[zazaraka]

The lack of vision at DSLR companies is mind boggling.

Why can't I do light editing and post to Instagram directly from the camera? Why can't download the photos directly to a phone? Why can't I charge from a micro-USB/USB-C cable?

I get it that pros don't need these features, but how hard are they to implement? The camera is already $1000+ dollars, how much more could adding a touch screen, a SIM card and a beefier CPU cost, when you have $100 phones with these features?

A lot of influencers would buy these cameras if they had a simple auto-mode (which disables most buttons and hides advanced menus) and upload to instagram feature. The workflow for using a DSLR to post to instagram is terrible, SD-cards, WiFi adapters, laptops, ... Not to mention that you need a lot of technical knowledge to hook everything up. No wonder few bother with the pain.

It's ridiculous that the most expensive cameras in the world can't connect to the number one place in the world where pictures are posted.

[ulfw]

Most of the stuff you wrote can be done with modern cameras. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji et al have mobile apps with a variety of functionality depending on model. But all basically allow you to connect via bluetooth to GPS tag pictures and download them via Wifi to your phone, where you can 'directly post them to Instagram'. You can charge most modern cameras (Canon EOS R, Sony A7(R)III, Nikon Z6/Z7, Fuji XT-3(0) etc) with USB-C. Canon and Nikon have great touch screen support, Fuji so-so, Sony horrible.

I am not saying everything is perfect. But it seems you haven't done research on modern cameras.

Trying to put a whole phone stack in there isn't the core competency of any of those manufacturers (except barely Sony, though a different division). It's not just "slap a SIM and a beefier CPU" in there. Camera CPUs are highly specialised. So you'd have to essentially put another phone in there. That adds BOM cost plus reasearch and development of folks without core competency. Issues with software updates, compatibility, let alone battery life. All so you can edit a picture on a tiny 3" screen to post a 4megapixel version of a 24-45Megapixel original image directly to instagram?

Zeiss is coming out with a phone just with everything you've described. They're late. It will be huge. It will be incredibly expensive. Not sure I'd want to go that route.

[FireBeyond]

> Why can't download the photos directly to a phone?

I have Canon and Leica cameras, mid and high end, that do this.

> Why can't I charge from a micro-USB/USB-C cable?

There are cameras that will.

> how much more could adding a touch screen

Notably Sony stands alone in being the only major manufacturer _without_ touch.

> a simple auto-mode (which disables most buttons and hides advanced menus)

Not sure about other manufacturers, but this would be Canon's "creative" mode, available on (at least) entry levels) to the $3,000 body only 5D IV.

> and upload to instagram feature

> It's ridiculous that the most expensive cameras in the world can't connect to the number one place in the world where pictures are posted.

Agreed. And it's Instagram's fault. You can't upload to IG from your computer (without your browser pretending to be mobile). APIs for third party app-based uploads are near non-existent, and the people who _do_ try to maintain plugins to export to IG from Lightroom, etc., are constantly playing cat and mouse.

Not sure how this correlates to a "lack of vision from DSLR companies" - IG is actively hostile to uploading to IG from anywhere but its own apps.

[zazaraka]

> Not sure how this correlates to a "lack of vision from DSLR companies"

Where there is a will, there is a way. Just turn the camera into an android phone.

https://www.thephoblographer.com/2019/03/10/the-new-yongnuo-...

[throwaway9d0291]

> Notably Sony stands alone in being the only major manufacturer _without_ touch.

Sony has touch screens on their cameras. It's of limited usefulness though, mainly limited to focus points.

[jdietrich]

It's a huge investment in software and hardware for an almost non-existent user base. Most current DSLRs already have Wifi or a Wifi option; those that don't can be fitted with a Wifi SD card. It turns out that hardly anyone actually uses that feature, because Wifi transfer rates are generally a more problematic bottleneck than the inconvenience of pulling the SD card and putting it into a card reader. The main users of Wifi tethering appear to be sports and news photographers, who do sometimes need to upload a photo right now.

Adding what amounts to an entire smartphone to every DSLR is simply madness - the kind of person who spends >$1000 on a bulky and complex camera is almost certainly the kind of person who has an Adobe Creative Cloud account; they're not going to post-process an image on the back of their camera through choice.

[mdorazio]

This is akin to people who said "why would you want computer-like features on your phone? Everyone who's willing to pay $500+ for a phone already has a laptop!"

A very large number of would-be content creators (not just Instagram, either - YouTubers also) want the higher image quality, dynamic range, optical zoom, interchangeable lenses, etc. of a full-body camera, but don't want to deal with the clunky interfaces and multi-step processes just to get your images/videos to a format, style, and place you want them. Yes, that's a subset of the market, but it's probably a bigger potential userbase than traditional "pure" photographers.

[zazaraka]

> for an almost non-existent user base

> the kind of person who spends >$1000 on a bulky and complex camera

I'm talking about opening up a new market - instagrammers, who already spend money on ring lights, tripods for their phones, but who don't want to learn all the intricacies of using a DSLR camera + adapters + laptop.

The DSLR camera makers focus on a constant/shrinking market of pros, while totally ignoring a booming Instagram market.

[Lukeas14]

I think that huge investment is going to pay off several times over for whichever company is willing to make it. Canon and Nikon each share almost 50% of this market because their offerings aren't much different from one another. A DSLR that has the same functionalities, software magic and ease of use as a phone would be a game-changing product. Right now phone cameras are so far ahead technologically but permanently held back by physical form-factor. The only thing preventing camera companies from matching them is making massive investments in their software divisions.

The user base would be everyone who buys <$1000 crop sensor cameras, which is already significant. This includes parents taking photos of their kids playing sports from across the field, (un)official school photographers, Instagram boyfriends, all non-pro photographers who need separate telephoto lenses. Improving ease of use would expand this market greatly since the main barrier to entry is learning how to use a DSLR.

[mobjack]

Wifi tethering is cumbersome to set up and is a janky experience.

I want to take a picture of someone at a party and share it with them in a few seconds like I can do on my phone.

It is the main reason I don't use a DSLR much at all anymore.

[BeetleB]

Completely agree. Why don't they provide APIs so people can customize the behavior and processing? Take a look at this:

https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/04/experimental-nighttime-pho...

Using a relatively crappy camera on a phone, they were able to get great results merely because they can program it.

As a simple example: I want to reduce high ISO noise by taking N photos and taking the median. This is an established technique in photo editing. Why do I have to manually tell the camera to take those N photos (and make sure autofocus and autoexposure is not enabled), and then transfer N images, and then load a program to do the median calculation for me? Why can't I create a plugin/app for my camera where I just input the number of photos and it does it all for me?

I think any camera manufacturer that makes an API available for their cameras could see a serious boost. People no longer have to rely on the company deciding what cool features to add.

There's really not been any serious innovation in DSLRs in over a decade. Pentax occasionally comes up with something neat, but that's about it.

[jdietrich]

You can already customise the behaviour of a Canon DSLR, because there's an open-source third-party firmware option with a Lua API.

https://magiclantern.fm/

[brokenmachine]

Casio had some cool features on their "High Speed" cameras. eg the EX-100 and before it the FH-100. It can buffer photos at 40fps while you half-hold the shutter, and then when you fully press the shutter, it will save a certain number of those frames from even before you fully depressed it. Great for catching, eg a bird taking off, or a sporting event.

It was an amazing feature but Casio has sadly exited the camera market now, and I haven't seen another camera with the same kind of feature.

[throwanem]

You can't do that because no one is building general-purpose computers into DSLRs - or, for that matter, MILCs - because no one cares about that use case, and the resources wasted on making it possible are better spent on supporting the things that photographers expect cameras to do.

That said, you probably could do something like that with sufficient effort invested in CHDK or Magic Lantern or whatever the current homebrew Canon firmware project is lately. I'll be fascinated to see what you come up with!

[AlexandrB]

> Why can't download the photos directly to a phone?

You can on some cameras (e.g. Canon 80D), but it’s somewhat cumbersome and eats batteries at a fantastic rate because the camera hosts its own WiFi access point.

[AWildC182]

Z6/7 does this with ease. Also, it has a touchscreen and can edit files on the camera but I don't know of anyone who bothers.

[spookthesunset]

It’s amazing how many replies are poo-pooing your thoughts yet the financial reports demonstrate they are wrong.

I have a good expensive DSLR that I haven’t touched in more than a year. Why? Cause the workflow stinks compared to my phones camera.

- I have to remove the SD card - I have to bring out my computer and pop in the card - I have to sync it into Lightroom, which keeps all the photos in a totally different bin than all my smartphone pictures. - once I’m done dinking with the photos, I have to export the ones I like and import them back into the Photos app, which ensures it shows up on my TV - I’ve got to post it to FB/instagram. - I’ve got to nuke the card to free up the space - put it back into the camera

That is just enough of a hurdle that it keeps me from lugging the damn thing with me on trips.

Seriously. I’d love to use my DSLR more. It takes way better pictures. It just doesn’t integrate worth a damn into my computing infrastructure anymore.

I think there is a untapped market for some higher end camera with interchangeable lenses that can seamlessly integrate with a modern workflow.

[la_barba]

Financial reports don't demonstrate anything. You're providing an explanation without actually demonstrating that the provided explanation is the real reason. A shrinking DSLR market has been predicted by analysts (and manufacturers too) for ages now. The primary reason that keeps coming up is that people simply don't want to carry yet another device when their smartphone does more than an adequate job for general purpose photography. More and more the advantage of a larger sensor and better optics is only realized in a small range of professional usecases - Sports/action/wildlife photography, low-light events/astro photography, printing massive billboards, etc, etc.

>I think there is a untapped market for some higher end camera with interchangeable lenses that can seamlessly integrate with a modern workflow.

Sure, maybe there is. The real question is.. is it a tiny $1-2 million market or a larger 100+ million dollar market.

[detaro]

The workflow you describe is not as unavoidable as you make it seem. I can plug my phone into my almost-decade-old DSLR, copy the photos over (and use the phone or even nicer a tablet as a larger extended screen), edit them in an app and directly share them through other apps if I want. If I didn't want the cable, I could get a WLAN-enabled SD card - or if I were to buy a current model camera, pick one with WLAN integrated, all major manufacturers have those now.

I would not want to edit photos on the camera, a phone or tablet is way more comfortable to hold for that.

[la_barba]

You forgot one qualifier, the most expensive -professional- cameras. Different professionals have different needs. Every camera is designed with a usecase in mind. Off the top of my head professionals photographers need:

* rugged tank-like construction - 1D, 5D series mag-alloy bodies check, weather sealing - check

* reliable AF - check

* awesome battery life - check

* professional support services that can service/repair/loan products with a super-fast turnaround time for when you have a gig.. - check

* high quality optics - Canon L glass, check

* high res sensor for billboards - 5DSR check

* huge library of lenses - check, check and check

In all of those things Canon and Nikon (and even Sony to some extent) excel. I don't think the features you want are useless or provide no value, but you have to look at the bigger picture and take the entire market into consideration. People are using smartphones not just because DSLRs don't have certain features, its that they don't want to carry yet another device when their smartphone does an adequate job.

[throwanem]

"Why can't I do light editing and post to Instagram directly from the camera?"

Because the computing resource, battery power, and physical volume spent on hardware Instagram integration detracts from what can be devoted to making the camera as good as possible at being a camera. You'd have to cram a smartphone in there, and everyone already has smartphones anyway.

And you can do light editing in-camera, if you want.

"Why can't download the photos directly to a phone? Why can't I charge from a micro-USB/USB-C cable?"

You can. Modern bodies have touchscreens, too.

And I don't want Nikon and Canon worrying about marketing to influencers, because influencers are a terrible market! I want them worrying about making and selling excellent cameras for the use of people who do need more than a phone camera or maybe a cheap camcorder can provide.

[zazaraka]

By catering to influencers in SOME models, they would be in a much better financial shape to continue R&D for the pros.

[londons_explore]

There is lack of vision/innovation in the actual photo-taking too.

All high-end phones take tens or sometimes hundreds of raw frames for every photograph, and then combine them to reduce noise and get more dynamic range than the tiny lens and sensor would otherwise provide. The combining process involves using a gyro to remove camera shake and optical-flow to undo the effect of anything moving in the scene.

As far as I know, no DSLR camera does this. You need to be able to take ~100 frames at 120fps or more, and either store it as RAW (ie. 10's of gigabytes of data), or process it realtime. Phones process it realtime on the GPU or with dedicated silicon.

[doctorpangloss]

An artmaking tool like the DSLR will still outlive Instagram. There will be a reaction against oversharing, ad-adjacency and other social media that leads to its demise, but nobody will oppose the mechanical, mirror viewfinder for any political reason.

[hestipod]

I don't know...reading around it seems the mirrorless fans that dominate photography discussions REALLY hate mechanical shutters and optical viewfinders with some passionate fury. I feel like an old man shouting at clouds when saying I prefer DSLR.

[jinushaun]

When was the last time you bought a DSLR? My 2 year old low end camera (Canon T7i) has touch, HDR and send to phone. I shoot and send the photo to my camera then upload to Instagram all the time. Photos no longer collect dust on SD cards.

I agree, they aren’t innovating fast enough.

I would love getting rid of the mini USB charger. Why can’t cameras use micro usb like every other non-Apple usb accessory? Different power specs?

The HDR feature is so aggressive that it’s not really usable compared to my phone’s HDR. There should be a slider to pick how much HDR you want for each picture.

[fetus8]

Most DSLR/Mirrorless cameras have functionality to send photos directly to an iOS or Android device. They've had features like that going back a couple of years tbh.

annd pretty much every camera has an Auto-mode...

[AWildC182]

If people just want auto upload to instagram, they'll use a phone. The advantage of a proper mirrorless/DSLR is the insane power you get with RAW file editing in post.

[tomatocracy]

I'd say very high quality optics (bigger sensor and better lenses) is an even better reason.

[souprock]

I would like that "simple auto-mode" to be enabled with the power switch. When I turn the camera on, I might not have time to mess with settings.

That mode should turn off bit by bit as I make manual adjustments. If I adjust ISO and exposure, then the camera is left with aperture and shutter speed under auto control. If I turn the focus ring, then the camera stops doing autofocus.

[hestipod]

Unless I am misunderstanding your wants you can already do that. Leave the camera's main control dial on Auto for the instant shot or P(rogram)...with appropriate auto ISO settings if so desired...to meet the requirements of your second sentence. When you power on you will be in the chosen mode. Some cameras/lenses do allow AF override but its a simple flick of a switch to turn MF on if not. This stuff is where buttons, switches, and dials outshine menus any day.

[xster]

Another department I doubt these traditional Japanese companies can catch up on is computational photography. I can take 5s handheld night time photos with adequate quality on a bunch of phones these days. There's still no way of getting anything useful out of DSLRs longer than 1/15s without tripods.

[brokenmachine]

I'm not smart enough to do exact calculations with aperture, etc, but I think the amount of light taken in with a 1/15s exposure with a DSLR would be more than a 5s cameraphone image.

Just taking the area of the lens, say a 5mm diameter cameraphone lens is pi x 5^2=79mm^2 vs a DSLR, conservatively 60mm diameter is pi x 60^2=11309mm^2.

So 143 times the lens area, while your example exposure time is only 75 times more. So your example of a 5s exposure would be similar to a 1/30s DSLR exposure only based on lens area.

With the advantage of bigger sensor pixels and thus much better sensitivity, larger aperture, usually stabilization in the lens, and much, much less motion of the subject during that exposure as well, the DSLR still wins on absolutely everything except weight to lug around.