Comment by frognumber a day ago
I firmly believe this is the branch digital cameras are dying on, and at this point, probably must die on.
If these opened up, at least to the level iPhone did in 2007, they'd have an ecosystem as people still used them. As-is, for most purposes, my Android phone is a better camera than my full frame interchangeable lens camera.
> 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.
> my Android phone is a better camera than my full frame
I'm probably a terrible photographer and I shoot with a "budget" kit (Canon R10, RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM, RF 35mm F1.8 IS STM), but looking at the 10 last photos I've taken and liked (so going back a year basically), I don't think I'd be able to retake a single one of them on my iPhone and get something comparable.
> As-is, for most purposes, my Android phone is a better camera than my full frame interchangeable lens camera.
The smartphone ate the market segment that was previously occupied by point and shoot cameras, not pro / enthusiast camera. I don't think dedicated / non-smart cameras as we have today will die. You will still need dedicated camera for wedding, sports, wildlife, etc. For these you don't need a software ecosystem, you need a robust hardware.
I agree that for sharing to my family a photo of my dog looking cute my phone is a better camera. However for the use case I mentioned, I don't see how I can decently edit a 50 Mpx image on a screen that's not even a quarter of the size of my laptop.
Not to say that better software/feature is not needed though; I would love to be able to do an efficient initial culling/sorting of a given shoot in-camera.
I agree with your comment.
But as phone cameras are reaching limits due to the physical amount of light that they can capture, “computational photography” ML models are essentially making up details that aren’t there.
So your Android photos may have the look you want, but be worse for many purposes.
> As-is, for most purposes, my Android phone is a better camera than my full frame interchangeable lens camera.
Any Android/iOS flagship phone right now is MILES behind current full-frame mirrorless technology, and I doubt they will ever be truly comparable. There are too many technical limitations.
I am pretty sure we will eventually have consumer cameras with an Android-like OS and the equivalent of today's full-frame sensors, delivering awesome footage, but mobile devices will never come close to a (semi-)professional camera.
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 ecosystem. I have several devices which can control the camera over the USB connection - so it can't be that hard.
Second, are you sure your android phone takes better photos? What camera & lens do you have on your digital camera? Have you upgraded from the kit lens it came with?
I got a sony a7iv last year. If I take the same photo with my a7 and my iphone, the photos are wildly different. The iphone's photos are lovely, but they have this very slightly AI generated gloss about them. Everything is slightly too clean somehow. Its like I'm looking at reality plus. In comparison, The photos from my sony camera feel like real photos. Dark things are dark. Light things are light. If I crank the ISO at night, the photos are noisy. If I blow out the aperature, the depth of field hits you like a truck made of clouds. The photos look like what I pointed my camera at.
In short, I massively prefer the photos I get from my dedicated camera. I suspect if I showed you, you'd prefer them too.