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Comment by criddell | Hacker News Reader

I feel for all camera manufacturers. Why isn't there a Canon or Nikon or Sony cloud service where photos are sent to? Why haven't the big camera companies embraced computation in their cameras? Do DSLR bodies even have GPS capabilities for tagging photos?

It feels like there's no innovation in the camera space outside of Apple and Google.

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Very few DSLR bodies have GPS capability built in. This is kind of stupid because integrating a modern GNSS receiver would have only a trivial impact on size, weight, cost, and battery life. The odd thing is that GPS is somewhat common on much cheaper compact cameras.

Some of DSLR manufacturers do offer fragile, awkward GPS accessories that you can plug in externally. And they generally provide some sort of geo-tagging feature in the software included with cameras.

GPS does have some limitations for photography because it takes a while to lock on and doesn't work indoors. Modern smartphones can achieve much better location accuracy due to using multiple means. So the ideal solution would probably be for the camera to obtain location data from the phone via Bluetooth.

> So the ideal solution would probably be for the camera to obtain location data from the phone via Bluetooth.

Which at least Nikon offers. But you have to have the paired device with you, leave the camera in the right mode, etc, etc.

It's the one thing I miss having upgraded from a D5300 to a D500. I loved the GPS and not having to rely on SnapBridge.

> So the ideal solution would probably be for the camera to obtain location data from the phone via Bluetooth.

My Olympus E-M10 (bought in 2014, and still going strong) does this with a companion phone app, and it's incredibly useful.

> GPS does have some limitations for photography because it takes a while to lock on

My Canon offers multiple GPS modes, including periodic sampling even in standby mode, and "always on", for this reason.

The problem is the older camera companies are camera hardware companies first. Software has eaten the world, and the old guard companies struggle in the software department. Sony is probably the best in this regard right now, but it's really a tallest person in the land of midgets. The Nikon software is atrociously bad, and the Sony's is just bad (I've only used Nikon and Sony).

I dream of Apple putting an A13 processor in a Nikon mirrorless body running iOS. Or, somehow attaching my Nikon glass to the end of my iPhone.

I have an app on my mobile, where I can upload my pictures from the cam via Wifi and then share them if I feel the need. I'm fine with that and syncthing just get's away with the stuff.

And yeah, DSLR bodies do have GPS but since they have a kind of "real" GPS it's more expensive and more power hungry, hence it's not really mainstream. (and about your phone's GPS: just enable flight mode and try to use it. Enjoy!)

What makes you think they haven't embraced computation in their cameras?

https://www.sony-asia.com/microsite/assets/cyber-shot/2012h1...

Sony has the best chance of surviving IMHO. My #1 complaint about Sony is how awful they are at naming their stuff.

Leica will survive too, but mostly because they are beautiful things.

My SonyAlpha can do all of that. Except for the gps, but the photos are tagged by the phone, so it's not an issue.

Do they do anything like Apple does with portrait mode where they black out all of the background?

I haven't seen any innovation from Apple or Google because all they're doing is catching up to DSLRs which are still hundreds of miles ahead in picture quality. For amateur use, the iphone can certainly satisfy, or so can pretty much any camera made within the last 10 years.

I posted about this in another thread here but I think it's basically about the larger sensor sizes causes ridiculous CPU demands. Consider how even on an iPhone 11 with a tiny sensor, you need a 7 nm CPU with dedicated AI circuitry to do it seamlessly and with maintained battery life. That feels like a mountain to climb for them, and then their sensor problem isn't even solved.

The iPhone 11 Pro can simultaneously record streams from all four cameras.

Those larger sensors have larger pixels and the CPU demands aren't going to be all that great.

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