[mee]

I also don't want the cost/heat associated with the battery needed to run hungry 8core SoC's that will still sit idle and wasteful 90% of the time. Theres a lot more going on in the data path of a big chip setup then the tiny ones. I don't think a company like Pentax that doesn't make its own silicon is in a position to really cram all the crap needed to make a Galaxy Phone. They already have the fastest? use apsc dslr going anyways.

Those SoCs are able to be switch on/off per core. Somewhat like disabling half the cylinders in a car to make it more fuel efficient.

For huge burst rates it would be fantastic to have the extra horsepower and data pathway to create the image data and write it to the card without it ever bottlenecking.. I've heard eventually we may not even have single shot cameras but essentially videocameras that can then have individual frames pulled. Likely with a single image shutter option.. haha.

[kadajawi]

I also don't want the cost/heat associated with the battery needed to run hungry 8core SoC's that will still sit idle and wasteful 90% of the time. Theres a lot more going on in the data path of a big chip setup then the tiny ones. I don't think a company like Pentax that doesn't make its own silicon is in a position to really cram all the crap needed to make a Galaxy Phone. They already have the fastest? use apsc dslr going anyways.

They don't have to make a Galaxy phone. Take an off the shelf middle of the road or high end smartphone/tablet CPU (it doesn't need to have a 3G modem, so tablet CPUs that don't have it seem to make more sense), take Android and modify it into a real camera OS with benefits. Would that OS be less efficient than what Pentax uses now? Yes. Will it be a big problem? I doubt it.

These CPUs can switch off parts they don't need, they can reduce the clock speed, etc. I would not be surprised if it were more power efficient than the Milbeaut. Remember how much money is being poured into improving these things, with many millions of products using these chips. How many Milbeauts are being produced? The advantage would be having a ton of power when needed. When not, these things barely consume anything. Imagine bursting 40 photos in raw, then switching to the video mode and being able to start recording while it is still saving. Or going to the menu. Or any other of these things (I don't know how good the K-3 is, but somehow I doubt that is possible). Being able to capture a HDR photo very fast... my smartphone can take 30 HDR photos (2 exposures per photo) per second at 1920x1080 AND process it at the same time into a video.

Often times DSLRs are limited by their processing power. Denoising can't be so good. Moire can't be fought that good. And on and on and on. The DNG compression on my K-5 is nowhere near as good as it is on my computer... because it has more power.

Cameras are to expensive as it is now. (Compared to phones.) No need to beef them up with fancy electronics so they become more expensive (and many times more susceptible to becoming outdated) and lose even more ground to smartphones.

So... the solution is to have the DSLRs be outdated from the start?

Also, a good smartphone usually costs $400-700. Though there's plenty of profit to be had there, otherwise how could Xiaomi offer much cheaper phones that are just as good?

That's because a camera doesn't have to do all the same stuff that a smartphone has to do. It has to capture image data in the form of pictures or movies, and do that very well and stable. If needed, it has to be able to conveniently pass along that image date to a device with more processing power to do it's own thing with it. Be it a desktop, pc, mac, phone, tablet or whatever tool of choice. Now in that communication there are a lot of gains to be made.

Our laptops however, have processing power of the present. I'm not going to use my 4 core smartphone to develop my 1025 DNG's of my holiday when I can use my laptop with 8 cores and double GFX cards and nice large IPS screen. Takes already long enough with that! I'm looking to upgrade again, but developement has slowed down. Curse the ones responsible that!

Make no mistake, there is plenty of processing going on, even with raw photos it seems. And once we get to JPEG or video... Keep in mind that for those applications, all the fancy processing that we could do on the computer with raw photos to gain the best quality has to happen on the camera itself. And in the case of video it has to happen very, very fast. That's why with many cameras stills taken at 1920x1080 look better than a video of the same scene, at the same resolution. Let alone how it would look like if you had taken a raw photo and processed it in Lightroom (without adjusting the sliders, except for the noise filter perhaps).

My smartphone camera also has the IQ and resolution that cameras had 5 years ago... We're here still using dedicated cameras though, because we want the quality of the present. Why would we then suddenly shift back a gear or two and want to process them in the cameras themselves or on smartphones with processors of several years ago? Not very consistent.

That's only because of the tiny sensors they have. But it's amazing what they can do with it. The latest and greatest smartphones can take low DoF photos that are physically impossible with these sensors and lenses. They can record the distance of objects. I think if they were given a DSLR sensor/lens, the quality would be better than what a DSLR could do. At least for JPEG and video, perhaps also for raw.

And don't forget that some people want WiFi. They want tethering. They want GPS. Well, it's all in the chip, ready to be used, including, it seems, a fairly advanced image processor.

The Snapdragon 810 will enable the first wave of 4K resolution smartphones and tablets. The chipset also supports 4K HEVC (H.265) capture (encode) and 4K playback (decode). You’ll also find a 14-bit camera dual image signal processors (ISP) inside which means full HDR Video – that’s right: Full HDR Video – as well as support for camera sensors up to 55MP.

The 810 also supports 2 displays with 4K resolution... though for a DSLR that might be a bit excessive, unless they put a 4K screen on the camera. In general these CPUs are excessive, but then excessive should lead to stunning performance and the ability to do more with the photos. Let alone videos. Video is probably the area that would benefit most from all of this of course.

The latest Lytro is using a Snapdragon 800, btw.

[Clavius]

otherwise how could Xiaomi offer much cheaper phones that are just as good?

Who's Xiaomi?

That's only because of the tiny sensors they have. But it's amazing what they can do with it. The latest and greatest smartphones can take low DoF photos that are physically impossible with these sensors and lenses. They can record the distance of objects. I think if they were given a DSLR sensor/lens, the quality would be better than what a DSLR could do. At least for JPEG and video, perhaps also for raw.

Ok, you've convinced me. There are a number of very clever smartphone features that I have been whishing that would trickle upward to dedicated cameras. But those of course do require a lot of extra processing power, a decent OS and development. Like the hyperresolution that my own smartphone applies on the fly for example without the user even realising it.

But sticking to the thread topic. What is Pentax supposed to do then? Aren't they to small to move such mountains? Should they therefore team up with a smartphone company?

[kadajawi]

Who's Xiaomi?



Ok, you've convinced me. There are a number of very clever smartphone features that I have been whishing that would trickle upward to dedicated cameras. But those of course do require a lot of extra processing power, a decent OS and development. Like the hyperresolution that my own smartphone applies on the fly for example without the user even realising it.

But sticking to the thread topic. What is Pentax supposed to do then? Aren't they to small to move such mountains? Should they therefore team up with a smartphone company?

Xiaomi is one of the biggest smartphone makers in the world. Last year they sold I believe around 18 million phones, this year they expect to triple that amount. Basically they make iPhones based on Android, but extremely well made. Their latest phone takes basically the best hardware there is right now (the best Sony camera, the best screens, the fastest CPU, ...), puts them into a very well made case (that looks too much like Apple...), installs their own flavor of Android that is quite iOS inspired, but also very good, usable and fast, and sell it for half the price comparable phones cost.

Pentax makes use of what Milbeaut offers... the software based in camera video stabilization that was introduced with the K-30 or K-01? It's because the Prime M offers it (and no one at Pentax apparently tried it out... or they would have noticed that it's no good). Fujitsu actually advertises that feature, and it didn't in previous iterations. Qualcomm offers some of the image enhancements on the processor, so Pentax would have to activate them. Of course tweak a lot too, the Snapdragon does white balance etc. itself, but I think Pentax would like to retain their own algorithms, unless what Qualcomm has done is better. Some of the improvements can be developed by Pentax, for others they could offer APIs.

Partnering up with another camera... they could do that, yes. Or do it themselves, it depends on what they can pull off. Who knows, maybe they are secretly working on this, but it takes time.

[cxdoo]

All that fancy Android stuff is fine by me in P&S or entry level consumer camera. Until it's proven and works there (so no weekly firmware updates in the hope of fixing that particular bug that bothers you) for a couple of camera releases, I don't want any of it on a DSLR. Not only that I don't want it, I want it not. As in, given the choice, I will buy the model without it.

[i83N]

I know what Pentax fans should do...
Stop whining for once...

[kadajawi]

All that fancy Android stuff is fine by me in P&S or entry level consumer camera. Until it's proven and works there (so no weekly firmware updates in the hope of fixing that particular bug that bothers you) for a couple of camera releases, I don't want any of it on a DSLR. Not only that I don't want it, I want it not. As in, given the choice, I will buy the model without it.

P&S are dead. Entry level consumer cameras have different requirements. I want a work tool, and that includes the camera working for me, instead of me having to do _everything_. Also, this stuff would be most suitable to higher end gear, because of the increased speed and increased cost. How would it look like if the entry level Pentax does 12 fps continuously (raw, with a hard drive attached) when the top of the line Pentax does 8 fps for 30 shots? If the entry level camera does tethering at a really high level, while the top of the line Pentax doesn't? If the entry level camera has better image and video quality than the big one?

Obviously the system would have to be stable.

[Uluru]

P&S are dead. Entry level consumer cameras have ...

Please tell that to Ricoh. They have rebadged few OEM P&S cameras as theirs, rebadged same old P&S from Pentax and reissuing them again under 'Ricoh'.
In that exact area you say real things happen — and that is world above P&S and below well established system cameras — well, nothing really happens there in case of Pentax. While all the others are entrenching themselves there (Sigma with 3 cameras, Fuji with X20 and X30, Olympus with Endless EPLs and Stylus 1, Sony with a handful of RX10s etc., Canon with G1X) ... where is Pentax?

Is Pentax offering Q instead?

[johnmflores]

All that fancy Android stuff is fine by me in P&S or entry level consumer camera. Until it's proven and works there (so no weekly firmware updates in the hope of fixing that particular bug that bothers you) for a couple of camera releases, I don't want any of it on a DSLR. Not only that I don't want it, I want it not. As in, given the choice, I will buy the model without it.

I'm the opposite. Using Android can open up the camera to third party developers. I'd love to be able to download a focus stacking app, or a time lapse app, or an astrophotography app, or an IR simulator app, or a watermarking app, or…the list goes on.

Samsung is already iterating in this space - Galaxy Cameras. No breakout hits yet, but they're investing the time and developing the in-house expertise. If I were shooting Samsung cameras, I'd be eyeing the NX very closely.

It's one way that a marginal player can make inroads into the market.

[Kunzite]

Using Android will also open the camera to countless bugs, security issues (!) and, worst of all, Java It will also ask an unprecedentedly high level of support.

I'm watching the Sony support forum's Xperia SP section, and things are very ugly there. The worst complainers here are a bunch of Pentax cheerleaders in comparison...
By the way, Sony AFAIK is working with 18 months support cycles (for OS updates). My SP is almost outdated, it probably won't get Android 4.4 - yeah, people are angry about that. Android 4.4 is actually old news, we're waiting for L... but not on antiquated, last year's devices. Then, there are custom ROMs, with their bugs and improved functionality.

Do you really want this for your DSLR? I know I don't.

[cali92rs]

Using Android will also open the camera to countless bugs, security issues (!) and, worst of all, Java It will also ask an unprecedentedly high level of support.

I'm watching the Sony support forum's Xperia SP section, and things are very ugly there. The worst complainers here are a bunch of Pentax cheerleaders in comparison...
By the way, Sony AFAIK is working with 18 months support cycles (for OS updates). My SP is almost outdated, it probably won't get Android 4.4 - yeah, people are angry about that. Android 4.4 is actually old news, we're waiting for L... but not on antiquated, last year's devices. Then, there are custom ROMs, with their bugs and improved functionality.

Do you really want this for your DSLR? I know I don't.

Man, I cant believe I am typing this, but I totally agree with you.
Smartphones are quick and function great out of the box. But after 6 months and downloading a few Apps, the phone slows down significantly and power consumption just kills battery life.

[Asahiflex]

Smartphone cameras are getting better and better every year. Camera companies that don't make their cameras smarter and connected will go the way of the fax machine and video cassette recorder.

Agree 100%.

[konraDarnok]

I suspect people advocating a more open software interface are the same people who remove bloatware from their phones and computers before even using them. Or better yet, stick with manufacturers that don't bloat the OS from the onset.

Fact is, there are many different experiences accorss many different platforms. Some good, some quite bad. No one is advocating Pentax emulate a bad experience.

[Clavius]

I'm the opposite. Using Android can open up the camera to third party developers. I'd love to be able to download a focus stacking app, or a time lapse app, or an astrophotography app, or an IR simulator app, or a watermarking app, or…the list goes on.

Same here, I'd love focus stacking, pano stitching, apps to support 3D, etc... But realisticly... If Pentax issues a fine ILC with android and the ability to have third party apps on it, will there be any brilliant app developers jumping in to develop such features? Or will they say: "What's a Pentax?!"

[johnmflores]

Same here, I'd love focus stacking, pano stitching, apps to support 3D, etc... But realisticly... If Pentax issues a fine ILC with android and the ability to have third party apps on it, will there be any brilliant app developers jumping in to develop such features? Or will they say: "What's a Pentax?!"

Fair point. This is where Pentax, Samsung, and whoever else is interested needs to form an Android Camera Alliance to educate and recruit developers. It's not unlike Olympus and Panasonic forming Four-Thirds and then Micro Four-Thirds, but instead of the mount it's the OS.