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There have been a few different attempts that look like this. Samsung Nx, Samsung Galaxy Camera, Sony has tried phone add on accessories. Basically they all sor

There have been a few different attempts that look like this. Samsung Nx, Samsung Galaxy Camera, Sony has tried phone add on accessories. Basically they all sort of flop in the market. People that don’t want to think about their photos use a smartphone. People that want to think about their photos still want a camera that they can control. I use a mirrorless Nikon camera and to take a single picture I normally want physical controls that can handle exposure, focus, zoom level and shutter release independently, but simultaneously without having to remove my attention from the image. The ability to do all that with physical, not menu controls, is a tremendous asset for most people that want to spend the money on a camera. If you slapped the latest technology inside a camera that didn’t have all the physical controls, photographers wouldn’t want anything to do with it. I wouldn’t say that camera design is stuck in the 80s, either. The form factor is necessarily constrained by needing a tubular lens projecting in front of a flat imaging plane. The photographer is going to want to view the image from the opposite side as the lens. There’s only so much you can change the form factor with those constraints. Camera companies do have a few retro models, but even stodgy old Leica is making modern designs these days. If you take tens of thousands of photos per year, you sort of realize that all cameras have more or less the same interface and form factor as they have for a while because it is what works best.

_0xdd 2y ago
I would add that Zeiss (ZX1) and Leica (T typ 701, TL2) tried this modern touch-first approach at a premium and both products weren't exactly hits. The Zeiss was even running Android with Lightroom preinstalled.
- cyberax 2y ago
  I mean... It's a camera that was retailing for $6k without lenses. It's already a niche market, and a pretty conservative one.
m463 2y ago
I agree. Maybe the breakdown is between: 1) taking a picture 2) doing something with the picture People coming to photography from smartphones want the priorities reversed. But the deeper you get into it, the more you want #1 and the more control you want over #1. The worst is #2 getting in the way of the shot. And actually, lots of people into photography think it is about the camera, but it is really about the lenses. You buy lenses, then buy/upgrade bodies around them.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I want my camera to just take a photo at whatever the sensor can do, and give me that file. Too many photo-taking devices are now like "lemme just AI that for you, and give it to you at a quarter of the resolution of the sensor." I don't think Samsung phones even let third-party apps access the full sensor any longer, all are crippled, IIRC.
cyberax 2y ago
> There have been a few different attempts that look like this. Samsung Nx, Samsung Galaxy Camera, Sony has tried phone add on accessories. Basically they all sort of flop in the market. There was exactly ONE attempt. One. And it was pretty successful, at that: Samsung NX1. I had it, it was pretty good, but with a first-gen teething issues. Phone add-on accessories don't work because they're clumsy and connectivity just sucks. And ultra-professional $6k cameras from Zeiss miss the mark entirely, you need to target a prosumer market (i.e. me). > I wouldn’t say that camera design is stuck in the 80s, either. The form factor is necessarily constrained by needing a tubular lens projecting in front of a flat imaging plane. But why do you need a large protrusion on the right? You don't have a film canister anymore. I already wrote about a myriad of physical controls. Just make it large enough to hold the camera.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  There was one interchangeable lens attempt, and multiple non interchangeable ones. As mentioned, the Samsung galaxy camera, as well as Polaroid branded android cameras. You need the large protrusion on the right because you have to hold the thing. It’s a handle. It needs to be somewhere, most people are right eye, right hand dominant. It makes a lot of sense to have it that way. The primary hand holds the camera, the other hand holds and supports the lens. In the olden days, the film canister was physically stored on the left in almost all cameras (and certainly in all SLRs), so the protrusion on the right isn’t really a remnant of film designs. Older film cameras actually have smaller less ergonomic protrusions on the right (look at a Nikon F2 vs. the modern Z8). The big ergonomic protrusion on the right has been an evolution of newer modern technology and expectations. You can get a camera with gps, wifi, Bluetooth etc. do they have you screens that don’t have multitouch? It’s pretty hard not to get all that TBH. I can do crops and color treatments on my Nikon if I don’t want to just transfer directly to my phone and do the editing there. Yeah, the camera doesn’t automatically put it all in my iPhoto, but that is literally just a few taps. There are MILC cameras that have minimal physical controls and touchscreens so I’m not really sure what you’re looking for? The sigma FP is pretty minimal, and you just strap on what you need.
  - cyberax 2y ago
namibj 2y ago
Ehhh, I feel like I have to mention that optics like a Schmidt–Väisälä camera exist, and notably have their focal plane right in the middle of the tube. They readily go as fast as e.g. 400mm f/2.0 with 2 tame (iirc literally just spherical) optical surfaces (mirror and near-sensor plano-convex lens) and 1 more elaborate wavy surface (back side of front glass), naturally achromatic for a 20~30 MP large image circle. Modern technology (ability to manufacture of array waveguides that act like a bundle of fiber optics, to de-flatten the sensor's focal plane) also allows making better use of objective designs that perform well in every way but field flatness.

_0xdd 2y ago

I would add that Zeiss (ZX1) and Leica (T typ 701, TL2) tried this modern touch-first approach at a premium and both products weren't exactly hits. The Zeiss was even running Android with Lightroom preinstalled.

cyberax 2y ago
I mean... It's a camera that was retailing for $6k without lenses. It's already a niche market, and a pretty conservative one.

m463 2y ago

I agree. Maybe the breakdown is between: 1) taking a picture 2) doing something with the picture People coming to photography from smartphones want the priorities reversed. But the deeper you get into it, the more you want #1 and the more control you want over #1. The worst is #2 getting in the way of the shot. And actually, lots of people into photography think it is about the camera, but it is really about the lenses. You buy lenses, then buy/upgrade bodies around them.

qingcharles 2y ago
I want my camera to just take a photo at whatever the sensor can do, and give me that file. Too many photo-taking devices are now like "lemme just AI that for you, and give it to you at a quarter of the resolution of the sensor." I don't think Samsung phones even let third-party apps access the full sensor any longer, all are crippled, IIRC.

cyberax 2y ago

> There have been a few different attempts that look like this. Samsung Nx, Samsung Galaxy Camera, Sony has tried phone add on accessories. Basically they all sort of flop in the market. There was exactly ONE attempt. One. And it was pretty successful, at that: Samsung NX1. I had it, it was pretty good, but with a first-gen teething issues. Phone add-on accessories don't work because they're clumsy and connectivity just sucks. And ultra-professional $6k cameras from Zeiss miss the mark entirely, you need to target a prosumer market (i.e. me). > I wouldn’t say that camera design is stuck in the 80s, either. The form factor is necessarily constrained by needing a tubular lens projecting in front of a flat imaging plane. But why do you need a large protrusion on the right? You don't have a film canister anymore. I already wrote about a myriad of physical controls. Just make it large enough to hold the camera.

dghlsakjg 2y ago
There was one interchangeable lens attempt, and multiple non interchangeable ones. As mentioned, the Samsung galaxy camera, as well as Polaroid branded android cameras. You need the large protrusion on the right because you have to hold the thing. It’s a handle. It needs to be somewhere, most people are right eye, right hand dominant. It makes a lot of sense to have it that way. The primary hand holds the camera, the other hand holds and supports the lens. In the olden days, the film canister was physically stored on the left in almost all cameras (and certainly in all SLRs), so the protrusion on the right isn’t really a remnant of film designs. Older film cameras actually have smaller less ergonomic protrusions on the right (look at a Nikon F2 vs. the modern Z8). The big ergonomic protrusion on the right has been an evolution of newer modern technology and expectations. You can get a camera with gps, wifi, Bluetooth etc. do they have you screens that don’t have multitouch? It’s pretty hard not to get all that TBH. I can do crops and color treatments on my Nikon if I don’t want to just transfer directly to my phone and do the editing there. Yeah, the camera doesn’t automatically put it all in my iPhoto, but that is literally just a few taps. There are MILC cameras that have minimal physical controls and touchscreens so I’m not really sure what you’re looking for? The sigma FP is pretty minimal, and you just strap on what you need.
- cyberax 2y ago

namibj 2y ago

Ehhh, I feel like I have to mention that optics like a Schmidt–Väisälä camera exist, and notably have their focal plane right in the middle of the tube. They readily go as fast as e.g. 400mm f/2.0 with 2 tame (iirc literally just spherical) optical surfaces (mirror and near-sensor plano-convex lens) and 1 more elaborate wavy surface (back side of front glass), naturally achromatic for a 20~30 MP large image circle. Modern technology (ability to manufacture of array waveguides that act like a bundle of fiber optics, to de-flatten the sensor's focal plane) also allows making better use of objective designs that perform well in every way but field flatness.