Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

On 6/24/2020 4:43 PM, Whisky-dave wrote:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53165293

While a great disappointment for me, it isn't surprising considering the
growth of the smartphone market. I think a most stand-alone camera
manufacturers will be faced with the same economic viability problem.

--
best regards,

Neil

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 17:03:00 -0400, Neil wrote:

On 6/24/2020 4:43 PM, Whisky-dave wrote:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53165293

While a great disappointment for me, it isn't surprising considering the
growth of the smartphone market. I think a most stand-alone camera
manufacturers will be faced with the same economic viability problem.

The future MAY lie with the Raspberry Pi. Their latest camera module is
12MP - with interchangeable lenses.

In article , ray carter
wrote:

The future MAY lie with the Raspberry Pi. Their latest camera module is
12MP - with interchangeable lenses.

hah, no.

In article ,
RichA wrote:

A raw circuit board won't quite hold-up under "photographer" conditions.

All you have to do is mount it in a nice, hand-friendly cabinet, with
weather sealing. Oh, and a viewing screen or eye-level "viewfinder",
removable storage cards, and an easy bayonet lens mount.

Sounds like a great idea. Someone should patent it.

On 2020-06-24 19:42, Scott Schuckert wrote:
In article ,
RichA wrote:

A raw circuit board won't quite hold-up under "photographer" conditions.

All you have to do is mount it in a nice, hand-friendly cabinet, with
weather sealing. Oh, and a viewing screen or eye-level "viewfinder",
removable storage cards, and an easy bayonet lens mount.

Sounds like a great idea. Someone should patent it.


A far smarter idea would be extreme minimization of the electronics in
the camera and offload all higher level functions to a smartphone,
tablet or portable computer.

In effect, the "camera" becomes an accessory to the smartphone.

-Less battery draw on the camera side
-Powerful and evolving processing.
-Very nice and improving displays
-GPS/GLONAS for PVT.
-Ever increasing storage and lossless compression.
-Comms to the world (or adjunct computers) for the files to be offloaded
in real or near real time.
-Be the "hub" for several cameras on any given shoot
.Pros/(umers) would use 2 or 3 for redundant backup in real time
-Signaturing and/or encryption on the spot.

Most basic settings would be done on the camera side (modes, flash
control, aperture and shutter drive (if the latter is still used), h/w
level ISO gain control, etc. and so on.

But as soon as the image is captured, it's offloaded to the smartphone
(etc.) for storage and user defined processing.

Special modes would be set from the smartphone side.

The basic camera would include a mount for the smartphone and flash,
bayonet mount, tripod mount, shutter release, etc. A couple dials and
switches for PASM and settings, etc.

Data transfer (camera-phone) would be encrypted WiFi (Bluetooth is
simply too slow) or optionally by wire (USB-C or Thunderbolt) for most
secure and rapid transfer.

Battery would be internal but be able to use an external batt if needed
to recharge. Same ext. batt for the smartphone(s) if needed.