Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

dslrbodies.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 393 posts

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#341

Post by l33tbro »

dharma1 wrote: post #165
l33tbro wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought they added a switchable global shutter mode, no? Maybe i'm getting it confused with another model. Probably! I'm only now looking into DSLR's for a low-light option. Funnily enough, the ones that stand out to me are the Samsung NX1 and the Fuji XT2. Samsung oddly has great motion cadence, but awful macro-blocking. Fuji, unsurprisingly, has beautiful colours. Unfortunately both are only 8 bit, which is kind…

Sony A7r ii is the low light king, there is a new version due in the next couple of months. I am not going to be buying another camera with 8bit video, so will be holding out until there are more 10bit options out there. HEVC has a 10bit profile and it will be everywhere because of HDR TV's and phones, but might take a year or two to get popular in cameras.

It's amazing in low-light, but I find the colours are pretty washed out and the image can band pretty bad once you apply post processing to get it looking half decent. That's been my experience with it anyway. Didn't know they have a new model - great to hear.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#342

Post by brudgers »

nradov wrote: post #284
alecdibble wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While GPS chips might seem like an obvious addition, it might negatively affect other camera functions like battery life.

GPS can be turned off.

GPS based on solely on satellite signals tends to require several to tens of minutes before it can provide an accurate location. Cell phone geolocation tends to much much faster because it utilizes terrestrial radio signals from cell towers and wifi networks and who knows what else...a database of such signals is part of the what else.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#343

Post by ew6082 »

dpark wrote: post #194
brudgers wrote: post #149

I love 1/4-20 sockets. Attach my camera to a flash bracket? Yep. Attach an eyebolt to attach a carabiner to attach a neck strap? Yep. Attach a hand strap or a 40mm, 80mm, or 200mm Arca Swiss plate. Yep. Yep, Yep and Yep. There's nothing stopping a photographer from permanently attaching an Arca-Swiss plate to the bottom of a camera body with a bit of cyanoacrylate or some screws if it makes better photographs. For me…

The only thing wrong with the 1/4-20 mount is that there's only one. Camera manufacturers should add a second one half an inch to the side so that plates can be mounted with two points of attachment, which would eliminate concerns with twisting and loosening. Wanting to force the weight and cost of Arca Swiss on everyone is just selfish. In fact most of these complaints are just examples of wanting everyone else to s…

Unless you're taking serious action shots on a violently shaking platform, even a hand tight 1/4-20 isn't going to shake or blow loose. Is loosening a theoretical or actual problem?

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#344

Post by rogerbinns »

nradov wrote: post #335
brians wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has massive import/export implications, changes how you can ship them, all sorts of nonsense. As always, when a group of hundreds of smart engineers are doing something superficially inexplicable, it's actually either: a) complicated, and a good idea, or b) complicated, because of the government.

I don't accept that. Many cameras, even some cheap point-and-shoot cameras, do include GPS receivers. I have an old Canon Powershot S100 with GPS that was sold all over the world for less money than a smartphone. So obviously the import/export and shipping implications aren't that massive. There's no valid reason to exclude that feature from DSLRs any more.

> I don't accept that.

For a start you need to deal with the laws in China. They apply not only to items sold in China, but also to items brought into the country (eg by customers). Economies of scale make this easier with widely sold products, and more painful for low volume products (higher cost of implementation per unit sold). Repeat for laws in other countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restrictions_on_geographic_dat...

My point and shoot from a few years ago had two pages in the manual covering the builtin GPS usage in China.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#345

Post by nradov »

brudgers wrote: post #342
nradov wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS can be turned off.

GPS based on solely on satellite signals tends to require several to tens of minutes before it can provide an accurate location. Cell phone geolocation tends to much much faster because it utilizes terrestrial radio signals from cell towers and wifi networks and who knows what else...a database of such signals is part of the what else.

My old point-and-shoot camera with a built-in GPS receiver can go from completely powered off (battery out) to an accurate GPS fix in under 4 minutes as long as it has an unobstructed view of the sky. So your time estimate is way too high in most cases.

Cell phones are even faster because they pick up an initial approximate location from the cell phone tower and also automatically download GPS satellite ephemeris data.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#346

Post by brudgers »

mod wrote: post #306
brudgers wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some applications, Velcro on the bottom of the camera and top of the accessory might mitigate twisting. I've also read about people using compressible materials to increase friction. For what it's worth, there's nothing preventing modifying a camera to add a second screw.

I'm a pretty avid DIYer with a lot of tools, taps, dies, vises, etc. I would not feel comfortable either 1) drilling into the bottom of my DSLR, or 2) taking it apart to see if I could safely drill into a given spot. I would say there's quite a lot preventing me from modifying it, and even more to prevent normal users.

I mentioned cyanoacrylate for those reasons -- although other adhesives might be better, it seemed like a place to start. Anyway, one of the themes of my comment was that if it's a problem there are alternatives to hoping the camera manufacturers will address what is mostly an edge case that can be mitigated with attention to detail during the selection of accessories and their use in the field. I mean after a while, experience will lead to checking if the plate has become twisted before operating the shutter. It might take years for someone to recognize the problem and gain that habit and most people with cameras probably will never even experience it as a problem because it never is for them...because most people don't use a tripod most of the time.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#347

Post by dkrich »

ew6082 wrote: post #343
dpark wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing wrong with the 1/4-20 mount is that there's only one. Camera manufacturers should add a second one half an inch to the side so that plates can be mounted with two points of attachment, which would eliminate concerns with twisting and loosening. Wanting to force the weight and cost of Arca Swiss on everyone is just selfish. In fact most of these complaints are just examples of wanting everyone else to s…

Unless you're taking serious action shots on a violently shaking platform, even a hand tight 1/4-20 isn't going to shake or blow loose. Is loosening a theoretical or actual problem?

I think it has more impact on very long exposure shots that can span 30 minutes to hours where a breeze can ruin a shot of it moves in the slightest.

But I agree. I think for the majority of shots it doesn't make that much difference.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#348

Post by jemfinch »

dceddia wrote: post #291

Here's another one: the 30-minute recording limit for video recordings. Apparently Panasonic fixed this in their GH4R [0], but it doesn't seem that Canon and Nikon have. I was looking for a camera to record meetup talks, and I almost bought a new Canon 80d until I realized it couldn't go more than 30 minutes without restarting. [0]: http://cameras.reviewed.com/news/panasonics-gh4r-finally-kil...

That's a heat-related issue; fixing it would require the ability to dissipate heat much faster (fans, etc.). That's one of the reasons why cinematic digital cameras are so much larger than DSLRs.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#349

Post by PostThisTooFast »

Wireless charging? NO. That is so off-base that it undermines the guy's credibility.

You want the fastest and most efficient charging possible, and that's never going to be wireless. Not to mention that you'd never want to use the camera to charge the battery, or (worst of all) have a non-removable battery in the camera.

Meanwhile, he fails to point out the most ridiculous omission from modern cameras: AN INTERVALOMETER. This is essentially FREE to implement! The camera is nothing if not a big timer already.

No digital camera, at any price, should lack built-in time-lapse capability. And that means real pictures, not some bullshit time-lapse "movie" mode that produces compressed junk.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#350

Post by matwood »

Steve44 wrote: post #46
ioulian wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bodies of modern DSLRs are jampacked with every kind of knob, control, button, dial, and dongle that you can possibly think of. That's what I actually like on the more "expensive" camera's, the ability to control everything just with single click/rotation. I'm mostly shooting manual, on my Canon 5D I have a dial for apperture, smaller dial for shutter speed and a knob for the focus point(s). When I used Canon 5…

> That's what I actually like on the more "expensive" camera's, the ability to control everything just with single click/rotation I use Nikon and have gone from D200, D300, and now a D700 because I love the quick and direct access to a lot of the controls. The consumer bodies are great cameras but once you become accustomed to the layout it is really useful and logical. I presume the Canon pro range is similar.

Nikon is known to be one of the best at quick access through shortcut physical buttons. The problem with Nikon is discoverability is bad, but once you're in the know it's awesome. According to some, the shortcuts are better than what Canon provides. I've never even held a Canon camera so I can't comment. :)
Post reply on HN