[HN Gopher] Features that more cameras should have
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Features that more cameras should have
        
       Author : giuliomagnifico
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2021-11-17 18:59 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (photographylife.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (photographylife.com)
        
       | formerly_proven wrote:
       | > 2. Sensor Dust Protector Curtain
       | 
       | > Currently Found On: Sony A9 II and A1; Nikon Z9; Canon full-
       | frame mirrorless cameras other than the EOS RP
       | 
       | That's not really accurate - the Sony and Canon are just using
       | one of the shutter curtains for this, while the Z9 doesn't have a
       | shutter so gets a dedicated mechanism not nearly as fragile as a
       | shutter.
       | 
       | > 6. Bulb Mode Preview
       | 
       | Not sure how this is supposed to work without having a non-
       | destructive readout sensor, unless it's just an approximation
       | based on a quicker exposure before starting the bulb exposure.
       | 
       | > 8. Native Image Averaging
       | 
       | idk all of those guys are shooting raw anyway, so just stack them
       | which you were probably going to anyway?
       | 
       | > 14. Raw Histograms
       | 
       | Yeah.
       | 
       | > 15. 16-Bit Raw
       | 
       | Probably in the next generation of landscape cameras like the
       | Z7III
       | 
       | > 18. Base ISO Below 100
       | 
       | Mostly a fight with physics.
        
       | mfranc42 wrote:
       | It's all fancy shit. But guess what. My 35mm camera from eighties
       | has command back with intervalometer. I can say stuff like in 10
       | minutes do an hour long exposure directly on the camera. The fact
       | that I cannot do it on modern camera without cables or mobile
       | phones is a travesty.
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | With modern post processing, why would you be interested in a
         | single 1 hour exposure vs a stacked image?
         | 
         | One thing that most people comparing a film camera and digtal
         | camera by exposure lengths is the fact that a digital cameras
         | image decreases the longer the chip is energized. Heat builds
         | up, and the image gets more noisy the longer the exposure. One
         | rule of thumb for time lapse is to have an interval in between
         | shots as long as the exposure being taken to allow time for the
         | sensor to cool back down. YMMV
        
           | mfranc42 wrote:
           | I have done 30 minutes exposures with digital (5D mark II and
           | magic lantern) with very little noise, so I doubt sensor heat
           | is the problem. Try to bump ISO and you got so much more
           | noise.
           | 
           | I often need it for HDRs at night. I know I can do like
           | wayloads of high iso noisy short exposures and average them
           | in post, but it's clunky and even harder to set up
           | automatically. I would prefer something user friendly. When
           | I'm shooting at night, it's often cold and even not so safe.
           | Fiddling with apps and cable releases is not something I'd
           | like to do.
           | 
           | I know that the hardware is capable of it, but they just have
           | to sell you that cable release or what not in order to unlock
           | the capability, which is what I'm not happy about.
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | I use the same body, and shoot lots of long exposure night
             | time stuff as well. If your doing hour long exposures,
             | you're already fiddling with mounting gear, so small
             | external intervelometer is the least of that needed gear. I
             | have a custom VR rig that mounts multiple camera bodies
             | that all shoot timelapse in sync. Imagine the cabling
             | involved there and you can see why a single body with an
             | external controller sounds like heaven to me.
             | 
             | You don't have to do high ISO anything. If you're willing
             | to shoot 1 hour exposure (which are you really doing that
             | on DSLR?), seems like you'd be willing to shoot 30 2-minute
             | exposures, or 60 1-minutes. What doesn't motion blur out in
             | 1-minute shots other than maybe cars at a red light? Also,
             | how many 1 hour exposure shots can you get out of a single
             | battery charge (2 batts if using grip). I know doing 45s
             | exposures with short intervals will chew up batteries for
             | me.
             | 
             | It seems to me that Canon has decided that if you're going
             | to do longer than 30s exposure, you're going to be using
             | bulb mode and an external controller. I know MagicLantern
             | allows setting custom bulb exposures, but I haven't messed
             | with that option. Its built in intervelometer isn't
             | reliable for short intervals (anything 5s or less is iffy
             | regarding consistent shooting frequency). With my wired
             | controller, I can do 1s gaps. Anything less, and I start
             | getting issues with dumping to card reliably on the old
             | body. Using my custom arduino controller for .5s gaps with
             | 1s exposure with camera mounted to car for motion blurry
             | goodness freaked the mkII out for some reason. newer bodies
             | handle it much better.
        
         | spaetzleesser wrote:
         | My Fuji has this. Another stupid Limitation is the usual 30s
         | limit for shutter speed.
        
         | onion2k wrote:
         | My Panasonic Lumix FZ82 has a built-in intervalometer, and stop
         | motion, slow mo video, WiFi and Bluetooth remote control, and a
         | lot more. Plus a 60* optical zoom. All for about $350 these
         | days. Its a great daily-driver camera.
        
           | mfranc42 wrote:
           | I have Lumix S1. It has gazillion of features, but, for
           | example, the exposure duration is limited to 1 minute. :-(
        
             | spaetzleesser wrote:
             | These limitations are just stupid. Thank God Fuji jumped
             | from 30s to 15min a while ago.
        
       | dboreham wrote:
       | Agree on: the trend to get GPS data from a smartphone is
       | particularly irritating (either drains power on the phone, or you
       | forget to enable it). I miss the 6D/6Dii built-in GPS.
       | 
       | I hadn't thought of sensor shift star tracking. That'd be useful,
       | assuming it would work with, say, the R6.
        
         | spaetzleesser wrote:
         | I wonder how much space a GPS needs. It can't be much
         | considering that I have a 50g watch with GPS that can run the
         | GPS for 30 hours.
        
       | ben7799 wrote:
       | Some of these seem like they are workarounds that aren't going to
       | be required in future camera designs.
       | 
       | Others fall well into the amateur photography traps of "I must
       | have this techno gadget in the camera to get better", whereas
       | Pros have been getting that shot for decades without said gadget.
       | 
       | I have a pretty fancy system (but have been gradually losing
       | interest the last 5 years or so) but I feel like it's all
       | becoming irrelevant over time and the camera companies are going
       | to be left with a very small pro market (that's much more
       | pragmatic about upgrades) and the hard core amateur market that
       | just buys everything to show off.
       | 
       | The biggest things that would keep camera systems relevant would
       | be much better connectivity options to your phone or other
       | device. Make it really easy and seamless, and wireless. Or put
       | LTE right in the camera.
        
       | barbegal wrote:
       | I've wondered about a lot of these features and how they would be
       | ubiquitous if only every brand of camera has a standard way of
       | loading applications and interfacing with the sensor and lens.
       | 
       | Sadly such an interface doesn't even exist on Android.
        
       | matonias wrote:
       | Tapping into this conversation... which brand has good software
       | to play around with?
       | 
       | Canon has https://magiclantern.fm/
        
       | LorenPechtel wrote:
       | One more feature I would like to see, I've never heard of a
       | camera supporting it but there has been aftermarket support on
       | some Canons:
       | 
       | Automatic shooting of HDR exposures. Stacking them requires some
       | human intervention and shouldn't be done on the camera, I'm
       | simply thinking of the shooting. You put your camera on a tripod,
       | select HDR and push the button. It shoots a frame and checks the
       | histogram--are pixels falling off either end? If so, adjust only
       | the shutter speed and shoot again. Keep doing so until the
       | slowest shot has nothing falling off the dark end and the fastest
       | shot has nothing falling off the bright end.
        
         | mgdlbp wrote:
         | I've seen several Fujifilm bridge cameras with in-camera
         | stacking; not sure about the rest of their line.
        
           | sainotbot wrote:
           | Pretty sure you can choose DR100, DR200 or DR400 since the
           | X-T1. My X-T4 definitely has it.
        
             | spaetzleesser wrote:
             | That's not really HDR though.
        
         | IshKebab wrote:
         | Why does stacking them require human intervention? For a
         | completely static scene I would have thought the algorithm is
         | fairly simple and unambiguous.
        
       | jl6 wrote:
       | Whatever happened to love for Live Photos?
       | 
       | I think they're great - absolutely perfect for situations with
       | young kids who are constantly moving, or just to capture little
       | vignettes of movement that bring a photo to life for a moment.
       | 
       | But support for them is virtually non-existent outside the iOS
       | Photos app.
       | 
       | You can extract them as a pair of HEIC and MOV files, but I know
       | of no Free photo management software that is capable of
       | associating them and displaying them together (and yes, there are
       | internal IDs in both files that make it possible to link them, so
       | they aren't quite as fragile as most sidecar files, although they
       | are still fragile because Apple for some insane reason decided
       | not to make use of the HEIF container format's native ability to
       | store both in the same file).
       | 
       | I'm unsure if Android has an equivalent feature or how it's
       | implemented, but I'm pretty sure no DSLRs have anything like it.
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | > I'm pretty sure no DSLRs have anything like it.
         | 
         | I'm not sure what you mean - pretty much all of these can
         | capture 4K video where each frame is about as good as a still
         | from a phone camera.
        
           | jl6 wrote:
           | The equivalent would be a DSLR that can take 24MP stills and
           | 4K (8MP) video simultaneously.
        
             | formerly_proven wrote:
             | Some do.
        
               | jl6 wrote:
               | Help me out and let me know which ones?
        
               | formerly_proven wrote:
               | All of the current high-end cameras are pretty similar
               | here and do around 30 fps stills shooting at full
               | resolution or alternatively 8K (33 MP) video. Just 8K
               | video alone is pretty much the same, as far as resolution
               | is concerned, as yesteryears dedicated high-res bodies.
               | 
               | At the levels below that you'll have to settle for full-
               | res stills at somewhere between 14 and 20 fps or
               | 4K30p/4K60p, for now.
        
         | gengkev wrote:
         | Pixel phones can take "Motion Photos" -- it seems like this is
         | basically just an mp4 file stuffed into a jpg somehow (but
         | without sound). The Google Photos app lets you export it as an
         | mp4 or gif file, or pick a specific timestamp to export a still
         | image.
         | 
         | It looks like the Samsung Camera has something similar, but I'm
         | not sure if it's compatible...
        
       | mrandish wrote:
       | One feature that wasn't mentioned is the option to capture and
       | save as embedded metadata the camera's motion sensor info used
       | for video stabilization. Some Sony cameras currently do this and
       | the data can be used to increase stabilization quality by doing
       | post processing in Sony's desktop app.
        
       | spekcular wrote:
       | A lot of these features are nice to have but definitely not
       | essential, especially for general amateur photography.
       | 
       | But here's one important feature the list misses: the ability to
       | shoot uncompressed, or losslessly compressed, RAW images. The
       | last time I checked, the introductory Sony cameras (the A6500 and
       | its cousins) do not permit this. The customer can only access
       | lossy compressed data. The same is true for lower-end Nikon
       | DSLRs.
       | 
       | Most of the time, this is not a problem - though in some
       | situations with heavy postprocessing or harsh lighting, you will
       | certainly see compression artifacts. I just find it amazing that
       | they're asking customers to pay almost a thousand dollars for a
       | camera+lens kit that doesn't support lossless compression, or let
       | me access the true "raw" data.
       | 
       | It's 2021! This is well-known technical knowledge taught in
       | undergraduate CS classes.
        
         | matja wrote:
         | How did you determine that the RAW images are lossy-compressed?
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | Menu -> Format -> Lossless 2:1, Lossless 4:1 etc
           | 
           | It's not a hidden feature by any stretch. Different vendors
           | allow for different types. Some only allow a smaller frame
           | size while still RAW. Some allow a compression to be applied.
           | 
           | Shorter answer, read the specs or RTFM.
        
         | mastazi wrote:
         | > A lot of these features are nice to have but definitely not
         | essential, especially for general amateur photography.
         | 
         | While I agree with you, I feel like on a mirrorless, the Sensor
         | Dust Protector Curtain is essential if you want to be able to
         | change lenses while out in the field.
         | 
         | Many years ago I used to work for a small local paper, they
         | gave me a DSLR so I had the luxury of the sensor being at least
         | partially protected by the mirror. (I wish they gave me two
         | bodies so I didn't have to swap lenses, but it was a small
         | newspaper and they didn't have a lot of money).
         | 
         | Now I own a mirrorless (that I don't use professionally) and I
         | would never attempt to change the lens unless I'm in an indoor,
         | non-dusty room, without fans or a/c operating. Just looking at
         | the naked sensor staring back at me makes me nervous ;-)
         | 
         | I can't imagine swapping lenses on the mirrorless while on
         | assignments, I think I would have to resort to buying a couple
         | of bodies just to avoid lens swapping.
         | 
         | The curtain protection would solve that problem.
        
         | ryanianian wrote:
         | > The customer can only access lossy compressed data
         | 
         | Honest question - is this a tech or a biz decision? I.e., is it
         | more expensive to include output to raw? More i/o requirements
         | or totally different chipsets or the like? Or is "raw" just
         | deemed a "pro" feature that they feel they can upcharge for?
         | (e.g. paying to flip a bit to unlock more battery life in an
         | EV)
        
           | spekcular wrote:
           | I think compression is done by default because it speeds up
           | picture taking immensely. My understanding is that there's a
           | buffer that holds recently shot pics while they're being
           | written to the SD card. Clearly, if you use compression, you
           | can fit more pics in the buffer, allowing more consecutive
           | snaps before the camera locks up for a bit.
           | 
           | Why it's lossy instead of lossless, I do not know. My guess
           | is that lossy compression allows them to get more
           | compression, and hence improve their effective buffer size
           | for advertising purposes. I think 90% of the time this is a
           | good trade-off. You can view some example artifacts here:
           | https://stephenbayphotography.com/blog/sony-raw-
           | compression-....
           | 
           | [Note that the author mentions being able to access
           | uncompressed raw on his Sony after 2015, but it's a pro-level
           | model. For the amateur models I believe there's no such
           | option.]
           | 
           | Obviously, if you're trying to make them happen, you can do
           | it, but for pics of your kids/pets/plants/etc. in normal
           | daylight situations it shouldn't be a problem.
           | 
           | Still, as a technically minded person, it's infuriating to me
           | that I can't access the original data.
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | The lossy compression schemes used to be pretty simple, so
           | they're a fast and easy way to reduce file size quickly, as
           | older low-end cameras didn't have a ton of memory (costs
           | money, y'know, and a modern camera has a few GB of RAM
           | nowadays) or sometimes didn't support the newest/fastest card
           | standards. In terms of IQ there is rarely a difference.
           | 
           | Most cameras offer lossless compressed raw these days, some
           | (e.g. the low-end Nikon Zs, and also the flagship Z9) don't
           | even have uncompressed raw anymore, only lossless compressed
           | or a choice of lossy options. Much to the chagrin of some
           | people, a particular Youtuber especially, who make a huge
           | deal out of using uncompressed raw. The person in question
           | doesn't understand what the word "lossless" means and claims
           | there's a difference between losslessy compressed raws and
           | "true uncompressed" raws.
        
           | threeseed wrote:
           | It's more a product segmentation decision.
           | 
           | Casual photographers are fine with just using OOC JPEGs and
           | apps like Apple or Google Photos. They aren't paying for
           | Lightroom or Camera One and worrying about the sensor's
           | dynamic range or ISO performance.
           | 
           | Also using RAW especially on higher megapixel sensors
           | requires your entire stack to be more expensive. Computer
           | needs to be fast with lots of hard drive space. You need a
           | UHS-2 card reader as well as 300Mbps cards etc.
        
       | notJim wrote:
       | I agree with a lot of this stuff. I would really love to be able
       | to do more processing in-camera. For example, if I'm doing focus
       | or exposure bracketing, I am going to composite that in lightroom
       | 100% of the time. Why can't the camera do this for me? I would at
       | least love if I could tag those photos as being a pair, so that
       | Lightroom could automatically detect this. I'm kind of surprised
       | by how conservative camera manufacturers have been with adding
       | new features. Some cameras don't even have intervalometers built
       | in!
        
         | pvg wrote:
         | _so that Lightroom could automatically detect this_
         | 
         | Lightroom's autostacking works pretty well for this if the
         | bracketed shots are close together in time as they are if the
         | camera is automating the bracketing. The lightroom feature
         | augments the typical camera feature in this case.
        
         | LorenPechtel wrote:
         | I don't think the camera has the horsepower to do the
         | processing, but I would like to see them tagged.
        
         | argomo wrote:
         | It boggles me how the big camera makers seem content to cede
         | marketshare to smartphones. Obviously, they can't compete on
         | pocketablity or ubiquity, but computational photography is
         | their home turf. I shouldn't have to reach for my phone to take
         | panoramas, photo spheres, and "live photos", and I'm not
         | interested in spending hours compositing stuff later on the PC.
         | 
         | The big camera makers do throw in a bunch of "modes" on their
         | prosumer lines (which they toss out the window on their
         | professional models) to pander to the consumer. Lame stuff,
         | mostly. Give me some real stuff like auto-masking foreground
         | subjects or out-of-camera photogrammetrly created 3D models.
         | 
         | I get that prosumers are a dwindling niche and pros are where
         | the money come from, but you need a source for more pros in the
         | future, right? How does the camera compete if--as an artifact--
         | it's inspirational value is outclassed by the mundane
         | cellphone?
        
           | spaetzleesser wrote:
           | Agreed. They should go all in on computation. They would
           | probably need different processors and more batteries but a
           | "pro" camera should be better than a phone in absolutely
           | every aspect. I just got an iPhone 13 and it's interesting
           | how it handles night shots better than my Fuji X-T3 with its
           | much bigger sensor.
        
       | terramex wrote:
       | I'll add one idea to the list: tracking moving objects using
       | IBIS.
       | 
       | Like when you shoot moving car or flying bird - use existing
       | autofocus to detect the object and then track it over exposure
       | time to keep it free from motion blur but get nice, blurred
       | background. Pentax have simple version of that for tracking stars
       | mentioned in the article but I hope some company figures out how
       | to do it for arbitrary, fast moving objects in real-time.
       | 
       | Sony a9 series already got rid of blackout during shooting so it
       | is technically possible to get image data in realtime, have
       | continuous autofocus and save full size RAW files at the same
       | time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZXFI-eIXk8
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | I don't think IBIS systems have enough travel to do something
         | like that, especially for the longer focal lengths where this
         | would be useful. In the meantime optical stabilizers and IBIS
         | systems already smooth your pans on the micro-level pretty
         | well.
        
         | spaetzleesser wrote:
         | I don't think they can move the sensor fast enough. It would
         | also only work for objects whose parts don't move. Airplanes
         | may work but with birds the wings move in different directions.
         | 
         | But I think with much faster sensor readouts you will be able
         | to compute sharp images sometime in the future.
        
       | FpUser wrote:
       | >"...
       | 
       | Bulb Mode Preview
       | 
       | Vibration Detection Shutter Firing
       | 
       | Native Image Averaging "
       | 
       | Pretty much vote for those. Not that the other are unimportant.
       | "Native Image Averaging" - with the live preview please and the
       | ability to zoom into that preview.
        
       | shrx wrote:
       | As a Canon camera owner it's sad to see it missing from the
       | supported cameras lists under nearly all of the features
       | mentioned. Mine does have a GPS unit, though.
        
       | threeseed wrote:
       | I want to see smaller form factors e.g. Sony RX1, Sigma fp. The
       | whole point of mirrorless was to move away from DSLR sized kits
       | and yet years later we are back there again.
       | 
       | Also would be nice to see more options for manual focusing. Pixii
       | is interesting being a digital rangefinder but there isn't much
       | innovation here.
        
         | The_Colonel wrote:
         | > The whole point of mirrorless was to move away from DSLR
         | sized kits
         | 
         | That's a wrong assumption, it was certainly never "the whole
         | point", just one of the factors.
        
           | nomel wrote:
           | Besides mirror slap/vibrations, what's the other benefit?
           | Size, and therefore cost, of glass is why all of my
           | professional friends moved over. You can get better lenses
           | for cheaper. And, the cameras themselves are much simpler, so
           | can be cheaper/higher quality.
           | 
           | Many of the "live viewfinder" benefits already existing in
           | DSLRs that had live viewfinder modes, with the rest being
           | excluded for cost or differentiation (focus pixels, live
           | histograms, etc). I saw it as an more of an eventuality of
           | the live viewfinder being made more featureful than the lens
           | view, so removing the mirror just made sense. The only people
           | I know that are still using DSLR are those that "need" the
           | classic viewfinder, but there's no reason the features of a
           | mirrorless camera couldn't be put behind a sometimes-flopping
           | mirror. The only problem with that would be vibration and the
           | increase in size of the camera and lens.
        
       | DeathArrow wrote:
       | What I would like cameras to have is apps. Sony started some time
       | ago to allow apps on their cameras under the name PlayMemories
       | but for some reasons, they back off.
        
         | novok wrote:
         | I want cameras that have apple airdrop, messaging apps, popular
         | social media apps and file sync apps along with a full
         | cellphone , wifi , bt, gps chip using android. It would be a
         | dream to have my camera actually start syncing my photo shoot
         | automatically when I plug it in the charger at home and have it
         | not be a shit experience.
         | 
         | OR wifi sync and phone sharing that doesn't suck. But no camera
         | manufacturer has shown the ability to do that, so an android
         | app mode is the next best thing so they can offload the
         | software writing to much bigger tech companies instead.
         | 
         | Top 1 annoyance with non smartphone cameras is sharing the
         | photos I just took with other people at the event. I'm not
         | fucking around with the frankly awful wifi experience on most
         | cameras and I'm not going to bring a cable or sd card dongle to
         | do so either.
         | 
         | # 2 is the lack of built in GPS. It's 2021, adding GPS is
         | extremely cheap, especially if you've already done wifi anyway.
         | 
         | #3 is qi charging. After a shoot put the camera on the wireless
         | dock and everything is syncing well with the local desktop
         | computer.
        
           | matonias wrote:
           | Its either camera-brands making apps or Apple that start
           | making high-end camera's... which one will come first.
           | 
           | My bet is Apple
        
             | threeseed wrote:
             | Neither is going to happen. The photography market has
             | split into three camps.
             | 
             | Casual users who care about apps will just use their phones
             | and the quality will be on par with Micro-4/3 and likely
             | APS-C with computational photography advances.
             | 
             | Prosumers will stick with smaller full frame optimised for
             | style and old school usability e.g. Leica. Professionals
             | will either use full frame for speed or move towards medium
             | format which Fuji is leading the charge towards.
        
             | robohoe wrote:
             | I bet we'll see even better cameras in mobile phone sooner
             | or later. iPhone 13 max pro already has a fantastic camera.
        
         | notJim wrote:
         | I completely agree. Can you imagine have smartphone-level
         | ability to add new functionality to high-end cameras? The
         | things you could do would be amazing. Although I suspect and IO
         | and processing power may be limiting factors, given that even a
         | full-on PC can take a while to perform many operations.
        
         | kuschku wrote:
         | You can actually mod them and write your own apps. There are
         | even FTP or SMB apps for the sony alpha cameras:
         | https://github.com/ma1co/OpenMemories-Framework/
        
         | nomel wrote:
         | From what I can tell, many of the needs of all of this whole
         | comment section would be achieved with a "thin client" camera.
         | Some large, dumb, image sensor, with an IMU, that uses a
         | smartphone for everything other than recording a raw
         | image/video stream.
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | Fully disagree.
        
         | elischleifer wrote:
         | I disagree. Apps necessitate an app store, maintenance,
         | updates, reasonable SDKs. For something like a camera apps as
         | an expansion joint is a bridge-too-far. That's not to say that
         | these cameras shouldn't provide an SDK for access to core
         | functionality. I mostly would like Sony and others to open
         | source there camera software so bugs/features can be addressed
         | by the community.
        
       | sp332 wrote:
       | What is a flash commander?
        
         | gridspy wrote:
         | Isn't that the gizmo that triggers external (studio / photo-
         | shoot) lights to flash? It sends a radio or IR signal on
         | shutter press rather than flashing on the camera.
         | 
         | An alternative are studio lights which are set up to trigger
         | when the camera flash itself goes off.
        
           | jeffbee wrote:
           | Commander mode uses the flash to send the commands. It's
           | actually bananas what the protocol can do. A Nikon commander
           | can signal three different groups of speed lights to test-
           | fire, figure out the power the photo requires from each
           | group, signal them all to dial in the exposure, then signal
           | them all to fire. It does this all with 1960s technology.
        
       | dmead wrote:
       | ahh wouldn't the star tracker require pretty specialized or
       | higher powered hardware? seems a bit much to cram into a camera
       | no? unless you want the cost to increase by the cost of 1 cell
       | phone?
        
         | KMnO4 wrote:
         | The hardware is already there. You don't need to move much to
         | counteract the movement of the stars. Many cameras have in body
         | stabilization, which can move the sensor around.
         | 
         | Pentax had had this for a while (as early as 2011).
         | 
         | https://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/explore/astro/
        
         | azalemeth wrote:
         | I have a Pentax camera (it's great -- they're undervalued by
         | the market). The astrotracer uses GPS lookups and needs either
         | a K-1 or a (very overpriced) GPS dongle that plugs in via the
         | flash hotshoe.
         | 
         | It gets an accurate lock and moves the sensor about its 5 axes
         | of magnetohydrodynamically-controlled freedom in order to
         | emulate, to some degree, an equatorial mount. No image-domain
         | tracking required -- purely physics. The things people get are
         | insanely good (c.f. [1])
         | 
         | [1] https://www.flickr.com/groups/2598208@N22/
        
           | formerly_proven wrote:
           | Mechanically there's only three degrees of freedom
           | (translation in the plane and rotation about the optical
           | axis), the cameras just calculate an approximately correct
           | translation for pitch/yaw movements. Pitching or yawing the
           | sensor itself would take it immediately out of the depth of
           | focus (the image side equivalent of depth of field) and the
           | image would be a blurry mess.
        
         | gridspy wrote:
         | Sounds like it's a pretty simple loop of
         | 
         | 1. Find bright spots in last second of exposure (which is then
         | added to a sum for the final picture)
         | 
         | 2. Compare their locations to bright spots in the previous
         | second
         | 
         | 3. Move the sensor slightly so the bright spots remain "in the
         | same place" on the sensor.
         | 
         | Note that cameras with integral anti-vibration do that by
         | moving the sensor, so they already have the hardware for (3).
         | 
         | For star tracking there would be a max speed of stars based on
         | Earth's rotation multiplied by focal length you could use to
         | set a reasonable cap on movement. You could also expect similar
         | movement for each second to the seconds before.
         | 
         | The camera could have a data structure per star being tracked,
         | capping the number used to say 32 or 64 "stars" for accuracy.
         | Each "Star" would "vote" how much movement has occurred. You'd
         | gain faith in various stars as analysis frames go by if they
         | keep giving valid results, a black-list of "not stars" would
         | also be useful.
         | 
         | Some would be stationary, like lights on the ground. Some would
         | be bogus, such as navigation lights on aircraft. Actual stars
         | should expect similar movement and "agree" though if the zoom
         | was low it might change across the image.
        
         | user_7832 wrote:
         | I doubt you need that much hardware/costs, given that even an
         | Arduino can do it [1]. From an outsider's perspective though,
         | camera companies are probably hesitant to shake up what's
         | already there which is probably they don't add such features.
         | 
         | 1. https://blog.arduino.cc/2020/02/26/openastrotracker-is-a-
         | tra...
        
       | sh-run wrote:
       | I have an Oly EM1.3. Pro-capture on a rental EM1.2 is what
       | originally sold me the camera, but Live ND (image averaging) is
       | probably my most used feature outside of standard aperture
       | priority shooting.
       | 
       | It's pretty fun what you can do with it. Here's an example from a
       | backpacking trip last year:
       | 
       | without Live ND: https://i.imgur.com/kJjEDmt.jpg
       | 
       | with Live ND: https://i.imgur.com/IhHzo4T.jpg
       | 
       | Both taken (handheld at 100mm) on my Panasonic 100-300/F4.0-5.6.
       | I tend to carry it and my Oly 12-40mm f2.8 when backpacking.
        
         | spaetzleesser wrote:
         | A built in ND should be standard.
        
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