With the first wave of camera announcements for the year over and more to come as we approach PMA 2009 in March, here are some digital camera trends we’re gonna see this year:

• 12 megapixels is the new “10 megapixels” and 18 megapixels will be the new “15 megapixels”. Remember all those 10 megapixel ultra-compact cameras we saw last year? Well, that’s out of fashion now and this year we’ll be seeing new 12 megapixel ultra-compact cameras… and well, I hope camera manufacturers have taken steps to keep noise levels around the same, or less (wishful thinking), as last year’s 10 MP models.
• Beauty modes – What’s the latest “gimmick feature” this year? Forget Face Detection, just about all cameras have that now… and no, Smile Detection was sooo 2008. In 2009, we have “Beauty modes” popping up on camera makers’ latest models which remove blemishes, pimples, wrinkles and the like. We’ll see how well “Beauty mode” works in real life on various cameras once I get my hands on the latest stuff.
• Intelligent auto modes – Ever picked up a camera and felt lazy to adjust shutter speed, ISO or even pick a scene mode? Well apparently “Intelligent Auto” or “Smart Auto” or whatever camera makers call them, will automatically detect the scene you’re framing and pick a mode for you. Panasonic decided to start early by having this mode on their cameras last year (and so far, Intelligent Auto on their cameras seem to work fine) before everyone else started doing the same this year.
• Easy/Simple modes can also save your life and/or your picture when your camera is in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use even the simplest of point-and-snap cameras; who may accidentally bump the controls of your camera, potentially ruining your settings for the current/next shot. Easy/Simple modes are so basic that the only thing a person can do is change the flash setting… and even then it reverts back to “Auto Flash” every time you power off the camera.
• HD movie mode will be everywhere. I’m sure more and more cameras this year will have a HD movie mode of some sort, mostly 720p (1280 x 720) at 24 or 30 FPS I anticipate, so we can all once again fill up our hard disks screens with video.

Of course, as we move through the year, there may be several “unexpected things”, aka revolutionary features, (last year it was the live view-only Panasonic G1) which I look forward to seeing as these things usually make the digital camera arena more interesting.

Related articles:

• Why the new Alpha A850, A550 and A500 DON’T have movie modes
• Canon brings out four new compact cameras
• DPI – Update for November 2009
• New Fujifilm cameras
• New Olympus cameras