It's always nice to see Dave speaking knowledgeably on a topic which he knows nothing about.<p>You'll never see an interchangeable lens camera with a cell phone in it, simply because high quality lenses have big elements, which gather lots of light. As I am sure you will be surprised to hear, big pieces of glass result in big lenses.<p>Optics is, more or less, a solved problem. We hit hard physical limits long ago. You'll never see a <i>compact</i> full frame 35mm sensor digital camera. It just can't happen.<p>Can you imagine talking into a pro DSLR? Using it as a every day carry phone? The D700 masses 995 grams, and that's just the body! Add another 500 grams for the lens; is that something you're just going to slip into a pocket? How are you going to use it, by holding it to your head by the lens barrel, then terminating a call by pressing the shutter release?<p>It's generally a good idea in consumer electronics design to not make your users look like fools. Nokia forgot this when they made the N-Gage, to their detriment.<p>(And, of course, he misspells Lumix as Lunix. That's pretty funny, though, I'll give him that.)
I trust my friends to organize an intervention if they ever find me sending them pictures of pizza joints (especially real time) or calling them "peeps".
Dave seems to have kneejerked his way into misunderstanding the ad.<p>Their sale point is "phone cameras are shit and our camera is better". They're not saying that cameras are bad if they're connected to the world. They're saying that cameras are bad if they take shit pictures.<p>Having held an HTC Hero and an iPhone, I'm here to say that they're not wrong. Those cameras <i>suck</i> as cameras.
I'm not really sure if the author is correct about what's happening. That all depends on exactly how much of Panasonic's revenue comes from selling professional quality SLR cameras versus its cheaper point-and-shoot models. Anyway, I don't think that sales of the former are in any kind of jeopardy because of cell phone cameras.
I saw this ad in SF a few days ago, and had similar thoughts.<p>The ad is specifically showing a point-and-shoot camera, not an SLR.<p>Point-And-Shoot cameras might be better than most cell phone cameras now, but I'm not convinced they are better enough to justify carrying around an extra device. For most people a cameraphone is <i>good enough</i>, and if you want better quality, the step up to a point-and-shoot isn't really worth it. If you want better quality, go for an SLR.<p>There's a saying among photographers that "The best camera is the one you have with you." I have an iPhone, a point-and-shoot, and an SLR. I can't remember the last time I took out the point-and-shoot. I use the SLR when I know I'm going to be taking a lot of photos. And I use the iPhone camera constantly.<p>I think panasonic is mistaken if they think cameraphones are a fad, or that this advertising will make people jump to using their point-and-shoots.<p>Instead, why don't they embrace the trend, and work with the phone manufacturers? Why not talk to Nokia, or HTC, and say "You guys concentrate on the phone part, leave the camera to us." Put in quality optics, and advertise the phone with "Camera by Panasonic"