would you love more than one af zone? like zillions all over the sensor?:thumbup:
Absolutely. Provided that the control system is well implemented, the more focus points the better. Better than that would be a camera you don't need to focus (retroactive selection of focus a la Lytro). Better yet would be a camera you don't need to position or light (retroactive selection of point-of-view and lighting via real-time multi-camera photogrammetry). Better even still would be a camera that doesn't require the subject to actually exist (holodeck).
But I also personally prefer to look through an OVF or WLF rather than an EVF; I own an Fuji XH1 and X-Pro 1 and while the XH1 is better on paper (i.e. the spec sheet) I still greatly prefer to shoot with the X-Pro 1 since it has a rangefinder window (a full optical view finder would be better yet, but of course that's impossible with a mirrorless camera). So if you gave me the choice between an SLR with one focus point and an EVF with a billion I would still choose the SLR for most of what I shoot, but I have no expectation that my personal preferences and priorities extrapolate to any one else. Maybe one day I'll find the experience of shooting with an EVF to be as pleasant, tactile, organic, natural, and engaging as an OVF, but that's not my experience today. So even if there were viable Lytro-esque systems or holodecks I wouldn't find them enjoyable to use to create images!
I object to the thought process that as soon as one camera has a particular feature that any camera without that particular feature is an ancient dinosaur or is useless. It's a feature, to be weighed by each photographer alongside the other pros and cons of each system. For some it will be extremely important, for others it will be of almost no value (or negative value if it adds weight/size to the system or has other cons). Extrapolating your own needs and wants and priorities onto the broader market is always a dangerous thing to do, especially when talking about niche parts of the market. Most of the people for whom great IBIS is so incredibly important that they couldn't consider a camera without it, would probably be better served by one of the cameras like the OM series that (because they have a physically smaller, less heavy sensor, and several generations of improvement) are best-in-class when it comes to IBIS.
So again, IBIS and multi-point AF are both useful and desirable features. I only object to the idea that any camera that doesn't have them is doomed or useless or a dinosaur.
Over the last several years one of the camera types that has seen the most growth amongst my clients and friends is film bodies like the Mamiya RZ, Mamiya 7, and Leica M (film models). Many of these bodies don't even have autofocus, let alone features like IBIS. I guess you can call them "dinosaurs" but if someone likes shooting them and it works in the shooting scenarios they need it to work in: they should saddle up those dinosaurs and ride!
----
[note this paragraph is more about predicting the long-term future and being an amateur futurist than about today or the near-future] On a relatively unrelated noted: I actually think IBIS is a temporary/transitory technology. I suspect in another decade no cameras will have it because they will be using a combination of computational photography and higher ISO. If you can produce a great image at ISO 1 million, and if you can get a 1000fps realtime readout of each pixel then physically stabilizing the lens or sensor does not add value; couple that the downside of having moving parts (mirrors, shutters, stabilizers) and I think that at some point they just go away. None of this limits its utility or desirability today (or for many years to come); it has both utility and desirability today (and for years to come); I only mention it because I enjoy thinking about the long-term future of photographic art and commerce. As with any prediction, I won't be surprised if I'm wrong. The key to being a futurist is to predict things sufficiently far into the future that when they don't happen, nobody remembers you were wrong. Heck, with a sufficiently long time-scale Human Beings are probably a transitory technology
. For fun here is an article I wrote a decade ago:
The Virtual Future of Still Images.