Picture this: The smartphone camera you have in your pocket could one day help you make Hollywood-style movies.
Sound far-fetched? Not so, say international experts. As telecommunications giant Huawei has launched its latest generation of smartphone cameras in New Zealand, many think the way we use cameras and take photos is set for even greater change in the near future.
In the UK, Daniele Faccio, professor of Quantum Technologies at the University of Glasgow, questions whether we will even need cameras 'in the conventional sense" anymore. He says smartphone cameras of the future will be able to "see through fog, inside the human body and even behind walls."
And in the US, Tim Bajarin, a California-based futurist best known for predicting the desktop publishing revolution years ahead of its time, is one who thinks it will be possible to make movies up to Hollywood standard with phones.
"I can imagine a future where adding even complex and visually rich graphics will be possible, making it easy for anyone to capture and create Hollywood-level movies on their phones," he said in a column he wrote for Time Magazine last year.
The issue has come into focus following Huawei's launch of its P20 series of smartphone cameras (there are two phones, the P20 and the P20 Pro), state-of-the-art devices giving amateur snappers the ability to easily create high-quality, professional-standard photos.
Huawei's deputy CEO in New Zealand Andrew Bowater agrees advances in technology will lead to even more revolutionary innovation in coming years.
"The technology is still evolving and no way has it reached a peak stage yet," he says. "Our research and development partnership with Leica (the German camera manufacturer) is helping us find ways to further improve mobile cameras and image quality."
In the US Bajarin, who is president of Creative Strategies Inc and sits on the technology advisory boards for companies like IBM, Compaq and Dell, says given smartphones have been around for nearly two decades, one would assume "we might be done with pushing the boundaries of what it is capable of.
"But there's still far to go," he says. "I still have to remind myself and others that the smartphone is still the next big thing.
"Over the next few years our smartphones will become even more capable, thanks in part to advancements in imaging and visual processing, but also thanks to computational advancements, cloud computing, network infrastructure and more."
He says the smartphone will keep disrupting all sorts of industries and enable tools once exclusive to professionals to become available to everyone: "We're already seeing some professional photographers do photo shoots entirely on smartphones."
In a report co-authored with Stephen McLaughlin, the head of the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University in Britain, Professor Faccio says we may not even need cameras in the conventional sense anymore.
"Computational processing will magically free us from the chains of conventional imaging techniques," he says. "Instead we will use light detectors – and they will be able to do incredible things like see through fog, inside the human body and even behind walls."
Bowater says one of the key innovations with the new P20 series is the development of a telephoto lens allowing people to shoot photos with more light, intricate detail and greater zoom.
By using artificial intelligence, the cameras automatically optimise settings: "Intelligently assisting people in taking photos, means the cameras allow anyone to produce professional-looking images.
"People these days want great images straight off the bat," he says. "They want to be able to post instantly to Facebook or Instagram, to show off a bit about what they are doing or where they are, it's what people want to do."
Bowater says the future is unlimited: "I mean the phone is how a lot of Kiwis are going to be watching the rugby world cup next year and if you'd said that back in 1987 (the year of the first world cup) we'd have said you were crazy."
Since launching the P20 series in March, Huawei has sold six million units worldwide.
# Research commissioned in the US this year by Creative Strategies shows most people take a photo on their smartphone at least once a week – up to 43 per cent doing so every day with a further 32 per cent taking a snap weekly.
The most popular kind of photo is not, as you might expect, the selfie with only 19 per cent saying they use a phone for this purpose. The most frequent subject is scenery (54 per cent) while photos of information we need (ingredients on food packaging for example) is the reason given by 50 per cent of those surveyed.
Other subjects favoured included photos of pets (43 per cent), children (37 per cent) and food (22 per cent).
Although the use of smartphone cameras continues to grow, up to 26 per cent of people say they continue to use conventional digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) or point-and-shoot kinds of cameras.