Just some thoughts after looking for a digital camera. With the rapid escalation of digital and electronic technology, there is no doubt that Canon will be forced by the market to roll out new digital bodies (or upgraded versions of yesterday's cutting edge -- EOD 1DN, likely) on a much faster timetable that it had with its film bodies. Certainly there won't be a digital with the production longevity of the A2(E) or EOS 5. But, what will be the likely production lifespan? 1 year, 2 years. What would that mean for the film line? Would they roll them out faster as well -- every three or four years instead of five?

-- Tim Fisher (tfisher@beachin.net), December 12, 2001

Answers

”What would that mean for the film line?”

As digital supplants film over the next few years, it would not surprise me to see the development of digital cameras being the primary focus of Canon and Nikon, and that film cameras introduced in the future will be variations on those digital designs (instead of digital cameras being based on film cameras as is the case today). It also would not surprise me to see introductions of new mass marketed film cameras stagnate as sales plummet (say in 5-10 years).

Is the EOS 1v destined to be the pinnacle of 35MM AF film camera design, since it may end up being the most advanced film camera designed from the ground up as a film camera?

-- Kenneth Katz (socks@bestweb.net), December 13, 2001.

This is an interesting subject. There has been development of digital film for 35 mm cameras of late, but the memory capability is limited. I'm looking to see how this progresses. It would be interesting to have a camera that would do both 35 mm and digital.

-- Victor Kunkel (Catmanman@aol.com), December 13, 2001.

I believe the efilm company went bankrupt, but maybe the idea could be resurrected.

Another good possibility would be to design interchangeable backs. As technology advances, the user could install a new digital back on an existing camera. Even better would be to have film as an interchangeable back option as well.

-- Rod (rod.nygaard@boeing.com), December 13, 2001.

OK: the company is still in business (www.delkin.com) but what I remembered reading is that they have discontinued the efilm product whereby you drop an electonic capture cartridge into the film slot of a 35mm film camera instead of film. As i recall the products did not get above 1 Meg before they were discontinued.

-- Rod (rod.nygaard@boeing.com), December 13, 2001.

While I'm thinking about this: another advantage of a modular approach to "35mm" digital camera design is that you could have one capture module optimized for capture speed, another for image resolution. PJ's and sports would go for the former, nature generally for the latter. (Though it would be nice to be able to swap to the capture speed module for fast breaking wildlife images). You get another module for film and you're set for anything.

The tricky part would be designing a robust interface to pull this off. Maybe expensive, too: but with modularity a design goal from inception the incremental cost might actually not be that high.

-- Rod (rod.nygaard@boeing.com), December 13, 2001.

I am fairly confident that the future will bring some sort of digital replacement back for existing 35mm camera bodies. Why am I so confidant? Because this would be the, ' Killer app,' of the photo world, and somebody is going to make a huge amount of $$$$ doing it.

I am equally confident that every top of the line digital camera on themarket today will be absolute dogmeat in less than three years. Just ask anyone who bought one of those $ 15,000. Kodaks two years ago how they like it now.

I don't think that there is any chance at all that you are going to see new film cameras rolling out at a faster rate, rather the reverse will be true. Less film models, less R & D, less films to choose from. It is the un-avoidable by-product of the, ' Digital Revolution.'

-- J.Horton (jhorton@inceptiontech.com), January 11, 2002.