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What does the future hold? It’s a question that’s been pondered by philosophers, scientists, and dreamers through the ages. But accurately predicting the future is no easy task and, in fact, it’s been a fool’s errand for many. Take, for instance, the photo industry. It may be hard to believe, but just a little over a decade ago, there were still some major manufacturers banking on film to lead them through the years of digital disruption.

And…how’d that work out for them?

We all know the answer: it was an unmitigated disaster that bankrupt companies and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. Truthfully, a street corner soothsayer could’ve predicted as much.

I recently returned from the massive photokina international imaging show in Cologne, Germany and while what I saw there was interesting; it didn’t exactly inspire confidence for the future of the photo industry. Yes, there were a ton of product announcements at photokina, including everything from new digital SLRs, to compact cameras, to lenses, software, bags, and a boatload of accessories. There actually seemed to be more new gear debuting at photokina 2014 than I’d witnessed at the last three incarnations of this biennial show.

Much of the technology was exciting – Panasonic had a particularly good demo of how easy it was to pull high-resolution still photos from 4K video footage – but some of the “fresh” gear announced at photokina had a slightly moldy scent to it. Don’t get me wrong: I like the look and feel of retro-style photo gear as much as the next photographer but removing the LCD screen from the back of a digital camera and replacing it with a dial – as Leica did with its M Edition 60 rangefinder – is not the type of “innovation” I was hoping for at the show. In a similar vein, the big two (Nikon and Canon) used photokina to introduce relatively incremental follow-up models to DSLRs that came out over half a decade ago.

Ok, maybe I’m being a bit harsh. Shutterbug readers certainly seemed psyched to read about all the new gear, with record numbers visiting our website (www.Shutterbug.com) during the show and offering their opinions (mostly positive) about the latest cameras and accessories on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/shutterbugmag. And while many of these new products might have throwback designs, inside they’re packed with decidedly modern technology, with 4K video and wireless connectivity being the current “must have” features.

If there’s a lesson to all this, it’s just as you have to keep expanding your creativity as a photographer, the photo industry needs to quit looking to the past for inspiration or its latest “classic” cameras could soon end up gathering dust with all those old rolls of unexposed film.