I’ve had this conversation before with my colleagues at Canon and Nikon. Both companies are interested in our thoughts and expectations for new equipment, and I’m thrilled they’re listening. I’m excited to see what Canon will unleash with the next 5D variant. Hopefully it will have a video option and an external mic port (the fatal flaw with the D90 is the absence of a mic port) plus a clean file at 6400 iso for dark courtrooms and night sports.

What kind of options would you include? I think an iPhone-esque touchscreen instead of the traditional (and newer VGA) LCD could be a possibility. Think about reviewing your photos with finger movements or changing settings on the fly instead of navigating multiple menus. You could enter captions and tag files for wireless transmitting. A manual lock keeps your nose from changing settings when looking through the viewfinder.

How much video in a DSLR do we need? Full HD? Web-size only?  What’s the intended application? Is the video a sign of future integration or just a tech fad?

With declining budgets in the newsroom, will we be able to continue buying the highest end camera bodies? I think a weather-sealed 5D is the perfect application for a news photographer. It costs less and you can always keep some 1D Mark III (or whatever comes after that) cameras around for sports apps. Full-frame is important (to me), and a sweet spot 12-14 megapixels is perfect for spot news enlargements. For pure flexibility, let’s condense all of the variety RAW formats into one (think DNG) format for an easy workflow. On any day I’ll deal with CR2 and NEF files, and it becomes tiresome to switch back and forth from converters.

So, I’m genuinely interested in your feedback. Be aware that friends from the “big two” are readers of uncommons (thank you!) and open to suggestions. What would make your “perfect camera?”