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I wonder where film cameras might have been by now

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Given all of the technology that's available now, I wonder where film SLR cameras might have gone if there were still a market. I was thinking about this today as I wandered the countryside with my trusty old Minolta X-700 in hand.

Metering would have improved: I'd love to have a film camera with the option of a modern matrix meter. Perhaps a host of information could be encoded on the film, an evolution of the IR devices that burned the date into the visible part of the frames decades ago. All of the electronics would be vastly more capable, accurate, and robust. Programmable features would exist. And in support of all of those, internal and external displays would be improved by leaps and bounds. Gone would be the discrete LED's in the viewfinder and little window-based features on the outside. There could be e-ink displays on the back that could present a wealth of information while saving battery strength over an LCD. After all, what purpose and LCD on the rear without a sensor inside to capture and relay the image.

I guess we'll never know. It's fun to think about.