I’ve long complained about the usability and connectivity of cameras, and while the big manufacturers seem happy to keep punishing us with shoddy interfaces and annoying memory cards, an upstart has shown us a vision of the future.
Almost six years ago, I asked why my mom’s fridge is better connected than my camera. In that time, very little has changed, and like me, photographer and educator Tony Northrup wonders why. It still amazes me how difficult it is to share and copy images from a camera, and most menu systems are still a labyrinth of blocky text and inconsistent abbreviations, awkwardly navigated with buttons and wheels.
Imagine being able to type the first few letters of a menu item or even find it by voice command. Imagine being able to post to social media from your camera. Imagine having a cloud storage app on your camera that automatically syncs all your raw files, even without Wi-Fi. Of course, putting a mobile operating system on a camera introduces a number of complications, but it’s hard to believe that they are insurmountable.
Given that Sony makes mobile devices, it mystifies me that they haven’t done something like this already or, at the very least, established better connectivity and intelligent menus.
Is this the future? Probably not any time soon for high-end MILCs, but for prosumer to consumer models, I wonder if it's the next logical step, especially when it provides an appealing bridge for newcomers between mobile devices and "proper" cameras. You can read more about the Yongnuo YN455 here. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
I feel like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but the absolute last thing I want in a camera, or refrigerator, is connectivity. Since when does the process of creating a beautiful photograph depend on anything more than technology we've had for over a hundred years?
I feel like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, but the absolute last thing I want in a camera, or refrigerator, is a digital sensor. Since when does the process of creating a beautiful photograph depend on anything more than technology we've had for over a hundred years?
What's your point?
Ed wrote:
"Since when does the process of creating a beautiful photograph depend on anything more than technology we've had for over a hundred years?"
For me, creating a beautiful photograph has depended on new technology since autofocus because reliable and smooth in the 1990s and since digital sensors were able to produce 6MP files at 400 ISO with no visible grain.
Before those thresholds were met, I created thousands of photographs, but didn't think any of them were beautiful. In the film days I was always frustrated because the photos I took didn't look anywhere near as beautiful as the things I was taking pictures of.
Things changed forever in 2006 when I got the first digital camera that produced images that I considered acceptable. And as soon as I got that camera, my life changed forever, and photography became everything to me. I quit my job, bought more digital bodies and lenses for them, and moved across the country because I thought I could get better photos in the American west than I could in the congested northeast corridor. I have never looked back, as wildlife photography is now the primary focus of my whole life. That never, ever would have happened with the film gear that I used earlier in my life. And it never would have happened without accurate and fast autofocus that can track moving subjects.
Over 99% of my favorite photos would have been impossible for me to get with film and manual focus. So for me and the way I shoot and the things I shoot in the conditions that I shoot them in, the process of taking beautiful photos depends entirely upon the technological advancements of the past 20 years.
Surely you appreciate that there were excellent wildlife photographers before digital cameras? Say, for the sake of argument, that you had stuck with learning film photography. You seemed to project into the future that your images would have never been good. But that's not uncommon in the early years of new photographers. It usually does take thousands of pictures to begin making better images. Of course this is an academic exercise, but imagine what might have happened if you had stuck with film, and digital cameras never been developed. Maybe today you'd be realizing your dreams of earning a living with your wildlife photography. That's not been the case though, because digital technology flooded the stock photo market and dramatically impacted prices. So while digital cameras enabled you to take better pictures, it pretty well destroyed your opportunity to earn a living from it.
Alas, nothing stays the same, technology always moves in one direction forward, and we adapt or get crushed by change. What's next for you? Future technology may very well alter the relationship that you have with the animals themselves. You probably appreciate the benefits of a long 600mm lens. But what will you think when other photographers start shooting at a location two miles away from the animals and getting the same close-up detail that you do now from 40 feet away? Will you sit on a comfortable deck of a mountain lodge, and wait for deer to pass through, or hold on to the real experience of enjoying wildlife closer and within their habitat?
Maybe drones make pictures of wildlife as you take them now obsolete. Will you change your manner of photography? How about the Apple Vision Pro. Just wear it for an afternoon, and sift through potential still pictures later. No need to click the shutter at that decisive moment. Or is photography's special relationship with the subject rooted in more than advanced technology? You claim that technology is the critical ingredient for making better pictures. I think there's more to it than that.
The article though is about cloud storage services, syncing with other devices, and immediate uploads to social media. How important is all of that to you? Do you want a mobile operating system in your camera?
Ed,
Your lengthy response to me is excellent, and deserves a far more detailed answer than I am able to write now, because I am packing up for a 3 month long trip that I hope to depart for within the next 3 hours. But I will answer a few of your questions, albeit more concisely than I would like to.
"Maybe drones make pictures of wildlife as you take them now obsolete. Will you change your manner of photography?"
Absolutely! Well, I will change to using the drones IF suitable drone gear is affordable for me ... I do live at a near-povertly-level annual income, so I may not be able to switch over even if I want to.
Also, I would need the drone gear to be super easy to learn, like so intuitive that I would "just know" how to set it up and use it without having to read manuals, watch tutorials, etc. I do not have the desire to force my brain to focus and concentrate enough to learn via manuals and tutorials. That is the sole reason I am still using DSLRs and not graduated to the mirrorless gear, which is so much more capable of making the kind of photos I want to make.
"Or is photography's special relationship with the subject rooted in more than advanced technology?"
No, for me photography is all about the photos that I come away with. It is 90% objective and results oriented and only 10% experience oriented.
Of course I deeply value my experiences in nature with wildlife. But I am able to compartmentalize things. If I am doing photography, then it is all about getting the most appealing photos I can get, regardless of how I get them. Then, if I want to enjoy the species, I will go out at other times without my camera and spend a few hours or a few days just observing them. In fact, i spend more days afield without my camera than I do with my camera, because I only want to do photography when conditions are right for the best images, hence, when conditions are wrong, I will still go out just because I love the critters so much, but I will not try to take sub-par photos of them.
Ed wrote:
"The article though is about cloud storage services, syncing with other devices, and immediate uploads to social media. How important is all of that to you? Do you want a mobile operating system in your camera?"
CLOUD STORAGE - zero interest at all, ever
SYNCING TO OTHER DEVICES - huge huge huge interest
IMMEDIATE UPLOADS TO SOCIAL MEDIA - zero interest whatsoever ... each image must be very carefully and expertly edited before it is suitable to post to social media ... that can only be done to my standards when using a large, high-resolution computer monitor
MOBILE OPERATING SYSTEM IN CAMERA - absolutely! I would love to be able to do a lot more things with my camera than take photos. I already take two phones with me into the field because I use so many phone-centric functions at once when photographing birds and (to a lesser extent) other wildlife.
While afield photographing, I often do several things on my phones all at the same time
- use Merlin to record and ID bird sounds
- use eBird to track my location for checklist submission purposes
- use Merlin and iBird Pro to play bird songs via m,y bluetooth speaker, to lure birds in for close photos
- share my location in real time with others who I am loosely photographing with, so they can come join me quickly if I find one of the target species
- use my text app to text others who are in the same area, looking for the same species ... often, groups of us will keep each other informed of all worthy subjects we find so others can get to the good animal before the opportunity is gone
It would be really nice if the camera I am using could be used for one or two of these ongoing tasks. Trying to juggle everything on just two phones is a bit much and sometimes I miss out on something because I only had two connected devices.
So you see that there are often times when being in nature photographing wild animals is not a serene personal experience. It is a very busy time that can be made more productive by using technology to locate and identify subjects, modify subject's behavior for better images, and for sharing and networking with other photographers so that we can all benefit from each other. Again, it is not about a wonderful experience so much as it is about getting the most photo opportunities possible. There are plenty of other times to get the nice serene expreiences, but that isn't necessarily going to happen when trying to do photography.
I wrote to Nikon Europe/Japan/NPS years ago asking them for smartphone connectivity packed into the MD battery grip connected to main camera by direct connector/bluetooth with a set of options for edits, backups, sharing, gps etc etc. Never received an answer... the biggest weakness in DSLR/MSLR. Done right they could have offered an API into the camera and let users develop cool stuff they had not thought of. A real shame. Ended up writing my own set of scripts for content security, availability, synchronization back to my home servers. When I arrive home after 2-3 weeks on Location all content is secure and spread across multiple HA storage silos.
Great. So I get to pay for another line of cellular service and a sh*t ton of cloud storage, plus I can edit on a tiny screen to upload directly to IG?!?!?! That is the best idea ever!!!!!!
I would just like to clarify that this particular camera is practically unusable according to the reviews. There is nothing special about it, because the company has only produced one before. It was a hybrid of an m43 sensor and a canon lens (because the company produced some lenses for Canon). In the past, there were usable cameras with full-fledged Android. I own a Samsung Galaxy NX, which is absolutely great (except for the viewfinder). Especially the large OLED screen, where I have prehistoric Adobe Photoshop for Android tablets. Unfortunately, it has Android 4.4. Other cameras from Samsung (NX500 and the phenomenal NX1) were, however, back on Tizen and then Samsung wrapped it up. However, Android can be found on all recent Sony cameras, but it is not very recognizable. However, (special) applications can also be installed there. For now, however, it seems that no one needs any significantly expanded online function. However, most major camera brands are able to send photos via hotspot to FTP etc.
Sony removed the "Sony App Store" from all recent models, it was a pain to get it to work!
Some people seem to forget they carry a fully functioning internet device with them - a smartphone. Why the heck would they need a camera to do what their smartphone already does so perfectly?
The problem with this line of reasoning is: NO SELF-RESPECTING SHOOTER WANTS TO SHARE A RAW FILE! 50% of the photography process is EDITING, and that's best done on a big screen, not on your camera LCD or iPad (which can't do HDR or Focus Stacking, or Nik Filters, or culling, or a dozen other things)! This is the kind of "you have to obey modern technology or you are a loser" argument that THE KID'S MAKE. It's not "the next logical step", unless you are 14. The way to destroy camera software is to put "a mobile operating system" on it. Look at how well Android phones work! They don't! The only people who buy Android are the ones who, bless them, can't afford an iPhone. -retired Mac It Engineer turned photographer.
One has to remember that photography is not just a homogeneous one-size-fits-all activity where all photographers slavishly take the same pictures in the same way. For some, it’s large-format film; for others, it’s instantaneous digital. Some need all the bells and whistles their system can offer, while some only require a bare-bones setup. There is no right or wrong. You use what suits what and how you shoot. When it comes to adding an OS to a camera with an AI-driven graphical interface with a voice-activated system, I say it’s long overdue. For a camera like my Sony A7R5, which uses a hefty layered set of menus due to having a huge number of options to allow different shooters to set up the camera to suit them, it could be a whole world better. Given our current level of tech, the current tedious click-and-wheel menu systems appears to be from a bygone age, well outdated, and well overdue a radical change.
Some may well not require it, while some could really use it. When you are in a very dynamic situation, like, for example, shooting butterflies, you find yourself constantly having to make changes. In this situation, some smart AI-assisted method of maintaining optimum settings would be a great help. Shooting in a more static setting like landscapes possibly not as much. I’m all for the revolution, bring it on. In my opinion, cameras are well overdue for a really radical makeover in the way the need to be setup. If you don’t agree and want to keep things the way they are, that’s fine, but don’t stop others wanting something different from you.
The problem would be if all camera companies switched to this, forcing everyone to adopt a smartphone style battery draining graphical interface and internet connectivity. When I'm out taking photos, I don't have time to fiddle around with menu's and just have all I need mapped to buttons and dials. You only need look at the way sub $3000 cameras mostly now all come with a fully articulating screen which annoys a lot of photographers who don't need to shoot video to know how forcing something on everyone isn't going to be universally accepted.
Ed… what you want for Xmas is not what I want. What you want should not affect what others would like. By all means be a Grinch, but keep it to yourself . Don’t deny others wanting something different from you. It’s no skin of your nose what I want for Xmas.
I'm sorry Eric... the Grinch is a fictional character. I wasn't trying to ruin your Christmas. I really do hope Santa Claus brings you everything you want.
What is it with the obsession with camera connectivity and turning ILC's into glorified smartphones/tablets but with terrible ergonomics for this purpose? We already use a smartphone, carry it with us and pay for internet connectivity so why not just make the connectivity between the two seamless? A smartphone is perfectly designed for internet access and apps. Why the need to duplicate that, ruin the ILC experience and getting us to pay for a second monthly sim card charge? Are people really taking photo's with their ILC's and needing to immediately upload them to social media or immediately edit them on an app? If the answer is yes, what is wrong with them using their smartphone to do it? Do bear in mind doing this to ILC's won't just satisfy those that may want it but annoy everyone else that doesn't. Forcing fully articulating screens on a lot of ILC's now is bad enough.
This is how I wish all my cameras were designed.