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Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

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Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#91

Post by arethuza »

throwanem wrote: post #80
tolien wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do (or at least, my Canon EOS 7D mark 2 does). However, leaving the GPS switched on significantly reduces battery life.

My D5300's GPS doesn't hurt battery life. Of course, it also doesn't work , because the camera sleeps it along with everything else when it goes idle, so it never has time to get a good lock. The way you solve this is by disabling idle sleep. That doesn't hurt the battery, either; it kills it. This is legitimately frustrating, unlike a lot of the frankly scattershot and silly business in the article. (XQD on entry-le…

I bought a Canon point and shoot a few years back to use in situations where I'd be worried about losing the camera (e.g. on a ski lift) and I got one with GPS - it has to be the crappiest GPS in existence, it does work but takes about 30 minutes to get a fix, which is pretty much unusable.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#92

Post by rplnt »

And they do the same thing phone companies do, don't support the device. I have a camera with wifi that got a shitty remote app on release and that's it. There is so much potential with remote controls, but no.. it can only take pictures on auto settings. At least document the API if you are lazy...

Camera itself got some bugfix updates, but is missing some essentials as working as a web cam, supporting timelapse, etc...

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#93

Post by tpeo »

jamesrcole wrote: post #84
tpeo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they try to compete with smartphones? Dropping product differentiation when the competition comes from "a whole different market" doesn't really make sense. This seems more like an issue of quality control.

They're not choosing to compete with smartphones - smartphones are eating into their market thus forcing competition. As smartphone cameras have improved the more they've eaten into the market. Note that this argument does not require that all users of their cameras would ever consider using a smartphone instead.

What market? Smartphones and high end cameras aren't really comparable. They compete in the sense that they're both able to take pictures, but they don't compete across all possible dimensions. I mean, I could be wrong, but these don't look like substitute goods. Smartphones and crappy cameras certainly are, but not not smartphones and high-end cameras. But using cheaper parts does make cameras crappier, so doing so in order to engage in price competition is choosing to compete with smartphones.

Which is what I don't understand. Because, as far as I know, firms should engage in product differentiation as long as it's possible.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#94

Post by jorvi »

CrystalGamma wrote: post #88
bryanlarsen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that you're often hand holding a camera, being lighter is a significant advantage, it can often be the difference between a stable or a blurred shot. And good plastics are plastic in the traditional sense of the word: if you drop them, they'll absorb the force by deforming and then spring back into place. Metals deform permanently. In a car that's an advantage, you can just hammer it back into place. With a pre…

> And good plastics are plastic in the traditional sense of the word: if you drop them, they'll absorb the force by deforming and then spring back into place. That's not what I was taught plastic meant. I was taught both plastic and elastic materials deform under force, but the elastic ones (not the plastic ones) return to their original form once the force is gone …

If you drop an iPhone hard enough it wil dent. Drop a polycarbonate phone: no problem. Windows phone wasn't a great OS, but the Lumia line were absolute tanks.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#95

Post by l33tbro »

dharma1 wrote: post #17
l33tbro wrote: post #8

My pet-peeve with modern DSLR's is that none of these manufacturers seem to care about motion-cadence with their video offering. There's been amazing leaps with 4k video and now 10 bit image depth with the Panasonic GH5, but the footage looks so damn robotic and souless compared to cinema cameras from Arri and Red. I obviously don't expect a $2000 dslr to match a $50k Alexa in image quality, but surely they must be a…

I've got the Blackmagic pocket. I'd say the main difference is being able to shoot raw video. It's just like butter in grading compared to 8bit video. And their colour science is good. I think we'll have h265 10bit video in most cameras (and mobile phones) pretty soon, and that will be a marked improvement in terms of colour and dynamic range of video footage. Some higher end Sony and Canon dSLR's shoot raw video, bu…

Wouldn't you think that's the global shutter of the camera? Raw definitely helps with pushing the image in colour grading, but I always thought the nice motion cadence on the BMPCC comes from the fact that the global shutter scans the entire image at once when capturing a frame, which makes it more filmic and less jittery than rolling shutter sensors which scan a series of parts of the image to create the frame.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#96

Post by web64 »

I have a Canon DSLR and my biggest frustration is with the software. I do a lot of night photography and the longest exposure possible is 30 seconds. To go beyond this you need to buy an external shutter release. It should be a simple thing to add a few more options with longer exposures to the menu.

Also, doing things like HDR or stop-motion can be a pain. Better software or the ability to run apps could solve this.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#97

Post by noselasd »

tpeo wrote: post #93
jamesrcole wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not choosing to compete with smartphones - smartphones are eating into their market thus forcing competition. As smartphone cameras have improved the more they've eaten into the market. Note that this argument does not require that all users of their cameras would ever consider using a smartphone instead.

What market? Smartphones and high end cameras aren't really comparable. They compete in the sense that they're both able to take pictures, but they don't compete across all possible dimensions. I mean, I could be wrong, but these don't look like substitute goods. Smartphones and crappy cameras certainly are, but not not smartphones and high-end cameras. But using cheaper parts does make cameras crappier, so doing so…

> What market?

It's a great question and I don't know.

What I do know is that I have not bought/used a dedicated camera since about the time smartphones came along. Nor have any of my family members - they all used to have dedicated cameras used to take holiday photos, photos of their children, birthdays and so on. Now they just use their phone.

This must have an effect on the camera manufacturers.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#98

Post by jamesrcole »

tpeo wrote: post #93
jamesrcole wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not choosing to compete with smartphones - smartphones are eating into their market thus forcing competition. As smartphone cameras have improved the more they've eaten into the market. Note that this argument does not require that all users of their cameras would ever consider using a smartphone instead.

What market? Smartphones and high end cameras aren't really comparable. They compete in the sense that they're both able to take pictures, but they don't compete across all possible dimensions. I mean, I could be wrong, but these don't look like substitute goods. Smartphones and crappy cameras certainly are, but not not smartphones and high-end cameras. But using cheaper parts does make cameras crappier, so doing so…

Camera makers do or have produced cameras with lesser or comparable qualities (for at least certain classes of use, such as for everyday users). These compete against smartphones. Another case is the users who might buy a higher end camera but now find that decision hard to justify when for their purposes smartphones are at least adequate. A third case is there being less of a demand for professional photographers these days, in part because of smartphones, which also is a kind of competition that higher end cameras have to deal with.

The bar of what smartphone cameras are capable of doing keeps rising, keeps eating into the territory of what previously required a standalone camera.

All these things are competition that eat into profits, which in turn may affect those companies' abilities to produce high end cameras. Eg they may only be able to use cheaper components compared with what they could afford in the past.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#99

Post by coldtea »

thinkMOAR wrote: post #74
bryanlarsen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that you're often hand holding a camera, being lighter is a significant advantage, it can often be the difference between a stable or a blurred shot. And good plastics are plastic in the traditional sense of the word: if you drop them, they'll absorb the force by deforming and then spring back into place. Metals deform permanently. In a car that's an advantage, you can just hammer it back into place. With a pre…

That's true an over years read many people that dropped their canon rebel and they were surprised it didn't shatter into a million pieces and often still worked as good as before. Some brought it to service centers just to be sure. I never dropped my camera though, but i do run into things a lot, doors, doorposts, fences and most of all tiny people. Though with a bit typical lens 70-200 or some people often bring, i…

>I never dropped my camera though, but i do run into things a lot, doors, doorposts, fences and most of all tiny people.

Huh?

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#100

Post by arethuza »

web64 wrote: post #96

I have a Canon DSLR and my biggest frustration is with the software. I do a lot of night photography and the longest exposure possible is 30 seconds. To go beyond this you need to buy an external shutter release. It should be a simple thing to add a few more options with longer exposures to the menu. Also, doing things like HDR or stop-motion can be a pain. Better software or the ability to run apps could solve this.

Camera software reminds me a lot of car software (entertainment and nav stuff) in that its obviously a bit of an afterthought and its a checkbox exercise and they don't give much thought to the actual user experience.

e.g. My wife has a lovely Audi but when I drive it I get very frustrated by how long the nav/entertainment system takes to start up...

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