4 ms·

It's not dissimilar to back in the pre-digital camera era... most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, and then we all had th

It's not dissimilar to back in the pre-digital camera era... most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, and then we all had that nerdy uncle or friend who was really into cameras and willing to spend the money on a real 35mm SLR or rangefinder or whatever. Phones have taken the place of the old point and shoots. That doesn't mean that manufacturers of pro-sumer interchangeable lens cameras couldn't do a better job with software, though...

kwhitefoot 2y ago
> most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, No they weren't. There just weren't any other options that were as affordable or convenient. A kilo of SLR does not compete in the same space as a Kodak Instamatic.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  You just repeated my point. It's a different market segment and always was. Phones are now sitting in that segment of casual photography. And are "affordable" and convenient. Those of us who are nerdy about pictures, go and buy a mirrorless. But that's always going to be a small and different segment. This may not last forever. Phones are becoming less "cool" to people. They might come around again to carrying multiple specialized devices.
  - schrijver 2y ago
    I’d say there are three groups: A) casual photography for capturing memories B) casual but with a desire to take better quality pictures C) enthusiastic amateurs and pros. Now only C will buy a dedicated camera. But in the late 0’s and the 2010’s, segment B did too—lots of people bought DSLRs to get better quality pictures — often sticking to the kit lens and not getting all geeky about photography… just putting everything on automatic would still offer much better quality than a compact camera or a phone camera. As phone cameras got better, people in this market segment switched to phones — they might just care more about the type of camera on the phone than the most casual of users do. Consequently camera sales have plummeted: https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digital-singe-lens-reflex-cameras-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digi...
    - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
      I think B is going to slowly come back. It's already happening among some youths with the retro-digicam phase. The ergonomics of photos-by-phone suck, and the novelty of phones as a status symbol has worn off. The first company to really "get" the integration of point and shoot cameras into the mobile ecosystem properly will win big. Fuji is already selling boatloads of X100Vs, and there's the Ricoh GR3, etc as well. There's a trend for ergonomic nice high end fixed lens cameras. And for kicks go on eBay and look up the prices of used old Canon PowerShots. Have a nice condition pink one in a drawer you can make some coin. From worthless e-waste to $300 status symbol...
  - kwhitefoot 2y ago
    I was making a different point. That is, that you can't truly say that people are happy with something when there is no practical alternative.
hef19898 2y ago
What software exactly are modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras missing? I know, picking at software is a favorite past time on HN, but most of the time it is missing the point. Examples for this include: ERP systems, embeded and or safety relevant software, software in highly regulated markets or sectors. And, it seems, cameras. Computational photography is all fine, on an iPhone.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  The most glaring is just good integration with phones and cloud services. From what I've seen, none of the systems that offer WiFi/Bluetooth integration are actually any good. In terms of computational photography... I think they're fine... a lot of things can be done in post-processing, which is fine, and there's been amazing advances in autofocus and stabilization.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    Eh. Shuffling pictures from my G9x MkII to my Android phone is pretty simple enough. I do wish the data transfer speeds were faster, but it is still stupid simple to pair to the phone. From there I can see the photos and choose which to download. Or I can select them on my camera and send them to my phone or laptop. I've often taken the camera with me on a trip with some friends and shuffled the photos into group chats the next time I had a few minutes of downtime. The camera which is several years old at this point already has some good video stabilization. The AF is backed with good hardware, its pretty good and can even do face detection. Its far faster and more accurate than my much newer Pixel. I wouldn't really care to do much post processing on the camera itself other than the basic filters and affects it can already do, as the interface is pretty small so it is hard to get details. If I'm really going to do some post-processing I'll be pushing it to my desktop with a large monitor so I can really see what I'm doing. But honestly if I'm going to work at it on my desktop I'll more likely just pull out the SD card and stick it in the computer and get far faster transfer speeds. About the only feature I'd personally like would just be some kind of direct camera integration with Google Photos/OneDrive/iCloud/OwnCloud/whatever, have it just start syncing photos the moment it detects its online. That and good built-in GPS support. Apart from that I don't really know what else I'd do with more "smart" connectivity. I bought a camera like this because I wanted to manually adjust things instead of having some AI model twist and warp the photo into whatever the training data suggests looks good.

kwhitefoot 2y ago

> most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, No they weren't. There just weren't any other options that were as affordable or convenient. A kilo of SLR does not compete in the same space as a Kodak Instamatic.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
You just repeated my point. It's a different market segment and always was. Phones are now sitting in that segment of casual photography. And are "affordable" and convenient. Those of us who are nerdy about pictures, go and buy a mirrorless. But that's always going to be a small and different segment. This may not last forever. Phones are becoming less "cool" to people. They might come around again to carrying multiple specialized devices.
- schrijver 2y ago
  I’d say there are three groups: A) casual photography for capturing memories B) casual but with a desire to take better quality pictures C) enthusiastic amateurs and pros. Now only C will buy a dedicated camera. But in the late 0’s and the 2010’s, segment B did too—lots of people bought DSLRs to get better quality pictures — often sticking to the kit lens and not getting all geeky about photography… just putting everything on automatic would still offer much better quality than a compact camera or a phone camera. As phone cameras got better, people in this market segment switched to phones — they might just care more about the type of camera on the phone than the most casual of users do. Consequently camera sales have plummeted: https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digital-singe-lens-reflex-cameras-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/799526/shipments-of-digi...
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    I think B is going to slowly come back. It's already happening among some youths with the retro-digicam phase. The ergonomics of photos-by-phone suck, and the novelty of phones as a status symbol has worn off. The first company to really "get" the integration of point and shoot cameras into the mobile ecosystem properly will win big. Fuji is already selling boatloads of X100Vs, and there's the Ricoh GR3, etc as well. There's a trend for ergonomic nice high end fixed lens cameras. And for kicks go on eBay and look up the prices of used old Canon PowerShots. Have a nice condition pink one in a drawer you can make some coin. From worthless e-waste to $300 status symbol...
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  I was making a different point. That is, that you can't truly say that people are happy with something when there is no practical alternative.

hef19898 2y ago

What software exactly are modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras missing? I know, picking at software is a favorite past time on HN, but most of the time it is missing the point. Examples for this include: ERP systems, embeded and or safety relevant software, software in highly regulated markets or sectors. And, it seems, cameras. Computational photography is all fine, on an iPhone.

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
The most glaring is just good integration with phones and cloud services. From what I've seen, none of the systems that offer WiFi/Bluetooth integration are actually any good. In terms of computational photography... I think they're fine... a lot of things can be done in post-processing, which is fine, and there's been amazing advances in autofocus and stabilization.
- vel0city 2y ago
  Eh. Shuffling pictures from my G9x MkII to my Android phone is pretty simple enough. I do wish the data transfer speeds were faster, but it is still stupid simple to pair to the phone. From there I can see the photos and choose which to download. Or I can select them on my camera and send them to my phone or laptop. I've often taken the camera with me on a trip with some friends and shuffled the photos into group chats the next time I had a few minutes of downtime. The camera which is several years old at this point already has some good video stabilization. The AF is backed with good hardware, its pretty good and can even do face detection. Its far faster and more accurate than my much newer Pixel. I wouldn't really care to do much post processing on the camera itself other than the basic filters and affects it can already do, as the interface is pretty small so it is hard to get details. If I'm really going to do some post-processing I'll be pushing it to my desktop with a large monitor so I can really see what I'm doing. But honestly if I'm going to work at it on my desktop I'll more likely just pull out the SD card and stick it in the computer and get far faster transfer speeds. About the only feature I'd personally like would just be some kind of direct camera integration with Google Photos/OneDrive/iCloud/OwnCloud/whatever, have it just start syncing photos the moment it detects its online. That and good built-in GPS support. Apart from that I don't really know what else I'd do with more "smart" connectivity. I bought a camera like this because I wanted to manually adjust things instead of having some AI model twist and warp the photo into whatever the training data suggests looks good.