If you have you eye on one of the newer micro cameras with high end features, you’d best buy it now. Market research firm IDC predicts that over the course of the coming year, many of the newer cameras will disappear as makers consolidate models and boil them down to only what sells. “It’s crowded, and it’s getting crowdeder,” IDC analyst Ron Glaz said of the digital camera market. “We’re anticipating that with the slowdown in economy and disposable income, we’ll start seeing consolidation of the vendors.”

The recent trend towards including high-end features like face recognition technology, image stabilization, or an extra megapixel or two, is an attempt to boost market share of an increasingly crowded digital marketplace. With the downturn in the economy and the difficulty in selling the complex features of high end photography to point and shoot customers, lots of makers and lots of models are likely to vanish in fairly short order.