Nokia rumoured to be working on penta-camera smartphone

[Saracen]

Why - what is the point of making a device that wouldn't handle as well as a smartphone, certainly would be stupid to hold next to your ear and talk into and would cost an arm and a leg. Yes the Samsung Galaxy camera range had small sensors... you just can't get the optics into the size people would buy. Again, people are not interested in a camera phone that's bulky or has a large sensor because something else would have to give. For example, the battery life on the Galaxy camera was abysmal because there was no room for a large capacity battery. You got something like 2 hours talktime and about 30 hours standby. So in real world useage - you'd get about 4 hours tops between recharges. So it's a rubbish camera, a rubbish phone with rubbish battery life....
From talking to people who sold phones at the time people were not interested at all. Demand was very weak especially in the UK. Samsung admitted that to do it justice a decent camera with smartphone functionality would be about £2k and still not be as good as a decent phone plus decent camera combo. Just too many compromises all round to sell

I still think you're compketely missing my point.

Refer back to the post in which I, half-seriously, suggested a phone in a camera. I was NOT referring to phone-buyers. I was talking about serious photography users. I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't buy a camera from someone that sold phones. I was talking about people that buy cameras for either professional use, or serious amateur hobby use, or as in my case, a hybrid of both.


That is the point of buying a device that wouldn't handle as well as a smartphone .... because it was bought primarily as a camera .... with a phone built-in. Which saves carrying a separate phone around.

This is what I've tried to say, several times. It's a camera, and one that would appeal to demanding users. Exactly what that looks like varies from demanding user to user, and indeed, use.

Even for my own personal needs, a "good" cameea varies hugely. It might be a high-end compact, say, Leica. It might be a 35mm-format DSLR. It might even be a 645 medium format twin-lens film camera ... not that there's much of a market for those, with or without phone.

But tge new digital variants, if equipped with a phone, would be first and foremost a camera. Probably the first 10 features would be about their use as az camera. The size, weight, battery capacity, etc, are all primarily about photographic uses.

Oh, and yeah, you can make phone calls with it.

How it's implemented could vary. For a Leica compact-sized camera, holding it to your ear is feasible. For a prosumer (or up) DLSR, maybe it's a mike/earpiece cable, p,ugged into the camera.

My point was that for these users, the camera is essential. The phone is a useful minor feature.

It is, if you like, exactly the reverse of the priorities of most phone buyers, for whom size weight, battery size, phone power and speed, etc are important, and the camera is an afterthought. After all, for the vast majority of phone users, it probably doesn't matter if the pixel count is 5MP or 25MP and if you asked about chromatic aberration or edge distortion, you'd get a " Huh? What?".

[3dcandy]

Nope not missed the point at all whatsoever. Manufacturers have mooted it the consumers are against it totally. They just don't want it at all. Japan tried it, failed massively. Like I said the projects get started, come up against almost total apathy and get shelved. Nobody at all is interested. Been to several camera shows where it has popped up in conversation and every single time it's the same answer... we thought about it, asked about and the idea is universally panned. It is just something that is hated...however you try it. When Samsung tried it and actually got it to market it was panned. It is just one thing that nobody wants to do. If I go to airshows it's quite often that I will see people with their camera out and snapping whilst on their phone... It is the same old problem, a camera is only taken seriously when made by a "proper" camera company. I can also remember when Canon users worldwide were up in arms when Canon said they were going to use a Sony sensor. They had to backtrack pretty quickly otherwise the company would have near enough been finished with it losing it's fan base to Nikon who do now use Sony sensors. Snobby elitist lot the togs

[Saracen]

Nope not missed the point at all whatsoever. Manufacturers have mooted it the consumers are against it totally. They just don't want it at all. Japan tried it, failed massively. Like I said the projects get started, come up against almost total apathy and get shelved. Nobody at all is interested. Been to several camera shows where it has popped up in conversation and every single time it's the same answer... we thought about it, asked about and the idea is universally panned. It is just something that is hated...however you try it. When Samsung tried it and actually got it to market it was panned. It is just one thing that nobody wants to do. If I go to airshows it's quite often that I will see people with their camera out and snapping whilst on their phone... It is the same old problem, a camera is only taken seriously when made by a "proper" camera company. I can also remember when Canon users worldwide were up in arms when Canon said they were going to use a Sony sensor. They had to backtrack pretty quickly otherwise the company would have near enough been finished with it losing it's fan base to Nikon who do now use Sony sensors. Snobby elitist lot the togs

At risk of going off-topic from what was already a bit off-topic, as a Canon user I don't give a flying fig wgat sensor is ib a camera. I do care wgat results it produces.

As for snobby elitism, well, every hobby has those but I have little to no interest at all in switching to Nikon, or Pentax, Fuji etc for one simple, pragmatic reason that has nothing to do with snobbery or elitism. It's that my primary interest is macro, and none of them do (or did, last time I looked) a lens/flash system that does what I want. Canon does.

Then, add to that a small fortune spent on other optics, that I'd have to buy all over again if I switched to Nikon, Pentax etc bodies. I've nothing against any other brand, but for system reasons, I'm locked into Canon, for better or worse.

Oh, and other cameras in my collection include a Panasonic compact, Olympus C-5050, and a full Olympus E-20 system which, with the wide and tele converters, battery extender, macro kit, etc, came to about £4k, for the E20 stuff alone. Oh, and a Fuji infrared conversion s friend gave me. If we include film cameras, the range opens up even more.

Back to the camera-with-phone, you say you haven't missed the point but the points you raise suggest otherwise. That Galaxy is NOT what I was suggesting. Tge fact that you go to airshows and see peoplecusjng phone and camera is meaningless - you're hardly likely to see them using a non-existent product. "People" don't want it? I said early on it was not a mass-market, in terms if phone market, conceot, but neither sre high-end cameras.

Also, of course, as I've said, different types of camera appeal to users for different reasons, and for different uses. Hence, for example, me iwning a cheap-(ish) Panasonic compact, so I can carry it everywhere, in the car, to parties, andcifcit gets lost, stolen, etc oh well. But also, a high end compact for when I want quality without lugging an SLR about, and the SLR for when I want specific optics, or the macro kit.

What I do accept is that there may well not be a market, or rather, a big enough one. Not that I can find any evidence of anybody, including Samsung, ever trying it. That Ssmsung may have had sn optical zoom, andxa decent sensor, but the ergonomics are those of a phone, not a prosumer or pro camera. It's STILL fundamentally a phone with camera bits bolted on, albeit higher end camera hits than normal, not a camera with phone built-in.

If you think that's an example of what I was suggesting, then sorry, but you are misunderstandjng still my point.

[3dcandy]

But I feel you're misunderstanding me too. The fact is nobody has tried a camera with phone functionality because the market is zero, zilch nada. Not one person has expressed a wish for a camera that has this built in. If you said data transfer then it's not a phone... if we're being picky of course.

[Saracen]

But I feel you're misunderstanding me too. The fact is nobody has tried a camera with phone functionality because the market is zero, zilch nada. Not one person has expressed a wish for a camera that has this built in. If you said data transfer then it's not a phone... if we're being picky of course.

Well, one person has. Me.

And no, I wasn't talking data, in the sense of off-loading photo data, though that might appeal to news photojournalists as a slightly more streamlined version of what they already do, to get time-critical images to picture or news editors.

I also do take the point that the perceived market is .... let's say too small to be viable. What made me think you missed the point was the reasons you gave, like that thst Samsung was "they tried it".

It's not my field, but next time I'm in Japan talking to the likes of Canon or Nikon, I'll ask them directly what market research they've done.