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Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

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Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#351

Post by Symbiote »

azalemeth wrote: post #244
virtualritz wrote: post #224

That's reminds me when I was in South East Asia a few years back and wanted to do some time lapse or series photography with my Sony Alpha a7ii. A camera that I had paid close to 2k€ for (just body, no glass). It required an app to be installed on the camera that was paid-for. Which in term required the camera to be connected to a WiFi. Imagine discovering this while on a trip in the jungle or the desert or whatever…

Pentax cameras are much better at the ui and do not have any of this shit. They are also bulletproof and nearly indestructible, favoured by war photographers, and tend to have excellent spec sheets (if a bit of a a slow autofocus). The company went bankrupt and bought by Ricoh, which I sincerely hope will keep the brand alive. Capitalism does really seem to prefer the nickel and dime approach...

> (if a bit of a a slow autofocus).

Sony's killer feature is (or was at some point) amazingly fast autofocus, which is very useful when photographing animals in the jungle.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#352

Post by deskr »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #28

Is there a reason OP can't get themselves a $50 USB capture card and a $20 HDMI cable, and use OBS to capture the feed from the HDMI-out in the camera? Most decent capture cards also expose themselves as cameras to almost all applications. This is my setup, and it works perfectly. Nikon D7500 as a webcam. More professional setups use Atomos monitors with built-in NVMe drives mounted directly to the camera. I generall…

Exactly. But why does he need to buy a USB capture card and HDMI cable? He can just hire someone to come and record the videos for him. They'll also do the post processing.

Why does he even even record the videos himself? He can just hire actors to do what he wants, probably a lot better.

And what's the whole thing with buying a camera? He should just buy a studio and hire a crew to manage all that stuff.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#353

Post by GranPC »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #28

Is there a reason OP can't get themselves a $50 USB capture card and a $20 HDMI cable, and use OBS to capture the feed from the HDMI-out in the camera? Most decent capture cards also expose themselves as cameras to almost all applications. This is my setup, and it works perfectly. Nikon D7500 as a webcam. More professional setups use Atomos monitors with built-in NVMe drives mounted directly to the camera. I generall…

This is hugely dependent on whether the camera supports clean HDMI output - that is, without overlays. My Canon camera for example insists on showing a focus square over HDMI no matter what, and it is impossible to disable.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#354

Post by [deleted] »

mastercheif wrote: post #336
virtualritz wrote: post #224

That's reminds me when I was in South East Asia a few years back and wanted to do some time lapse or series photography with my Sony Alpha a7ii. A camera that I had paid close to 2k€ for (just body, no glass). It required an app to be installed on the camera that was paid-for. Which in term required the camera to be connected to a WiFi. Imagine discovering this while on a trip in the jungle or the desert or whatever…

Sony’s software is still terrible… but fwiw they have built in timelapse functionality in their cams since the A7 III released in 2018.

[deleted]

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#355

Post by deskr »

tomw1808 wrote: post #47
stuaxo wrote: post #34

The Louis Rossman video on this, which hasn't been made yet - is already playing in my head.

Now he already has 2 views on a video he didn't make yet.

This is quickly becoming he most popular video. I'm also viewing the follow up video in my head.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#356

Post by dnh44 »

lazide wrote: post #294
dnh44 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a family member of retirement age who got into the habit of anonymously expressing their love of the EU in the comments section of a local newspaper. After a few months of this they received a phone call on their landline warning them that such public expressions are inappropriate and that there could be consequences should they not find a new hobby. I too love the EU but I loved it much more 15 years ago.

Someone at the newspaper, or someone in state security?

Not 100% sure as they didn't introduce themselves but whoever called was able to get the phone number that the IP address was linked to and I assume both would have to have been involved in order to do that.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#357

Post by ToucanLoucan »

rsynnott wrote: post #146
halgir wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when lawyers successfully argued that X-Men are not human, so that their action figures would be classified as "toys" rather than "dolls" and thus charged a lower tariff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Biz%2C_Inc._v._United_Stat...

This sort of thing happens relatively often; Sony also tried (unsuccessfully) to have the PS2 deemed a personal computer (which would have lead to 0 tariffs in the EU): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yabasic#PlayStation_2

I often wonder what the ROI is on this. How much did Sony have to pay engineers to implement this interesting but seemingly pretty useless functionality vs. what it actually saved them in the aforementioned tariffs? I know the knee jerk reaction is to say it obviously saved them some money or they wouldn't have done it, but I've seen far too much corporate stupidity in my life to take that as a given. I'd love to see the data.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#358

Post by PetitPrince »

ssijak wrote: post #318
PetitPrince wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software on the actual camera is yet another question for me, why don't we have cameras with full fledged modern OS-es running custom androids for example with installable apps so you can finish a lot of stuff on the camera itself or make sharing to wherever a breeze. A little more than 10 years ago Samsung tried that with their Galaxy NX (a bona fide DSLR running Android). It flopped and most reviewer noted that i…

I agree on what the main purpose is and that must be executed well, but it is 2025 and for a 5 000 usd camera we should be able to get both, great working camera with amazing and fast software.

At this price point I suspect the camera goes from "nice tool of an artist" to "business expense ofa team". With that I think people with this budget prioritize modularity and reliability over the convenience of having a all-in-one device.

Like for the Olympics there's mention of using a gizmo (PDT-FP1) whose sole role is to connect to the camera and transmit the picture wirelessly (even though the A9 have some wifi connectivity). And of course this wireless transmitter is quite expensive.

In cinema they have the same approach, as you don't buy "a camera", but you rent a sensor, a lens, a monitor, a focus pull, a storage disk, etc.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#359

Post by josephg »

sbarre wrote: post #235
josephg wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I disagree on every point you've raised here. First, my sony camera (and all sony cameras released in the last ~3+ years) support USB video streaming out of the box, with no drivers. I suspect other brands are the same. It looks like canon is just stuck in the dark ages on this one. They also support remote camera control over USB, and all sorts of other things. Mostly - but not entirely - in an open ecosyste…

> I suspect other brands are the same. My research shows Sony is the outlier here. Fuji, Canon, Nikon and Panasonic all require software or drivers to be used as a USB camera (or at least did as of a year ago or so). Also, the camera control software these companies put out, for a computer or a phone, is almost always awful. Buggy, slow, unreliable.. It's a real problem.

> Also, the camera control software these companies put out, for a computer or a phone, is almost always awful.

That’s definitely true of Sony too. Just - thankfully - you don’t need to install any of it to do most stuff. (With the one exception of sony’s gyro based image stablisation).

There’s also several apps in the App Store which let you remotely control Sony cameras. I assume people have reverse engineered the protocol Sony’s offical app uses.

Re: Canon wants us to pay for using our own camera as a webcam

#360

Post by dmix »

formerly_proven wrote: post #196
jolmg wrote: post #167

> and they should—due to the lack of standards—provide software that allows you to use their cameras as intended. There is a standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_video_device_class

Yes, the articles complaints (no free way to use it as a webcam, 30 minute limits etc.) doesn't seem to apply to many camera brands apart from Canon.

And Canon's marketshare has been declining for years

https://www.mpb.com/en-uk/content/latest-from-mpb/2024-chall...

Sony encourages their use for vlogging/youtube because that's a huge market and let's you plug in HDMI to your computer without using special software

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