Well, we officially have paid firmware updates. What do you all think?
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Lets not tell all camera manufacturers about this or we may even need end up with an Adobe style subscription model for selecting which features we have on our camera’s firmware. I believe BMW has subscription features for its cars. If you want your butt warmed it only costs $18 per month. BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month - The Verge
Inevitable.
Cameras are on the way to become like the other computery stuff.
You chose your general environment. You pick your addons.
If you go with the default option you will get distracted by ads.
That’s the only reason that DSLRs had to go:
no way of displaying ads on that mirror.
But hey, the camera was cheaper!
Somewhere along the way a manufacturer will realise that a solid core with a stable API is better than people trying to magiclantern a camera. Ideally they will use that Post-Linux OS that boots up in a fraction of a second instead of ten.
And then you will be able to get a camera that removes all the stuff you don’t want or need from buttons, dials, menus and be a very nice tool.
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[edit] my inital thought is as above… but on a little more reflection, it could be worthwhile. If it made a camera cheaper with optional extras for the few who need them. I dunno.
I kind of wish the Pixii took that approach.
In one emoji: 
The size of the price says all we need to know.
Is this an old 01APR article?
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This is not the first though, e.g.:
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Subscription for heated seats is dead, but I think BMW will only come out even stronger with more twisted plans for something. I first thought it was a joke or bmw meme. But nope, it was a real deal.
That’s the only reason that DSLRs had to go:
no way of displaying ads on that mirror
Luckily, they didn’t go anywhere. You can still buy them new. The service centres have parts in years to come and until camera companies make some real breakthrough in the image sensor, there’s little to no use upgrading to mirrorless if you have good DSLR already - unless you crave or need that tack-sharp super smart AF. Autofocus is the only real major upgrade in the current mirrorless line.
But as far as I’m concerned - I don’t need ads or subscriptions to keep me out of ML waters - the current battery life is a joke at best. How people deal with it with their straight faces is beyond me. Canon R8 is said to have around 220 shots per battery. People try to squeeze out 400 shots by disabling various services.
Meanwhile, my Canon 90D used for astrophotography had 2857 shots taken with a single battery that still has 46% juice left. The camera shows red bar for the battery (bad performance), I can only wonder how far would it go with 3 green bars.
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Well put. Pentax is sticking with DSLRs too, not to mention their new film camera project.
Ha. I came into that from the other side… I grew up using digi compacts, then went into mirrorless with the Oly Pen E-P1. So I missed out on the so-called “golden era” of DSLRs, until in 2021 (I think) I got a Nikon D7100.
I was used to batteries not lasting more than a couple of hundred shots, so I was blown away by the 2000+ shot life on the original battery in the already 8 year old D7100. Real bonus.
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Well put. Pentax is sticking with DSLRs too, not to mention their new film camera project.
Yeah, I’m glad Pentax is still able to do what they do best - produce beautiful rugged cameras that just work and don’t care to fit the trends.
I was used to batteries not lasting more than a couple of hundred shots, so I was blown away by the 2000+ shot life on the original battery in the already 8 year old D7100. Real bonus.
The irony is that Canon 90D is their most advanced DSLR to date (should still be in production too). It has 32mpx, wifi, bluetooth, super fast LiveView focusing with intelligent faces and eye-detection and MF focus-peaking assist, swivel touch screen, RAW compression etc.
It’s not some old-tech taking images, it’s a modern camera! But it can still take thousands of images per battery. It just blows ML cameras out with its performance.
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I have just bought a mirrorless camera, Canon R7. The reason wasn’t because mirrorless had to be better than D-SLR. But what surprised me is that I have a 4K video camera or a still camera at the flick of a switch. BTW, despite over 700 focus points I reckon a Canon D-SLR would have slightly better focusing
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As if paid features were not bad enough they only give you 4 slots on top of that, absolutely ridiculous as vector graphics for the lines must not even be 1kb in size per graph and I’m sure the camera has a enough internal storage for a lot more.
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I so wished magic lantern was all brands compatible !
Unlocking functionality as a subscription is really making me sick … 
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Mirrorless are also faster when it comes to shots per second, specially with no blackout, useful for action/wildlife. They are also more compact and lighter, even if pentax makes very small DSLR’s, they’ll still be bigger than the smaller mirrorless cameras.
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Test on the capabilities of image stabilisation (sensor + lens) on the new lumix line applied to video mode (slight crop trade-off for added shot stability) is having attractive results as well, but yeah, I’m inclined to join the rant made by already mentioned here youtuber “James Popsy” when he says that new technologies and improvements added to new cameras are not as impressive and useful when it comes to stills as what have been added/achieved in previous generations.
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Imagine a world in which cameras allowed you to add your own LUTs and arbitrary frame line PNGs, and maybe even had a little Lua extension API for custom exposure series and suchlike… wouldn’t that be neat?
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An interesting point is that most, if not all (? I’d have to compare), of those features are also in my lower-tier T8i (850D), albeit in a smaller, less rugged and slightly different composite (not magnesium?) body. But I’d still opt for the 90D instead, given a choice. If it had a FF sensor, absolutely.
Probably not what you had in mind, but here it is:
I did not check everything in full detail, but the functionality is there.
And from the minimal contact I had with ARRI:
you call them, they will deliver if it is possible in any way.
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My inner nerd would love that rabbit hole… but I am afraid that I would be spending my time writing Lua extensions instead of photography. I get much more enjoyment from grabbing an M42 lens from the local flea market and playing with it than extra firmware features.
I require relatively little of my camera firmware: A/S/M modes, reasonable AF for stills, dials for exposure compensation, and zebra stripes.
The extras I like are a histogram, bracketing, burst mode, selftimer, and lots of physical buttons I can assign to customization. I shoot raw so I do everything else in post-processing.
I don’t want my camera to become a computer, because I already spend my workday staring at a screen.
As for features like this, I basically would not care. I expect the manufacturer to fix bugs, but not to add features for free.
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