I've read articles which suggest that camera-phones will completely wipe out compact digicam sales - whether people will regard them as a phone that happens to have a camera or a camera that has the convenience of a phone as well, I can't say!

Mobile phones themselves hit that point of saturation not long ago. Before the full-spec internet-compatible phones are up and running, though, these camera-phones have helped to revive that particular market. I dare say the camera-makers will come up with some new ideas to part us from our cash when the time is right.

The market is still 'young' and there must be a lot of development out there before they settle down to just a steady, long production run of a few established models.

We've sort of hi-jacked this thread - perhaps we ought to have another new thread for anyone to speculate on what might be coming 'just around the corner!'

Yes I think that will almost happen although semi-compact digicams with more complex lenses and functions will remain. At the moment camera phones are poor cameras so we have a few years to go yet.

Leif

i think mobile phones are more likely to push live tv pictures as the next step.the boundaries for digital slr's keep shifting.mamiya has just released a 21.3m pixel medium format camera so it won't be long before canon and nikon follow with slr's.a few years from now the entry level dslr's will be around 10m pixels.if the prices keep dropping as they have it should be good news for us.the one thing that bothers me is the crazey prices we have to pay for good lenses.if only they would start to drop like the cameras.

It's bad enough trying to avoid people walking along with their phone clamped to their ear totally oblivious to what's happening - just imagine what it will be like when they're walking along squinting at a miniscule TV screen:rolleyes:

Never have I witnessed the new trend of camera phones as much as last sunday night at a New Year's do at a Chinese Restaurant... when the dragon came along, all you could see were people holding up mobile phones... just one conventional camera in sight.

And was that one yours Andy ?

ruchai - definitely the same CCD in D100, D70, D50 and D70's. Different image processing though. And I agree, the D50 makes very sweet images, with great noise and colour characteristics. If it took compact flash like every other Nikon DSLR, I'd have one straight away as a back up/manual mode all the time camera.

The D2x is in a different league. It's abilities are outstanding. I really suggest you get some hands on time with one and compare to the D200, even that great leap forward is nowhere near it. It's just so fast!

I have had a look at the D200 as a back-up and love it, I was ready to pay for it. The only reason I did not buy one is because it does not use SD card. I hate to have to buy a couple of very expensive CF cards while I already have enough SD cards. I also predict SD cards will eventually be the only card for all cameras. I suggest Nikon should use double slots in the D200. They already lost atleast 2 customers!

Double slots is a great idea. I'd like to see Nikon do that, too.

My other problem is that the D200 need to use new NikonCapture4.4. I had my 4.3 upgrated preparing for if I ever buy the D200. The upgraded NC4 had problem with RAW pictures from my D50. They work alright but when I saved the files in jpeg I hhd lousy pictures. I know Nikon will fix that but I shall only buy the D200 after Nikon fix it and maybe also some other bugs. I can wait. In digital cameras like in computers, the longer you wait the better you will get at lower price too!