Camera Phones to Make DSLRs Obsolete?

May 18, 2010

Maybe the most laughable thing I’ve read lately is that a top executive at Nokia thinks that camera phones will make Digital SLR’s obsolete.

“Pointing at a professional photographer in the room, Vanjoki said, ‘There will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses.’” (Source)

They could eventually replace point and shoot cameras because they work on a fixed lens and don’t have a lot of shutter, aperture and ISO control. But a SLR camera works the way it does because of the interchangeable lens system and the level of control that it brings. Shooting a subject at 3 feet requires different optics than a subject at 500 feet.

Even if you could fake a range like that on a fixed lens, it’s not going to be of the same quality as an interchangeable lens because of the size restrictions on the optics alone. Everything would have to be done in digital, and that’s absurd because the first thing you should do with the digital zoom feature on your camera is turn it off — it’s simply a sly way to get you to crop your photo.

I’ve mocked up a quick product image of the phone that COULD replace a DSLR camera. We’ll consider it a prototype model. =)

My take on the phone that could make a DSLR obsolete