How long before DSLRs become extinct?

you are correct. When I say disappear, I am really talking about mainstream marketing presence, as in disappear from the shelves of consumer chain stores. When they get rare enough that you can only find them at specialty pro shops, they have effectively disapeared from the mass consumer market. I was using a poor choice of words in describing my thoughts. I agree, a few people will be using them for as long as they can.
(I can see myself having to hack together homemade batteries to keep my antique Pentax's firing! a little ways down the road!)

Perhaps my choice of words could have been better too, "extinct" does seem a bit OTT.

It does seem a few of you have caught my drift and are of similar thoughts though, the future for the majority of products is smaller and lighter, condensing the abilities of a DSLR and several lenses into one neat package would be a logical way forward.

Batteries? We don't need no stinkin' batteries, just a KX, pile of Ilford HP5 and Sunny 16!

Seriously, I might suggest that DSLRs have already failed to grab the same market share that film SLRs did. If you look at things like the MV1 (and similarly specified competition from other brands) there was clearly a market for people who wanted something a bit better than a normal compact but equally didn't want to have to learn photography and spend the extra to get something like an MX. Nowadays they're either buying top spec digital compacts or bridge cameras.

My brother might be a case in point. He has a bridge camera that he's very happy with and sees no interest in buying a K-x or K-r. He likes the fact that the bridge camera is small, has a good length optical zoom, and takes perfectly acceptable pictures or video. He also doesn't have to carry extra lenses or worry about sensor dust.

I must have out-of-date eyes.

Mine reshape themselves to adjust focus. Must be nice to have zooming-eyes.

G

I loved my canon g5 and my canon pro one, was ahead of the curve (even if canon listing the lens as pro was false advertising) there are times where that evf was beautiful.... dim receptions/dance halls being two....
Would a hybrid evf/pentaprism be the catz azz? yes it would.

EVF's/LCD's and CCD's etc follow Moore's Law. dSLR's will fade from the mainstream within a decade, just as film SLR's were swept away a decade ago. But not to extinction, just to mass-market irrelevance. Note that SLR's date back over a century -- 4x5in SLR's were used by combat photographers then. Ay yi yi! And film SLR's are still in great use today, just in nowhere near the same numbers as digicams. Newer technologies leave the old ones as niches. Not necessarily minor niches -- 1% niche of a billion users is still huge. Don't trash your pentaprisms, folks!

NOTE: When I walk around, the K20D is usually around my neck; a Sony DSC-V1 5mpx P&S is in my pocket; a few lenses and an Olympus XA are in my Ameribag, and maybe a Zeiss Ikonta 6x6 folder and Sekonic meter. I'm ready! Forward, into the past!

SLR is also still here, the design is hardly changed only we now use a sensor instead of film.
if we go to EVIL the whole design of the camera will change including the lenses, it's a different step forward so to speak.

The end for DSLRs will be in sight when bridge cameras start appearing with APS-C sensors.

With the optical 30X zoom in such a package who'd need a DSLR?

The current flood of interchangeable lens 'pocket' cameras, such as the newly announced Pentax Q, might go the distance..

...but I doubt it.

I agree HG. Having seen the photos a fellow passenger took last month on my sons boat I was deeply envious. We both took photos of seals on a sandbank, me with the Bigma (which of course looks very impressive), and she with her 20x optical zoom bridge.
No contest. She won hands down.

I think my next camera just might be a bridge. I am getting sick of lugging lenses and seem to have lost the inspiration for taking photos which need them.

No way Gwyn. I really enjoyed your photos of your Norwegian trip and there were a few I'd quite happily hang large on my wall, so keep on lugging your kit around.

Thank you kind sir .


Actually nearly all of them were taken with the 17-70. The 60-250 just went along for the ride .

I use my 18-250 when travelling, it's supposed to keep the dust off the sensor..

...doesn't work though.

Where DSLRs win out is in IQ, when bridge cameras, or for that point and shoot ones, catch up fully then...

Bridge cameras will only supplant DSLRs when the image quality is as good or better, and when the viewfinder is as good or better.

To equal the IQ of a DSLR, bridge cameras will have to have APS-C sized sensors, and that means they'll need APS-C sized lenses, so they'll be almost as big and heavy as DSLRs. And a bag of kit will effectively be just as big and heavy.

Once video viewfinders can be made that are better than optical, then people will switch. But the bridge at that point will look and feel like a current DSLR without the pentaprism.

I suspect we are getting close to the limits of digital image technology, and we are certainly close to the point where improvements in quality will be unnoticeable for all practical purposes.

We have been used to seeing continual improvements in digital cameras, but this situation can't and won't continue for ever.

The Hi-Fi market is instructive. Forty years ago there was a huge interest in Hi-Fi and a commensurately large number of magazines devoted to the subject. By the 1990s, technology had reached the point where further improvements were negligible, and hugely expensive.

Nowadays, an amplifier on a chip can out-perform stuff that used to cost thousands of pounds, and people select their music-making equipment on the basis of looks and size, rather than sound quality.

'Twill be the same with cameras, ere long.

G

I think that is how most people choose their camera nowadays George. If they even bother with a separate camera that is, rather than just using their phone.

There are a number of issues. The SLR part may fade and we may be left with EVILs which look like SLRs, but the basic size and shape exists because it works. An SLR is the right size to carry and use. You simply don't get the same view with a compact-size camera as the viewfinder is just too small.

An SLR feels right too. The way you hold it makes for better photography. It is a combination of form and function which will remain because it works so well.

And the laws of physics dictate that you can't get a 300mm f2.8 lens that will fit into your pocket so you will never have full DOF control.

I'm not saying you can't get great results with bridge cameras, but I think SLR sized cameras will always be the choice of most serious photographers.