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Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

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Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#21

Post by dom0 »

1_2__3 wrote: post #10

This is certainly a lot of words, which I think I can summarize as "smartphones are easy and powerful and flexible and DSLRs should be as easy and powerful and flexible too". Which is sort of silly, it's like saying buses carry a lot of people conveniently so all vehicles should be buses or be more bus-like. And yes, I do think we'll still have SD cards in a few years.

I really, really don't want my camera to be permanently connected to the internet / to have permanently attached wireless connectivity. And I think there is a fair amount of market share in a place that does not want that, either.

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#22

Post by zokier »

The author seems to ignore the advancements that the industry has done in the past few years. Here[1] is a blog-post from 2010, introducing then-new in-camera raw conversion feature. Select quote:

> Just shoot Raw, and double the number of frames you can record in burst mode, then process the images you need to share immediately in camera. You can sample down as far as 720x480. That means with an Eye-Fi SD Card you could upload a properly resized image directly from the 60D to Flickr, even if it began as a Raw file.

> Seems like a handy feature to me.

Soon after that manufacturers started including built-in WiFi in their cameras (for example Canon 6d from 2012/2013 [2]), which acknowledged the need for getting images easier and quicker to the world. And the capabilities in this area have been steadily improving, see for example Sony Alpha 7R[3] from 2014. You could argue that its still not yet good enough (which is probably true), but that is completely different argument than what the author is positing: "What I’m complaining about is that it isn’t beginning to happen today, and it should have happened yesterday.". Arguably this sort of workflow improvement already began happening five years ago, and is very much on track to continue improving.

[1] http://thedigitalstory.com/2010/11/in-camera-raw-proces.html

[2] https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-6d/13

[3] https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a7r/11

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#23

Post by photigragraphy »

While I understand the author's perspective of the ease of smartphones for photography he is really only viewing a subset of photographers. In this instance his audience would be photojournalists who need to minimize the time from capture to presentation. Once could also see those casual users who want to share their images on social media quickly too.

The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a number of other types which value quality of speed and quantity. If you need or want to deliver images fast then yes camera companies are in 'denial', but I would argue the majority of photographers aren't.

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#24

Post by stevep98 »

jdmichal wrote: post #14
jandrese wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm wondering if he is advocating for LTE modems in phones, so he can pull a picture up on the display, see that it looks passable, and hit the "send to my editor" button. Or maybe just phone integration so he can send the photos to his phone where he can stuff them in an email and send them to the editor. His primary complaint seems to be getting scooped by teenagers with their smartphones, but I don't see how anyth…

Cameras that integrate well with phones already exist. I have a Sony camera that can: * Wirelessly transfer images to my phone using wifi-direct. * Do so with a tap, as it has an embedded NFC tag. * Be remotely controlled by my phone, including a laggy but usable viewfinder display on my phone screen. This mode also automatically transfers pictures taken to the phone. Partially reposted from: https://news.ycombinator…

I find the wifi connectivity between Sony camera and my iPhone quite painful, mostly down to the fact that it creates its own wifi access point that my iPhone must switch to. Why can't it just connect to my home access point (so it can reach my iMac, and the cloud)

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#25

Post by CydeWeys »

photigragraphy wrote: post #23

While I understand the author's perspective of the ease of smartphones for photography he is really only viewing a subset of photographers. In this instance his audience would be photojournalists who need to minimize the time from capture to presentation. Once could also see those casual users who want to share their images on social media quickly too. The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a numb…

> The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a number of other types which value quality of speed and quantity.

Making it faster to get photos off the device helps fine art photographers as well, just not as much, because they're less latency-sensitive. I don't see any way in which it hurts them.

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#26

Post by ak217 »

Personally, I think the biggest issue is that the DSLR makers just haven't taken integration seriously at all. My Canon 70D - with all its incredible ergonomics and amazing optics and sensors - has a wi-fi feature and attendant smartphone app that feel broken and tacked on, and ultimately don't work at all for me. If I didn't go out of my way looking for them, I wouldn't even know they exist.

It's painfully obvious that my DSLR should be able to immediately upload my shots to a cloud post-processing service integrated with downstream destinations like web albums, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. It was obvious a decade ago. It's easy to justify commercially, as a lucrative subscription revenue stream. The fact that DSLR makers have done next to nothing to bring us to that point - not even a single meaningful partnership between a DSLR maker and a software company - makes me think they deserve the disruption and market downsizing they will experience.

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#27

Post by 6nf »

dom0 wrote: post #21
1_2__3 wrote: post #10

This is certainly a lot of words, which I think I can summarize as "smartphones are easy and powerful and flexible and DSLRs should be as easy and powerful and flexible too". Which is sort of silly, it's like saying buses carry a lot of people conveniently so all vehicles should be buses or be more bus-like. And yes, I do think we'll still have SD cards in a few years.

I really, really don't want my camera to be permanently connected to the internet / to have permanently attached wireless connectivity. And I think there is a fair amount of market share in a place that does not want that, either.

Can't you just disable that feature? Why do the rest of us have to be stuck with dumb, disconnected cameras?

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#28

Post by photigragraphy »

CydeWeys wrote: post #25
photigragraphy wrote: post #23

While I understand the author's perspective of the ease of smartphones for photography he is really only viewing a subset of photographers. In this instance his audience would be photojournalists who need to minimize the time from capture to presentation. Once could also see those casual users who want to share their images on social media quickly too. The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a numb…

> The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a number of other types which value quality of speed and quantity. Making it faster to get photos off the device helps fine art photographers as well, just not as much, because they're less latency-sensitive. I don't see any way in which it hurts them.

Fair point. I suppose I have the perspective of "If my workflow worked fine before why should I change it?"

Also chances are if you shot several gigs of data you are using your own external card reader, especially so if you aren't using SD cards. I can transfer 32GB from a CF card in about 3 minutes with my USB3 reader too.

On a personal note I still shoot film and am perhaps a bit more comfortable with longer latency than most others.

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#29

Post by tensor »

CydeWeys wrote: post #25
photigragraphy wrote: post #23

While I understand the author's perspective of the ease of smartphones for photography he is really only viewing a subset of photographers. In this instance his audience would be photojournalists who need to minimize the time from capture to presentation. Once could also see those casual users who want to share their images on social media quickly too. The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a numb…

> The author's view excludes fine art photography as well as a number of other types which value quality of speed and quantity. Making it faster to get photos off the device helps fine art photographers as well, just not as much, because they're less latency-sensitive. I don't see any way in which it hurts them.

Most photography professionals aside from journalists use RAW format which results in many gigabytes of data. The author is proposing that images go to the cloud, but this just isn't feasible with our current cellular connections when you have gigabytes of data.

Re: Denial About Workflow Among Camera Companies

#30

Post by tensor »

rodgerd wrote: post #8
foolrush wrote: post #2

Would suggest the author is conflating a diversity of workflows for a single, monotheistic view. Professional imagers have large files, and they must post-produce them. Those things like card readers, additional ports, etc. ignore that particular audiences needs. To draw an analogy to another closely relation field in motion pictures, this too is mired in a divergence of needs and contexts. The author of the post wou…

> Making a case for XXX workflow should always be grounded in the contexts present. Here's the context: camera makers are getting the shit kicked out of them. The market is plummeting. It caters to the myopic needs of people who want to pretend that, to be a photographer, you have to work like it's a 1950s darkroom, only with computers. Compact cameras a being destroyed by cellphones, which is where all the imaging i…

You haven't addressed any of the specific problems the parent presented. And no, in the market segment the parent is referring to mobile phones are not making any inroads.
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