5 ms·

"The market" didn't decide. There are maybe five major camera companies (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic), and a few minor ones (Fuji, Pentax, Casio,

by blagie 2y ago

"The market" didn't decide. There are maybe five major camera companies (Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus, and Panasonic), and a few minor ones (Fuji, Pentax, Casio, Sigma). No one tried. Everyone wants proprietary lock-in. No one wants to open up. It's very much like the pre-iPhone phone market. It's not that no one wanted an iPhone, but that before Apple, no one was willing to try making one. As a result, the camera market is all but dead: https://www.canonwatch.com/here-is-what-happened-to-the-camera-industry-in-the-last-two-years/ https://www.canonwatch.com/here-is-what-happened-to-the-came... My phone works better for most purposes (holistically) than my full-frame camera. At this point, no one has money to make the kind of investment needed to revive it, and an open model is unlikely to see the light of day. 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. My main camera is from 2012, and not worth upgrading. Curiously, lenses keep progressing at a slow but steady clip. Sigma just announced an f/1.8 full frame 28-45mm zoom lens.

thih9 2y ago
> No one tried. There were many attempts, some listed in other comments[1][2]. > 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. Depending on the type of photography that you do, there were significant improvements[3]. Not to mention mirrorless replacing DSLRs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 [3]: https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-versus-cameras-10-years-ago-649909 https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-vers...
- cyberax 2y ago
  No, there really were not. NX was the only one, Yongnuo is not available globally and Sony made only one half-assed attempt. Even the basic GPS tagging is not available on most cameras. You have to run some crapp on your phone and hope that Bluetooth works.
  - thih9 2y ago
    I also recall Zeiss ZX1. There was a Nikon Coolpix S800c. Another comment mentioned RED cameras. With what you listed, that’s already a handful of products that flopped - I’m not surprised manufacturers aren’t eager to continue this way. Interestingly, Android was originally meant to be a camera OS, until they pivoted because mobile phones were a larger market[1]. [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cameras-1111795/ https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cam...
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > Zeiss ZX1 For a cool $10k? Not going to be popular in any case, as are the RED cameras. These are all pro-level cameras. > Nikon Coolpix S800c A useless toy, that happened to have a just barely better image quality than built-in phone cameras at that time. If you try to find mirrorless cameras with Android, with a reasonable price ($1k-$3k), then there's only NX. Nobody else even tried that seriously. NX was great, I had it for a while (it was stolen). It suffered from Gen1 diseases, that could have been fixed. But _nothing_ comes close in usability ever since. I have Sony Alpha, and it's UI/UX is just shit. I don't use it at all anymore, I don't want to spend time categorizing and manually geotagging its photos.
      - thih9 2y ago
        But that’s my point. There were pro level and entry level devices, as well as something in between like the NX. Camera manufacturers tried, people just didn’t like it and chose smartphones.
        cyberax 2y ago
        > as well as something in between like the NX There was ONLY the NX. There were _no_ other mid-level Android cameras. And Galaxy NX was produced by Samsung, which is not known for their cameras. So there was a grand total of ONE model of mid-level Android cameras. And it was fairly successful, but never got any improvements. > people just didn’t like it and chose smartphones. Most people haven't heard about Android cameras and never had a chance to try them.
- blagie 2y ago
  > There were many attempts, some listed in other comments[1][2]. No, these were not such attempts. A touchscreen camera is NOT what I want. The point isn't to make it phone-friendly or phone-like, but to make it open. Knobs and buttons are good. The Olympus AIR and Sony QX series cameras would be awesome if they came with open APIs so I could program them. They came with proprietary Sony / Olympus kludges which ran on smartphones. The Olympus AIR is officially dead; the app is no longer maintained, and doesn't work on modern phones. Olympus was actually starting to try (in contrast to Sony), and released things like 3d CAD models, but the product was discontinued before it was finished. Tossing Android on a camera is not the same as an open camera. An open camera would allow me to: 1) Write apps for it, taking advantage of what it can do. 2) Make accessories for it. This includes an open mount standard (of which MFT is the only one; I have the spec for the asking), an open hotshoe standard, open batteries, etc. I'd be able to do things like super-resolution, custom white balance, custom autofocus systems, custom grids (rule-of-thirds / etc), and so on. I'd be able to program a handful of them to all have the same white balance, settings, and trigger, so I could shoot from five angles at once. I'd be able to use them for machine vision applications or video conferencing, for the coding. For power zoom lenses, I'd be able to eliminate focus breathing by adjusting focus and zoom together. I could make a panorama app, a focus stacking app, or an app which did smart image stacking for low light. I could toss on a machine learning algorithm on it, and have a custom shutter control so it decided when to shoot. I could use IBIS to track the stars for night photography. That's what an open camera would consist of. NOT a touch screen, Android, and connections to Instagram and Youtube. > Not to mention mirrorless replacing DSLRs. I was shooting mirrorless long before that. Indeed, 10 years ago, you could buy a Sony A7R. Go to DPReview, and compare high ISO images from the A7R versus a top-of-the-line $6000 A9III and tell me which one is better. Or compare them on DxOMark. 10 years buys us: - Higher video resolution - Better autofocus - Instead of obscenely fast shooting speed, we now have incredulously fast shooting speed Unfortunately, the images aren't noticeably better, though. 120fps is kind of useless (unless you want to spend your life sorting through images; that's over 7000 images for a minute of shooting). Some models do give more resolution (notably, not the A9III in this comparison; the A7R had more), but that's only usable under bizarre conditions (even shooting 24MP, with an f/1.4 lens, if one eye was in focus, the other eye would be limited by DoF and not the sensor). Plus, a 4k monitor tops out at 8MP. I will mention: If cameras used the same kind of smarts as a Google Pixel Pro, the images would be much better.
akira2501 2y ago
> no one was willing to try making one. Yea and the abysmal experience with the iPhone 1, 2 and 3 showed precisely why. > No one wants to open up. The first iPhone was only available on a single cellular carrier in the US. > no one has money to make the kind of investment needed to revive it, It's not the lack of money. It's the lack of expected ROI.
mananaysiempre 2y ago
Olympus exited the business, sadly. I don’t know if they were slimming down after the “accounting scandal” aka exposed corporate fraud or something else, but I’m a bit disappointed, what with my almost ten-year-old Olympus μ4/3 body (that was an attempt at an open standard, by the way, and IIRC even Fuji participated before they decided to go it alone). On the other hand, as you say, sensor-wise it’s not really significantly worse than what I can buy today.
- wluu 2y ago
  It's now "OM Digital Solutions", and is mostly owned by a Japanese private equity firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OM_Digital_Solutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OM_Digital_Solutions
  - LegitShady 2y ago
    Somehow I missed this. Although I'm currently a canon shooter I first started on Olympus gear. Tbh it was fine for a beginner but the image quality wasn't competitive with canon or Nikon.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  OM Systems owns the old Olympus IP and makes cameras, though so far they're mostly just minor improvements of existing Olympus models. We'll see if they bring out a new camera this year. But the OM-1 MK II is actually a pretty compelling camera for bird photography, some excellent autofocus / bird-detection features. And weather proofed. M43 also lives on fine in Panasonic's lineup. Logitech just released a M43-mount $1000 live streaming cam ("Mevo Cam"). And like you say, the standard is open. I don't think it will die. The compactness of the lenses and their relatively lower price makes a lot of sense esp for new entrants (see "Alice Camera" etc).
Forgeties79 2y ago
>2024 models aren’t much better than 2014 models Just the leaps in ISO we’ve seen absolutely makes this statement untrue, something smart phones absolutely are way far behind on.
- blagie 2y ago
  What leaps in ISO? A7S went ISO 50 - 409,600. That's early 2015. MSRP was $2500. That's the same as $6300 EOS R1, double the $5400 Nikon X6III, 8x the $1500 Lumix S9, 8x the $4300 R5 Mark II, and 8x the $6000 Sony S9. Those are the most recently reviewed cameras on DPReview. Per DxOMark, like-for-like, we're up maybe 30% in a decade for typical cameras. You won't see that in a photo.

by blagie 2y ago

thih9 2y ago

> No one tried. There were many attempts, some listed in other comments[1][2]. > 2024 models aren't much better than 2014 models. Depending on the type of photography that you do, there were significant improvements[3]. Not to mention mirrorless replacing DSLRs. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970059 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40970490 [3]: https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-versus-cameras-10-years-ago-649909 https://fstoppers.com/gear/decade-evolution-cameras-now-vers...

cyberax 2y ago
No, there really were not. NX was the only one, Yongnuo is not available globally and Sony made only one half-assed attempt. Even the basic GPS tagging is not available on most cameras. You have to run some crapp on your phone and hope that Bluetooth works.
- thih9 2y ago
  I also recall Zeiss ZX1. There was a Nikon Coolpix S800c. Another comment mentioned RED cameras. With what you listed, that’s already a handful of products that flopped - I’m not surprised manufacturers aren’t eager to continue this way. Interestingly, Android was originally meant to be a camera OS, until they pivoted because mobile phones were a larger market[1]. [1]: https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cameras-1111795/ https://www.androidauthority.com/android-history-digital-cam...
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > Zeiss ZX1 For a cool $10k? Not going to be popular in any case, as are the RED cameras. These are all pro-level cameras. > Nikon Coolpix S800c A useless toy, that happened to have a just barely better image quality than built-in phone cameras at that time. If you try to find mirrorless cameras with Android, with a reasonable price ($1k-$3k), then there's only NX. Nobody else even tried that seriously. NX was great, I had it for a while (it was stolen). It suffered from Gen1 diseases, that could have been fixed. But _nothing_ comes close in usability ever since. I have Sony Alpha, and it's UI/UX is just shit. I don't use it at all anymore, I don't want to spend time categorizing and manually geotagging its photos.
    - thih9 2y ago
      But that’s my point. There were pro level and entry level devices, as well as something in between like the NX. Camera manufacturers tried, people just didn’t like it and chose smartphones.
      - cyberax 2y ago
        > as well as something in between like the NX There was ONLY the NX. There were _no_ other mid-level Android cameras. And Galaxy NX was produced by Samsung, which is not known for their cameras. So there was a grand total of ONE model of mid-level Android cameras. And it was fairly successful, but never got any improvements. > people just didn’t like it and chose smartphones. Most people haven't heard about Android cameras and never had a chance to try them.
blagie 2y ago
> There were many attempts, some listed in other comments[1][2]. No, these were not such attempts. A touchscreen camera is NOT what I want. The point isn't to make it phone-friendly or phone-like, but to make it open. Knobs and buttons are good. The Olympus AIR and Sony QX series cameras would be awesome if they came with open APIs so I could program them. They came with proprietary Sony / Olympus kludges which ran on smartphones. The Olympus AIR is officially dead; the app is no longer maintained, and doesn't work on modern phones. Olympus was actually starting to try (in contrast to Sony), and released things like 3d CAD models, but the product was discontinued before it was finished. Tossing Android on a camera is not the same as an open camera. An open camera would allow me to: 1) Write apps for it, taking advantage of what it can do. 2) Make accessories for it. This includes an open mount standard (of which MFT is the only one; I have the spec for the asking), an open hotshoe standard, open batteries, etc. I'd be able to do things like super-resolution, custom white balance, custom autofocus systems, custom grids (rule-of-thirds / etc), and so on. I'd be able to program a handful of them to all have the same white balance, settings, and trigger, so I could shoot from five angles at once. I'd be able to use them for machine vision applications or video conferencing, for the coding. For power zoom lenses, I'd be able to eliminate focus breathing by adjusting focus and zoom together. I could make a panorama app, a focus stacking app, or an app which did smart image stacking for low light. I could toss on a machine learning algorithm on it, and have a custom shutter control so it decided when to shoot. I could use IBIS to track the stars for night photography. That's what an open camera would consist of. NOT a touch screen, Android, and connections to Instagram and Youtube. > Not to mention mirrorless replacing DSLRs. I was shooting mirrorless long before that. Indeed, 10 years ago, you could buy a Sony A7R. Go to DPReview, and compare high ISO images from the A7R versus a top-of-the-line $6000 A9III and tell me which one is better. Or compare them on DxOMark. 10 years buys us: - Higher video resolution - Better autofocus - Instead of obscenely fast shooting speed, we now have incredulously fast shooting speed Unfortunately, the images aren't noticeably better, though. 120fps is kind of useless (unless you want to spend your life sorting through images; that's over 7000 images for a minute of shooting). Some models do give more resolution (notably, not the A9III in this comparison; the A7R had more), but that's only usable under bizarre conditions (even shooting 24MP, with an f/1.4 lens, if one eye was in focus, the other eye would be limited by DoF and not the sensor). Plus, a 4k monitor tops out at 8MP. I will mention: If cameras used the same kind of smarts as a Google Pixel Pro, the images would be much better.

akira2501 2y ago

> no one was willing to try making one. Yea and the abysmal experience with the iPhone 1, 2 and 3 showed precisely why. > No one wants to open up. The first iPhone was only available on a single cellular carrier in the US. > no one has money to make the kind of investment needed to revive it, It's not the lack of money. It's the lack of expected ROI.

mananaysiempre 2y ago

Olympus exited the business, sadly. I don’t know if they were slimming down after the “accounting scandal” aka exposed corporate fraud or something else, but I’m a bit disappointed, what with my almost ten-year-old Olympus μ4/3 body (that was an attempt at an open standard, by the way, and IIRC even Fuji participated before they decided to go it alone). On the other hand, as you say, sensor-wise it’s not really significantly worse than what I can buy today.

wluu 2y ago
It's now "OM Digital Solutions", and is mostly owned by a Japanese private equity firm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OM_Digital_Solutions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OM_Digital_Solutions
- LegitShady 2y ago
  Somehow I missed this. Although I'm currently a canon shooter I first started on Olympus gear. Tbh it was fine for a beginner but the image quality wasn't competitive with canon or Nikon.
cmrdporcupine 2y ago
OM Systems owns the old Olympus IP and makes cameras, though so far they're mostly just minor improvements of existing Olympus models. We'll see if they bring out a new camera this year. But the OM-1 MK II is actually a pretty compelling camera for bird photography, some excellent autofocus / bird-detection features. And weather proofed. M43 also lives on fine in Panasonic's lineup. Logitech just released a M43-mount $1000 live streaming cam ("Mevo Cam"). And like you say, the standard is open. I don't think it will die. The compactness of the lenses and their relatively lower price makes a lot of sense esp for new entrants (see "Alice Camera" etc).

Forgeties79 2y ago

>2024 models aren’t much better than 2014 models Just the leaps in ISO we’ve seen absolutely makes this statement untrue, something smart phones absolutely are way far behind on.

blagie 2y ago
What leaps in ISO? A7S went ISO 50 - 409,600. That's early 2015. MSRP was $2500. That's the same as $6300 EOS R1, double the $5400 Nikon X6III, 8x the $1500 Lumix S9, 8x the $4300 R5 Mark II, and 8x the $6000 Sony S9. Those are the most recently reviewed cameras on DPReview. Per DxOMark, like-for-like, we're up maybe 30% in a decade for typical cameras. You won't see that in a photo.