This should be where camera storage is headed, right? I wonder how much cost this would add to the price, since USB 2 would have to be added too.
Media card manufactures can't be too happy about this.
How true, I think mini hard drives will obviously blow away flash shit. A digi cam holding 2 million pictures at the same cost as one that holds 75 pics is just plain ridiculous.
Flash remains smaller, more reliable, more durable, faster, and less power-hungry. Don't count of flash media going anywhere, especially when consumer camera manufacturers discover they can't just keep adding megapixels. They'll need better gimmicks like high FPS and such.
A fast 1 GB CF card costs <$200, that's one hundred 10 MB RAW photos. A pro photographer needs only to buy a couple of these to be set for a very long time, and chances are they will outlast HDD based storage cards.
That's why cameras have a cache, Eugene. High FPS digital cameras don't just write directly to the flash card.
And why can't they just keep adding megapixels? Imagine a prosumer camera that can take poster-sized photos, if the user wants. Even if you wanted a 2MP file, the camera could easily sample down 25 mega pixels to get rid of noise altogether. Wouldn't that be a welcome feature, a noiseless image? Even film can't do that. On the professional side, multimegapixel digital cameras are going to make Hasselblads obsolete for the same reason. Film cameras will be left only for artistic purposes.
Oh, so what happens when the cache fills up, sir? The new Nikon D2H depends on write-accelerated CF to maintain its 8 FPS continuous shooting mode up to 25 frames in RAW mode. That's a whole 3 seconds. That huge buffer needs to go somewhere, as fast as possible.
And, no, they can't just keep adding megapixels without addressing other areas of the camera. As pixel density increases, so does the angle at which light is captured decrease. As pixel density increases, the electricity required to power the image sensor increases too, which results in more attenuation and noise...
For now, we've pretty much hit the ceiling for 1/1.8" sensors at about 4 megapixels. If you look at the 5-6 megapixel P&S cameras, even if you scale their pics down to 4 mp, they won't look any sharper than the native 4 mp camera. 1) The optics aren't up to the task, 2) the image sensors produce noisier photos. So yeah, if you buy that 1/1.8" 6 mp Olympus over the 4 mp model, you are wasting your money.
Oh, come on, Eugene, you don't expect technology to stand still, do you? We've hit the ceiling? When are you going to learn that there is no ceiling?
Likewise, do you think cache is just going to remain a steady number? The difference between cache and storage (flash or disk) is that cache is volatile. Do you think we'll never be able to fit those 25 frames of continuous shooting in cache? And if the Nikons are indeed writing directly to the flash then why is there a 25 frame limit at all? There's a limit because the Nikons, while they might for some reason require high-performace flash cards, are using cache in some way, and it's only enough for 25 images.
Sure, the ceiling's not permanent, but quality of the glass hasn't changed for quite a while, and no companies other than Foveon have announced a real way to tackle the pixel density problem. Merely adding megapixels is the digicam equivalent to the "business innovation" I mentioned in another thread. It's because they don't care. As long as consumers keep buying higher megapixel cameras, they're happy.
And yes, I think it's a better solution bypass cache directly or just use it as a checkpoint/back-up. If you don't think so, I'd like to know why.
Caches will get bigger, but so will demands. As long as solid-state memory is faster, more reliable, and lower power, it'll be a superior format for many digital photographers. You get what you pay for.
Comments
Media card manufactures can't be too happy about this.
Originally posted by 1seaside1
This should be where camera storage is headed, right? I wonder how much cost this would add to the price, since USB 2 would have to be added too.
Media card manufactures can't be too happy about this.
How true, I think mini hard drives will obviously blow away flash shit. A digi cam holding 2 million pictures at the same cost as one that holds 75 pics is just plain ridiculous.
A fast 1 GB CF card costs <$200, that's one hundred 10 MB RAW photos. A pro photographer needs only to buy a couple of these to be set for a very long time, and chances are they will outlast HDD based storage cards.
Originally posted by tonton
That's why cameras have a cache, Eugene. High FPS digital cameras don't just write directly to the flash card.
And why can't they just keep adding megapixels? Imagine a prosumer camera that can take poster-sized photos, if the user wants. Even if you wanted a 2MP file, the camera could easily sample down 25 mega pixels to get rid of noise altogether. Wouldn't that be a welcome feature, a noiseless image? Even film can't do that. On the professional side, multimegapixel digital cameras are going to make Hasselblads obsolete for the same reason. Film cameras will be left only for artistic purposes.
Oh, so what happens when the cache fills up, sir? The new Nikon D2H depends on write-accelerated CF to maintain its 8 FPS continuous shooting mode up to 25 frames in RAW mode. That's a whole 3 seconds. That huge buffer needs to go somewhere, as fast as possible.
And, no, they can't just keep adding megapixels without addressing other areas of the camera. As pixel density increases, so does the angle at which light is captured decrease. As pixel density increases, the electricity required to power the image sensor increases too, which results in more attenuation and noise...
For now, we've pretty much hit the ceiling for 1/1.8" sensors at about 4 megapixels. If you look at the 5-6 megapixel P&S cameras, even if you scale their pics down to 4 mp, they won't look any sharper than the native 4 mp camera. 1) The optics aren't up to the task, 2) the image sensors produce noisier photos. So yeah, if you buy that 1/1.8" 6 mp Olympus over the 4 mp model, you are wasting your money.
Originally posted by tonton
Oh, come on, Eugene, you don't expect technology to stand still, do you? We've hit the ceiling? When are you going to learn that there is no ceiling?
Likewise, do you think cache is just going to remain a steady number? The difference between cache and storage (flash or disk) is that cache is volatile. Do you think we'll never be able to fit those 25 frames of continuous shooting in cache? And if the Nikons are indeed writing directly to the flash then why is there a 25 frame limit at all? There's a limit because the Nikons, while they might for some reason require high-performace flash cards, are using cache in some way, and it's only enough for 25 images.
Sure, the ceiling's not permanent, but quality of the glass hasn't changed for quite a while, and no companies other than Foveon have announced a real way to tackle the pixel density problem. Merely adding megapixels is the digicam equivalent to the "business innovation" I mentioned in another thread. It's because they don't care. As long as consumers keep buying higher megapixel cameras, they're happy.
And yes, I think it's a better solution bypass cache directly or just use it as a checkpoint/back-up. If you don't think so, I'd like to know why.
Caches will get bigger, but so will demands. As long as solid-state memory is faster, more reliable, and lower power, it'll be a superior format for many digital photographers. You get what you pay for.