User:Jim.henderson/Cameras vs Computers
NB> I'm sorry you're not so thrilled to bits with your camera as you believed you'd be. I see a friend of yours suggesting you build your own. Could you really?
Lately I've been writing Facebook words on my tablet, which is appropriate since neither is well suited to long messages. I mentioned the matter briefly on FB. Here's a dollop more with the real computer I use with E-mail.
Computers are made to connect, to cooperate with the world of computers. There are conventional plugs and signals so you can connect them and they work, pretty much but with some complications. Yes, it varies. Apple is less eager to connect than the various Wintel and Android makers are, and sometimes there are format wars for market domination, reminiscent of VHS vs Beta of ages ago. Recently Wikipedia took a wrong policy towards the current struggle between Google, Apple and Microsoft over video formats, and is now stuck with a fourth choice which hasn't a ghost of a chance of victory. Says me, anyway, but anyway in a couple years this will be settled just as past format wars have been won and lost and the new features got the power to connect together properly until the giants found some other improvement to fight about.
Cameras have never been made to fit each other. Every manufacturer makes a consistent line of products whose parts fit better than computer parts from different manufacturers fit together. But they don't even try to fit with other manufacturers and sometimes not with another line from the same manufacturer. Once you buy a camera body, any further lenses, remote controls, batteries, flashes (well, fancy flashes anyway) and many other parts and accessories have to come from that manufacturer. Okay, there are standards for film, memory card, tripod screw and some few other items.
Of course, nowadays cameras are computers, too, and many are made by a company that also makes more general computers, but cameras are special. They don't want to fit other things. They use special USB cables, special chargers, special every darn thing. Their software is custom made; there's no OS, so nobody can make improved apps like they make new apps for smartphones. Years ago I bought a Nikon P-6000 with Ethernet port. Lovely camera with good GPS but eventually I found out that the software only allows uploading photos to Nikon's own Web site. It can't send them to my computer or to Wikipedia or anything else.
This is for no reason, except that camera makers have always made their stuff to fit only with their own other stuff and not with the world, so they can harass their users forever with overcharges for add-ons. I can get a Wi-Fi add-on for my new Nikon P-520 but only from Nikon, and it can't work as a Webcam because the software doesn't have that feature and there's no way to add software features. Grr!
Some progress is underway. Samsung sells a Galaxy Camera that's also an Android tablet. It can run many apps, and uses a standard USB cable. But its case is designed to serve as an occasional tourist camera, not for a fanatic like me who needs greater handiness when bicycling. And I've been told its Android system has oddities that keep it from running some of the software that many Wikipedians favor. But Android cameras may become more commonplace, more diverse, and more computery. Then I'll be able to buy a physical camera with the optical capabilities and manual handiness I want, and add software that will serve my somewhat odd mapping and Wikipedia desires, and thus create the camera I want. Not this year, however, and probably not next.
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 18:55
JB> With some of the small Canon cameras crowd sourced public software is available to have greater control.
Far as I see, this kind of effort is usually directed at increasing the photographic versatility of a small camera, to allow greater manual control for studious photographers to get a better picture using that particular hardware. They are working the problem from the camera end, and they aren't aiming in my direction. They won't aim my way, because the lack of OS narrows the software market and they're starting with a camera that sells only on the order of a million per year worldwide.
I have put considerable study into sharing, mainly via Wikipedia, and wish to go farther in that direction. My special concerns call for specialized software, mainly apps designed for geotagging and Wikipedia. Such narrowly directed apps that are made for a commonplace platform can be offered to users of consumer grade equipment whose numbers will in a few years approach a billion. Those devices run Android or iOS, each of which gets many millions of smartphone users every month, hundreds of whom may be interested.
The geotagging apps I want don't yet exist, not even for high end smartphones. I hope they will arrive in the next few years. Wikipedia apps, in contrast, are fairly plentiful and useful. Current versions leave much room for improvement. Here, my hopefulness verges on confidence.
The problem is, these apps only go into phones and tablets. Those are crummy cameras despite rapid progress in adding more pixels. Megapixels help make better prints; but don't do much for users like me who are only interested in putting pictures on screens. Some of the more expensive camera phones also have higher sensitivity, wider angles and other relevant qualities. Unfortunately phones in general are tied to particular carriers, and mixing an arbitrary fancy phone with a service that doesn't offer it, is usually impractical.
More important, at least for me, a phone or tablet is physically clumsy when used as a camera. The shape is a good fit for the primary use as phone, and not bad for used as computer. When held up as camera it's usually an awkward operation, due in part to a lack of a grip. Steering my bicycle with one hand while snapping a picture with the other is completely unworkable given my limited dexterity. They also lack something as simple as dual strap lugs for hanging from my neck. They're all intended to be pulled from a pocket by a wrist strap, at most. I don't expect any great progress in the manufacturers trying to move their smartphones in the direction of being cameras that can do what I want. It would be pleasant to be wrong.
However, there is hope in the other direction. Camera makers are moving more towards properly equipping low end products as Android tablets, as seen in http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/10/5598996/nikon-coolpix-s810c-android-camera-announced and I think some of the products of the next year or three will be better aimed at my wishes. Of course, they will continue to lack the connective power of a mobile phone. That means they can only upload their pictures and download maps where a Wi-Fi connection is available. The ability to get maps on the road will be sorely missed, unless someone makes a Wikipedia article mapping app that can store and use internal maps. Still, it will probably be much better for me than what exists this month.