a cruel joke are now rivaling all but the best of optical viewfinders and they are an acceptable or often preferred alternative to less than excellent optical viewfinder. This spawned a whole new class of smaller and lighter cameras with tiny interchangeable lenses that at 1/2 the size and weight deliver 80-90% capability of a top notch DSLR and at much lower cost

5) Use of new glass and improved software lead to an improved image quality and capability of lenses, particularly on the wide angle part of the spectrum. Telephotos benefit more than wide angle lenses from lens stabilization, which allows you to hand-hold photos (and retain sharpness) with 8-16 times less light.

6) Lytro introduced a camera which allows you to choose the plane at which you wish to focus AFTER you took the photo in software

7) There have been a lot of software development which allows the photos to be combined to reduce noise, increase dynamic range or increase the depth of the area that is in focus - all very valuable.

[shuttertalk]

Thanks for posting this Pavel, and I apologise for not responding sooner - I must admit the wall of text put me off a bit.

I think definitely sensor technology has allowed us to make the biggest leap forward. Back a few years, the "pros" wouldn't do a shoot with anything less than medium format. These days, advances in tech have allowed smallers sensors to produce image quality to the point where the sensor and megapixels is no longer the topic of debate - it's moved on to the actual systems and supporting accessories, lenses, and all the other things which you've mentioned.