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Canon Unveils Unprecedented "Analog Concept Camera"


As I already said, "Don't get me wrong...there are times when I have found that the smartphone in 'PHD' mode can outshoot what I can do with a dSLR on first trial! But there are many things my dSLR can allow me to do, that I would struggle to do with the smartphone. Like any tools, there is a right one and a wrong one for a particular situation!"
 
My issue with smartphones as cameras, as well as mirrorless cameras, is I am quite adverse to EVFs or holding a screen a foot away to compose and shoot a photo.
 

You can certainly switch focus between A,B,C manually or automatically with tracking on the fly while filming in cinematic mode. It’s a lot of fun too. That doesn’t make it the professional’s choice of course but the tools built modern phones are amazing.
 

I am impressed!
 
Pieter12 said:
I hope not.
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Most professional photographers these days let the camera do the heavy lifting.

It's only very specialised photography, and of course the amateur/hobbyist market who generally shoot RAW. It's a bit like film in that respect.
Adobe and other add on vendors love them of course.
 

smartphones can produce image quality equal to a DSLR/Mirrorless camera. I have a solo show up on the wall right now where I have some images shot on an iPhone 15 Pro Max (two generations out of date) that I shot in RAW mode, out the window of a plane. They're printed 30x40 inches. Unless I told you which ones were shot with the phone you wouldn't know.
 
NortheastPhotographic said:
Some new digital camera designs would be great but they need to get away from the 2:3 hegemony. We have 60mp sensors now, I see no reason why they should not be square. In fact, in theory all existing 135 lenses should cover a 36x36mm sensor.
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Long time ago, 2009, the Panasonic GH1 had a multiformat sensor (4:3, 3:2, 16:9, and 1:1 aspect ratios), only 1:1 is a crop, the others are native formats. Uses an "oversized" sensor for the micro-four thirds standard and used different parts of it when switching. As far as I know this wasn't done in any other model.
Never had one, but sounded always cool.
 

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX2 had a native 16:9 sensor and a Leica-branded lens. It took really nice pictures and you could save as RAW format.

 
I'm probably not breaking any ground here saying this, but I bemoan the big players with the ability to make good hardware making gimmicky "retro-inspired" "film like" cameras. They make every other part required for a camera, let alone a film camera, with internals more complex than a film camera, and yet use a tiny low quality camera sensor. Not just their half-frame clone, but their super8 Instax camera with a filter wheel. Fuji could have made a killer actual half frame film camera. They could make one that accepts their wonderful X mount lenses. They have the ability to do something far beyond what Pentax or Lomo did - no disrespect to their cameras. For example, don't most electronic lens mounts communicate distance info? How about a half-frame rangefinder-like similar to their actually-good-retro-inspired XPro or X100 lines?

And Canon's here is a stripped down DoF adapter, basically. It's taking a photo of the groundglass. The shape reminds me of the Ermanox, which would be fun to emulate. But that might be exceedingly "retro"...

I wonder what Nikon will follow all these up with and underwhelm me.

Sorry, I'm just quite salty about this
 
Companies are set up to make money, not to render public services to niche hobbies.

Ultimately companies like these are managed on rational-capitalist grounds and generally largely publicly traded, so they're basically running on other people's money. Since resources are limited, as management you have to explain how you use them. It's very difficult to be in e.g. Canon's position and explain to your financiers that you've used their cash to make a film camera that will sell a couple of thousand units and has no clear roadmap, while you could have put the money towards, let's say, pigment technology that is showing steep market growth, or medical technology with a similarly attractive growth profile.

Of course, you can make arguments about public good and whatnot - although the core logic underlying our present society of course is that the market will adjust itself to provide what the public needs. Even if we accept imperfections there (which evidently exist, plentifully), the question would still remain whether the Canons and Nikons should be investing in analog film cameras or whether they should invest in an of the multitude of other options that would make people's lives easier, safer and healthier. Analog cameras would still be pretty far down on such a list.

I understand you're just venting frustration, but ultimately your rant does boil down to something very similar to this:

Futile, and somewhat silly if you think about it. Sorry.
 
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koraks said:
Futile, and somewhat silly if you think about it. Sorry.
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Ah, damn. I suppose.

Yeah it's mostly salty saltiness. But with how niche film is, I wonder how good the sales were of those other cameras? Did the Fuji Half do okay? I think I have a disproportionate view of the different sectors of the camera market, so I don't even implicitly know which ideas make commercial sense.
 
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