Earlier this week an executive for Nokia made some remarks that have now spiraled out of context on the Web. Perhaps some of you saw a post or article somewhere that said that "Nokia says that cellphone cameras will replace DSLRs." Actually, I've seen it even more tightly constructed in a headline: "Camera phones obsoleting DSLRs." Yes, and my SmartCar will be racing on the Formula 1 circuit this year, too.
But the whole web of Web viralness shows a remarkable problem that's getting more and more common these days. First, we have misstatement and hyperbole. This is then misconstrued by many into something even more outrageous. At which point we eventually end up with complete misquotes that enhance the misconstruction. Lord help us, isn't anyone teaching English, logic, clarity, or fact-checking these days? Have all the reporters in the world disappeared and been replaced by bloggers who don't have time to actually check the source?
As best I can tell, Anssi Vanjoki's comments were made completely in the context about how fast camera phone technology was progressing. So far, so good. Camera phone technology is progressing rapidly. Some of the current sensor enhancements being explored have their biggest benefit to the smallest sensors, like BSI (back side illumination). Thus, yesterday's 1mp frontside sensor cellphone camera will be spectacularly eclipsed by the upcoming 5mp and 8mp BSI-equipped cameras in the next generation of phones. Indeed, I've written that I expect that upcoming cell phone cameras will essentially take over from low end compact digital cameras. But when I wrote that I didn't put this purely up to image quality. It's the lowest common denominator thing: this next generation of cellphone cameras is going to be good enough for most casual picture taking. People won't want to pay for and carry another small camera just to take casual photos once their phone does a good enough job. For a dedicated camera to succeed against upcoming phones the dedicated camera is going to have to bring capabilities well beyond what the cellphone camera can do: lens flexibility (really wide angle and strong telephoto), fast autofocus on action, superb low-light capability, things like that.
Will the next generation 8mp cellphone camera outshoot, oh, an 8mp Coolpix L18? Probably not, but it will get close. Close enough that most people wouldn't want to pay the US$129 extra for the Coolpix if they already have such a phone.
Like I said, so far, so good: cell phone cameras are getting better. Dramatically better.
But Vanjoki tried to emphasize his point, and much like a politician speaking on just about any subject, he went too far. Gesturing to the press photographers in the room he said "[soon] there will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses." Oops. Now we're into a bit of misstatement. He reached to far. Had he said "for a lot of people, they'll be able to give up larger and heavier cameras" he would have been just fine. But he overstepped. Maybe he's running for office in Finland ;~).
Vanjoki also said "[camera phones] will in the very near future revolutionize the market for system cameras." In some places on the Internet "system cameras" got correctly translated into "DSLRs," while in others it was apparently googled into "system cameras." But the real problem was that "revolutionize" got changed into "kill." Now we have people misconstruing what he actually said. A more accurate transcription is the blog of the photographer who was being addressed. Translated from the Finnish he claims Vanjoki said "the performance of DSLRs will become completely useless, when we can take exactly the same photo with a tiny mobile phone." This is, of course, a complete overstatement. We can take a similar photo with many mobile phones, but not the same picture as the 5DII with 70-200mm lens that Vanjoki was pointing at.
I'd point out that you can actually revolutionize the DSLR market without killing it. Indeed, it's already happening: the mirrorless cameras are certainly changing the DSLR marketplace, and I'm guessing that we'll see upscale compact cameras (which are themselves trying to escape the onslaught of cellphone cameras) pushing the mirrorless cameras shortly. Put another way, it would indeed be revolutionary if cellphone cameras simply displaced so much casual photography and pushed compacts into more serious territory that DSLRs no longer get used for casual photography.
Another of the things Vanjoki said was "it will not take long [to where] phones can record HD quality video and you can transfer it to your HD television set." Indeed, the future of casual photography is 1920 x 1080 pixels (that's 2mp, by the way). That's because that's the highest common resolution supported by the things that we'll be likely sending those casual images to in the foreseeable future. Having 5mp or 8mp actually gives you some cropping flexibility, which many casual users need. If your intention is to send stills or video to a monitor or TV, those next generation cellphones are going to look very tempting, as they'll be easily capable of the feat and produce decent quality in doing so.
The Internet is great for many reasons, but you have to be on a constant lookout for misstatements, misquoting, and misconstruing. In this one example we got all three. Caveat lector.
Thanks to my Finnish friends for providing additional information and non-Googled translations.