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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 cu

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.

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.