[blackest]

I was just thinking about something that a non techy friend did at a festival recently they streamed video live from their cell phone to facebook.

Can you imagine being able to do that with a DSLR lets face it we have very clunky tethering options currently.
But why does it have to be this way?

What if you took away the lcd screen and replaced it with a cell phone and docked it.
With this connectivity you would have gps bluetooth wifi and internet connectivity all at hand. All pretty much self contained, done right you could even detatch the phone and still control the camera, forget about using a swiveling screen (although no reason a phone couldn't be docked and swivelled)
you could have your camera 2" from ground level and have the screen in your hands and be controlling the camera. You could be live at the scene and streaming over the internet. You could take a picture of the sunset and have it on your facebook page.

If you don't want to take your camera out and just your cell phone you can!

Connectivity and High quality photo's and video why should the choice be either and not both?

We already do have some connectivity with our camera's battery grips are already running signals from the camera body to the grip.
Pretty much this is a software problem not a hardware one.

You can see already what an iphone or android smartphone can do already, if a DSLR can integrate with a cell phone you have a better product.

Why not a detachable LCD Screen replace it with a docking station you already have i/o pretty much there already.

maybe just integrate with a raspberry Pi its a credit card sized computer that runs on 5volts and costs very little.

Not so long ago this would have seemed ridiculous the smartphones were very limited in ram and cpu power but these days they are incredible being able to do such things as stream video to your TV take a photo and not just add the gps location but a human friendly location too.

Once you have i/o integrated between a phone and a camera the possibilities are endless.

This can be really robust too, as the integration of the camera is just software on the phone it means you can replace the phone! It isn't even going to be necessary to use the camera with the phone. You don't need to look at an LCD screen to take photo's. The top panel on my k5 tells me enough already.

I'm probably aiming this at the wrong camera company, Sony is more likely to do this first, but it could be Pentax couldn't it.

instead of rejecting the smartphone age, embrace it. Imagine what it could do for journalism. A photo shoot which has the photo's on the editors desk within a minute, reporting live at the scene. What camera would you take as a journalist? A dumb dslr or one that can have the images and video around the world in seconds?

[Winder]

I think to really achieve the level of connectivity that is needed the camera would need to run Android or iOS and allow for 3rd party app development. Nobody really seems to be able to really bring the level of connectivity that we want. The new Nikon D500 app is pretty inconsistent. Samsung tried it, but the camera never really sold well. Camera companies are hardware companies and they all pretty much suck at software.

[bobD]

Third party version exists...

Usb tethering to Android...
pkTriggerCord - Android Apps on Google Play

Usb tethering to Raspberry Pi.......
https://github.com/asalamon74/pktriggercord/releases/download/v0.84.04/pktri...04-1_armhf.deb

Usb tethering for pc and general info....
pkTriggerCord

All developed for and tested with Pentax DSLRs

[pakinjapan]

something like this and this ? it has been there for a few year but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
I like the idea though.

[blackest]

something like this and this ? it has been there for a few year but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.
I like the idea though.

I was thinking more something like this

---------- Post added 07-21-17 at 05:07 PM ----------

I think to really achieve the level of connectivity that is needed the camera would need to run Android or iOS and allow for 3rd party app development. Nobody really seems to be able to really bring the level of connectivity that we want. The new Nikon D500 app is pretty inconsistent. Samsung tried it, but the camera never really sold well. Camera companies are hardware companies and they all pretty much suck at software.

I think there has to be an api rather than a full blown computer operating system. The camera should be capable of operating stand alone without a screen there are less buttons on a camera than your typical bluetooth keyboard after all. It would need wireless for streaming video and photo's. review would be a feature of the mobile app. Essentially it needs to serve files take remote input and report status. The phone would not need to be physically attached although it could have a relatively simple holder just to make it easy to hold and give input from the phone. But most of what you need on the camera can be on a simple lcd screen. Such as on the k5. or within the viewfinder. really what you need to know in the view finder are shutter speed iso f stop and focus and focus points and exposure. focal length could be useful too either as feedback from the lens or set with a non da or F lens. so if you want to use SR with a manual zoom you can dial it in if you're at 28 set it to 28mm or if you are at 200mm set it to 200mm. same with f-stop too if it knows the f-stop fine but if it doesn't you should be able to dial it in.

The essential photography on the camera, everything else can be offloaded to the phone apps.