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Comment by cemregr | Hacker News Reader

I am expecting big things from the Micro Four Thirds cameras. They essentially replace lower end DSLRs with a much smaller form factor, and they have the intelligence and ease of use beginner DSLRs lack (such as detecting faces and focusing on them).

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Do you own one? I do. The big problem with u4/3 right now, from a user's point of view, is that the glass is about double the price of an equivalent full-size DSLR lens: $400-500 for a fixed-focus pancake, $700-1000 for a telephoto. Sure you can fit an adapter and use regular 4/3 or other mount-type lenses, but then you lose a bunch of the intelligence. (Also, there are issues with autofocus speed on some of the cameras.)

u4/3 is like Z-gauge model railways, compared to OO or HO gauge -- looks cute, but you pay through the nose for the miniaturization, and have less flexibility and a limited range of accessories to boot.

(I'm really hoping that Olympus, Panasonic, et al get their show in order over the next year or so and really begin to push u4/3, because in principle I agree with you -- but right now, it's not looking good.)

What I'd like to see in the meantime would be a decent telephoto-equipped compact camera with an iPhone dock built into its back in place of the display -- in effect a camera that acts as a sleeve for the iPhone, much like battery extenders such as the Mophie Juicepack. Use the iPhone's screen and user interface to control the camera, and the iPhone's storage to store the shots, but use the camera body to provide proper optics, a larger CCD, and the image processor.

Alas, developing such a gadget would not be cheap, and the vendor -- presumably a big camera manufacturer -- would be working to keep up with Apple's changing form factor.

I own one as well. Yes, lenses are expensive. But keep in mind this is a super new platform. I expect prices to go down in time, as there are new players in the market.

Ergo, right now it's just promising :)

They still won't be always in your pocket and ready to draw out. That's the big deal with cameraphones: users are already trained to whip them out at every small notice (vibration, ringing, ...) extending the stimuli to "something interesting is happening" is not very hard, and as a result camera and video phones capture a lot of things.

Most people don't whip out an actual camera that easily. And cameras generally aren't kept in as convenient a place (or they're always out and then they annoy all the time)

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