Most of the hardware shortcomings are simple. For instance, there is very little to prevent every digital camera from having a phone jack and all that that implies (a few cameras do have one). Optical viewfinders that take-in all that the lens and sensor see are sadly lacking. (Don't make fun of anyone using an even older technology – a black cloth over their head and camera – in order to use the LCD on the back of their camera effectively in daylight.) Lenses with rings for focus, zoom and aperture adjustment are not rocket-science, so why is that technology only available on elaborate, high-end, SLRs?

This leads to a more obtuse gripe: The photo equipment market has proven time after time that photographers will pay more for the privilege of owning hardware that does less, when it does it very very well. View cameras continue to be developed and sold in profitable numbers. The same can be said for manually operated rangefinder 35s. (New manual rangefinder 35mm models are being introduced from several companies that had stopped making them decades ago.) Where are the digital versions?

Scanning backs for medium format cameras have enough pixels right now to satisfy the tonal depth and range as well as the detail needed for full frame 4 x 5 view camera use; the tri-linear arrays simply need to be made a few millimeters longer. A digital version of the classic manual rangefinder 35 (or 6 x 9 camera) would require little R&D outlay and the cameras could be produced more cost-effectively than the film versions, because the digital version would not require such a sturdy frame to be accurate and durable. (The movement of film through the camera – the transport and alignment – is iffy unless it's rock-solid.)

We now have digital SLRs that can replace the elaborate ones that use 35mm film, after an enormous distracting strain on the industry to produce them. There will be more, with minor variations. The most profitable volume-market for film cameras has been for the point-and-shoot variety. So, the digital version of the point-and-shoot has gotten all of the industry attention. You can just about take it for granted that there will be two new ones (or more) next week. Again: With minor variations. All are expected to be all things to all people.

Aside from the cameras, why can't we have a 4 x 5 x 1 inch computer (with no keyboard), with which to pore over and process our pictures out in the field? Palm-tops are too small and lo-res, and notebook computers are unnecessarily large. (The Sony Picturebook and the latest Apple iBooks come close. Cameras with optical viewfinders to virtual desktop-sized microdisplays would make this moot.) There are promising technologies that go beyond the excellence we already have in printing (permanency still being the only failure) and video displays, and a lot of healthy hard work is being done to bring them home. In the mean time, there is not enough news for weekly reports on this, accept among the developers themselves.

And then there are the photographs that should be what this technology is all about (rather than, say, photo-gear fetish). Every innovation in film cameras and pre-digital printing has been followed by at least one significant advance in the art of photography. Some advances in the art have actually pushed technical innovation in that same film-photography realm. It's safe to say that the most magnificent tools that have ever been given to photographers – almost immediate gratification, almost unlimited manipulation and almost unlimited "sharing" (digital cameras; Photoshop and its pretenders; the internet) – have not led to masses of new and significant art storming the art establishment.

In many cases, the art of photography has been advanced by photojournalists who have taken the new technology into their hearts in ways that would shame the art-cognoscenti, if they recognized that this is happening. There is simply a huge gap here (along with many small ones), that could easily be bridged by people with the imagination and will to do so. (Commercial photographers are just quietly changing-over to digital technology.)

All of the technical limits to what photography can be are basically gone, but the gaps in the art remain. There are plenty of fundamental and important things about life that either haven't been photographed or the photographs haven't been seen by many people, and there is little technical reason why they shouldn't. If I could report on significant weekly advances in the world of web-photo-galleries, this would sustain my inspiration for a lifetime.

The one classic phenomenon from life in general that is going on in digital photography is that the more we are able to do exactly what we want, harmlessly, the less we do liberating things. It's as if everyone in the digital photography industry (or the larger info-tech industry) is saying, "Let's get caught-up in revising the same elaboration over and over again, so that we don't have to face the demands that freedom might bring down on us."

So let's have some fun; shoot some pictures; tell a few stories; embarrass some clever people; be naive enough to know (ironically) that naiveté is often just what we need to do the tricks.

Kenny Mann