[peterh337]

Just a little list:

- no battery charging without removing the batteries
- no wireless charging (with batteries in the camera, obviously)
- nearly useless wifi speed
- nearly useless wifi functionality (e.g. cannot browse the camera storage over a local network, for drag/drop file transfer; this is done by implementing Samba shares)

A mobile phone can and does do all these things.

All of it is technically doable, some trivially.

DSLR makers seem to think that their customers hold the view that "real men" will take the battery out and put it in a charger, after every job.

I have a K1, a 24-70 f2.8, a Milvus 18mm, a 70-300 Tamron, and love this kit for the quality of the pics, especially with the Milvus. Friends jokingly refer to the camera as a "weapon" and you could certainly use it to crack somebody's skull with it A Pentax DSLR gets bigger and heavier with every new version (I've had most of them). I carry it only if travelling to a new place and one which is expected to be scenic.

[sbh]

Basically I agree. I've sent feedback in this sentiment to Pentax and I hope others do too. Feedback can actually change things, especially in small units like Pentax.

[SteveinSLC]

The wifi stuff is a moderately big deal. It would be very nice to have that improved, along with the associated data transfer and camera control benefits.

The charging thing, I could pretty much care less. I don't use wireless charging on my phone. Plugging a cable in isn't really much harder than putting it on a pad.

[ThorSanchez]

- nearly useless wifi speed
- nearly useless wifi functionality (e.g. cannot browse the camera storage over a local network, for drag/drop file transfer; this is done by implementing Samba shares)

I have a K-30 and a K-3ii. What is this wifi you speak of?

Wouldn't it be nice to take your DLSR and put it down on your wireless charging pad and have it wirelessly auto-download all your RAW and JPG files to your local computer and upload to your Flickr/Google/Apple/etc online repository? You come back a few minutes later and files are where you want them, and the battery is topping itself off, all without wearing those weather seals on the battery and SD card compartments for the 1000th time.

---------- Post added 12-12-18 at 12:06 PM ----------

Plugging a cable in isn't really much harder than putting it on a pad.

Except for the wear and tear on the hardware from constantly opening and closing sealed compartments to remove and insert batteries and SD cards.

[Not a Number]

Except for the wear and tear on the hardware from constantly opening and closing sealed compartments to remove and insert batteries and SD cards.

Efficiency for a 100W wireless charging system is around 90%. With a 5W system it drops to 75-80%. Equates to longer charging times and higher energy bills.

[W412ren]

TBH I don’t use a DSLR for all this convenience stuff. Sticking the SD card in a laptop or placing the battery in a charger really is no hassle at all - especially if you have more than one battery anyway.

To be fair to the OP, if we are offered WiFi as a tool then it should be implemented correctly and not in the half hearted manner that it seems to have been 😊

[Docrwm]

WiFI and wireless charging woutl be nice - I'd rather have better AF personally.

[DeadJohn]

I agree on the wifi points. Regarding batteries, mobile phones are a bad model to copy. Too many mobile phones have non-serviceable batteries.


Removable batteries let us continue photographing without a powerbank dangling from the camera. And, after a battery dies due to age, I don't want to ship my camera to Precision for a $300 battery replacement.

[WPRESTO]

The phone must be plugged in or parked on its wireless dock. If you're out looking for photo ops and the cell phone battery goes dead during the first 30 minutes of a two hour hike, what you do is..... Were it a camera, I'd just pop in a fresh battery. I always carry two extras fully charged (except when I forget to charge them from the day before)

[Bob 256]

This sound's like a lot of sour lemons from a cell phone user. Comparing phones to SLRs is not exactly a science (to say it lightly). The two just don't compare.

For one, I don't want to stop in the middle of a shoot and put my camera on a wired OR wireless charger and wait for it to charge before I can use it again. Replaceable batteries allow just that - reloading without any need to wait. With spare batteries, there is no need to carry a charger nor a need for 110 VAC to recharge.

I do have WiFi with my K-1 and although it's slow, I rarely use it to transfer files. I have downloaded phone files and it's no faster once the phone is connected to a computer (in fact an SD card will usually download faster).

Just think twice before condemning the "lowly" DSLR to history. It has a lot to offer beyond cell phones for the professional and advanced photographers out there, or they would all be using cell phones for their cameras.

[bdery]

You make some good pionts, but

A Pentax DSLR gets bigger and heavier with every new version (I've had most of them).

The K10D-K20D were larger than the K-7/K-5, which is larger than the K-3 I believe (or similar). The K-1 is another story, it's full frame.

In the entry-level, the K200D was larger than the K-r/K-x, the K-30 and K-50 were similar and certainly not larger than the K200D, the K-S1 and K-S2 were also small. The KP's interchangeable grips makes it ludicrously small The K70 stands in-between entry-level and pro.

[Rondec]

I guess I don't find most of these things to be big issues. The whole wifi thing is just not worthwhile if you shoot RAW files. I do transfer downsized jpegs and they go pretty quickly to my phone or ipad, but even a full sized 36 megapixel jpeg takes a long time to transfer. But I shoot RAW and post process most of my images. I do a quick cull with Faststone (which saves a bundle of time in the long run) and then up load them to Lightroom. I don't see wifi making that easier.

As for wireless charging, as others have said, it would be nice to have as long as you could still remove the batteries and change them/charge them with a separate charger while continuing to shoot. It would suck if (as with my phone) you had to charge the batteries inside your camera and couldn't use it while it was charging. In point of fact, I would seldom actually like this whole wireless charging thing since it would render your camera non-functional during the charging process.

There are plenty of things to improve -- auto focus, buffer, etc -- I just don't know that these particular things are terribly important to those using a 36 megapixel camera.

[Doundounba]

When we were in Scotland my wife would whip out her cellphone and take some photos twice - once with the phone and once with the "real camera". Why? Because she wanted to share the shot while we were still on the road, which was trivial with the phone, but next to impossible even with a camera that has wifi onboard...

[photoptimist]

I, too, don't really see much value to these proposed features. Worse, I do not want the added weight and cost of wireless charging, added in-camera battery charging circuits, or a more expensive (and power-hungry) high-speed wifi system. I really prefer swappable batteries, a separate battery charger, and separate card reader for high-speed downloading files off the memory card.

Maybe these features could be added to an accessory grip but I hope they are not added to the body.

[Adam]

The overarching reason, beyond specific features, is that phones are good enough most of the time. Also, generational improvements between models aren't as significant as in the early days of digital. So, people buying a big camera will not feel the need to upgrade it as often.

Offering services is therefore the key to survival for any camera company, IMO. That said, a lot can still change...