[mrmentera]

This is not news or even a rumor. Not that I have heard at least. But I hope it will be soon.
When will advanced camera technology come out on the streets like genetic design in the movie "Blade Runner"?
Couldnt someone take a shoebox with a big sensor, powerfull processors and software that can talk to lenses of all brands and changeable fittings that mechanically corresponds to all forms of AF-screwdrive.
Could that be so hard to achieve by the young hackers in suburban garage and cellars?
Maybe its already a reality? Do anyone know?
And only so that I can use the full potential of my fullformat Pentaxlenses with AF right now, and long time after Pentax dont exist on earth anymore.

[Parallax]

This is not news or even a rumor.

Correct. That's why it is moving from the News and Rumors forum to General Photography.

[elho_cid]

DSLR manufacturers invest millions into development of new cameras. And they have the equipment and engineers with know-how. Achieving something remotely similar in a garage is just too crazy for a sci-fi.

[mrmentera]

I dont think it´s more sci-fi than what the open source-community is achiving, or people that are tuning cars better than the manufacturers do. I do not mean that they will build a complete product like the K-5. Isn´t the most impressing thing the fact that they can compress all the stuff in such tiny masterpiece? Thats why I used the shoebox allegori. Rough technology, but using very complex parts from the concerns and make them work together.
People have tuned their cars and computers and made complete operating system by cooperating. They could start with an old camera, 5D for example and change the fitting and convert the interface for the lenses or make another fitting for the lenses.
Are there no such activity in the garages? Hacking old cameras?
If I had been young today, cameracode had been interesting to learn, instead of machinecoding VIC64 or tuning the cars injection with a portable oscilloscope while driving through the town, like I did.
But maybe you are right. This things are just a bit more complex.
But are not operating systems rather complex stuff?
Everything starts with visions and nothing is impossible. I thought that was the american way to think, from a swedish perspective.

[mrmentera]

Oh, I did not see that you where tjeck. Most people are americans on this forum. Sorry. But anyway.

[mrmentera]

Science fiction!? Haven´t you seen Blade runner? As if that was sciience-fiction! Eh..yes it is..

[reeftool]

It's certainly possible but will never happen due to patent and copyright laws. The camera body that could accept any lens with full compatibility would have to buy licenses from every manufacturer and would cost a fortune.

[mrmentera]

It's certainly possible but will never happen due to patent and copyright laws. The camera body that could accept any lens with full compatibility would have to buy licenses from every manufacturer and would cost a fortune.

But I mean the activity in it self in dark cellars and garages. And then you buy the things on a shady marketplace from a peculiar guy with strange accent. (Like in Blade Runner). Or buy a manual that says how you put the parts together. Are there no such activity with cameras!!? What do young people do today? I´m worried.

[elho_cid]

I like Blade runner movie, it's one of the best film of all time.
But reality is different. I actually know few brilliant engineers who work on imaging technology with FPGA's and CPLD'd and MCU's and custom built image sensors, and processing data from them and using different great lenses like superapochoromats we can only dream of.
But that's at CERN. Not in a garage.

[mrmentera]

But that's at CERN. Not in a garage.

Thanks for your answer elho-cid.
Still I´m feel that the respons of my "vision" is a little "off the target". (Direct translation from swedish, dont now if it works.) I understand that the complexity of the exemples you mention is huge. Processing the raw signal from the sensor and so.

I worked at the swedish telecompany in the eighties with interfaces between different units, before the pc-revolution. And I can´t se why it would be more complex to make an interface between a Canon 5D camera-unit and a pentax lens-unit. If the focus motor is in the lens also it would be just an "electrical" task translating the digital and analog signals. I have not worked with technical things since then, so maybe I´m totally misjudging this...or?

[mrmentera]

If the focus motor is in the lens also it would be just an "electrical" task translating the digital and analog signals

And a tiny fanbelt that transfer the af on the limiteds.

[elho_cid]

All would be easier if Pentax, Canon and other would publish their proprietary communication protocols. My friend is currently trying to reverse-engineer the P-TTL. It's a mind puzzling task. His goal is to create a P-TTL wireless transmitter. I support him with different bodies and flashes I have but still we are nowhere close.
Google "pentax hack" and see that there is very little done on this front worlwide. If you have the skills, perhaps you can do some reverse engineering too and contribute.

[mrmentera]

to reverse-engineer the P-TTL

That seems to me to be a MUCH more difficult task then to get an sdm-lens to work on a canon body.
I dont think I can help you, even if I now remember that I also worked for DEC as a serviceengineer, trying to get those big vax-computers in clustered systems tuned in right. Then came the pc and I became psykologist trying to get peoples neurological network tuned in instead. Sorry.
But when the biological computerrevolution comes I maybe can contribute again. Then it will be really "Blade runner".
Cred for your work!

[Super A-wesome]

What is a "shoebox" in this context?

[mrmentera]

What is a "shoebox" in this context?

If a someone put together a camera in garage (using sofisticated parts though) it could look like a shoebox or a fridge, a kettle or whatever. If you look at the gamers setting records when clocking their computers they do not look like Macbook air. If you just go for prestanda and using primitive technology to assemble the parts, I mean. Most of our innovation were made in garages, including the Mac, by border-crossing young men. I´m using the computer- and carcommunities as exemples and just wondering if there are people that are tuning and customizing their cameras. After all, we are not caught in the matrix yet under total control from agent Smiths. When subculturs are wiped out I think the development will go much slower.