For $150, you can add custom grid lines to your Sony firmware

[maboleth]

The two cameras actually differ quite a bit.
Canon 850D has 24mpx, 1/4000, 95% viewfinder coverage, while 90D has 32.5mpx, 1/8000, 100% VF coverage, higher battery life, better flash, top lcd screen, faster continuous AF, weather-sealed body etc.

[bastibe (Bastian Bechtold)]

IIRC, Magic Lantern provided the Lua scripting for older Canons. Custom LUTs are apparently a thing in some new Panasonic cameras, and custom frame lines are a payed feature in that one Sony. My examples are therefore clearly feasible.

Well, a man can dream.

[nosle]

@maboleth

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.

Unfortunately Pentax has had a paid for firmware feature for some time. There’s a, Japanese market only, graduated density firmware you have to pay for. It gives a ui for some kind of bracketing function.

They have also had “custom image” looks that were tied to specific new lenses. The custom image looks are similar to Fuji’s film simulations but with more knobs to tune.

The latter is pretty minor, probably just a way of generating content for marketing etc but unfortunately shows that they are thinking along these lines.

[lphilpot (Len Philpot)]

You’re right – I’m thinking of the 80D being closer. When I bought mine I was initially planning on the 80D but for what I shoot couldn’t justify the extra cost.

[123sg (Steven)]

@nosle

Unfortunately Pentax has had a paid for firmware feature for some time. There’s a, Japanese market only, graduated density firmware you have to pay for. It gives a ui for some kind of bracketing function.

They have also had “custom image” looks that were tied to specific new lenses. The custom image looks are similar to Fuji’s film simulations but with more knobs to tune.

Interesting. I knew about the second (weird!) but not the first.

Kind of irrelevant to me - much like @Tamas_Papp mentioned above, I don’t use many features.

@Tamas_Papp

A/S/M modes, reasonable AF for stills, dials for exposure compensation

Exactly. I don’t even care about the bracketing, zebra stripes or (most of the time) histogram.
I do like buttons (customizable if need be) for AF-on, AE-lock, AF/MF and ISO, while AF tracking is useful for my motorsport photography.
But I’m not really hard to please in regard to in camera features.

[Tamas_Papp (Tamas K. Papp)]

@bastibe

My examples are therefore clearly feasible.

I am not arguing that they aren’t. Lots of things are feasible, but they only provide benefits to a small fraction of users.

@grubernd

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.

I am not sure about that. First, currently most manufacturers don’t mind if you use Magic Lantern or a similar firmware hack, it is your choice and not their problem.

Second, adding tons of customizability in the form of an open firmware complicates the service process: in order to determine if you have a hardware or a firmware issue, they have to reinstall the standard firmware first because God only knows what super-customized firmware the client could be running. And this is not even considering that firmware bugs can, in theory, damage your camera.

Frankly, I am quite content that 99% of the time I can treat my camera and lens as “just hardware”: I may do the occasional firmware update but I don’t want to deal with the rest. I am maintaining enough devices already, including about 8 Linux machines, 4 mobile phones, 5 routers (all this includes stuff for relatives who cannot or don’t want to do this themselves), not a week passes without upgrades.

One reason I love my Kindle is because it Just Works , it has firmware and all that stuff but I get to ignore that most of the time.

BTW, I struggle to understand why custom gridlines would be worth $150 for anyone. Just add some margins to the composition and crop in post processing.

[hatsnp (Nuno Paulino)]

@Tamas_Papp

Frankly, I am quite content that 99% of the time I can treat my camera and lens as “just hardware”: I may do the occasional firmware update but I don’t want to deal with the rest. I am maintaining enough devices already, including about 8 Linux machines, 4 mobile phones, 5 routers (all this includes stuff for relatives who cannot or don’t want to do this themselves), not a week passes without upgrades.

In today’s world this is becoming increasingly a thing to persue. A modern example is music hardware, nowadays you can do everything with plugins and vsts, but people still buy hardware boxes, even if they are the same algorithm as the plugin, but in a tactile enclosure people can use and fiddle. Give me knobs/buttons over a screen/menu any day of the week

[grubernd]

@Tamas_Papp

I am not sure about that. First, currently most manufacturers don’t mind if you use Magic Lantern or a similar firmware hack, it is your choice and not their problem.

And that is also the reason why you can fry your camera.
A solid design of an API can prevent that.

Also … look at the link to the ARRI page I posted before: it is already happening. Same goes for industrial cameras although they approach this from the other side, abstracting the pure hardware a little for convience of use.

For a lot of use-cases having a solid hardware box is one thing, but catering to a big variety of customers just convolutes the menus and settings and decreases usability.

Being able to reduce openly visible functionality can improve the user experience.

I wouldn’t want to live without the custom menu on my Nikons and I would really like that concept to go much further: throw out the stuff I don’t need so I can not turn it on by accident.