[serothis]

One thing that always struck me as very obvious is that camera companies are not great at computer wizardry. They've become experts on a few things like AF but beyond that it's hit or miss.

Car companies have this same issue. For example. look at the multi media systems of most cars. The custom in-house software is usually awful. Eventually Google and Apple stepped and really brought some great software. The point is two companies, whom specialize in software, are WAAAY better than companies that generally speaking don't do software.

Now back to cameras. Camera companies have (for the most part) figured out AF. But pretty much everything else has been subpar or requires a qualifier (good "from a camera company"). Image sync is awful. the Wi-fi transfer on the k-1 is miserable (and power hungry). On sensor AF has always been a struggle for all camera companies.

One of the things I would love to see is joint ventures between pentax (or camera companies in general) and other computer hardware/software companies.

Imagine for a moment if Pentax and Nvidia started working together. Nvidia is a graphics card manufacture. They've been working with car companies to help develop the video recognition systems for self driving cars. This seems like it would be a huge boon to target tracking AF. Their decades of specialized work has resulted in some obscenely efficient processor capable of highly paralleled workload (think multi point AF).

Now Pentax doesn't need AI in their cameras but imagine a highly sophisticated GPU and software knowledge stuffed in a K-1. Another example would be a company like samsung which has been making processors for smartphones for years in their own wafer fabrication facilities. Smartphones have a huge list of systems* on a comparable (actually slightly smaller) power budget but still manage a very high degree of performance.

*RF for cell service; Wi-Fi; Bluetooth; NFC; running a full OS.

It's really hard to find specifics on the PRIME IV processor in the k-1 but I would be hard pressed to believe that it is as capable or power efficient as one from a highly specialized GPU company (Nvidia) or a Company (Samsung) that has it's own processor fabrication facilities.

It just seems like there's a huge wealth of knowledge and technology out there and a travesty that camera companies aren't taking advantage of it. Am I just whistling dixie from my bum?

[reeftool]

Am I just whistling dixie from my bum?

Not really. There's a reason the smartphone has destroyed the consumer camera market. They do a better job for the most part. I no longer carry a P&S. My iPhone 5s has a very good camera. It's biggest issue is lack of image stabilization and that has been fixed in the newer models.

The reason this won't happen anytime soon is that the camera industry looks at the phone and computer industry as competitors and only grudgingly adopt things like Wi-FI and bluetooth to add to the spec list of "essential features" reviewers and users are demanding and the results haven't been very good up to now. There's no reason DSLR's can't reliably communicate, tether, and transfer files wirelessly other than the manufacturers don't want them too. Traditions are strong and the camera industry is only the latest industry to be disrupted by new technology they didn't take seriously until too late. How it all pans out remains to be seen. I think it's going to take the business failure of Nikon or Canon before the wake up call is answered because their features control the the rest of the industry.