Heresy! (1 Viewer)

[Torchepot]

About twenty years ago I saw an interview with the CEO of Kodak in which he stated that film was doomed and that it would be entirely replaced by digital technology within a matter of years.
I wasn't best pleased as I'd just blown all my savings on a very expensive Canon slr kit. Looking at the fledgling digital cameras available at that time it was also hard to believe.
Despite his forecast and Kodak's huge resources they were still too slow to react and though they saw the train coming just couldn't get off the tracks.

Looking forward it's conceivable (at least to me) that at some point in time binoculars as we know them will be obsolete. The technological tidal wave will sweep them away.

There doesn't seem to be much immediate danger of this happening - Sony have had a couple of stabs at digital binoculars and while the latest ones get O.K. reviews they are no competition to current mid range bins - let alone alphas. But much of the technology to produce a serious competitor is already out there in one form or another.

Once somebody produces products with a significant enough advantage over conventional optics people will start to use them. But it will have to be a BIG advance.

I feel like this is the "Golden Age" of optics but realistically how much better can they get? As binoculars and scopes approach "perfection" each improvement becomes more marginal.

A breakthrough digital device would obviously have to be comparable optically but could take field optics into a new realm. For example how about binoculars with a zoom range from say 6x to 20x with rock solid stabilization, superior low light performance and the capability to record in 4k or whatever replaces it.

Canon, Nikon and Sony are probably best placed to produce the "ultra optics" but seem to have bigger fish to fry, and their offerings so far have been short of the mark for one reason or other. I wonder if the design teams at Swarovski and Zeiss are looking at stuff like this - surely they must be?

Of course it could be that technology takes a different path completely - maybe some kind of wearable technology?

It's kind of inevitable really - just thinking of the security and defence markets and how night vision is progressing. Just hope I'm still around to try it! (But I'd still hang on to my alphas as backup!)

One aspect of digital technology that I'm not entirely comfortable with is the fact that when an optical device is replaced with a digital device - i.e. screen or viewfinder - I feel like I'm not really seeing the subject, I'm really just looking at a tiny TV and with the increasing use of remote viewing I don't really need to be there at all.

How long before you program your birding drone to just go out and find stuff for you?

Somebody stop me before I get really carried away!

Cheers,

Phil

 

[james holdsworth]

Same ideas expressed here.....

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=273175&highlight=the+end+traditional+binocular

 

[Torchepot]

Thanks James - missed that thread somehow, there's a lot of really interesting stuff there. You could of let me down more gently - I was enjoying myself there for all of ten minutes! 8-P

 

[WJC]

About twenty years ago I saw an interview with the CEO of Kodak in which he stated that film was doomed and that it would be entirely replaced by digital technology within a matter of years.
I wasn't best pleased as I'd just blown all my savings on a very expensive Canon slr kit. Looking at the fledgling digital cameras available at that time it was also hard to believe.
Despite his forecast and Kodak's huge resources they were still too slow to react and though they saw the train coming just couldn't get off the tracks.

Looking forward it's conceivable (at least to me) that at some point in time binoculars as we know them will be obsolete. The technological tidal wave will sweep them away.

There doesn't seem to be much immediate danger of this happening - Sony have had a couple of stabs at digital binoculars and while the latest ones get O.K. reviews they are no competition to current mid range bins - let alone alphas. But much of the technology to produce a serious competitor is already out there in one form or another.

Once somebody produces products with a significant enough advantage over conventional optics people will start to use them. But it will have to be a BIG advance.

I feel like this is the "Golden Age" of optics but realistically how much better can they get? As binoculars and scopes approach "perfection" each improvement becomes more marginal.

A breakthrough digital device would obviously have to be comparable optically but could take field optics into a new realm. For example how about binoculars with a zoom range from say 6x to 20x with rock solid stabilization, superior low light performance and the capability to record in 4k or whatever replaces it.

Canon, Nikon and Sony are probably best placed to produce the "ultra optics" but seem to have bigger fish to fry, and their offerings so far have been short of the mark for one reason or other. I wonder if the design teams at Swarovski and Zeiss are looking at stuff like this - surely they must be?

Of course it could be that technology takes a different path completely - maybe some kind of wearable technology?

It's kind of inevitable really - just thinking of the security and defence markets and how night vision is progressing. Just hope I'm still around to try it! (But I'd still hang on to my alphas as backup!)

One aspect of digital technology that I'm not entirely comfortable with is the fact that when an optical device is replaced with a digital device - i.e. screen or viewfinder - I feel like I'm not really seeing the subject, I'm really just looking at a tiny TV and with the increasing use of remote viewing I don't really need to be there at all.

How long before you program your birding drone to just go out and find stuff for you?

Somebody stop me before I get really carried away!

Cheers,

Phil

Kodak was at the forefront of shooting itself in the foot. The problem is much bigger than we choose to think.

Written from an American perspective, the PDF attached is 1/3rd an article I wrote 3 years before the economy collapsed. It could apply to other nations just as easily.

Bill

 

[OPTIC_NUT]

Film, at the state is was taken to, is still superior,
but people could not care less. Kodachrome died
with middle-class leisure time and income. Size, convenience, and price won, big time.

People rarely use high-fidelity recordings or equipment, either.
Same reasons, plus it makes no sense to go hifi when you are
walking outside or on a train or in a car.

Kodak did make itself quite a competitor at one point in digital.
Competition is brutal. I'm not sure an early lead and quality would
have saved them from the sharp-but-hazy Canons. Fuji has even deeper
richer contrast but people wouldn't pay the extra quality increment.
Polaroid was far more out to lunch.

 

[oetzi]

Written from an American perspective, the PDF attached is 1/3rd an article I wrote 3 years before the economy collapsed. It could apply to other nations just as easily.

Bill

Interesting article, it definitly applies to all developed nations.
For me, questions arise on how a process like this happened.

Everyone is victim and perpetrator. Short-time savings due to consumer goods getting cheaper are welcome, but who looks a bit into the future and shuns away from it?

Cheap goods are in parts a by-product of cheap labour. You cant have one without the other. The first world feeds on the third. The immigrant, whose base of living at home was destroyed by economic/political/military influence is only a scapegoat.

The powers in charge (politicians and economic leaders) deny any responsibility ("its progress") or concentrate on the advantages only.

The electorate (if it ever does vote or be politically thinking and active) follows him, who screams the loudest and offers the simpliest solutions. And, of course, the ever-lasting promise of being able to stuff onself with everyxthing one craves

Any community is dependend on the solidarity of its members.
Solidarity in the weak not to be crushed from the strong. Weak both in a physical sense (old, sick, no money for the doctor, so what?) and in terms of wealth (too poor to buy food? Bad luck!)

Likewise with taxes. I know, thats the devils deeds for many, but a community runs on taxes to fund its services to all people. if some funds are misguided, this doesnt mean that the concept of taxes is wrong). So if the thinking goes "I want my family to lack nothing, my neighbourhood to have a good infrastructure, my home state to be strong, bugger everyone else", then the downward spiral is already happening.

Over here we have a saying, "profits are private, expenses are public". Thats the everyday part of Ghandi´s “The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed”.

(ok, I admit, I am a bit on tzhe neagtive side at the moment. Its time to have some time off in the woods)

 

[brocknroller]

According to Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize, which awarded $10 million to Burt Rotan for making SpaceShipOne the first rocket plane to go up into space and return twice in two weeks (and is now driving "Back to the Moon" technology including the Penn State Lunar Lion Project, the first university-led mission to the Moon), the inventor the digital camera approached Kodak and offered to sell the camera to the company for $10,000.

They passed, because they said we are a film company, we not only make cameras, but we make the film for the cameras and the chemicals for developing film, so we'd be putting ourselves out of business if we starting making digital cameras. As it turns out, NOT buying the digital camera is what almost put them out of business and why they declared bankruptcy. Reminds me of the way Leica fell behind with digital technology and lost $9 million one year.

Here's Diamandis' talk on TED. One part is about how companies that did not adopt new technology went out of business.

Brock

 

[WJC]

According to Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize, which awarded $10 million to Burt Rotan for making SpaceShipOne the first rocket plane to go up into space and return twice in two weeks (and is now driving "Back to the Moon" technology including the Penn State Lunar Lion Project, the first university-led mission to the Moon), the inventor the digital camera approached Kodak and offered to sell the camera to the company for $10,000.

They passed, because they said we are a film company, we not only make cameras, but we make the film for the cameras and the chemicals for developing film, so we'd be putting ourselves out of business if we starting making digital cameras. As it turns out, NOT buying the digital camera is what almost put them out of business and why they declared bankruptcy. Reminds me of the way Leica fell behind with digital technology and lost $9 million one year.

Here's Diamandis' talk on TED. One part is about how companies that did not adopt new technology went out of business.

Brock

The head of Smith-Corona once said (paraphrased):

“I don’t care what computers do. We have always made typewriters, we make the best typewriters, and we will keep on making them!” Slamming his hand on the podium, he got a roaring round of applause from the stockholders.

Six months later … the company was history!

Still, who is going to feed the hard-working and talented people who don’t fit into the S.T.E.M. mold. Are they of no value to society?

Bye: Rembrandt, Hemmingway, J. Lennon, Poe, Twain, Scruggs, Jimmy Stewart, and tens of thousands others who walk in similar shoes. How does that make the world better?

Every nation that passes on PRODUCING things with their hands ends up working for those who didn’t. Do I want technological development to cease? No way! But, if we are too slow of thought to develop a better way to approach the matter, one day only the academic elite will be left to worry about “global warming.” :cat:

Bill

 

[pete_gamby]

Until the military decides they want to spend the dolllars to get an eye-limited resolution digital optical system (which they haven't so far), a "traditional" optic is going to be here for a looooonnng time. The boutique developers don't have the cash to do it on their own, their OEM customers also don't and the users won't ask for it because they want the "real view", albeit magnified.

Image stabilisation might become more commonplace - Kamakura has developed a system that looks interesting but, IMO, is waiting for an application.

A 20+ megapixel, <0.5 inch diagonal, 100%+ sRGB gamut, zero motion/image processing lag, 100 hour battery life microdisplay is not on anyone's roadmap as far as I know

Wouldn't wanna bet it won't happen, but there need to be a lot of ducks lined up for it to start happening!

Pete

 

[typo]

Pete,

Do you recognise this one?
http://www.gofoto.se/magnipro-10x25-ais-mono-p-4853.aspx

David

 

[WJC]

Until the military decides they want to spend the dolllars to get an eye-limited resolution digital optical system (which they haven't so far), a "traditional" optic is going to be here for a looooonnng time. The boutique developers don't have the cash to do it on their own, their OEM customers also don't and the users won't ask for it because they want the "real view", albeit magnified.

Image stabilisation might become more commonplace - Kamakura has developed a system that looks interesting but, IMO, is waiting for an application.

A 20+ megapixel, <0.5 inch diagonal, 100%+ sRGB gamut, zero motion/image processing lag, 100 hour battery life microdisplay is not on anyone's roadmap as far as I know

Wouldn't wanna bet it won't happen, but there need to be a lot of ducks lined up for it to start happening!

Pete

Hi-Def TV is so crisp you can see the pores in the actor's faces. Now, a system revealed at the SHOT Show purports to have FOUR TIMES THAT RESOLUTION!

Wow, another exercise in futility. But it's typical of today's mindset, in which glitter is more important than substance. If they develop that technology in a binocular--great! But, in a TV.

Bill

 

[pete_gamby]

Yeah, but can you see the pus in the pores? And without compression artefacts from the digital transmission? And without decode timelag?

Like you say Bill, sounds great on paper/press release but the "reality" is not reality

Pete

P.S. SHOT was veerrry slow to show - 4k has been around for years - NHK in Japan had this stuff waaaay back when!

P.P.S. 4k is not enough in a binocular - you need at least 2/5x more pixels

 

[Binastro]

2/5x more pixels.

We will probably be there in five years time, maybe sooner.

 

[OPTIC_NUT]

I suspect that when digital takes over binoculars,
it won't be at the 'better' end, it will be at the
'more convenient' end. That's the path for cameras.
There are great digital cameras, but sales are dominated by
tiny-lensed phone sensors with dust and grub on them.
That market has slashed sales on normal digital cameras.

Prepare ye for the binocuphone.

 

[Torchepot]

8k is already here, I believe the BBC and NHK recorded the London Olympics on 8k with cameras developed by NHK. I don't think there is an evf available yet that even approaches HD and this seems to me to be a major hurdle. If you are viewing a 4k screen then obviously it's not a binocular. Panasonic has a 4k consumer camera which does most of the things that "ultra HD" binoculars would need to do but viewfinder development lags behind the rest of the technology. With digital binoculars as I understand them you would be basically watching a live video on two tiny screens, you can watch a live 4k video with no time lag with the Panasonic (and record it at the same time).

 

[ceasar]

Yeah, but can you see the pus in the pores? And without compression artefacts from the digital transmission? And without decode timelag?

Like you say Bill, sounds great on paper/press release but the "reality" is not reality

Pete

P.S. SHOT was veerrry slow to show - 4k has been around for years - NHK in Japan had this stuff waaaay back when!

P.P.S. 4k is not enough in a binocular - you need at least 2/5x more pixels

Re: Digital binoculars with any amount of pixels.

I'm not interested in seeing what a machine sees and interprets for me to see.

There are probably many people who see this the way I do.

Bob

 

[elkcub]

Re: Digital binoculars with any amount of pixels.

I'm not interested in seeing what a machine sees and interprets for me to see.

There are probably many people who see this the way I do.

Bob

Yup, and I don't want to buy any more batteries either !!! :C

 

[ceasar]

Yup, and I don't want to buy any more batteries either !!! :C

Go Green! Go Analog!:t:

Analog Bob

 

[Torchepot]

Thinking about it - it seems that scopes are more likely to become casualties of technology before binoculars, cameras with huge zooms are commonplace now and a 4k superzoom will be a serious threat to even the best scopes.
Birders will always look to lighten the load in the field and replacing a scope with a camera makes some sense. Replacing the scope eyepiece with a ultra high res screen gets round the evf problem too.

 

[OPTIC_NUT]

Yup, and I don't want to buy any more batteries either !!! :C

Ah....but batteries only scratch the surface, Mon Ami.
I tried to establish a collection of transistor radios, but unfortunately,
the electrolytic capacitors start to rot after a year or so without voltage,
so most old radios are "dead", without massive replacement surgery.

And how is this relevant to digital binoculars?
Capacitor-rot has not been solved, so there will be digital cameras,
and digital binoculars, rotting and dieing.

I restore 100-yr-old and 70-yr-old and 40-yr-old optics by cleaning
and re-greasing. Electronics are far more ephemeral.

Glass and metal are forever!

(that also means the past 15 yrs of glued-rubber and moldings
are highly suspect)