It’s no secret that smartphones have decimated the sales of DSLRs, but standalone camera hardware could be taking another major step toward obsolescence relatively soon. That’s according to Terushi Shimizu, President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS), who spoke during a business briefing and said that the company expects still images from smartphones to “exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras within the next few years.” Slides shared during the briefing include additional forecasts from Sony, such as still images being able to exceed ILC (interchangeable lens camera) image quality as early as 2024. “Quantum saturation,” improvements to AI processing, and increased sensor sizes are just a few of the factors that Sony has attributed to the improvements that are expected in smartphone camera technology in the years ahead.
“We expect that still images will exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras within the next few years.” Terushi Shimizu, President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS), gives this outlook for smartphone-equipped cameras. It is said that this will be achieved by combining the trend of accelerating larger apertures for smartphones with the high saturation signal amount technology. According to the material presented at the same time as this remark, “Still images exceed the image quality of single-lens reflex cameras” in 2012, so the standard for exceeding single-lens reflex cameras is considered to be 24 years.