Comment by virtualritz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by virtualritz | Hacker News Reader

That's reminds me when I was in South East Asia a few years back and wanted to do some time lapse or series photography with my Sony Alpha a7ii. A camera that I had paid close to 2k€ for (just body, no glass).

It required an app to be installed on the camera that was paid-for. Which in term required the camera to be connected to a WiFi.

Imagine discovering this while on a trip in the jungle or the desert or whatever ...

It was a one time purchase (I think around 10€) but it was still a complete wtf.

You had to purchase the app through the camera's app store. You read right.

Ofc this failed as my CC was declined because I live in Germany and the transaction got marked as suspicious, coming from SEA.

So I had to go to town and hunt down a wifi USB dongle so I could turn my laptop into a WiFi hotspot for the camera, while using the VPN masking the built-in WiFi to be connected to a German IP.

You had to enter the CC details through the camera's on-screen keyboard that was operated with the joystick on the camera's body. It took me a good ten minutes.

No words.

Thankfully people have figured out how to add apps to some sony cameras https://github.com/ma1co/Sony-PMCA-RE

https://github.com/jonasjuffinger/TimeLapse

Didn‘t know about this project - you just have to love the open source concept

It's the same thing, one is just the out of box locked down Sony app-store controlled version, and this is the somewhat liberated side loading & build chain. It's some kind of Android layer running atop the base camera.

> It is possible to develop custom Android apps for supported cameras. Keep in mind that they should be compatible with Android 2.3.7.

https://github.com/ma1co/Sony-PMCA-RE?tab=readme-ov-file#wha...

I wish Samsung had had better success with their Android native powered cameras (as opposed to the thin shell Sony grafted atop), had decided to stay around. Cellphones have amazing & fantastic photo apps available, where-as the professional systems baked into cameras emphasizes post-production tools for computational photography. Being able to have app devs everywhere making your digital camera better & more usable should be such an obvious priority.

And the earlier Alpha cameras with their Android based shim they could run kind of got this. Sony did announce a new SDK 3 years ago for some of their highest end cameras, but it's a simpler remote-control only SDK. https://alphauniverse.com/stories/sony-announces-new-camera-...

Heh, your experience is not isolated. I needed the timelapse app when I was several days deep into Algonquin park in northern Ontario. I had barely a bar of service, so I had to hoist my phone up a tree with a rope to get enough data that I could tether the camera to it. Thanks Sony.

Wow, I had the exact same experience with a Sony Alpha 6. Also used a laptop to VPN back home ...

Sony wanted something like 500USD to unlock 4k on my prosumer video camera. Kinda insane.

It required an app to be installed on the camera that was paid-for.

Apple had a similar situation once. I was among the thousands of people who paid Apple something like $10 to get a CD-ROM in the mail containing a single CODEC for something video-related.

Sorry for being vague, it was way back in the early days of OS X, so I can't remember exactly what the situation was. But I do know I still have the file in my archive, as I ran across it a few weeks ago.

Apple used to sell prorec and Sorenson stuff. Usually you could get them with a QuickTime pro license, final cut license, or similar

The MPEG2 codec was also a paid download (I think it was also included with DVD Studio Pro)

Sony’s software is still terrible… but fwiw they have built in timelapse functionality in their cams since the A7 III released in 2018.

That does sound completely absurd.

How many people buy apps on their high end camera? Doesn’t sound like it was worth developing an App Store for it.

The only app I’ve ever used with a camera was the Panasonic app on my GH5 for a shoot because it gave you full remote control of the settings/focus and monitoring (for free!) I find most apps for cameras are not necessary and often buggy but I get why some folks like them

Back in 2010 the app store was the hot new thing and everyone had visions of how they would put on in their product. Most of them realized it was a stupid idea before they got around to writing code for it (much less release), but some of it escaped to the public.

Sometimes the idea of apps might make sense (this is arguable, but lets not go there) but the old buy it on a real computer (phone allowed) and then load it is correct.

I had a Panasonic GF1, which couldn't do timelapses as well (there was no such thing as apps for that camera, only firmware hacks). What I did was to buy a remote shutter release that had a timer and other functions, which allowed me to do so much more.

That's pretty wild for such a popular brand.

My panasonic G9 just has that stuff built in.

It's part of the enshittification cycle. I'd been a Nikon camera user and figured I'd upgrade...reviewing Nikon, Cannon and Sony, the new startup...Sony was the only body at that pricepoint that also had a motor in the body to let older class have auto-focus...that was a feature the other two were gatekeeping at higher priced bodies.

Now that they're established, its time to chip away and add shareholder value.

The classic walled garden approach - make everyone buy lense mounts that only fit their cameras, people collect lenses for their brand of choice, then make them regret ever making the purchase by racking up subscription costs and introducing 3rd party spyware to sell your data. Sunk cost fallacy makes people eat shit because they're already too deep. Capitalism at it's finest.

Not that unusual for Sony.

They have a lot of WTF product design decisions.

I have a running joke with friends about how there must be some terrible engineer who is the CEO's son or something that gets to design one feature in every product.

Welcome to the Enshitocene

As William Shakespeare said, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the MBAs".

That is absurd and annoying - you might prefer to just get a USB remote shutter release for future work.

Ha. That made me laugh.

Pentax cameras are much better at the ui and do not have any of this shit. They are also bulletproof and nearly indestructible, favoured by war photographers, and tend to have excellent spec sheets (if a bit of a a slow autofocus).

The company went bankrupt and bought by Ricoh, which I sincerely hope will keep the brand alive. Capitalism does really seem to prefer the nickel and dime approach...

> (if a bit of a a slow autofocus).

Sony's killer feature is (or was at some point) amazingly fast autofocus, which is very useful when photographing animals in the jungle.

Ricoh still hasn't made a non-fixed-lens mirror-less. They're behind. OTOH that GRIIIx…

Reply on news.ycombinator.com