What I would like cameras to have is apps. Sony started some time ago to allow apps on their cameras under the name PlayMemories but for some reasons, they back off.
I want cameras that have apple airdrop, messaging apps, popular social media apps and file sync apps along with a full cellphone , wifi , bt, gps chip using android. It would be a dream to have my camera actually start syncing my photo shoot automatically when I plug it in the charger at home and have it not be a shit experience.
OR wifi sync and phone sharing that doesn't suck. But no camera manufacturer has shown the ability to do that, so an android app mode is the next best thing so they can offload the software writing to much bigger tech companies instead.
Top 1 annoyance with non smartphone cameras is sharing the photos I just took with other people at the event. I'm not fucking around with the frankly awful wifi experience on most cameras and I'm not going to bring a cable or sd card dongle to do so either.
# 2 is the lack of built in GPS. It's 2021, adding GPS is extremely cheap, especially if you've already done wifi anyway.
#3 is qi charging. After a shoot put the camera on the wireless dock and everything is syncing well with the local desktop computer.
Neither is going to happen. The photography market has split into three camps.
Casual users who care about apps will just use their phones and the quality will be on par with Micro-4/3 and likely APS-C with computational photography advances.
Prosumers will stick with smaller full frame optimised for style and old school usability e.g. Leica. Professionals will either use full frame for speed or move towards medium format which Fuji is leading the charge towards.
I've noticed that a bunch of camera brands have started making 'vlogger' cameras targeted towards youtubers and others. The camera I'm describing is pretty much what an 'influence' camera would look like or the next stage of these vlogger cameras. Someone who would benefit from their photos being higher quality and also wants a way to frictionlessly publish them quickly. A Ricoh GR with the features I describe would be the ideal version of this.
I disagree. Apps necessitate an app store, maintenance, updates, reasonable SDKs. For something like a camera apps as an expansion joint is a bridge-too-far. That's not to say that these cameras shouldn't provide an SDK for access to core functionality. I mostly would like Sony and others to open source there camera software so bugs/features can be addressed by the community.
From what I can tell, many of the needs of all of this whole comment section would be achieved with a "thin client" camera. Some large, dumb, image sensor, with an IMU, that uses a smartphone for everything other than recording a raw image/video stream.
I completely agree. Can you imagine have smartphone-level ability to add new functionality to high-end cameras? The things you could do would be amazing. Although I suspect and IO and processing power may be limiting factors, given that even a full-on PC can take a while to perform many operations.
