The majority of those involved in the world of photography have a fair idea of how they would like the camera of the future to perform and the types of features this camera should have. However, for those of us in the uneducated masses the converse is often full of illegible jargon and technical language. It is hoped that the following article will be able to set forward what the camera of the future will be able to do, without the need for overcomplicated technical speak.

One of the most important developments that is likely to affect the digital camera is a changing of the sensor; at the risk of getting too technical, this will be from CCD, to CMOS. Fundamentally this change will result in cameras that have a non-destructive readout, meaning longer exposures. The use of longer exposures has long been the preserve of professional photographers to take awe-inspiring images of waterfalls and masses of people. Hopefully this change in technology will allow even the amateur photographer to take these amazing images.

Naturally a change in camera sensors will force the manufacturers to change the way lenses are produced. In the future it is realistic to assume that the eight megapixel cameras we use today will be obsolete, instead, figures of forty, or even fifty megapixels will not be uncommon. Additionally however, with such a high resolution it is likely that all of these pixels will not have to be used, for instance, the camera of the future should have the capability of ‘binning' some of this image data, especially in poorly lit situations. The benefits to the user are that the camera will have to process less data, the result being more battery power and smaller transfer times.

One design that could come into production in the future is the modular camera. Essentially this is a camera that incorporates the features of both a stills camera and a video camera. Contemporary cameras already perform this to an extent although the video recording is often limited. The modular variety however is likely to have a central image recording core that with the addition of separate modules such as lenses it will be able to switch functions between video and stills recording. The result should be a camera that is equally adept at recording stills images as well as video footage.

A fact that is hard to dispute has been the encroachment of the camera phone into the photographic sphere. So many people now have an image recorder on their phone and hence do not feel the need to carry another device. Despite this, there are a number of key factors that should limit the use of the phone instead of a dedicated camera. While the screen size has not yet been a problem, it is likely that in the coming years, if users of all ages are to be using phones, screens will have to be larger. Additionally, unless the image recording of the phone is not brought up to speed, there are simply too many situations where the phone camera is inadequate; for instance, dimly lit situations are often troublesome for camera-phones. The lack of a flash, is a serious problem, even if LED flashes are commonplace, they are simply not powerful enough yet.

Hopefully this article has raised some issues that will be present in the development of the camera in the future. The digital camera has already revolutionised the world of photography, the next ten or twenty years should show us exactly how far this revolution will go.