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Battery life could be a concern. While using my Nikon DSLR I won't turn it off at all until I'm done for the day and that seems to barely affect the battery. I

Battery life could be a concern. While using my Nikon DSLR I won't turn it off at all until I'm done for the day and that seems to barely affect the battery. I can leave it in a drawer for months, pick it up and snap a hundred pictures and put it back in the drawer for a few more months and the battery is still fine. In fact, I'd be surprised if I charge it more than once a year (mind you, since phone cameras became good enough I have very little use for my DSLR.) I love Android (I've only had Android phones since my first smartphone), but battery efficiency is definitely not its strong suit, even on a clean install on a flagship phone.

bitexploder 9y ago
Perhaps it just needs to be a separate system completely that shares a display and storage. Separate battery. Keep the existing highly tuned photo system. Augment by having an onboard computer. I think people are missing the point of DSLR to some extent. They aren't meant for this sort of thing. If you want onboard editing, don't use a DSLR. It is meant to be very good at one thing. It doesn't /want/ you to edit photos in place. It wants you to load them up onto a secondary computing system. I like my D90 the way it is. It can sit for weeks and not need a charge, and it is an instantly responsive camera, that happens to have a computer.
ashark 9y ago
A way to connect your phone (any phone) to the camera with some kind of sync app seems like it'd be way better than putting all of freakin' Android on the camera. Phone makers can't even keep that updated and secure, plus battery life concerns, plus it's waaaay overkill for the job. Putting it on cameras is a bad idea. Add a wired or wireless sync-to-phone option, put the phone in your pocket, snap pictures, then do the editing or whatever on the phone if that's what you're into. Less work to implement that feature, more secure, easier on the hardware and the camera's battery, more future-proof.
IgorPartola 9y ago
I don't understand. A phone that's 7mm thick and the size of your hand can operate for like 16-24 hours on a charge. A 1.5 lb hunk of plastic that's nearly a cubic foot in volume can't? Maybe we need better camera batteries.
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  A lot of the "hunk" and weight in the camera comes from needing a certain amount of room for the mirror and sensor, plus a solid coupling mechanism for the lenses, plus a good amount of surface to provide comfortable grip, plus a number of slots for all kinds of connectors (for your tripod, for you external flash), etc. I'm not saying the design can't be improved, or that every empty recess couldn't be filled with extra battery capacity, but personally I find the current state of affairs (where you can just get an extra battery for $20 and throw it in your camera bag) better than a phone-like model with non-replaceable batteries.
  - IgorPartola 9y ago
    Totally agreed. My point was that making the camera 75 grams heavier by adding a little more battery capacity to run Android wouldn't make a noticeable difference to most users. I would assume some pros would want the lightest possible body, but most photographers wouldn't care that much. And worst case scenario, yeah just swap batteries.
- photojosh 9y ago
  The batteries for a typical DSLR are around the 1800 mAh hour, not that different from a phone battery. I used to get around a thousand shots out of my Canon 5D3 per battery; there's a lot of mechanical power and ~25GB of processed data going into that usage. That could be either over 2-3 hours (event coverage) or over days (landscapes). So DSLR battery life isn't really measured in hours. I don't think the batteries need to be better, particularly since you can install a grip to let you have 2 in the camera at once, and it only takes a second to swap them. That said, adding a separate Android subsystem (that doesn't always have an LTE radio on) shouldn't add too much drain. You could easily get 4-5 hours of screen-on time to use for photo editing and processing.
panopticon 9y ago
> I love Android (I've only had Android phones since my first smartphone), but battery efficiency is definitely not its strong suit, even on a clean install on a flagship phone. Except your DSLR (probably) isn't trying to drive a 6" 570ppi display with a bunch of always-on wireless hardware constantly being used. That 3" 270ppi on my D5300 is consuming almost nothing by comparison, and my camera is also very aggressive at turning the screen off. It's like when people reminisce about battery lives in their old Nokia phones and forget that they didn't stare at the screen for 5 hours a day surfing Facebook. As long as the camera manufacturer limits some background services and continues doing the same aggressive display management, it should be fine. Until the day Nikon lets you install Facebook on your camera, that is...
matwood 9y ago
> While using my Nikon DSLR I won't turn it off at all until I'm done for the day and that seems to barely affect the battery. FYI, for the most part Nikon DSLRs are always 'off' until you hit the shutter or some other button. The on/off switch just disables all the buttons so you don't accidentally hit anything. This is why people measure DSLR battery life in shots taken, not time with the camera on.

bitexploder 9y ago

Perhaps it just needs to be a separate system completely that shares a display and storage. Separate battery. Keep the existing highly tuned photo system. Augment by having an onboard computer. I think people are missing the point of DSLR to some extent. They aren't meant for this sort of thing. If you want onboard editing, don't use a DSLR. It is meant to be very good at one thing. It doesn't /want/ you to edit photos in place. It wants you to load them up onto a secondary computing system. I like my D90 the way it is. It can sit for weeks and not need a charge, and it is an instantly responsive camera, that happens to have a computer.

ashark 9y ago

A way to connect your phone (any phone) to the camera with some kind of sync app seems like it'd be way better than putting all of freakin' Android on the camera. Phone makers can't even keep that updated and secure, plus battery life concerns, plus it's waaaay overkill for the job. Putting it on cameras is a bad idea. Add a wired or wireless sync-to-phone option, put the phone in your pocket, snap pictures, then do the editing or whatever on the phone if that's what you're into. Less work to implement that feature, more secure, easier on the hardware and the camera's battery, more future-proof.

IgorPartola 9y ago

I don't understand. A phone that's 7mm thick and the size of your hand can operate for like 16-24 hours on a charge. A 1.5 lb hunk of plastic that's nearly a cubic foot in volume can't? Maybe we need better camera batteries.

dguaraglia 9y ago
A lot of the "hunk" and weight in the camera comes from needing a certain amount of room for the mirror and sensor, plus a solid coupling mechanism for the lenses, plus a good amount of surface to provide comfortable grip, plus a number of slots for all kinds of connectors (for your tripod, for you external flash), etc. I'm not saying the design can't be improved, or that every empty recess couldn't be filled with extra battery capacity, but personally I find the current state of affairs (where you can just get an extra battery for $20 and throw it in your camera bag) better than a phone-like model with non-replaceable batteries.
- IgorPartola 9y ago
  Totally agreed. My point was that making the camera 75 grams heavier by adding a little more battery capacity to run Android wouldn't make a noticeable difference to most users. I would assume some pros would want the lightest possible body, but most photographers wouldn't care that much. And worst case scenario, yeah just swap batteries.
photojosh 9y ago
The batteries for a typical DSLR are around the 1800 mAh hour, not that different from a phone battery. I used to get around a thousand shots out of my Canon 5D3 per battery; there's a lot of mechanical power and ~25GB of processed data going into that usage. That could be either over 2-3 hours (event coverage) or over days (landscapes). So DSLR battery life isn't really measured in hours. I don't think the batteries need to be better, particularly since you can install a grip to let you have 2 in the camera at once, and it only takes a second to swap them. That said, adding a separate Android subsystem (that doesn't always have an LTE radio on) shouldn't add too much drain. You could easily get 4-5 hours of screen-on time to use for photo editing and processing.

panopticon 9y ago

> I love Android (I've only had Android phones since my first smartphone), but battery efficiency is definitely not its strong suit, even on a clean install on a flagship phone. Except your DSLR (probably) isn't trying to drive a 6" 570ppi display with a bunch of always-on wireless hardware constantly being used. That 3" 270ppi on my D5300 is consuming almost nothing by comparison, and my camera is also very aggressive at turning the screen off. It's like when people reminisce about battery lives in their old Nokia phones and forget that they didn't stare at the screen for 5 hours a day surfing Facebook. As long as the camera manufacturer limits some background services and continues doing the same aggressive display management, it should be fine. Until the day Nikon lets you install Facebook on your camera, that is...

matwood 9y ago

> While using my Nikon DSLR I won't turn it off at all until I'm done for the day and that seems to barely affect the battery. FYI, for the most part Nikon DSLRs are always 'off' until you hit the shutter or some other button. The on/off switch just disables all the buttons so you don't accidentally hit anything. This is why people measure DSLR battery life in shots taken, not time with the camera on.