One time you had only to look into a little lens and press a button to take a photo, but these days cameras are more complicated. Much advertising money is spent on telling us all just how simple and easy it is to take a photo, and it is certainly easier to load a film in the average camera now than it used to be, but you still have to know more about it. You can’t just pick up that brownie box and ready, aim, fire. There are warning lights that tell you to change your angle or adjust your exposure, to mention just a few.

So what is the camera of the tomorrow going to be like? Will it be so complicated that only a rocket scientist will be able to operate it? Probably not, since manufacturers must get good sales for their products. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there are more sales in the masses than in an elite group of rocket scientists.

So come on guys, make it simple. How about a talking camera to tell us what to do? Just imagine Great-aunt Ethel lining up her new camera to take a picture of the latest nephew. The sun slides behind a cloud and the camera growls, “Hold it, stupid!" Ethel retrieves the camera from the grass, dusts it off and focuses again. “Beep-beep-beep! The subject is not smiling!" As the family gathers around with fans and cool drinks for Aunt Ethel, little Johnny grabs the camera and drops it into the fishpond, where it happily snaps the goldfish every time they wiggle.

The camera of the tomorrow may not talk, but at a recent exhibition in New York Canon had a prototype that waits until all the subjects are smiling before taking the picture. Another can tell if you’re blinking. These are expected to be commercial within a year. Fuji has already announced it has a digital camera far superior to most in clarity and resolution.

We think of the digital camera as possessing the most modern technology, but what if it is simply the Model T of cameras? Perhaps today’s digital cameras are the forerunners of some amazing new technology hiding around the corner, just waiting for someone with vision to invent it? Some time in the future, there will surely be moving 3D images that can be clicked into being on our desktops, in mid-air, or beamed to the other side of the world in less than a second. They’ll be in full color and at the click of a button, we’ll be able to hear what is being said. I can hardly wait!