Originally posted by Kunzite And an OS to negate all those advantages
a) Actually, no. I have a Xiaomi Mi3, which has last years flagship hardware. Snapdragon 801 quadcore CPU with 2.3 GHz, FullHD screen with 5", 2 GB RAM, and a 13 MP Sony camera that is backlit, plus the ability to save raw photos (and they are, there is absolutely no noise reduction applied). It is _very_ snappy. No noticeable wait between touching the screen and something happening. Despite having quite a few background tasks. Yes, I've had older Android phones with lesser hardware, and they struggled. But Android has become more efficient (as long as there is enough RAM... it really needs RAM) over time. Also keep in mind that an Android based DSLR would not have to do everything on the smartphone CPU. You could use a stripped down Android version. It could even look and feel like what we are used to, if they wanted to.
b) I certainly don't want a full Android on my phone. I've tried the Samsung Galaxy cameras, and that's a bad idea. I don't want to have to launch a camera app just to take a photo with my camera. I'm not arguing for that. It should be 100% a Pentax camera, and behave like one. For the most part you shouldn't even be able to tell the difference, and it should never ever get in the way of taking a photo. But it can have the added performance of a properly fast CPU. The ability navigate the photos fast and smoothly using a touchscreen (if we want to), with the screen cover being made from Gorilla Glass (cracked screens are far less of an issue on a camera, IMHO, but scratches are, and Gorilla Glass would pretty much stop that). The ability to extend the functionality through apps (, which are specially written for Pentax DSLRs?). There are things like no focus peaking during video recording, and I wouldn't be surprised that's because of the processing speed. Processing speed isn't an issue anymore in such a camera. And whatever I've mentioned in the previous post.
Certain controls could be done on the touchscreen in order to allow for a larger, higher resolution screen (the screen on my phone is ridiculously sharp, my camera should be like that too). If an OLED screen is used, most parts of the screen could be off, except for say the needed controls that are being put on the screen. The screen brightness could adjust to the ambient brightness, I don't understand why my camera doesn't do that already. I don't want to be blinded at night, and unable to see something during the day. The screen/touchscreen should turn off once my face gets too close to the camera/reaches the viewfinder (some other brands do that). Or perhaps dim down, while locking controls.
A lot of money has been poured into the development of insanely fast yet power saving processors, in an OS that is pretty good, good and very high resolution screens, sensors, etc. Why not make use of that? Something like a Mediatek MTK8392T for example (or it's counterpart aimed at phones instead of tablets) could be perfectly adequate yet really affordable.
Oh, and wouldn't it be nice if our cameras could be powered/charged via USB? USB chargers are _everywhere_, and there are external battery packs too that pack quite some punch. I could take photos, and when the battery starts to get flat I simply plug in the battery pack that I use for charging my phone on the go, and charge my camera (while I am using it). I don't see a reason why this couldn't or shouldn't be done, apart from a bit of charging electronics in the camera.
Btw., to show how powerful these CPUs (SoCs, really, like what Pentax uses) are these days:
Qualcomm Snapdragon 805. 2.7 GHz quadcore. A camera signal processor that can handle 2 cameras at the same time, with up to 55 MP, GPS/Glonass (the one in my phone is ridiculously fast in getting a fix, and even works indoors sometimes), WiFi (the fastest there is), BT, USB 3, 4K of course. The 808, coming early next year will add support for h265, the successor of h264, and much more efficient at encoding videos, while this year there's the 810 that is even faster. Who knows if it wouldn't make more sense to switch to one of these processors, from the slow antiquated Milbeaut? Everything it needs should be there already...
http://www.cnet.com/news/6-cool-things-that-your-next-snapdragon-805-phone-or-tablet-could-do/ Quote: This new carryover from dSLRs takes a series of five pictures and lets you choose with a tap on the screen which "zone" you call into focus. An extra bonus in the demo was seeing how the particular image maps into the five zones -- each photo produces its own depth map.
They also demonstrated a feature where you could color key photos... just that it takes into account depth. So you can tell it to take away the saturation of the background, while the people standing in the foreground are in color. Now I guess Pentax' focus motors aren't fast enough for that, but still.
Last edited by kadajawi; 08-25-2014 at 03:28 AM.