Kodak Ektra | Hacker News Reader

Kodak Ektra

kodak.com

360 pointsqazwse_201 comments

<armchair> There's a missed opportunity here... this is not a smartphone, because as a phone, it will suck. It's a smartcamera, because as a point-and-shoot running Android with a cellular data connection, it will probably be quite cool. As mentioned already, Nokia tried the "photography first" smartphonecamera - it didn't fly. Because, honestly, iPhones are already top of the line smartphonecameras. The cameras are ridiculously good, all things considered. Kodak should realize there's no point in attempting to get people to trade in their iPhone for one of these - they should focus on making this the other accessory you want to have in addition to your iPhone. Like a Kindle. You CAN read stuff on your phone, but there's a better experience to be had. You CAN take pictures and video on your phone but... there's a better experience to be had? Maybe. I'm not entirely convinced the same kind of value can be added at a price that's worth paying before just up and getting a DSLR. But, that's my take on this whole thing. </armchair>

To add to your sentiment, I have a Sony camera that can:

* Wirelessly transfer images to my phone.

* Do so with a tap, as it has an embedded NFC tag. (Sets up a wifi-direct connection.)

* Be remotely controlled by my phone, including a laggy but usable viewfinder display on my phone screen.

Cameras that are phone accessories already exist, and they're pretty cool.

My Fujifilm cameras do the same (and the X30's implementation is pretty great as of the latest Remote App updates) -- the remote viewfinder and controls aren't even that laggy now! Crazy stuff considering it's consumer equipment :)

You have to applaud Kodak for taking a risk.

If the camera functionality is that much better, some customer segment might be compelled. It's hard to say until the product is available.

Future iPhone customers will benefit from this product release. If it's at all better, you better believe this will only push Apple's camera engineering team harder.

Certainly - Kodak has been making some big, bold moves in an attempt to stay alive. They're not dying quietly, that's for sure.

But I will say that I doubt this will impact iPhone owners at all; Kodak would have to demonstrate some truly amazing tech - be it lenses, sensors, or image processing - that can blow iPhones out of the water. And I just don't see that happening. They're touting... filters. Ok, maybe be charitable and talk about the editing experience with access to raw camera data - histograms! - but iPhones just got that too. So it's parity, at best.

What DOES put pressure on the iPhone is the new Pixel that came out of nowhere with a ridiculously good camera. Everybody (ok, "I") thought Apple's camera and picture quality was one of their biggest competitive advantages, but clearly, great photo quality is more commodity now.

This device is not made by Kodak. It's made by a British company called Bullitt Group that is licensing the Kodak name.

Source: https://www.dpreview.com/news/7643905711/kodak-launches-ektr...

That is the key insight here, particularly when you see what other branded gadgets this Bullitt Group have, Kodak have just become a brand name that can be licensed by third parties. There is no connection to the Kodak we know, impetus came from outside.

It seems that Bullitt can innovate, their camera-phone for Caterpillar has some thermal imaging aspect to it. Here I think they have gone for nostalgia with the name and form factor rather than innovation. There certainly is no leveraging of Kodak's patent portfolio going on or anything truly new brought to the product, a decent interface with a few more advanced settings is expected.

I think an opportunity was missed here. Kodak made photography accessible and easy, that could have been the thing here with an auxiliary camera that worked with someone's phone to bring decent zoom and optics to them. They could have also made the camera double up as a recharging brick so there would be reason to always have it with you. If it also had USB-C storage for your device with cloud backup and some VSCO service for the pictures then it could work.

The first Kodak digital cameras for the pro-sumer market had a programming language that you could use to get the camera to do things. You could get it to work out the height of a building by focusing on the top and then the bottom - it would do the trig for you, fantastic. Maybe a Kodak camera could revisit this and make it work for the IoT connected world, so the Kodak camera could be set up to do ad-hoc CCTV, timelapse and other things. Or just a remote camera for taking selfies, a market could be made for that even if the product was sold on doing super clever stuff. Instead there is this nostalgia trip.

Here's a neat idea: a smartphone, with a great camera, that doubles as a recharging brick. For itself.

So basically a high-end smartphone like we have today that isn't "Half a millimetre thinner TM" but a full centimetre thicker.

Now that would be innovative!

Another one would be a 6" slider with a decent keyboard, like the original Droid. There are people actually composing serious documents on the go (e.g. lawyers, journalists), that would love it

So basically like n900... I miss it so much.

I should have kept both of mine, but the platform was essentially dead and I had to move on. These days there are two potential replacements for such a device, one is a continuation of the platform, the Neo900[1], the other is the Pyra[2]. I'm going to save up for a Pyra since it's half the cost of the Neo900 and looks like a more capable platform. I don't need a device like that anymore, given how good smartphones have become, but it would be nice to have a pocketable true computer with a keyboard for certain situations. The mobile retro-gaming aspect also appeals to me.

[1] http://neo900.org/

[2] https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/

You say, and it's here (Moto Z mods)

https://www.motorola.com/us/products/moto-mods/incipio-offgr...

Kodak is an "innovators dilemma" case study, and what they're doing by bringing in an outside group to compete with itself is exactly one of the solutions that is often prescribed.

Kodak is bankrupt. The old company no longer exists, and is being run by its creditors. If they can make back some of their losses by licensing the name, they absolutely will do so.

They did have an innovators dilemma back in the 1970s when they developed (one of?) the first digital camera. They didn't do much with it.

Maybe. If the quality of those test shots on the OP are anything to go by I doubt it. I have some very similar outdoors photos (overcast and green) from my Nexus 5X which at least to my eye look a lot better - http://imgur.com/a/3U9sv - and allegedly the Pixel is even better still.

Certainly those on the page seem to be very noisy and strangely lit even when scaled down to thumbnails. i dunno, maybe it's like "hardware instagram".

I have a similar experience with the Nexus 5. The photos look good. But the ergonomy is horrible. It isn't a camera, it's a smartphone. I can't hold it still for 5 seconds. And I almost always block the lens with my hand because they put it in the corner. It's great for taking shots of cats and having it always on you but if you ever used a good camera, then it's no replacement for a real camera.

It's Kodak. They don't have much to lose. I wouldn't necessarily call it a risk.

"As mentioned already, Nokia tried the "photography first" smartphonecamera - it didn't fly."

It didn't fly largely because it was running a 3rd rate OS that no one really wanted.

Also, "Nokia" is not a camera.

But anyway, there is probably a customer segment, but it might not be that large.

But the camera design language make sense, i think, especially the leather and larger knobs - even on a phone.

Functional-ish instead of apple minimalist - at least I can tell a difference from the rest.

But then maybe they should have a real lens and not a faked plastic thing around it to make it look bigger.

There should be a modular sensor/lens assembly that lets you swap between a standard low profile phone cam and a larger sensor with true optical zoom, shutter, and aperture control. Throw in a simulated focus ring and you'd have a saleable product.

As a photographer, I want to correct you. Camera sensors are good, actually amazing for their sizes. What sucks is the lens + the sensor size combination. On most phones you get a fixed wideangle lens, some phones have two lenses, some have sucky zooms (Galaxy S4 Zoom). None of them come even close to a cheap DSLR/mirrorless with large sensors. All 100% of the phone cameras suck in low light. Yes, even the latest iPhone and Google Pixel.

Phone cameras are orders of magnitude worse than the cutting edge cameras when it comes to light sensitivity. It's just physics, there are only that many photons falling into the lens.

Believe me, I know. I carry my D3300 on all my vacations - it's the cheap, entry level DSLR for people like me who want to take better pictures but don't want to invest thousands in high level cameras. Or training ;) But I am like head-over-heels for my 50mm prime.

That aside, that's not really the point at hand. The hypothesis is that there is still a value desert between smartphone cameras and DSLRs that isn't adequately filled by traditional point-and-shoots. And perhaps, Kodak could uncover some by pairing a pocket space computer with a data connection and a better lens (think about what Nokia put on their smartphonecamera) but dropping the phone requirement. This Ektra isn't it, obviously, but it might be a step in that direction.

Camera bodies aren't what you want to be investing in anyway; it's lenses. After a few years the body is basically disposable as far as resale value is concerned, if the body is even still working. Today's entry level cameras are miles ahead of what the pro cameras were ten years ago.

This would be fine for me, because I'm a photographer that uses only a subset of smartphone features. I'd like to have a camera that performs well as a camera and can make calls if I need it to.

I wonder how many people actually use their smartphone more as an actual mobile phone than as a camera, laptop replacement, navigation aid, or whatever else. Given what these little computers are mostly used for, I wish the term PDA, or Personal Digital Assistant, would come back into popularity.

> I wish the term PDA, or Personal Digital Assistant, would come back into popularity.

Good idea. I'm going to try that and see what happens.

My phone calls and texts. I'm sure that Android can do more. I deleted every program I could delete. If I could make it so there were two big buttons - one that said "PHONE" and the other that says "TEXT" on my homescreen without adding a widget, downloading a program, etc., I would. My iPad is a tablet computer and serves in that capacity. My main computer is my laptop.

Why did you buy a smartphone when you wanted a featurephone ?

My fp has amazing battery life compared to my sp and I can tether through it for my 7" tablet. Its a great combo

Because TracFone & Rite Aid put the smartphone on better sale when my old phone died.

According to the IDC[1] iPhone currently has less that 12% of the overall market. While that might represent a larger percentage of people who care about photography, there appears to still be a very large potential market for this.

[1] http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

That's a percentage of phones. Presumably a decent portion of those are very very cheap and not particularly comparable to this or an iPhone other than "includes phone and a browser".

<Nitpick> > Because, honestly, iPhones are already top of the line smartphonecameras

You meant Google Pixels are ... (latest iPhone is not even in the top 3 groups of smartphone cameras)

Source: https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Pixel-smartphone-camera-revi... </Nitpick>

If by "phone" you mean "pocket computer with native apps and a slick UI," then I agree, Kodak will probably suck as a "phone."

Otherwise, I can't imagine the phone part could be that much worse than Apple.

Your comment made me look - the iOS phone app is probably my least used app. According to the battery usage statistics it uses 3% of battery. I took a couple of calls this week so it's probably abnormally high too. I wonder what typical smartphone "phone" usage is?

In what way. Functions fine for me

> Because, honestly, iPhones are already top of the line smartphonecameras.

Given that outside US and a few other countries they have a market share around 20%, and most of those countries use pre-paid mobile phones, I think there are plenty of opportunities there.

But how much market share do they have among people likely to buy expensive digital photography equipment?

Lots, because it is cheaper than buying an iPhone off contract or even taking into consideration the monthly contract rates, in countries where most folks get to see 1000€ or less monthly.

Folks that get to see "1000€ or less monthly" don't care about a novelty camera-first phone. They can get a good phone AND a better than the Ektra compact for way less.

Which is my exactly point regarding the iPhone use as camera.

In which case, well, err, we agree I guess.

> Nokia tried the "photography first" smartphonecamera - it didn't fly

I worked at Nokia at the time. The Lumia 1020 didn't fly because it failed to ship with an OS that was considered "good enough" (and yes, "good enough" means "has apps") by consumers.

A Lumia 1020 with Android would have sold better (and shipped sooner)

May have been a reference to an older device, the 808 pureview.

That said, Nokia has had multiple devices over the years that had a heavy focus on camera.

Did any run Android though?

Other companies have gone that route already.

Nikon has had a model or two that is basically an Android phone in a camera shell.

An entry level DSLR, for most users, won't beat a top tier smartphone like Google pixel. A bulky professional DSLR is too much for most users. High quality mirorless cameras with ASPC or full frame size sensors are the only type of cameras that are relevant to mass consumers. If Kodak makes such a camera with a smartphone like interface, that would be interesting. They missed the opportunity.

You must have not used DSLRs or smartphones recently. A cheapo DSLR is just fine in point and shoot auto mode, and with its multi-cm lens it will get you much more satisfying pictures of your toddler running around or of your friends at the night-time BBQ than any pixel or iphone with pinhead-sized lenses. (And we are not even talking about the optical zoom and bokeh and a proper flash or other "advanced" features....)

>as a phone, it will suck

I'm not sure why you assume that. The form-factor isn't particularly weird and the specifications are excellent. If they're sensible enough to use bone-stock Android, I expect that it'll be a very good phone.

I like the idea of this as a second device that has phone capabilities. I wish it were easy/quick to switch between multiple devices on the same cell plan. I don't particularly want to go out running with my google pixel, better to use my 4 year old phone for that. I could see taking the Ektra out on a hike if I could toggle it on as the activated device without going through the hoops of calling verizon.

That WOULD be neat.

Wow, I really like this idea. It could open up entire new segments of products that improve with some occasional needs for cellular network capabilities. I've never been taken by the idea of getting a gadget that can use a cellular data connection because I already hate paying for the one I do have, I don't want another transaction for more data that I have to monitor and not buy too much of. I feel like that's part of the reason it never caught on with mobile gaming devices like the PS Vita etc.

Hi, this is a great idea. I'm curious if you would pay a little extra (say $5/month) to have say, up to 3 devices? What about if they could all just stay active? Just curious about it as a mental exercise.

Yes, I would pay a little more. $5/mo is the max -- any more than that I would probably just do a family plan or something. I would prefer something nominal like $2/per device/per month

Google Fi actually allows you to have multiple SIM cards on the same plan, for free. The cards are data only, so it won't work for phone calls, but it would be fine for uploading photos, listening to music, SMS, etc.

Their "Specs" link at the bottom 404s! Ow.

Much more info in this blog post: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/Consumer/Press_Center/KODAK_EKTRA...

KODAK EKTRA Smartphone key features:

    * ANDROID 6.0 (Marshmallow)
    * Professional results from a 21MP fast focus camera sensor with F2.0,
      PDAF, OIS, Dual LED Flash
    * 13MP phase detection auto focus front-facing camera with F2.2 PDAF
    * Helio X20 2.3GHz Decacore processor with 3GB RAM
    * 32GB memory, expandable with MicroSD cards
    * Advanced Manual Mode – adjustable on Exposure, ISO,
      Focal Length (Manual/Auto), White Balance,
      Shutter Speed, Aperture (fixed f2.0 main camera)
    * Familiar scene selection dial experience – includes scene modes
      Smart Auto, Portrait, Manual, Sports, Bokeh, * Night-time, HDR,
      Panorama, Macro, Landscape, Film / Video
    * Integrated high quality printing app
    * Super 8 Video Recorder
    * Integrated social media sharing
    * 3000mAh, with USB 3.0 Type C fast charger

Edit: Another separate product page, this one has a WORKING "before/after" panorama example: http://www.kodakphones.com/ektra/

Edit 2: Their "super 8" is just a filter. Scroll down on the page above to see.

Their web content is really disjointed...

Does it have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack?

Yes: http://www.kodak.com/KodakGCG/uploadedImages/Consumer/Produc...

"Super 8 video recorder?"

The big plastic thing around the small lens to Make It Look Like A Camera is kind of silly.

No word on the either the size of the sensor nor the focal length of the lens. Not what you would expect from a camera announcement...

Sensor size is the big one since that will determine signal to noise ratio and ultimately the end result for any given computation.

It is definitely a Sony sensor, thought to be the previous-gen IMX230 ( same as in the Experia Z4 and iPhone 6). So that's 1/2.4 inches, or 5.92x4.57mm. Pretty much standard fare for Chinese mid-tier Mediatek phones.

For comparison the famous Nokia 808 had a 1/1.2 inch sensor, 10.67x8.00mm.

I was pretty interested in this, but $550 seems to steep. What is that price point supposed to compete with? To low for iphone/pixel, too high for many other android phones.

I think it's meant to compete with Kodak DSLR cameras.

Kodak sold their last DSLR a decade ago. Which is a shame, because they were the ones that pretty much invented the field.

That's at the low end of 'flagship phone' list price and I take $550 as a list price. If demand is high, then it will hold for a while.

For a person who is buying a phone in part around their interest in the quality of the camera and assuming the camera performs well, then it may be worth a premium.

I don't think 550$ is too steep, if you compare with phones like samsung s7 (670$), huwaei p9 (500$), 1plus3 (600$).

The oneplus 3 is $400, but I agree.

Decacore? I've never heard of Helio SOCs but I really wonder about the cores race of Android SOCs these days. Are heavier apps these days really multi-threaded?

I think they are doing the right thing. Taking pictures is a core feature of smartphone usage and smartphones took a lot of camera-marketshare. Vacations have become much more enjoyable since people don't have to carry the international sign of gullibility around their neck, the tourist's camera, that also weighs more than a phone, costs at least as much and has a terrible OS.

I too think though that Kodak can't be superior on smartphone stuff. At least not on their first iterations. But having the stomach to pursue such a dramatic and pragmatic shift in as how to perceive their product says a lot. Either about the company's future prospects or of how much they are on their last legs.

You mean vacations became nightmare since everybody is taking pictures everywhere, you can't enjoy nice views anymore easily

I went a gallery recently that actually had a rule printed near the artist biography:

"No selfie sticks"

    > Edit photos anywhere with Snapseed™

The "before" and "after" images [0] are completely different photographs!

[0]: http://www.kodak.com/KodakGCG/uploadedImages/Consumer/Produc...

It's a continuation of scene. I think they were attempting a panorama where half was "before" and half was after, but the subject and feel of each side of the pano is just so different, that it hardly has a comparison effect!

For a true before/after, see these images:

http://kp.kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/before.jpg

http://kp.kinsta.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/after.jpg

Eww that looks like the kind of thing you find in reddit's shitty HDR sub.

Agreed, the "before" picture looks so much more natural.

It's not bad tone mapping, which is what most people think of when they think of shitty HDR. It's sharpening and increasing local contrast. This particular effect can also be created in Lightroom by pushing the "clarity" slider too far to the right.

Yeah, it's completely backwards. I thought we were past Instagram filters, but now Kodak is trying to build it into their camera?

The after is too sharp, but I don't see a problem with applying filters to a photo. If it gives a nostaligc feel, so what?

It looks like mostly local (think sharpening) and global contrast changes, based on the artefacts. In addition tonality changes.

Sharpening effect is very prominent on these examples. Hopefully there is an configuration option for this.

I've seen these things be "sliders" before. Where you slide the middle line & can see both "before" and "after" just by sliding it.

Seems like they got the two photos, but didn't figure out the tech behind it.

that comparison accompanied the mention of snapseed. wtf? It's the same set of processing potential that anyone with iOS and Android can accomplish.

Shuldnt they tout the expected superior output from the sensor compared to leading camera smartphones? Galaxy S7, iPHone 7?...

The "After" looks insanely grainy to me.

Where did you find those?

That's the first thing I noticed and it made me laugh pretty hard. Such nice editing software haha.

it's one long panoramic with the left side the before and the right side the after.

Sure. So different photographs, with many other moving parts beside the application of Snapseed wizardry.

It's a panorama image split in the middle. What it lacks to be useful is that split bar should be a slider so you can see the before after effect on that image.

It's actually a single wide shot with a bar down the middle. I agree that it's unintuitive.

It's not just unintuitive, it's useless as a comparison.

If it were of a fruit bowl, you could make the joke "they're literally comparing apples and oranges".

You can't say "look at photo X, and now see how much more awesome photo Y is that has been edited with our software!"

I noticed that as well. For the one in the article, the after photograph has fewer clouds too.

Was that so difficult Kodak? https://codecanyon.net/item/multipurpose-before-after-slider...

Or just use something free instead...

http://codepen.io/nikolaygit/pen/wFqjE

it is working here: http://www.kodakphones.com/ektra/#

You're right, they changed the page.

That must be a hell of a piece of software then!!

Argh... For a second or two I thought to myself: perhaps this camera phone will have a lens with a sane focal length!

But nope, massive wide angle at 26.5mm equiv once again. How about an actual general purpose lens at 35mm (or above 35mm) equiv for once? Some of the older iPhones were around 33mm if i recall things correctly, but all the (one lens) iPhones that now supports shooting DNG are stuck with a ~28mm lens.

/Frustrated photographer

Yeah, it seems to be a pretty high-end but otherwise standard smartphone camera. Almost all of the features they advertise are of the software or related peripherals, but not of the lens or sensor itself.

The second camera on the iPhone 7 Plus is ~58mm I believe, but it lacks OIS and the lens is a slower f2.8.

Why no OIS? It should be very useful considering the longer focal length and smaller maximum aperture.. The slower lens is understandable though.

You're right, that's why I wrote

> (one lens) iPhones

I don't understand... how is this different from any other large-screen Android 6+ device being built right now with a similarly high-res spec camera?

It will be buggy and poorly supported and probably have sub-par QA. Also your friends will laugh at you for buying a Kodak anything.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/kodak-ektra-price-spe...

did i miss something on the kodak site, or did they forget to mention that it's a smartphone? Or did ars get that wrong? reading through the full marketing page linked at the top here, i don't see any indication that it's anything other than a digital camera running android.

> Introducing Kodak's professional-quality, photography-first smartphone.

Scroll down just a bit: "Introducing Kodak's professional-quality, photography-first smartphone."

It's not just you, I had to hunt to figure out WTF was going on. I thought at first it was a phone case that doubled as a camera.

I absolutely love these platforms for travel.

I have a similar model (a Panasonic/Leica Android phone). It has a very large sensor and sim tray. As result I can run a local sim in WiFi hotspot mode for my primary iPhone and still get great photos with a 2-in-1 device.

The photo quality is fantastic and it beats having to carry a small mirrorless camera around. Being able to run Photoshop Lightroom right on the device is great for touching up your best shots as you are on the bus or train between destinations.

That said, I don't know how viable the platform is for the mainstream market. Panasonic revved my model to drop the sim. So I think they saw sales were weak. The introduction of the Moto Z with the Hasselblad lens and now this Kodak model gives me hope as I love, love, love these camera/hotspots.

Unfortunately, most reviewers agreed that the Hasselblad camera is not much more than a "proof of concept", and the photo quality from the phone itself is often better.

Which is sad - it's an opportunity squandered.

I think the majority of the owners of this camera will be popular Instagram photographers who are being paid to use them... and maybe a handful of their diehard, "aspiring photographer" followers.

Didn't Nokia try this already?

I'm pretty sure the camera world has settled into two kinds of cameras: cell phones for people who just need to take a few snaps, and DSLRs for people who need more features than can possibly fit in a cameraphone (flash hotshoe, changeable lenses, larger sensor, etc). DSLRs are cheap enough that cost isn't really an issue.

I doubt the results here will be any better than Nokia had.

Panasonic has been shipping something similar for a while: https://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Communication-Camera-ELMARI...

Yes, but would you make a phone call with it without looking like a dork talking to the camera? Kodak one looks a bit more discrete.

The non-phone camera market is more diverse than that; beyond DSLRs there's also mirrorless cameras (for people who want near-DSLR performance in a lighter body) and point-and-shoots (for people who want better-than-smartphone performance but don't need swappable lenses).

Maybe, but there are plenty of people with cameras like the RX100.

Was going to say, RX100 is in a class of its own :). I always have it with me when I travel and often have it my pocket just in case. I don't always use it, but it's small enough not to care. Especially for outdoors photography, an RX100 generally takes better pictures than a DSLR, because you're more likely to have it with you when a good picture opportunity arises.

The best camera is the one you have with you. :)

Now, if you have multiple cameras...

Technically Canon and Panasonic have competing models ;)

But yeah, someone on G+ asked me, "did you get rid of your DSLR?" because all I ever post are RX100 pictures these days. I did not get rid of my DSLR, I use it for "studio" stuff, but for going out and about the RX100 is the best possible currently-available camera. (It could be smaller. But that 1" sensor is just amazing, often yielding 21,000,000 usable pixels. My iPhone just yields photograph-styled noise reduction artifacts.)

First it was a Windows phone, so it is hard to compare.

Second I think that your view is too simplistic. There are more use cases than these two. Some people prefer Fuji cameras over DSLRs, some probably would like to have a potentially decent camera with them all the time, but did not bother to have a Windows phone.

We are about to find out how big is this market.

And the Nokia cameras/phones were really slow. Nearly unusable to just pull out and get quick shots off.

This can be the third product category. Samsung also had similar products like galaxy s4 zoom but it was looking like a plastic and bulky point-and-shoot camera. I really like the design and build of this Kodak camera and I am ready to replace both my DSLR and my phone with something like this. Of course it has to be a decent smartphone and the camera must be superior to any other smartphone cameras.

Compact mirrorless cameras are the big third category you're missing, I think. They're the perfect mix of quality, portability, and discreetness, which makes them excellent for travel and street photography. The Fuji X series are great examples. I wouldn't dream of taking my Canon 6D backpacking, but my X100T goes with me everywhere and produces excellent shots. My Instagram handle is @paulwithap if you want to see some examples (I rarely post there anymore, so this is definitely not a shameless plug ;)

Agreed! I used to have a Nikon D7000, which isn't even that big when it comes to DSLRs, but it was too heavy and too big and I ended up basically never taking it out, sometimes even while traveling.

About two years ago I got a Fuji X-T1 and it's honestly one of the best things I've ever bought. It's small, light enough, amazingly built, their lenses are incredible, and it's just so functional. The WiFi functionality is awesome because with only my phone I can transfer pictures and post on Instagram while traveling. The straight out of camera JPEGs are so good I never do any editing.

Yep! My next camera purchase is the X-T2. I can't wait!

While it may seem an irrelevant detail, the camera-like leatherette case that flips or snaps open like the old camera cases did, not only made me smile but gave me hope that they were clued in enough to their market as to make it a success.

To me it's a huge drawback and makes it a no buy. No way I'm going to vote with my money and award them for using inefficient, unrecycled, inferior material instead of abundant recyclable non-animal sourced material.

Edit: Thanks for the flags and downvotes, hate is so fresh here.

Something tells me you wouldn't have gotten it anyways...

I'm a huge fan of customizable camera firmware. Playing with software controlling visual input brings me joy, have bunch of cameras and lack of leather is not a problem at all.

Actually I used "leatherette" in the generic sense of "looks like leather". TBH I have no idea what material it is made of.

It's animal leather, at least that's what can be concluded from a quick Google search.

The arstechnica article linked in another comment calls it "artificial."

I'm curious what exactly will the "haptic touch" technology of the dial be? Do you know of any consumer-grade products with (hopefully) non-buzzer haptic feedback on touchscreen available on the market yet?

The iPhone. Scroll a selector wheel, like a date picker, on an iPhone 7. It's very impressive.

Don't have one; could you describe in some more detail how it works, or link to some info on the web?

edit: for now, main google results are "how to disable haptic feedback on iphone 7" -- huh?

edit 2: ok, found some basic info: http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/09/27/inside-the-iphone-...

So, from what I understand, still a buzzer, only much more precise, controllable and subtle (?). Still not clear if the Kodak's gonna be the same, or something more interesting.

edit 3: eh, based on http://www.trustedreviews.com/kodak-ektra-review, I believe it's just a buzzer in Kodak too: "There’s a little bit of haptic feedback as you rotate the dial to give it some tangibility." So, nothing to write home about, I think.

FWIW, I don't think "just a buzzer" really does it justice. At least in the iPhone's case, it's more like a tiny insistent tap or click that you feel in your finger.

Kodak unfortunately self destructed and the business was sold. This seems to be an initiative by the new owners and given the positioning one would expect much more details about the sensor size, sensor type and lens.

Kodak has a wonderful history with the now out of favour CCD camera sensors. The first digital Leica's all used Kodak CCD sensors and are still highly rated. Sony is now among the leading makers of CMOS sensors for both cameras and cell phones and nearly all current cellphones use Sony sensors.

Phones of course cannot compare to larger sensor cameras but they have made great strides and at least knocked off the lower rung of camera market that sported small sensors.

The positioning has potential but this is something Samsung, Apple and other phone makers are already focussed on. The absence of details could make this more positioning and less product and completely fail to register in a market dominated by decent phone cameras in the Galaxy S7 and iPhone 7.

Odd choice for the name, since Kodak also has a color negative film called "Ektar" [0] which is just a single transposition away from this new phone's name.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ektar

How's it odd? It looks like they've already repurposed Ektar once before. Ektra sounds better (to me, anyway) and there's no chance that film purchasers will be confused.

Yes, Ektar used to be their lens brand.

Ran out of words that started with "Eastman Kodak" I guess.

I'd call it apt rather than odd.

It's named after a classic Kodak camera model from the 40's

http://camerapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Kodak_Ektra

Yeah, honestly it sounds like a misspelling.

They also have(had?) a line of slide projectors branded Ektapro, and a high-speed camera of the same name:

http://slideprojector.kodak.com/ektapro/kodak-ektapro-slide-...

http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/ektapro.html

The before and after pictures (mountains) are two completely different pictures. Is the trick that your photo gets substituted by a better one? That would actually be not a bad thing...

Anyway, this has got nothing to do with kodak cameras whatsoever, just licensing a brand name.

It's a panoramic picture with a bar down the middle.

It confused me too, at first.

Lots of negativity here. This is a really smart move.

I take a decent amount of photographs, and shoot enough photos at events around other photographers to see the next generation coming up. A surprising amount of these photographers are using live view on DSLRs, just because they're "graduating" out of smartphone photography. (Live view generally has a number of disadvantages compared to the optical viewfinder; it's a pretty bad habit).

These photographers are used to framing their shots on a screen, and have muscle memory built around holding a device like a smartphone. Giving them better sensors--and not changing much else about their shooting experience--is a very wise decision...

Totally agree. Live View photos on my 7D feels broken compared to the viewfinder: much slower AF, shutter-drop & recycle rate. & you really need a hood/3x magnifier to confirm critical focus. The only time I use photo Live View is for grabbing a still while I've still got the hood on from shooting video..

It has phase detection at least. Something sorely missing from these camera phone/phone cameras is an internal optical zoom so that the lens barrel never protrudes from the body - like the Pentax Optio WS80 which uses a prism so that the optics/elements move along the x rather than z axis inside the camera body. Apple filed a patent for such a thing a year or so ago, but they've also filed patents for all kinds of shit that has never seen the light of day.

Calling the 56mm second lens on the iPhone 7 an "optical zoom" is taking things a bit far. I guess calling it a prime portrait lens would leave more than a few people scratching their heads.

I had to look up the SoC used, it's MediaTek's Helio X20 with ten cores: http://mediatek-helio.com/x20/. The cores are:

    2x Cortex-A72 @ 2.1GHz ~ 2.3GHz
    4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.85GHz
    4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.4GHz

That sure is a lot of cores (and the rest of the features sound nice too, like the support for a 32 megapixel camera). Quite the impressive piece of technology to put in a phone-sized form factor, really.

Looks like a great opportunity for switching them off to get extra power saving. I haven't seen this used before - is there any known phone with mixed frequency cores on the market?

The latest iPhone 's A10 processor has two high performance cores and two high efficiency cores that it switches between. The concept is also predated by ARM's big.LITTLE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_big.LITTLE and the article lists some implementations.

This is actually an interesting product, but is there a reason they wouldn't make the aperture f/1.8 like the iPhone?

I'm not aware if there may be downsides or hardware limitations to that. If cost is the only issue, it would seem worth it if you're making a photography-focused camera just to get as much light as possible into that sensor.

Edit: Thanks for the information, fellow HNers :)

A 1/3 stop is ... not much. With different cameras with different lens designs and most importantly different sensors it's unlikely to be a significant contributor to a difference between two products.

The difference in transmission between two lenses with one having few (eg 50/1.x) and the other having a lot (eg superzoom) elements can get that large.

This is why cinema lenses report t-stops ('transmission') in addition to f-stops. The t-stops tell you about exposure, and account for losses between surfaces and absorption within the media. The f-stop tells you about depth of field, etc.

With modern lenses, they're usually within a small fraction of a stop, but older lenses could vary by a stop or more. That said, the difference between this camera and an iPhone camera, in terms of relative transmission, is probably negligible.

Since they don't mention the sensor size I assume it will be barely bigger than that of an average smartphone. So I expect the image quality to be underwhelming. There was the Lumix CM1 and it wasn't a huge hit so I don't know why this would sell well since it doesn't look like it's doing anything better.

I am not sure how much "smarter" this is than a camera taped on a phone [0].

If the DSP chip itself were programmable from the phone then one could do all sorts of tricks just by downloading new "firmware" over the air.

I doubt that is the case here though. It looks like this saves me from copying files to share then on Instagram and that's about it.

Someone please make a camera that costs the same as a high-end smart phone, but the DSP chip is open and documented. Why is that not a thing?

[0] http://media.e2save.com/images/community/2013/06/tumblr_m7bf...

EDIT: link

Since I didn't see it mentioned elsewhere in the thread, anytime I see the name Kodak Ektra I think of the world-class 35mm camera that Kodak made in the 1940s.

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Kodak_Ektra

So the use of the name is banking on that association with those in the know. I would be writing a ream of criticism here of the use of the name to associate the new product with the original if Kodak themselves hadn't diluted it to meanlessness by releasing a line of 110 film cameras with the same name.

The only thing i can remember about Kodak phones is that The Verge tried the first Kodak phone last year at CES 2015 and it was a disaster. It had a horrible Android skin on that made it look like old Nokia phones Hope they upped their game with this one.

1st Kodak phone at CES 2015 http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/5/7498999/ces-2015-kodak-phon...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPadMS75i48

On-screen controls will always be substandard. It's confusing, because every company should know what works, based on about 30 years of iterative design changes. Yet here we are, adapting the rotating mode dial into a digital interface. You will not grok this camera.

Things that would get my attention: Hardware slider that can be mapped to ISO/aperture/shutter speed, ideally dynamically. Hardware AF/MF switch, and AE/AF lock options. Focus peaking.

I understand that Kodak is probably "dipping their toe in the water with this model," but 32GB is not enough storage.

I'd like to know more about the phone, though. Is it a good phone? I mean, is it a good phone? The concept of a phone that's also a quality Kodak camera is cool, but at the end of the day, I'd like to know that it's also great at doing everything else I do with my phone.

Also, does it have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack?

>Also, does it have a standard 3.5mm headphone jack?

I can't tell if this is serious or not, but this continues to make me chuckle.

I couldn't tell if I was serious or not when I made the comment!

They do provide a microSD card slot. 32GB onboard may not be stellar (for photography in particular), but the ability to easily get the data off to a memory card easily offsets that limitation. And makes it more useful for travelers who may not be able to (frequently) sync up with a laptop or cloud service.

"Oh, you can just" is usually not good enough.

I specifically made that comment because I upgraded my phone with an SD card. It's nowhere as good as having enough storage built in; and I'll never buy a phone where I have to augment storage again.

Given that they're featuring "edit with Snapseed" on the page, they might have a Pixel-like deal with Google for unlimited original-quality uploads to Google Photos.

Wow only a 5" screen, BUT with full HD resolution and a 3000mAh battery?? Can't get that anywhere! I know many HNers besides me appreciate a phone on the smaller side. Usually that means the screen stays at 720p (Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy * Mini, Sony Xperia Compact) and the battery suffers (Galaxy alpha has only 1800mAh.) $550 is not a mini price, though. I'll hold out for a couple good reviews.

The real potential with this lies with the photo editing and viewing suite -- even if it's camera first there's not really many 'smart cameras' are there? there's just a lot of potential in having extra buttons. imo, simplicity of UI/UX is becoming a tiresome idea now that the ability to operate a smartphone has been mainstreamed at this point. power to the new players.

Interesting that during their bankruptcy restructuring they were exiting the digital camera business, and now here we go another digital camera, I think it would be hilarious if you could download a "phone" app for it :-).

Seems like a lot of work for a point-and-shoot. The "interest" outside of the phone camera space seems to be in the 4/3 space. And this isn't one.

My knee-jerk reaction was to want this, but the more I thought about the product, it really would be for someone wanting a good camera on the go, but not enough to warrant a better separate camera, AND willing to deal with a worse smartphone experience.

That's not me unfortunately.

Hehe, yes. Me neither.

But my girlfriend would probably like it.

She always has junk smartphones, but high end cameras.

"Always. Be. Ready."

I really hate these periods. I despise them. It's stupid, please stop.

Also, under "Push what's possible"... why are the 'before' and 'after' image two different photos? What is that supposed to prove?

They're two halves of the same photo, but being able to drag that bar sure would be nice.

Doesn't look like it'll be able to do anything that any good Android phone with a good sensor/lens can't.

BTW some Mediatek chips were meant to be able to do 480fps 1080p video with certain Sony sensors.. did it ever work out beyond marketing promises?

Talk about desperate.

Why didn't they just skip the phone part? I could see myself buying one of these. But the fact that it'd make little (financial) sense to buy one and then have it replace my phone (let's be real here, Kodak), it's a no-go.

As much as I like the idea, from the side profile it looks like it'd be really difficult to carry around in a back pocket and could snag on the lens bump when trying to put it back in a pocket.

I like the subtle f*ck you to MGMT 101 classes here .... or the attempt to.

What is the camera sensor model and manufacturer? So far based on hardware features list it doesn't look like a photo oriented smartphone, but more like a regular Androind based phone.

Looks like we may have a camera with the option of being a phone instead of a phone that has a camera..

Looks interesting and it is nice to not have to carry around multiple devices.

How much does it cost?

If Kodak really wants to make a killer product, they should focus on battery life at the expense of size (within reason, of course).

Which would also give them the thickness to add a nice deep camera.

I thought the iPhone 7 camera lens bump was bad until I saw this.

They might be too late to the game with this one. I do like the 3GB of RAM though.

It had better have superior photog specs than the newest iphones otherwise it's dead in the water

Seems cool. But they cant do very good mobile page. Laggy scrolling and jumpy loading on G4.

This is the smartphone I have always wanted.... they just forgot to make it a smartphone.

Specs page: Nonexistent.

Details page: Nonexistent.

Cost hint: Nonexistent.

I've seen Kickstarters more compelling.

I was going to correct you with "A link to the specs is at the bottom." http://i.imgur.com/As4EwBV.png

But then I went to the page and it is uh....empty? So I guess you're right.

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/consumer/Product/Product_Specs/?c...

What's the max frame rate for the 4k capture mode?

Scrolling is completely broken on iPhone safari

And on Android. It completely kills the mobile, what a horrible product page.

I honestly thought Kodak was out of business.

No mention of sensor size?

I want this very badly.

wait, this is a DSLR?

Why would they do that instead of mirrorless?

There is no viewfinder. It is mirrorless.

They do, however, mention DSLR multiple times in their presentation. Probably just to get the product associated with the image quality that people expect from DSLRs, but it is a bit confusing.

Then they are lying in their presentation.

A good gift

if priced ok, a disposable camera

a good way to be able to take pics and LEAVE YOUR PHONE AND CONNECTED LIFE.

Fun fact: The digital camera was invented at Kodak (an American company) that has since gone bankrupt.

Here is a list of Japanese companies that currently all make excellent digital cameras:

  * Canon
  * Nikon
  * Sony (which bought Konica Minolta)
  * Fujifilm (Kodak's main competitor in the film market)
  * Olympus
  * Panasonic
  * Pentax/Ricoh

Discuss.

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