Are there color wars on the horizon? Let’s hope so!
posted Friday, December 18, 2015 at 6:07 PM EDT
We've experienced (and still experience, although perhaps to a lesser degree) the megapixel wars. The high ISO wars have been going on for a while as well. We're seeing more manufacturers boast about the dynamic range of their sensors, too. But what about the color wars, is that a possibility in the future?
Editor-in-chief of The Phoblographer, Chris Gampat, argues that, yes, it's possible that colors will receive more attention in the future. Many photographer's love the colors they get from Fujifilm's cameras (such as our intermediate mirrorless camera of distinction, the Fujifilm X-T10) and Sigma camera sensors' offer unique color technology, but colors have not been a talking point or area of great progress with digital cameras.
Chris asks us to consider an image's white balance, which "can go from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other." He wants to know, "why can't this be done at the pixel level?" What if a pixel on your camera's sensor could actually move across the entire color spectrum rather than be just one color?
Imagine the possibilities. Chris uses the example of a concert photographer who doesn't want their final image to have the bright red lighting of the venue. What if there were a simple way (sorry blending, you're not quite simple enough) to have "complete and total creative freedom" over the colors in a scene? Portrait photographers would better be able to handle color casting, landscape photographers would be able to easily enhance or even change the colors in a scene, and much more.
We have plenty of megapixels, high ISO performance is very impressive with many new cameras (the Sony A7S II is a great example of how far sensor technology and high ISO performance has come), dynamic range continues to improve, but there is certainly room to grow with how individual pixels are utilized on sensors. The next big thing in camera technology is surely just beyond the horizon and if it starts a color war, we'll all benefit.
(Seen via The Phoblographer)