With the megapixel war coming to an end, Ross Allen, current consultant and former manager of the Colour Imaging and Printing Technologies Department at HP Labs, says research and development on digital cameras is now focusing on value-added functions.
Allen, who holds a PhD and holds 25 US patents, spoke to ITWeb during a recent visit to SA.
With it becoming harder to distinguish between the quality of images taken by digital cameras, HP is looking to fix the things that make the digital camera tricky to use, Allen says.
"There is a move to focus on improving the secondary things like the exposure capabilities of the camera and decreasing the shutter delay," says Allen.
"We are also reaching the limits of optical resolution by reaching the fraction and defraction limits of the image sensor. So to improve the quality of the image, ultimately we need a larger piece of silicon to make larger pixels."
"But this opens the door to bigger cameras and huge image files. What do you do with a 25 megabyte file? A five to seven megapixel camera is more than enough for the average consumer," he adds.
With the number of pixels in the consumer digital cameras increasing, 'noise` is also becoming more evident, says Allen.
Noise is the granular effect that is sometimes seen in a digital image, especially under low light conditions.
Video is also becoming an essential addition to the digital camera. "With the capability of bringing sound and motion together, video is going to be a big factor in the digital camera market," says Allen.
HP is currently working on a new function called the 'background` mode, says Allen.
He explains that in taking a digital picture the camera has to determine things like white balance and exposure, but with the background mode the camera will continually read the external conditions, says Allen.
This will decrease the shutter delay - a factor that currently irks digital camera users, he adds.
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