SOME Canon Powershot Models
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| ComputerBob Dec 30, 2010 10:02 PM EDT |
But not my Powershot A75. |
| penguinist Dec 31, 2010 1:47 AM EDT |
I really don't understand what would motivate camera manufacturers to hinder customers from accessing the full functionality of their products. Wouldn't that sell more cameras by making the product more appealing to a wider customer base? Last year I had a project that required a scripted camera interface that would shoot a series of a several thousand high resolution photos and store the images to hard disk for later analysis. The application required a capture rate of at least one image every two seconds on a sustained basis. gphoto2 has been working to provide interfaces to various cameras, and I prototyped the application using it to talk with a Nikon Coolpix. Functionally, that worked fine, but the performance was disappointing (one image every 12 seconds). I called Nikon looking for recommendations on a faster camera, and was severely rebuked for using non-Nikon software to communicate with "their" cameras. By the way, Nikon offers no software that would fit my application. I was willing to pay up to $4000 for a Nikon camera that would meet my specs, but Nikon couldn't get past their proprietary software issues to recommend a product for me to purchase. I ended up abandoning the idea. Nikon lost a high end sale directly because of their closed policies around programmable customer interfaces. Its a shame that the camera manufacturers are designing fine controllable features into their products and are then hiding those features behind a veil of secrecy. |
| Scott_Ruecker Dec 31, 2010 2:13 AM EDT |
You own the camera..just not the software that runs it. |
| tracyanne Dec 31, 2010 2:52 AM EDT |
Quoting:Wouldn't that sell more cameras by making the product more appealing to a wider customer base? Maybe. But by crippling the capabilities you can create more models each with different limitations, and thereby sell to a much wider group of Consumers (I use that word deliberately), and invaddition charge different prices for what is essentially the same camera (hardware wise). a bit more functionality gets a different model number and a higher price, even though it costs the same to manufacture. |
| ComputerBob Dec 31, 2010 8:14 AM EDT |
@penguinist - Quoting:Nikon... Nikon... non-Nokia... Nokia... Nikon... Nokia... Nokia ??? |
| Koriel Dec 31, 2010 10:56 AM EDT |
I use CHDK on my Canon A720 IS Powershot its great, allows me to do a lot of additional things.
I especially like the improvements to motion video as it allows you to use higher bit rates to improve video quality and also allows you to use the optical zoom during the video which is impossible with the default Canon software. As with others if the camera can do all this stuff why on earth lock off half its functionality, if they considered it to advanced for the average point and shoot user then why not just have an advanced mode that you can turn on and off allowing access to all features. |
| penguinist Dec 31, 2010 11:06 AM EDT |
ComputerBob, thanks for proofreading my post. It was late last night, what can I say. TracyAnne, I understand the strategy of crippling capabilities in low priced products and then enabling them in high priced products. That practise is common. But in the case of Nikon cameras, not even the highest priced Nikon products expose their functionality over documented programmable customer interfaces. As I mentioned, I was willing to pay $4000 for a product that met my specs, but even though Nikon had developed the functionality, they lost a sale because no product they offered provided that functionality to the user. This seems like a missed business opportunity for Nikon. |
| jdixon Dec 31, 2010 12:28 PM EDT |
> Wouldn't that sell more cameras by making the product more appealing to a wider customer base? The goal isn't to sell more cameras. It's to maximize profits. Once you understand that, corporate behavior begins to make a lot more sense. There are two basic paths to increasing profits: maximizing the number of units sold (Walmart), or maximizng the profit on each individual unit sold (Tiffany). Canon is choosing to artificially differentiate it's products to both maximize the number of units sold on the low end, while also increasing the profit per unit on the high end. It can work as long as the consumer doesn't realize the differentiation is artificial. > I understand the strategy of crippling capabilities in low priced products and then enabling them in high priced products. OK. Preaching to the choir then. I'll leave it up for others. > But in the case of Nikon cameras, not even the highest priced Nikon products expose their functionality over documented programmable customer interfaces. Either Nikon programmers are incompetent, Nikon doesn't think there's enough of a market for those products to justify the expense, or for some other corporate reason they've chosen not to enter that market (an informal agreement with another manufacturer, for instance). Like I've said before. If a company has a product you like at a price you like, buy it. If not, don't. They don't understand anything else. Words are normally wasted on people who only understand money. |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 31, 2010 12:30 PM EDT |
My PowerShot "S2 IS" is listed, and with the correct firmware, so I may very well give this a try. That is, if it is as reversible as they imply. About the only thing I want to add to it is a function that my ca. 1998 Kodak DC260 had which no camera I've seen since would do, "Watermark" the photo with the date-time in the lower right hand corner. Not just in the meta-info, directly into the image. Each time I asked about that when looking at cameras since, it's been, "You do that in software." Does your custom software run on Linux? "No." |
| Koriel Dec 31, 2010 1:17 PM EDT |
@Bob_Robertson I can vouch for the fact that the software is easily removable and does not affect your existing firmware in the camera, you can have software either autoboot at camera switch on or load it manually with a few button presses my preferred method is the manual method as it means the wife can use the camera in its simple to use default Canon mode but i can switch it to CHDK easily for my own uses. Removing the software is easy just insert you memory card into a reader and remove the CHDK folder and its gone. It really is simple and safe to use, I have been using it for over a year now without a single problem. |
| Bob_Robertson Dec 31, 2010 9:59 PM EDT |
Koriel, Sadly, it does not work. I have reconfirmed several times that I did everything correctly, I'm doing manual loading to avoid all the "card formatting" and boot sector stuff. The right files in the right places, and it even puts up the CHDK splash screen, then goes right back to the normal camera system. So obviously, it's trying to load but not quite making it. At least it's crashing politely, without taking the camera along with it. I'll poke around their forum, to see if anyone has had this problem before, but I might just need someone to come to my emotional rescue. :^) |
| ComputerBob Dec 31, 2010 10:13 PM EDT |
Quoting:ComputerBob, thanks for proofreading my post. It was late last night, what can I say.I didn't start out trying to proofread it — just to understand it. But after I read it three or four separate times and still couldn't figure out why you kept mentioning Nokia, I started to suspect that you had done it by accident. ;) |
| JaseP Jan 03, 2011 3:04 PM EDT |
@ Penguinist: You want/need a FrankenCamera; http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/04/stanford-frankencamera-... |
| penguinist Jan 03, 2011 5:40 PM EDT |
JaseP wrote:You want/need a FrankenCameraThat looks pretty interesting. Actually, a Linux based control system on a quality camera would be ideal for what I was wanting to do. I'll definitely check back from time to time to see how this project is going. |
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