[peterh337]

I know some, e.g. the Sony action cams, have a partial facility for this, but these days there is no excuse at all for not duplicating the entire horrible menu system on a remote config.

The K1 has wifi (though horribly implemented - 10x too slow for photo transfer and works only as a DHCP server / access point) so it could easily have bluetooth.

Then you could do all kinds of nice stuff like multiple profiles which you can select at the touch of a button.

On the positive side, nobody else had done this well Sony must have at least 2 software guys in all of Japan (or is it Vietnam?) but they still cannot produce a user interface better than a 1985 VCR. The K1 is actually not bad...

But to have all that electronics, and wifi, is such a wasted opportunity.

I am a hardware/software developer, FWIW.

[BigMackCam]

I am clearly showing my age here... The thought of configuring the camera remotely fills me with apathy (and my early career was in software development too!) A cool idea for those that are so inclined, though.

[surfar]

The YI m43 may be the one.User interface similar to a smartphone....but its their first attempt, no body or lens stabilisation.

[roberrl]

Why would you do this? What would you be able to do with a phone interface that you can't do now?
I spent much of my 40 years in IT fighting software developers who added facilities because they could, not because they were needed.

[Na Horuk]

I think its because cameras are not really, truly, digital. What I mean by that is, these cameras are basically like film SLRs, but with a different sensor and input controls. Its mostly hardware, with a computer added. IF you want all the stuff you mentioned, like interfacing into smartphones, tablets, then you would need to have essentially a software camera. Like on phones - mostly software, which happens to also trigger a sensor behind a lens and record its data.

Simply, DLSRs are too mechanical. The camera doesn't even know where the lens is focused, can't input manual lens data other than focal length (and even this is limited on some models), doesn't know what exactly you are looking at, AF is just some points that compare wavelengths/contrast and tells camera "ok, good to go". You would need to digitalize the whole process, then you could interface really well.

But I agree. It would be cool if Ricoh came out with a photographer's tablet (good screen, calibrated colours, SD card slot, wifi) and a way to interface all their cameras (Pentax DSLRs, Theta, WG series, etc.), perhaps offering additional features in-app. This would also keep the actual camera more streamlined - the scene modes and bracketing options and so on would be chosen via wifi

[Not a Number]

A touchscreen interface would make more sense than this. As for different profiles you already have User configurable modes which are accessible with the turn of a dial.

And if I don't have a smartphone and purchasing a camera body requires that I buy one forget it. I'd rather spend the extra expense on a lens or flash.

[pierovitch]

The K70 WiFi gives reasonable control from a iPad with Image Sync
You can't please everyone without making the interface impenetrable like some word processors where most features are never used but exist in some deep submenu.

[Alex645]

True...why not? For me, Iʻm old fashioned. I donʻt like to multitask. When I eat, I eat. When I watch a film, I watch a film. And when I go out to shoot, I donʻt want any distractions to observing and absorbing the visual world. I have gotten past all the how-to of my photographic technique so when Iʻm in the zone shooting, Iʻm not focused on my camera, but it is one with my ability to capture visions.

The number one complaint I see these days about cars is the entertainment audio/smartphone/nav interface. On one hand, I see how an excellent interface would make driving safer and easier and less boring, but honestly when I drive, I want to focus on the road and all those other drivers who are not focused on what they should be doing. One day when cars will ALL drive themselves, I guess it wonʻt matter, but for now, when I have to drive, I donʻt want to anesthetized from the experience. I want good visibility and a car that makes my driving a pleasure...manual transmission too.

Sorry for the tangent, but part of me really loves the other direction where less is more. The Nikon Df with analog dials and no video. The Leica M Monochrom with black & white only. Or my manual focus Pentax 645 medium format film.

We are photographers, so we would think Samsung would have made a phone camera by now, but most of the world are not photographers, so they are happy with their camera phones instead. I would also guess there are tons of legal barriers between the various software and hardware developers that keep the two worlds apart.

[peterh337]

"I am clearly showing my age here"

Well, I will be 60 soon

I wasn't suggesting removing the existing camera interface. That is obviously needed because a lot of the time one isn't going to have anything else around. A camera has to be totally standalone.

A remote interface would be totally extra. So nobody needs to use it.

In fact I bet you anything that the developer at Pentax (or possibly the subcontractor - I get the feeling that half these firms use the same subcontractor to do their awfully implemented wifi feature) has already implemented a config upload/download back door. It's the first thing I would do if developing a camera, because it makes it much easier to develop an automated factory test procedure (you aren't going to have some Vietnamese guy pressing the buttons 1000x, beyond testing they actually work). Then somebody only needs to write a phone app to present the config image as a user interface.

BTW I think the existing interface could be much improved, but that's a different topic.

A touch screen is a good idea but again not if it is the only means because you get problems with touch screens - gloves, dry fingers, etc. I am in aviation and touch screens are controversial enough there. A touch screen needs to be very well implemented and there would have to be a "knob-only" option at every stage... probably that would mean having two user-selectable user interfaces because the touch screen one would need large buttons. This is the old problem with phone app design - they have to be massively dumbed down compared to PC versions, and we don't want to lose any config features.

"so we would think Samsung would have made a phone camera by now",

They have, a few years ago, but the camera was poor for its size. It was basically a $200 pocket camera, with the usual optical zoom, on the back of a phone. The problem with doing that is that convergence in the marketplace between $200 pocket cameras, and smartphones, is pretty effective, to the point where few people with a decent phone bother with a camera below the level of a DSLR.

The best "phone camera" to date was the Nokia 808, which I had for 2 years. Totally outperforms my Samsung S7... or any Iphone. It died for various other reasons. Nobody has since bothered to incorporate such a camera in a phone, probably because it makes the phone about 15mm thick.

[UncleVanya]

Panasonic and Samsung have features that permit wifi tethered shooting including modification of some camera settings. It isn't clear to me what beyond this would be desired.

[bkpix]

In general, DSLRs have a poor user interface, based almost entirely on film/mechanical days.

That said, Pentax is better than most. What I would like to see is much more configurability by the user: Allow the photographer to create custom program lines, for example. I'd like wifi that actually works well enough to be useful. I'd like to be able to record all customizations onto an SD card for storage and backup -- or directly onto my computer. USER modes are a good start, but don't go far enough.

[peterh337]

Yes; I agree, but I don't think Pentax can do any more within their current user interface layout ("paradigm" ).

They would have to change the UI completely, which would upset existing users.

[UncleVanya]

Yes; I agree, but I don't think Pentax can do any more within their current user interface layout ("paradigm" ).

They would have to change the UI completely, which would upset existing users.

Or they could use the ability of computers to be flexible and have two different user interfaces - one traditional and one highly customized.

[Kunzite]

"Poor user interface"? Are you sure about that?
For the main purpose - that would be taking pictures - the DSLR interface works the best, period (and the smartphone user interface is one of the worst possible). For menu settings and things like entering texts, yeah, a touchscreen UI would help a bit.

As for extreme customization, there's a limit after which you'd be overdoing it. Imagine getting a friend's "K-1 Mk II with advanced customization features" and having no idea how it would behave, because it was "customized"...

Convention is a very powerful tool, a camera should behave in a predictable way.

[UncleVanya]

Here is another way of thinking about this.

What can you do on a smartphone that you can't do on a DSLR interface. Touch screen: which in turn gives keyboard. Higher CPU levels perhaps - but this has limited impact.

Frankly other than for tethered shooting I'm having a tough time visualizing how the smartphone interface would help. To me adding touch and a few widgets on the camera interface directly would be more helpful. Ideally an API to allow custom UI would be great.