It's not dissimilar to back in the pre-digital camera era... most people were fine with having a crappy point&shoot or disposable camera, and then we all had that nerdy uncle or friend who was really into cameras and willing to spend the money on a real 35mm SLR or rangefinder or whatever.
Phones have taken the place of the old point and shoots.
That doesn't mean that manufacturers of pro-sumer interchangeable lens cameras couldn't do a better job with software, though...
What software exactly are modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras missing? I know, picking at software is a favorite past time on HN, but most of the time it is missing the point. Examples for this include: ERP systems, embeded and or safety relevant software, software in highly regulated markets or sectors. And, it seems, cameras. Computational photography is all fine, on an iPhone.
The most glaring is just good integration with phones and cloud services. From what I've seen, none of the systems that offer WiFi/Bluetooth integration are actually any good.
In terms of computational photography... I think they're fine... a lot of things can be done in post-processing, which is fine, and there's been amazing advances in autofocus and stabilization.
Pro photos are too large to be any good with syncing to a cloud service while you are on the go. My 16mp camera is considered old at this point but still makes 34mb raw files. 15 photo burst is a half a gb in other words. now measure your lte upload speed.
Agree. If I were Canon, I’d try backing a truck full of money up to Apple in order to secure an API connection through which their cameras could have the user authenticate securely with Apple and throw photos into a black box, which would spit them into the user’s iCloud Photo Library exactly like an iPhone pic. It may be too late though if Apple thinks people might delay iPhone upgrades (since those are so often camera-quality-driven) if they had a better-quality way to take pictures.
Eh. Shuffling pictures from my G9x MkII to my Android phone is pretty simple enough. I do wish the data transfer speeds were faster, but it is still stupid simple to pair to the phone. From there I can see the photos and choose which to download. Or I can select them on my camera and send them to my phone or laptop. I've often taken the camera with me on a trip with some friends and shuffled the photos into group chats the next time I had a few minutes of downtime.
The camera which is several years old at this point already has some good video stabilization. The AF is backed with good hardware, its pretty good and can even do face detection. Its far faster and more accurate than my much newer Pixel.
I wouldn't really care to do much post processing on the camera itself other than the basic filters and affects it can already do, as the interface is pretty small so it is hard to get details. If I'm really going to do some post-processing I'll be pushing it to my desktop with a large monitor so I can really see what I'm doing. But honestly if I'm going to work at it on my desktop I'll more likely just pull out the SD card and stick it in the computer and get far faster transfer speeds.
About the only feature I'd personally like would just be some kind of direct camera integration with Google Photos/OneDrive/iCloud/OwnCloud/whatever, have it just start syncing photos the moment it detects its online. That and good built-in GPS support. Apart from that I don't really know what else I'd do with more "smart" connectivity. I bought a camera like this because I wanted to manually adjust things instead of having some AI model twist and warp the photo into whatever the training data suggests looks good.
Interesting. I posted on the micro four thirds subreddit recently asking if the Panasonic app integration was any better than Olympus' (which ... isn't good) and commenters seemed to agree it was not.
I'll consider a switch to a Panasonic for my next camera, since OM Systems seems mostly moribund.
FWIW I don't know if they'll make another G9x. The most recent similar camera would probably be the G7x Mk III. I think that's probably the camera I'd get if I were to replace my G9x tomorrow. I'm a huge fan of the small size of this G9x though.
I had a Panasonic (GX85) and have since switched to Fujifilm, but I found the menu system UI and phone/app integration on the Panasonic a lot better and more usable than many other cameras I've tried (including Sony's and Fuji). The Fuji (X-T30) makes up for it on the UX front through by exposing more of the settings via external controls.
I’ve got an old t3i running magic lantern that has features camera makers still refuse to integrate, such as punching in digitally to check for focus while recording video, zebra stripes, and focus peaking. Admittedly most the stuff I want is related to video but I was sideloading firmware with these features (the aforementioned Magic Lantern) in 2013.
I’d say there are three groups: A) casual photography for capturing memories B) casual but with a desire to take better quality pictures C) enthusiastic amateurs and pros.
Now only C will buy a dedicated camera. But in the late 0’s and the 2010’s, segment B did too—lots of people bought DSLRs to get better quality pictures — often sticking to the kit lens and not getting all geeky about photography… just putting everything on automatic would still offer much better quality than a compact camera or a phone camera.
As phone cameras got better, people in this market segment switched to phones — they might just care more about the type of camera on the phone than the most casual of users do.
I think B is going to slowly come back. It's already happening among some youths with the retro-digicam phase. The ergonomics of photos-by-phone suck, and the novelty of phones as a status symbol has worn off.
The first company to really "get" the integration of point and shoot cameras into the mobile ecosystem properly will win big.
Fuji is already selling boatloads of X100Vs, and there's the Ricoh GR3, etc as well. There's a trend for ergonomic nice high end fixed lens cameras.
And for kicks go on eBay and look up the prices of used old Canon PowerShots. Have a nice condition pink one in a drawer you can make some coin. From worthless e-waste to $300 status symbol...
Phones have taken the place of the old point and shoots.
That doesn't mean that manufacturers of pro-sumer interchangeable lens cameras couldn't do a better job with software, though...