Let’s lobby manufacturers to open their cameras to developers.

[Matt James Smith ?]

In many ways you’ve got more creative control with an EOSM and Magic Lantern, or an iPhone with FilmicPro, than you have with most ‘professional’ cameras. 
 

Hurry up with the EOS App Store!

[sanveer]

I wish Panasonic cameras could be hacked like the GH2 was, back in the day, though with Magic Lantern kind of features. 

[KnightsFan]

I agree!

If you want truly open, the Octopus cinema camera is promising. The Axiom project was promising, but doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast--though I wouldn't be surprised if the Octopus camera is benefiting from the R&D that Axiom did and made open source.

Z Cam cameras are really quite open. There aren't hacks per se, but they don't need any imo. In addition to just having a lot of options out of the box, they have an open API for controlling the camera and really are going out of their way to make their products compatible with third party accessories.

Both of these are strictly cinema cameras. It would be really nice if some manufacturers of hybrids took the same approach. The closest we ever got to an EOS app store was the Samsung Galaxy NX, which is close to just a simple android device shaped like a DSLR. I haven't used one, but it honestly looks like what I'd expect the future of hybrids to be: massive back screen, good ergonomics, and designed for connectivity.

[Matt James Smith ?]

2 hours ago, KnightsFan said:

I agree!

If you want truly open, the Octopus cinema camera is promising. The Axiom project was promising, but doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast--though I wouldn't be surprised if the Octopus camera is benefiting from the R&D that Axiom did and made open source.

Z Cam cameras are really quite open. There aren't hacks per se, but they don't need any imo. In addition to just having a lot of options out of the box, they have an open API for controlling the camera and really are going out of their way to make their products compatible with third party accessories.

Both of these are strictly cinema cameras. It would be really nice if some manufacturers of hybrids took the same approach. The closest we ever got to an EOS app store was the Samsung Galaxy NX, which is close to just a simple android device shaped like a DSLR. I haven't used one, but it honestly looks like what I'd expect the future of hybrids to be: massive back screen, good ergonomics, and designed for connectivity.

It’s very boring of me, but what I want is for the major manufacturers to get to this point soon. I’m a doc filmmaker so I need the reliability and ease of use of Cinema EOS etc. A sandboxed OS with an App Store like iOS might be limiting in some ways but it ensures 3rd party interventions are safe and accountable. Plus it would mean mainstream developers would get on board. Imagine a Frame.io app that allows you to mark a specific moment in a clip (as you shoot?!) and send it to an editor direct from your camera. A Vimeo app that lets you throw a LUT on log footage and upload. Google drive, Dropbox, WeTransfer. An Instagram app that lets you post direct from the camera. Not to mention the obvious technical possibilities of apps like FilmicPro, a stable Magic Lantern type thing, etc, etc.

[BTM_Pix]

1 hour ago, Matt James Smith ? said:

It’s very boring of me, but what I want is for the major manufacturers to get to this point soon. I’m a doc filmmaker so I need the reliability and ease of use of Cinema EOS etc. A sandboxed OS with an App Store like iOS might be limiting in some ways but it ensures 3rd party interventions are safe and accountable. Plus it would mean mainstream developers would get on board. Imagine a Frame.io app that allows you to mark a specific moment in a clip (as you shoot?!) and send it to an editor direct from your camera. A Vimeo app that lets you throw a LUT on log footage and upload. Google drive, Dropbox, WeTransfer. An Instagram app that lets you post direct from the camera. Not to mention the obvious technical possibilities of apps like FilmicPro, a stable Magic Lantern type thing, etc, etc.

You can already somewhat do a lot of this in a roundabout way on any camera by using the Toshiba FlashAir SD cards as your media.

The FlashAir card generates its own WiFi network so can be accessed independently of the camera's own network functionality (if it has one) by apps or even a web browser but can also run custom scripts of its own to automate the process.

So for example, you can lock an image in the camera and this attribute change can be set to be the trigger for the file to be uploaded automatically by FTP to a connected device.

Or an application on a device can run a watchdog to automatically upload any newly created files.

As the files can be accessed while you are generating new ones, you can just concentrate on shooting and all of the file transferring will be happening constantly in the background.

Once you have the data off the card onto the other device (which could be a tablet or phone etc) then it is the apps that you have on there that can then do the functions that you need.

The other device could also be a single board computer like a Raspberry Pi which is a bit more configurable in terms of processing the incoming files to transcode them or process them with adding LUTs etc

If you don't want to store the files on another device but just send them to cloud services then you can also set the card to just work in station mode connected to your phone as a WiFi hotspot and script it to automatically FTP the files to Google Drive, Dropbox etc. if thats all you need.

None of this will give you access to change the internal processing of the camera of course but it will take care of the rest of it and is configurable to the exact needs of each user and is also transferrable between multiple cameras.

 

[Matt James Smith ?]

2 minutes ago, BTM_Pix said:

You can already somewhat do a lot of this in a roundabout way on any camera by using the Toshiba FlashAir SD cards as your media.

The FlashAir card generates its own WiFi network so can be accessed independently of the camera's own network functionality (if it has one) by apps or even a web browser but can also run custom scripts of its own to automate the process.

So for example, you can lock an image in the camera and this attribute change can be set to be the trigger for the file to be uploaded automatically by FTP to a connected device.

Or an application on a device can run a watchdog to automatically upload any newly created files.

As the files can be accessed while you are generating new ones, you can just concentrate on shooting and all of the file transferring will be happening constantly in the background.

Once you have the data off the card onto the other device (which could be a tablet or phone etc) then it is the apps that you have on there that can then do the functions that you need.

The other device could also be a single board computer like a Raspberry Pi which is a bit more configurable in terms of processing the incoming files to transcode them or process them with adding LUTs etc

If you don't want to store the files on another device but just send them to cloud services then you can also set the card to just work in station mode connected to your phone as a WiFi hotspot and script it to automatically FTP the files to Google Drive, Dropbox etc. if thats all you need.

None of this will give you access to change the internal processing of the camera of course but it will take care of the rest of it and is configurable to the exact needs of each user and is also transferrable between multiple cameras.

 

Amazing - didn’t know about that. Again though for me it’s about the simplified workflow and potential of 3rd party developers to integrate their own services directly in camera.

[BTM_Pix]

1 minute ago, Matt James Smith ? said:

Amazing - didn’t know about that. Again though for me it’s about the simplified workflow and potential of 3rd party developers to integrate their own services directly in camera.

Yeah its not the full hit but it does give that capability for files at least as I can write an application that does all of the transfer and processing as though it was directly in the camera but does it in such a way that it doesn't interrupt you shooting or have the other limitations that many cameras have when using their own internal WiFi services such as reduced recording resolution or reduced run times etc.

It also means it would work for cameras without any sort of network capability such as BM Pocket, Sigma FP etc

Currently, unless you have one of a limited number of cameras such as my LS300 that take a 4G dongle to directly connect to the internet, you have to use an additional device to tether the camera to anyway so its no additional requirement hardware wise.

Don't get me wrong, it would be ideal if this could be integrated directly in the camera but Sony had their pants pulled down with people making apps for their PlayMemories system that allowed the camera to be hacked so I doubt we'll see it from the major manufacturers so this might be as close as it gets.

For the full integrated solution, the Axiom project probably offers the best hope currently and it does seem to be edging closer 

 

[Matt James Smith ?]

2 hours ago, BTM_Pix said:

Yeah its not the full hit but it does give that capability for files at least as I can write an application that does all of the transfer and processing as though it was directly in the camera but does it in such a way that it doesn't interrupt you shooting or have the other limitations that many cameras have when using their own internal WiFi services such as reduced recording resolution or reduced run times etc.

It also means it would work for cameras without any sort of network capability such as BM Pocket, Sigma FP etc

Currently, unless you have one of a limited number of cameras such as my LS300 that take a 4G dongle to directly connect to the internet, you have to use an additional device to tether the camera to anyway so its no additional requirement hardware wise.

Don't get me wrong, it would be ideal if this could be integrated directly in the camera but Sony had their pants pulled down with people making apps for their PlayMemories system that allowed the camera to be hacked so I doubt we'll see it from the major manufacturers so this might be as close as it gets.

For the full integrated solution, the Axiom project probably offers the best hope currently and it does seem to be edging closer 

 

This is a good point about security, actually. For many journalists, privacy is an issue even with current cameras, as files aren’t/can’t be encrypted in camera.