A year from now we all will look back on this thread and wonder how woefully shortsighted we were. Or how stupidly farsighted we were to ever think that THAT could actually happen.

Anyhow, here are the first of my predictions. Feel free to jump in with yours.

1. Lens-less cameras will either be on the market or hints will be flying in the blog-o-spheres. Sorry, lens makers, get your research folks working on those logarithms now if they aren't already.

2. The remaining film and chemical based school darkrooms will shut off their safe lights for good. 

3. Kodachrome processing technology will return from the dead. Some entrepreneur will buy rights and equipment to continue the processing for another few years.

4. Micro stock photography will enjoy an upswing in sales due to the current upswing in the economy and the outsourcing of more image resources.

Upswing in the economy?  

That would be absolutely lovely!!

Great idea for a thread Lou!  Your predictions all sound very likely to me!

I am hesitant to make predictions because the big stuff that happens is always something I never imagined...  I'll give it a go, though,

I suspect that there will be more consolidation in the microstock market.  More closures of smaller sites that have been struggling for the past year or two.  

Probably Istock will be sold off in 2011.  Whether to a company that will further mismanage and gut it, or to a company with a longer-term view, that will improve conditions for contributors and buyers, I don't know.  I certainly hope the latter.

Most likely we will see the flood of new submitters slow down, and those current submitters that have not found the success they expected (both pros and amateurs) will begin to drop out.   Acceptance standards will continue to get tougher, and that will contribute to the slow of submissions as well.  

I doubt the industry could withstand another bout of commission cuts, so I will cautiously predict that commissions will stay where they are.  

"Most likely we will see the flood of new submitters slow down, and those current submitters that have not found the success they expected (both pros and amateurs) will begin to drop out.   Acceptance standards will continue to get tougher, and that will contribute to the slow of submissions as well".  


What do I know, I'm only new to this game, but this prediction from Lisafx makes sense to me. I can only think though that it will be a good thing for those that stick with the program and meet the challenges.  

As to predictions - what will we do with all those same-same (or nearly so) factory images when design tastes change as they often do.  Think back to how images in adverts appears 10-20-30 years ago.  It seems to me that the vast majority of today's top selling images are very contemporary. What is the next "fad look" in design?  

Don't forget that curved image sensors that mimic the human eye are right around the corner. That one's going to be a game-changer for sure!

Tell us more?

1. Lens-less cameras will either be on the market or hints will be flying in the blog-o-spheres. Sorry, lens makers, get your research folks working on those logarithms now if they aren't already.

get your pinhole cameras now! it's the future : >

.... the current upswing in the economy...

vote for me in 2011! my porgram:

- free beer
- hot chicks(dudes) for everyone
- eternal life

Quote from: louoates on December 28, 2010, 10:26

1. Lens-less cameras will either be on the market or hints will be flying in the blog-o-spheres. Sorry, lens makers, get your research folks working on those logarithms now if they aren't already.

get your pinhole cameras now! it's the future : >

Quote from: louoates on December 28, 2010, 10:26

.... the current upswing in the economy...

vote for me in 2011! my porgram:

- free beer
- hot chicks(dudes) for everyone
- eternal life

I'd sign up for "eternal life", I can get the rest of the stuff by myself.

Quote from: lisafx on December 28, 2010, 16:14

Quote from: bizair on December 28, 2010, 14:47

Think back to how images in adverts appears 10-20-30 years ago.  It seems to me that the vast majority of today's top selling images are very contemporary. What is the next "fad look" in design?  

Whoever figures out that one is gonna get very rich!  

3D Photography?!?   Oh gawd, I hope not!

You may want that to read, 3D photography, yet again.

Stereoscopes were pre-1900, there was something with two moving images before that, where the jumping back and forth, created the impression of depth, But before I go too far off. Then there was the fun with Viewmasters, red/blue 3D and the cameras from White that had two lenses shooting half frame with parallax, so it would look like depth in the viewer. All basically the same principles.

Along came polarized (more for the popular, it was already around) and the Nimslo prints with a small set of lenses built into the plastic surface of the print, for apparent depth. I think some more 3D glasses.

Now we are looking at 3D TVs with special glasses, computers had them years ago. And for photography? People are still mounting two cameras and taking two images which we view and get the apparent depth. Some different color schemes from comic books and 3D movies of the 50s, but the physics is the same...

Curved sensor. Interesting. So the hope not will be fine as far as I'm concerned, we'll see whatever new fad version, come and enter the marketplace, with some acceptance, but until there's something simple and universal, it's not going to take over for plain old flat images.

I feel the same way about video on the web. Some sites are trying to cram it down our throats. Oh wow, I wan watch a video, instead of reading. But I want to read details and facts, not some slick clip with a superficial cover, that takes bandwidth, computer power, time to sit and stare while I listen, instead of an article that's kind of solid. But maybe that's just me? We've had music video for about 30 years now and people still listen on headsets, not watch and listen on video glasses. I don't know why I can listen to a song over and over and enjoy it, even some old music, but watching videos doesn't do it for me? Is there something let to the imagination, that gets obscured by people smashing things in a junk heap, or dressing odd, just to be odd, that's all a distraction from the meal, which is the music.

3D? I'm not so sure it's the wave of the future, but more a changing tide which comes and goes, while the ocean is much larger.

Prediction? Or just hope?

The Mfg. will figure that at some point the digital images and megapixel wars have reached their limits. What we will get is a nice image size with sharper, smaller pixels, not bigger and bigger images, that are absurdly large right now, for the average person. Heck a really good, larger sensor in a P&S at 8MP will produce much better images, than the tiny pinky finger size sensors. It's about time the cameras stopped trying to market something imaginary to consumers and start selling a proper size sensor.

Anyone remember disc film or APS. How about 124 - 128 and what was that 110 cartridge thing? All of them smaller sizes, trying to make something small, equal to something large. It's easy enough with the technology that camera makers have now to make a big difference in quality, simply by replacing the crappy little sensors they are now selling in pocket cameras.

What about a prediction that sometime during 2011 "Istock will go an entire month without finding yet another way to screw it's contributors or customers and the search engine will actually work as intended"?

LMAO!!! ...BEST PREDICTION YET!

In the second quarter of 2011, in a joint venture Ebay and Google will buy Dreamstime for $110 million and SS/BigStock for $180 million. The DT/SS/BigStock sites will be combined into one. So contributors will only have to submit each image once, to be reviewed only once.
 
In the new site, customers will pay for single images using Paypal microtransactions, no more credits. The search engine will be Google's image search, which will direct users to the stock site and not to IS or the other competitors. And the search engine will have ads. Stock video will be sold on Youtube.

The savings from economies of scale, and the reduced costs of reviewing, plus the added revenue from Google ads will allow the site to pay contributors twice as much as we are earning now.

Otherwise, not much will change.

1. Lens-less cameras will either be on the market or hints will be flying in the blog-o-spheres. Sorry, lens makers, get your research folks working on those logarithms now if they aren't already.

Unlikely.  A far more likely possibility will be the further adoption of hybrid still/video cameras like the RED which just started delivering the long-awaited RED Epic which shoots video at nearly 5x HD resolution and each frame can be extracted as a 14mp still image.  The modular system has various lens mounts including Canon and Nikon. It is still costly at around $30,000 but it virtually replaces 35mm cinema camera that can cost upwards of $250,000.  RED is behind on delivering the RED Scarlet which might cost as little as $10,000 which puts it in the range of a D3X and substantially less than medium format digital backs. 

Given that most microstock outlets already have a video component, it is not a stretch to believe that hybrid cameras will influence shooters vastly more than lens-less cameras in the next few years.

In the second quarter of 2011, in a joint venture Ebay and Google will buy Dreamstime for $110 million and SS/BigStock for $180 million. The DT/SS/BigStock sites will be combined into one. So contributors will only have to submit each image once, to be reviewed only once.
 
In the new site, customers will pay for single images using Paypal microtransactions, no more credits. The search engine will be Google's image search, which will direct users to the stock site and not to IS or the other competitors. And the search engine will have ads. Stock video will be sold on Youtube.

The savings from economies of scale, and the reduced costs of reviewing, plus the added revenue from Google ads will allow the site to pay contributors twice as much as we are earning now.

Otherwise, not much will change.

Sounds good to me! Hope it comes true.

As I am sure that everyone is waiting with bated breath to hear my predictions    I feel obligated to let you know ... I have none.   

LOL!  At least that way you'll never be wrong

In the second quarter of 2011, in a joint venture Ebay and Google will buy Dreamstime for $110 million and SS/BigStock for $180 million. The DT/SS/BigStock sites will be combined into one. So contributors will only have to submit each image once, to be reviewed only once.
 
In the new site, customers will pay for single images using Paypal microtransactions, no more credits. The search engine will be Google's image search, which will direct users to the stock site and not to IS or the other competitors. And the search engine will have ads. Stock video will be sold on Youtube.

The savings from economies of scale, and the reduced costs of reviewing, plus the added revenue from Google ads will allow the site to pay contributors twice as much as we are earning now.

Otherwise, not much will change.

wow!! If only it would be true someday!!!!