[c.a.m]

Is the poor video support in DSLRs going to ensure their early demise?

A. Not necessarily.

@peterh337, to me, the subsequent posts in this thread appear to address connectivity in general -- smartphones in particular -- not video per se. It's not clear from the title of the thread that video is the issue of concern.

I gather that a number of DSLR and mirrorless camera owners use their cameras for still photography and videography. What's not clear to me is the percentage of those folks who make videos regularly, or what the average split is between the two modes. I don't have a good reference base to speak credibly on this point; one of my son's friends is buying a dedicated cine camera to support his growing fashion videography business (augmenting his current camera), and my son recently bought a Fuji camera (80% video; 20% stills). But that's only a sample size of two.

I also wonder how many of the users who expect or demand a high-quality video capability in a stills/video camera actually produce good videos? As I am learning from my son's experience, videography and video production requires different knowledge and skills than still photography.

Currently, a DSLR is a total dead end if you are on a trip.

This statement seems to me to be an exaggeration.

You get back home, to a hotel, etc, and have to either USB-connect to a laptop (phones don't recognise a K1 as a USB slave... why is that??) or pull out the SD card and insert that into the laptop. Then mess about, then send some pics to people.

This process is what I do with my DSLR when I'm on a trip. It works fine for what I need, so it doesn't seem to be a "total dead end." I wouldn't abandon my DSLR simply because it doesn't feature a totally seamless connectivity. On the other hand, I certainly take advantage of my smartphone's capabilities, and enjoy the ease of accessing the internet, email, messaging, maps, etc.

I don't think we've seen a full convergence yet -- my DSLR takes still pictures that have much better quality than a smartphone but it's not connected as well. The phone is a convenient device that can't take as good quality images. I think smartphones will continue to be hampered by optical limitations for quite a while to come.


- Craig

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Last edited by c.a.m; 02-18-2020 at 09:38 AM.

[stevebrot]

Anything anyone says in this thread - from your original post to any and all responses - can be nothing more than opinion, speculation and/or conjecture. None of us can say what will happen and why. To that end, rather than engage in yet another "what Pentax should do" debate (and we've had so many, including those related to video), I'll simply revise my original response to the thread question:

Q: Is the poor video support in DSLRs going to ensure their early demise?

A: No, I don't for one moment believe that it is

Perhaps the thread might have been better as a yes/no poll...

Yay! Thanks for calling out the truth here.


Steve

[stevebrot]

This process is what I do with my DSLR when I'm on a trip. It works fine for what I need, so it doesn't seem to be a "total dead end." I wouldn't abandon my DSLR simply because it doesn't feature a totally seamless connectivity.

Yay! ^ ^ ^

When I travel, photography is usually a side interest and if I do serious work, it rests on the card until I get home and can properly complete the creative process. Casual snap shots and selfies and video are done with the phone and shared from there. Horses for courses, right?


Steve

I am under the impression that a DSLR is for making stills, if you want video, buy a video camera, if you want Wifi, buy a computer, tablet or a phone. I think that a good DSLR can do without video and wifi capabilities. I think that Samsung came close to what you want from a camera, it was more a phone without phone capabilties or an android tablet without tablet capabilities, but it made great stills and still Samsung had to quit the camera market. They now make very good very small camera's that have video and phone capabilites.

[Serkevan]

Currently, a DSLR is a total dead end if you are on a trip. You get back home, to a hotel, etc, and have to either USB-connect to a laptop (phones don't recognise a K1 as a USB slave... why is that??) or pull out the SD card and insert that into the laptop. Then mess about, then send some pics to people..

When I just want to send SOOC jpgs (which I seldom do; what is the point of an ILC if you don't shoot raw¹?), I use my second SD card, which is set for small sized JPGs. Takes basically no time to find and send the pics I want.

Normally, though, I willingly put myself at a "dead end" on a trip. I'm too busy enjoying the journey to bother with the instant gratification. I sit down with the photos and process everything once I'm home.

¹: I always try to ETTR and, when in doubt, underexpose. This means that I have a *lot* of wiggle room in Lightroom, but JPEGs tend to look too underexposed even with Shadow correction set to strongest.

---------- Post added 02-18-20 at 09:47 AM ----------

Yay! ^ ^ ^

When I travel, photography is usually a side interest and if I do serious work, it rests on the card until I get home and can properly complete the creative process. Casual snap shots and selfies and video are done with the phone and shared from there. Horses for courses, right?


Steve

Exactly; sometimes you just want to walk around and don't even bring out the camera, or keep it in the backpack with a standard zoom "just in case". For a dedicated photo outing, if I cared enough to shoot 1k photos in a week with 4 different lenses, then I care enough to carefully sift through them, edit them and bring the best in each of them.

The phone is far more practical for the 'we are alive and enjoying' selfies for the family... Although I managed to get a couple cool selfies with the M20/4 on the K-1!

[roberrl]

Just going back to the OP's original question, I seem to see an awful lot of Canon (and to a lesser extent Sony) DSLR's in use in a professional context.
Not necessarily in a movie industry context but certainly in a "Youtube" context where there is much professional material.
And the BBC seem to find GoPro's perfectly adequate for such programs as Ski Sunday where they rattle down the piste fixed to skis.
So I think the original assertion does not match what I see on the ground/screen.
But do I want better video on my Pentax - yes I do! I await Knew with interest.

[WorksAsIntended]

That's true but you don't have to implement that stuff. If you give people a function which auto generates downsized jpegs, say 1MB, and copies them to an app on the phone which drops them into the Gallery, then people can do all that junk with their phone. It has a proper user interface, too

Currently, a DSLR is a total dead end if you are on a trip. You get back home, to a hotel, etc, and have to either USB-connect to a laptop (phones don't recognise a K1 as a USB slave... why is that??) or pull out the SD card and insert that into the laptop. Then mess about, then send some pics to people.

You could implement auto sync to dropbox, google drive, onedrive, suitably firewalled. This could be done straight out of the camera (wifi) or to an app on the phone (wifi or bluetooth) which does the upload. The latter would sidestep security issues because the camera mfg controls both ends. It also sidesteps UI issues because all the config is done on the phone, and stuff like dropbox auth will be already configured there.

The IOT security issue is an issue partly because the chinese could never write even half decent software (all the IT gear whose nontrivial sw was written out there is ridden with bugs) and are rapidly getting worse because anybody with more than half a brain is constantly looking for their next job, and because "everybody" wants remote control of their fridge, toaster, oven, heating, etc, over the internet, which is ridiculous. Most people can't even set up a webcam on an open port, with a password other than "admin" Here we are not talking about remote control of your K1, over TCP.

But, yeah, even the mighty Sony cannot write a usable phone app. Their PlayMemories app for their action cams, now called Imaging Edge Mobile, is junk. Crippled by some usability committee. But that doesn't mean it cannot be done well.

A single client firewall does not protect services that are communicating to the outer net.
All the services you named require host verification and therefore require updates. All of those services are tcp bases.
Also IOT is not a chinese problem.
We worked on multiple German, European and US made medical and labority machines which have interfaces for data transmission. Basically all of them are a security nightmare.
On the other hand I saw some brilliant chinese hpc code that made me drop my jar.
The issue is not enough dev time and future maintenace and is present in mostly every country. What do you do when OpenSSL has a major bug, on which your services rely to communicate?
It is not only the fact you need to write those updates, but that you need somebody to constantly check every bug report of every library used and API changes of the services used.


I seriously prefer Pentax putting the manpower into other r&d than maintaining camera os. It is just too much trouble.

Btw, I invite most people that talk about other devs to not having half a brain (often found when talking about MS for example) to provide and maintain a single complex software written.
As soon as you are forces to leave the easy paths and concepts educated at universities it is very hard to maintain good quality code.
Have a look at the work put into every small line of code before it gets part of the Gnu/Linux kernel. And here we talk about straight forward c-code, no complex surroundings.

Writing good and big maintainable software is harder than most (even devs) think.

---------- Post added 02-18-20 at 10:58 AM ----------

On topic: I think the lack of video capabilities pushes mirrorless against dslr, but has no big influence on the amount of units if both types combined sold.

[MossyRocks]

The main attack vectors are via browsing, email, and general support for downloading objects.

For regular people's desktops and laptops probably assuming they have auto updates enabled. However for other things like all of the IoT trash out there they are generally pretty exploitable right out of the box even by people of limited skill. Yes I mean that most internet of things devices are trash from a security perspective as more often that not security was an after thought that was poorly implement if at all.

I really don't want to have an internet connected camera that always wants me to update before using it.

If you were running say a dropbox client, that can be adequately firewalled.

You place way too much hope people who set their passwords to 12345. It isn't even like that is a new thing since it was

You Tube

You Tube

in 1987.

That's true but you don't have to implement that stuff. If you give people a function which auto generates downsized jpegs, say 1MB, and copies them to an app on the phone which drops them into the Gallery, then people can do all that junk with their phone. It has a proper user interface, too

How long with that app in the camera be supported and will is work with tomorrows new shiny place to dump photos or will it be stuck only allowing uploads to MySpace? Again this is why I hate IoT trash as it really only works as long as it is supported. My K-3, K-3ii, K-500, K2000, MX, and Spotmatic F still work as expected, even though the K-500 has the aperture block failure it isn't a feature I need with what I do with that camera and got a deal on it because of that failure. If Ricoh goes belly up tomorrow they will all still work just fine with all of the functionality I got them with still intact. They will all continue to function properly until they wear out and fail.

[BigMackCam]

We seem to have moved away from the video aspect (at least partially), so I'll add that I've been transferring my photos by taking the SD card out of the camera and putting it in my PC's card reader. I'm happy to confirm it's not nearly so horrific as it may sound Sure, it means I can't get my latest selfy onto Instagram whilst I'm out and about... but my legion of followers don't know they're having to wait several hours (Heaven forbid) for my uploads. Then again, I can just use my phone to take photos and upload them if that's all I'm trying to do... and I think that's what most folks will do if they need this kind of immediacy. I'm not at all convinced that every specialist device needs - or even ought - to be connected and integrated to the internet and myriad other wireless devices...

EDIT: On re-reading, my apologies if that seems a little cynical and sarcastic, but the whole premise of the thread set me on edge Going back to the OS, connectivity and all that good stuff... I started programming in my pre-teen years; it was a big hobby for me throughout my teens, and my early career years were spent developing software. I was a geek... I loved - and still love - technology; but I want my cameras to take photos, period. They're already more-than-complicated enough - too complicated, frankly - for my tastes. I don't want them to become yet more computer systems (I have enough of those) with photo sensors and lens mounts tacked on - although I realise that's already pretty much the truth. I'd like to hold on for as long as possible to the concept of a device that's dedicated to nothing but allowing me to take great photos. Everything else, I'll do on my computer or other devices...

EDIT #2: I don't actually have an Instagram account... I made that up (no, really!)

[normhead]

People have been saying poor Pentax video support has hurt the brand for years. There is absolutely no evidence it's anything more than a load of hogwash.

Smart people who need excellent video, buy video cameras.
The cost required to improve video would push down camera sales, because they'd be more expensive. That is basic supply and demand. There has never been an analysis I've seen that supports the notion that the added cost of anything but "off the shelf" video that the sales lost because of the higher price would be made up for by people who want better video.

And please don't start the "it wouldn't cost anything " nonsense. Over the years we've be clubbed with crazy stupid pro-video statements that no one believes. Please spare us the agony this time.

Making crazy stupid statements unsupported by any evidence is abuse.

[stevebrot]

I'm happy to confirm it's not nearly so horrific as it may sound

Nope, not horrific at all, that being my practice as well.

This is the strangest of threads and my take is that some people will not be happy until they see an Android phone with a Pentax name on the face. That failing, a Pentax camera with an Android compatible processor running a yet-to-be-developed suite of proprietary extensions similar to those bundled with the latest and greatest phones and also 5G ready. That failing, there might be something like our current cameras except with magic that allows them to act as a front end to a smart phone.

Of course, the above paragraph is just speculation and opinion, my having boriscleto'ed a few of the major contributors some time ago. I just extrapolated the flavor of their previous posts.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Smart people who need excellent video, buy video cameras.

...or certain crazy expensive m43 cameras that are strongly videocentric such even many still photo features are done with vid frame capture.

Making crazy stupid statements unsupported by any evidence is abuse.

There is a way out..."Ignore" is voicing its siren call...


Steve

[normhead]

...or certain crazy expensive m43 cameras that are strongly videocentric such even many still photo features are done with vid frame capture.



There is a way out..."Ignore" is voicing its siren call...


Steve

During my absence I apparently fell behind in keeping my "Ignore" list up to date. Maybe I should elicit a list of new commenters that I might want to avoid.

[tokyoscape]

Every video people I know both commercially pro or youtube people to students are using Mirrorless either Sony or Pansonic. I have not yet seen a DSLR video guy.
I guess, even a brand wants to do a good video "DSLR" body, people might be less interested in buying it anyway. Part of that is because of its weight?

[RGlasel]

I have not yet seen a DSLR video guy

You can still find DSLRs doing video at events where a single photographer is getting paid for both stills and video. One heavy camera is still lighter than two slightly less heavy cameras. The "getting paid" part eliminates all the youtubers and instagrammers, the professional videographers don't need constant connectivity, so this Android MILC thing is a solution for a question no serious photographer is asking.

---------- Post added 02-18-20 at 07:59 PM ----------

One more thing, the only people left buying standalone cameras are serious photographers. That's why only 15,216,957 digital cameras were shipped during the 12 months of 2019.