What happened to cameras?

Cameras, cameras, cameras.

Why are there so few real choices in the ocean of digital cameras?

Every once in a while, I get fed up with the bulk and in-your-face quality of my digital SLR camera (Canon 30D) and frustrated with the toy-like nature of my compact camera (Nikon P5000) and look for a viable alternative.  By viable, I mean something that costs less than $1000, so as I go through the description of what I’m looking for, banish the thought of the only product that currently even comes close (the Leica M8 -which is upwards of $5500 + lens).

Here’s what I would like to see on the market:

A camera with a rugged, compact, all-metal body.  Something along the lines of the smaller-sized 35mm film SLRs that were plentiful during their golden years.  The fit and finish should be of high quality.  The product will have fewer bells and whistles (i.e., “features”) but everything done will be done with attention to detail.  Quality over quantity, may conventional market wisdom be damned.

A large sensor.  Not full-frame, but APS or even 4/3 would be nice.  8 megapixels would be fine, 10 is plenty.  I would gladly take even 6 or 7 if I could take high-ISO shots in natural low-light settings (without flash) without excessive noise.

Real through-the-viewfinder manual focus.  That’s right – I don’t need or want any auto-focus capabilities.  Give me a high-quality lens with smooth focus and aperture rings.  For this type of camera, I wouldn’t mind ditching zoom lenses altogether.  There are plenty of cheap ultrazooms and DSLRs with zoom lenses if that’s really needed.

High-quality viewfinder.  Bright, good eye-relief, with a clear indication of what’s in focus.  I don’t care if the design is a rangefinder or TTL.  But it needs to be good enough to bring back the joy of really seeing through the camera and having it work as an extension of the photographer’s visual system.

Manual controls for everything, most importantly, shutter speed and ISO.  Knobs should be knurled and operate easily while looking through the viewfinder.

A secondary monochrome LCD display to display settings (shots left, quality, ISO, shooting mode, etc.).

Some other odds and ends:

Metal tripod mount, proper hooks for a strap, AA battery support, instant on, decent (5 fps) motor drive.

Things that can be left out:

A built-in flash.  Include a hotshoe for people who really need it, but leave out something that is otherwise mostly an annoying toy that ruins as many pictures as it enhances.

A big LCD display.  Even I find myself compulsively reviewing shots right after I take them, or showing other people.  But does it ever change anything?  You don’t really know how the shot came out until you download them and can take a good look on a large display, or better, print out the picture.  Keep it pure, keep it simple, and focus on the elements that impact creative control, spontaneity, and picture quality.  Elimination of this feature will save bulk, cost, and battery life.

Movie mode or voice recorder.  Again, not jobs for this particular tool.

Interchangeable lenses.  A decent built-in, 28-35mm equivalent fast fixed lens would be perfectly acceptable.

The new Sigma DP1 comes close on many counts (large sensor, metal body decent non-zoom lens), but misses on a real manual focus and real viewfinder.  That’s a deal-breaker since composing shots with an LCD is as natural as communicating through an interpreter.  Just take much of the fun out of it, at least for me.

 

Mobile visual computing devices

The introduction of the Nvidia APX 2500 at 3GSM is a watershed moment in mobile computing.  It marks the emergence of a new class of mobile processors that enable phones to finally complete the transition from audio-centric devices to ones that will also deliver first-rate visual computing experiences.  Forget the iPhone’s 480×320 display – it merely hints at what’s really to come in the right hardware scenarios.  Imagine a standard phone resolution of 800×480 displaying advanced 3D graphics and UI and full frame-rate video while still just sipping on the battery.  Imagine phones driving high-resolution displays.  All of this won’t happen overnight, but silicon such as Nvidia’s will be instrumental in such an evolution since such capability is only possible at the efficiencies necessary with dedicated silicon.

I see this as a transition not unlike what the PC went through in the 90’s.  The standard hardware for PC’s was initially a dumb frame-buffer – the CPU did all the work rendering the graphics.  Then 2D hardware acceleration became standard for things like fonts and movement of windows or rendering video.  Finally, the 3D graphics revolution made advanced 3D hardware acceleration standard on every PC today.

It’s not simply what the APX can perform that’s the key – it’s that it can do so within a power consumption budget suitable for a phone.

The constraint of having to run on a very limited battery budget is a beautiful thing.  PC technology is still deeply rooted in being able to simply draw more power from the wall if necessary to increase computational power.  So PCs have remained for the most part big, hot, loud, power-sucking beasts.  And why most laptops aren’t far from a wall socket.  But since phones must go at least all day, computation power efficiency rules the day.  And why silicon such as the APX exists.

Welcome to the revolution of graphics on mobile devices. 

 

Phones

Poor Motorola.  Reports say that they’re considering selling off their handset unit.  I’m no financial analyst, but the optimist in me says that a company that was once world-class can be world-class again with some hard work, vision and leadership.

So when did things go wrong?  Basically, when Moto failed to evolve after their big hit.  The RAZR was a breakthrough design, and there it sat.  And sat.  The SLVR was a re-packaging job for people who preferred a candy-bar form factor to a hinged design.  The SLVR is the phone that I still own.  For the record, I’m still not sold on getting any type of smart phone.  I came very close to getting a Nokia N82 as an upgrade (without a data plan) but ultimately decided that $500+ was too much for a device that tends to occasionally tumble around on the concrete.

So Motorola…where was the high-res camera when you needed it?  Or an upgraded display?  How about a graphics user interface that looks like it’s from this century?  Why cumbersome dongles instead of a 3.5mm headphone jack for music playback?  How about a non-smart phone with a querty keyboard for heavy texters?  And it seemed to take forever to get different color versions to get done.  Oh, and good luck getting an unlocked Motorola besides places like TigerDirect.  If the carriers are constraining the design, why not establish a retail channel for unlocked phones?  People like choice. 

It’s all salvageable.  The RAZR2 V8/V9 points the way.  I still have my Startac in a drawer somewhere – I can’t part with a truly timeless design.  I for one am rooting for them and hope they keep the spark of innovation alive.

Where has all the power gone?

As I sit here writing my first entry, the operating system of my computer has decided that it needs to update itself.  It’s been going at it for a while…certainly a lot longer than I had hoped, and as usual has made using my PC almost impossible: the process brings everything to a crawl.   I really hate having my time wasted.

Which brings me to my current topic – performance and responsiveness.

I think personal computers were supposed to perform repetitious tasks quickly and to make our lives more wonderful because they were going to save time.  There have been many generations of improvements in the PC since I bought my first IBM in 1983, but I feel like I am still waiting.  Waiting for the machine to boot up, waiting for the machine to start, waiting for something to update, waiting for technology to be more amazing.   When I turn on my PC, it’s a short eternity until the desktop shows up.  And once the desktop shows up, it’s just a tease.  A dozen other programs and processes then need to load and it’s another yawn of impatience until I can actually do anything.

And after the machine is actually ready, still nothing happens quickly.  Simple tasks such as opening a document, or opening a new browser window, or viewing some photographs are a chore.   I’m staring at the hourglass, or the screen is simply frozen indefinitely.   I click on something, and nothing happens.  The hard drive churns away.  I am known to ask the obvious question aloud: what is it doing?

Ok, on some level I know what it’s doing:  I can look at the list of low-level processes and get a pretty good idea of who is doing what.

But what’s missing is a good reason for all the waiting.  With the equivalent of a supercomputer on my desk or laptop, I shouldn’t have to wait to accomplish the simplest chores.  I can understand needing some time to compute tomorrow’s weather forecast.  But checking my email?

Of course, some delays are inevitable–particularly operations that rely on the network or other slower peripheral devices. The fact is that performance and responsiveness are afterthoughts in the design of technology products where the almighty feature list rules the day.   That’s unfortunate because performance and responsiveness are the cornerstones of user experience: how fast something works defines how well it seems to work.  The effectiveness of even the most advanced user interface of features is lost if responsiveness is compromised.

Remember how windowing in the operating system was supposed to improve usability by being able to perform tasks in other windows while the one that was busy finished doing its thing?  Right?

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve lost the bet “I can look up the number/address in the phone book faster than you can on your laptop”.  It would be refreshing to see performance and responsiveness trumping long feature lists.  Do less, but do it better.  And faster.

We have a long way to go!  And I’m still updating…