Also, there's the astonishing collapse of the film camera market. By some tallies, 92 percent of all cameras sold are now digital. Big-name camera companies are either exiting the film camera business ( Kodak, Nikon) or exiting the camera business altogether (Konica Minolta). Film photography is rapidly becoming a special-interest niche.
So, what's in hold for the future?
ABANDONING THE FILM LOOK
Now that consumers are comfortable with going all digital, camera companies no longer feel compelled to mimic the size, shape and features of film cameras. Today's cameras embrace their electronic nature, taking on more radical looks and talents.
You can see it in Kodak's startling-looking V570 camera, which has two built-in lenses, each with its own sensor (a nonzooming wide-angle lens and a 3X zoom lens). You also see it in Sony's sleek hinged M2 slab, which has so little resemblance to a camera, you have to explain it to people. Canon has displayed prototypes with clear acrylic bodies, giving you a transparent look into the guts.
IMAGE STABILIZERSThe hot trend for 2006 is image stabilization. This feature, available in a flood of new camera models, improves your photos' clarity by ironing out your little hand jiggles.
This feature is an enormous help in three situations: When you're zoomed in all the way (which magnifies jitters), in low light (meaning that the shutter stays open a long time, increasing the likelihood of blurring), and when your camera doesn't have an eyepiece viewfinder (forcing you to hold the camera at arm's length, decreasing stability).
CAMCORDER TENDENCIES
Only two years ago, still cameras and video cameras were each terrible at doing the other's job. Today, camcorders still take crummy photos, but digital still cameras take increasingly high-quality movies. Almost all current models can record video that fills a standard TV screen (640 by 480 pixels) with TV-quality smoothness (30 frames per second).
Canon, in particular, is pushing the envelope here. Its PowerShot S80 can capture movies larger than TV size (1,024 by 768 pixels), for better viewing on high-definition screens and computer monitors; meanwhile, several cameras in its SD and A series can film at 60 frames per second. That's twice the smoothness of TV, and a great help when analyzing your golf swing or tennis serve. Canon's S2 IS can even film and snap stills simultaneously, thanks to separate shutter and start-stop buttons. Kodak, Samsung, Canon and Olympus offer cameras that can zoom and refocus while you're filming. Unfortunately, on most models, the grinding noise of the zoom lens motor drowns out your audio track, but progress is being made here, too. Samsung says that the zoom on its Digimax i6 camera, arriving in stores later this month, works silently in movie mode.
WIRELESS
The P1 from Nikon and Elph SD430 from Canon both offer Wi-Fi wireless networking. Unfortunately, the only thing those cameras can do is transfer your pictures wirelessly to a computer or printer; they don't connect to the Internet.
The EasyShare-One from Kodak, however, can send your photos by e-mail or post them on a free Kodak Web page — or even go the opposite direction, summoning photos from your online stash to the camera's screen on demand.
SMARTER SOFTWAREA typical digicam takes at least two years to go from the drawing board to the store shelves. Many of the cameras you'll buy in 2007 and 2008, in other words, have already been designed.