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Camera companies are stuck in some sort of car company stagnation loop it feels like, limiting themselves as pro tools. The only one approaching innovations wa

by novok 6y ago

Camera companies are stuck in some sort of car company stagnation loop it feels like, limiting themselves as pro tools. The only one approaching innovations was samsung, and they peaced out years ago. * No touch-id in the shutter button * No cell phone connectivity / android app support to instantly share your photos to insta, fb, etc & to sync as you go. * No ordering prints right in the camera * No google pixel / iOS quality level HDR & night sight modes * No GPS * No braindead obvious webcam mode * Most can't run off a usb cable indefinitely, unlike smartphones * etc

synackrst 6y ago
This is slowly changing, at least with some of the high-end consumer/prosumer Sony cameras. I'd like to see some of the other features in your list added, but Sony's past slowness to add features doesn't inspire much hope that they will be added any time soon. All of the recent (4+ years) cameras have a "share to mobile" feature, where the camera acts as an AP, and your phone connects to pull photos from it. You can either pick the photos to transfer on the camera or on the phone, and it works pretty well for posting to social media, or instantly sharing. I've run the RX100M3/M5 and a7iii off of USB power forever (a full day's worth of being a webcam via HDMI capture). You can get a battery eliminator for the older a7 models -- while it does require additional hardware and hassle, they do work, and can run off of USB. The a7iii _finally_ supports some level of geotagging by using the GPS in your phone, and using a BLE connection to get location. It's not as good as a built in GPS, but it's better than recording a track log and syncing later.
- morsch 6y ago
  There's a lot of functionality, but all of it is clunky as hell. Connecting to the camera is a PITA, the apps on the camera (at least my a6300) are slow as molasses. I updated the -- again, full featured, but clunky -- remote app earlier and had to enter my account information using the camera 4-way stick, one letter at a time, as if it's 1995. Edit -- forgot the best part: during the update, the camera locked up displaying "Updating, do not turn off". Lovely. (I turned it off -- removed the battery --, it still works.)
  - novok 6y ago
    EXACTLY. Many cameras have had PITA wifi sharing modes for over 10 years now, even eyefi existed for quite a while. It's just clunky as hell, slow and annoying that you might as well not use it. They're stuck in some stagnation loop.
- anonymousab 6y ago
  > All of the recent (4+ years) cameras have a "share to mobile" feature, where the camera acts as an AP, and your phone connects to pull photos from it. You can either pick the photos to transfer on the camera or on the phone, and it works pretty well for posting to social media, or instantly sharing. In the case of Nikon, the proprietary app for doing this was quite terrible, across all of their cameras that I tried it with. They released a firmware that opened up things up in the past year, though; better late than never. There have been brute-forced reverse-engineered alternative solutions but they have always been a pain to set up, use and maintain. I suspect the other manufacturers' apps wouldn't be much better.
deadmutex 6y ago
> No google pixel / iOS quality level HDR & night sight modes Marc Levoy (the brains behind Google's amazing Computational Photography technology), said that he had gone to the Camera companies before and they rejected his proposals. Camera companies were too afraid that someone was going to take a photo, and it would end up looking bad, and result in people returning their camera. Source: Somewhere in this excellent course shared by Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7HrM-fk_Rc&list=PL7ddpXYvFXspUN0N-gObF1GXoCA-DA-7i https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7HrM-fk_Rc&list=PL7ddpXYvFX...

by novok 6y ago

synackrst 6y ago

This is slowly changing, at least with some of the high-end consumer/prosumer Sony cameras. I'd like to see some of the other features in your list added, but Sony's past slowness to add features doesn't inspire much hope that they will be added any time soon. All of the recent (4+ years) cameras have a "share to mobile" feature, where the camera acts as an AP, and your phone connects to pull photos from it. You can either pick the photos to transfer on the camera or on the phone, and it works pretty well for posting to social media, or instantly sharing. I've run the RX100M3/M5 and a7iii off of USB power forever (a full day's worth of being a webcam via HDMI capture). You can get a battery eliminator for the older a7 models -- while it does require additional hardware and hassle, they do work, and can run off of USB. The a7iii _finally_ supports some level of geotagging by using the GPS in your phone, and using a BLE connection to get location. It's not as good as a built in GPS, but it's better than recording a track log and syncing later.

morsch 6y ago
There's a lot of functionality, but all of it is clunky as hell. Connecting to the camera is a PITA, the apps on the camera (at least my a6300) are slow as molasses. I updated the -- again, full featured, but clunky -- remote app earlier and had to enter my account information using the camera 4-way stick, one letter at a time, as if it's 1995. Edit -- forgot the best part: during the update, the camera locked up displaying "Updating, do not turn off". Lovely. (I turned it off -- removed the battery --, it still works.)
- novok 6y ago
  EXACTLY. Many cameras have had PITA wifi sharing modes for over 10 years now, even eyefi existed for quite a while. It's just clunky as hell, slow and annoying that you might as well not use it. They're stuck in some stagnation loop.
anonymousab 6y ago
> All of the recent (4+ years) cameras have a "share to mobile" feature, where the camera acts as an AP, and your phone connects to pull photos from it. You can either pick the photos to transfer on the camera or on the phone, and it works pretty well for posting to social media, or instantly sharing. In the case of Nikon, the proprietary app for doing this was quite terrible, across all of their cameras that I tried it with. They released a firmware that opened up things up in the past year, though; better late than never. There have been brute-forced reverse-engineered alternative solutions but they have always been a pain to set up, use and maintain. I suspect the other manufacturers' apps wouldn't be much better.

deadmutex 6y ago

> No google pixel / iOS quality level HDR & night sight modes Marc Levoy (the brains behind Google's amazing Computational Photography technology), said that he had gone to the Camera companies before and they rejected his proposals. Camera companies were too afraid that someone was going to take a photo, and it would end up looking bad, and result in people returning their camera. Source: Somewhere in this excellent course shared by Google: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7HrM-fk_Rc&list=PL7ddpXYvFXspUN0N-gObF1GXoCA-DA-7i https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7HrM-fk_Rc&list=PL7ddpXYvFX...