
Android based camera from Nikon: Coolpix S800 - esolyt
http://nikonrumors.com/2012/08/08/the-coolpix-s800-will-be-the-first-android-based-camera-from-nikon.aspx/
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kawera
Finally, apps for cameras. Thom Hogan has been advocating this for some time
now[1] and the success of the CHDK[2] somehow shows us that a lot of
photographers may be interested in this. I hope Nikon starts a trend with this
camera and go all the way to Android enabled DSLRs.

[1] <http://bythom.com/design2010.htm>

[2] <http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK>

Some ideas: [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august31/levoy-
opensource...](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august31/levoy-opensource-
camera-090109.html)

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pigubrco
Interesting...the one nice thing I do like about the Google+ app running on
Android is how it automatically uploads my pictures to a private folder
online. Many times, I have come back from long hikes but the pictures remain
in my slr for a few days because I was too lazy/tired to upload my pictures
from the SD card to the computer. Having this functionality to automatically
upload your pictures once you get home would be nice.

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miahi
For the "antisocial", you can do the same with Dropbox.

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esolyt
In fact, I prefer Dropbox's Camera Upload. With Dropbox, when I go home and
sit in front of my computer, I find my photos as actual files existing on my
computer. Google, on the other hand, is trying to make it very convenient to
share them on Google+ and very inconvenient to download and store them
locally. They don't even sync it to Google Drive as files. They are trying to
eliminate the concept of "file" from the users' mind, just like Apple.

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cageface
This kind of thing is the reason I've started boning up on Android
development. With the sheer volume of phones on the market and the versatility
of the OS in completely unexpected applications I think there's going to be a
lot of demand for people with Android skills in the future.

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TazeTSchnitzel
I'd love to learn it, but Java and XML scare me away.

~~~
cageface
It feels kind of verbose some times but with a good IDE like IntelliJ it's
really not that bad. Hopefully Kotlin will take off on Android and eliminate a
lot of the verbosity.

Obj-C on iOS isn't much better really though.

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Nicole060
Adding android to their p&s cameras is not what I expected from them. Nikon
has a huge problem to tackle and adding android to their p&s is not the
solution.

While Nikon makes great DSLR (but not necessarily better than the
competition), their point and shoot cameras aren't any good. Not when compared
to the Canon S95 in the cheap segment. Or the Fuji X10 in the expensive
segment. Nikon can't even get the mirror-less interchangeable lens system
right : what were they thinking with the Nikon 1 ? the sensor is way too
small, much smaller than the already small sensors of the Four Third system
from Olympus/Panasonic and the size of the sensor is one of the most important
thing to consider when it comes to image quality. Canon obviously knows better
than Nikon and their entry to that market will feature an APS-C sensor.

Whatever it is that Nikon does, they do not understand photography anymore,
apart from the few who work in their DSLR division.

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wisty
Some random camera stats:

The iPhone has a 1/3.2" sensor (9.7x crop factor), a 4.28mm length f/2.4 max
aperture.

That's like a 43mm f/23 full frame (basically, apature scales with crop factor
just like length); or a 26mm f/14.5 APC-C.

Compared to a 1/2.3" sensor (which the S800 is likely to pack) it's like a 6mm
f/3.3 lens (43mm full frame, as they don't like to mention how apature
scales). The advantage of a S800 will be the range (25mm -> uselessly long
without a tripod and good light), compared to the 43mm prime iPhone; apature
and image quality will be similar. Also, the Nikon will have niceties like
vibration reduction, a flash (maybe), smarter focusing / metering, better
processing (maybe).

The real question is, who would want one? I'd say - people with dumb phones
who carry cameras; and hipsters who want to be seen with a camera while they
play Angry Birds on the bus. It might be bigger in non-US markets, where
phones don't appear so cheap (due to hidden carrier costs).

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arrrg
Does aperture scale with the crop factor? I don’t think that’s the case. f/2.3
will always let the same light in. As you (hypothetically) scale up the focal
length (the numerator), you also scale up the pupil size (the denominator), so
the aperture remains constant.

The effect on DoF is different, sure, but not on light – and I think with
those kinds of cameras you are more interested in their ability to let in
light than their ability to produce shallow DoF (that’s pretty much a given
for any small sensor camera).

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Gring
If you scale up everything, the aperture stays constant, correct.

But since the larger sensor can work with much more light, it therefore has a
much higher S/N-ratio. If you switch that camera to a higher aperture, you get
less light, leading to a lower ratio again.

So the lower S/N-ratio of the smaller sensor could be estimated as a higher
aperture. Whether the numbers calculated by wisty are correct, I don't know,
though.

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arrrg
Please don’t do that. That’s just confusing the issue and highly misleading.

The f-number is a property of the lens and nothing else. The S/N ratio of the
sensor is independent of that.

It’s correct: smaller pixels tend to have a lower S/N-ratio, which mostly
means that you can’t turn up the gain as much as with sensors that have larger
pixels (you can’t increase the ISO by as much) and you will see more noise at
the same gain.

But that’s no law of nature. It’s possible to have a crappy large sensor and
an excellent small sensor. It’s the sensor that matters here – and there are
many more variables involved there. Sensors with pixels a certain size don’t
have a certain S/N-ratio only depending on pixel size. And any exact
mathematical formula (like f-number scaling with crop factor) doesn’t make
sense there, not at all.

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wisty
Depth of field does scale perfectly with crop factor, and that's a big thing.

f-number is a ratio of apature to length. A 400mm f/5.6 will have a 71mm
apature. An iPhone lens does not (despite having a better f-number).

The light is spread out more, so you'll a higher ISO to take fast photos, but
let's say ISO is proportional to sensor size. A larger sensor captures more
photons, so it can have a higher ISO. That is a law of nature.

As you say, ISO is neither deterministic nor linear, but I'm more confortable
considering ISO to scale with crop size than pretending it's constant.

If we are ignoring ISO altogether that's fine, but then there's no point
talking about the amount of light hitting the sensor.

That leaves diffraction, but I don't really understand diffraction.

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beering
Every new device launched with an obsolete version of Android is part of the
price that Google pays for making Android as free as it is. And frankly, I
don't see the market for a slow, buggy Android experience tied to a Nikon
camera.

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revelation
This is not a slow, buggy Android that happens to come with a camera. This is
first and foremost a camera.

And when its running Android, that can be win win for everyone involved, if
Nikon makes the hardware sufficiently open. Anything is probably better than
having to flash your custom firmware through a freaking IR led.

~~~
esolyt
But still, people are going to run apps on it and they are going to see the
user interface everyday (which was vastly improved with Ice Cream Sandwich).
They would never release this with Gingerbread if they really cared about user
experience.

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sadlyNess
This might only work if it remains a camera; tactile buttons, a non attention-
stealing screen, its own app store(custom camera apps), and the apps function
more like plugins/addons than apps. Otherwise it'll be just another android
phone with a better camera instead of a simpler CDHK.

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pjmlp
Does this really make sense?

I mean, a camera is for taking pictures and the corresponing OS should only
care about the job of taking pictures and show them later on.

Why do I need a fullfledge Android system running on my camera?

This seems more like a toy experiment.

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akashshah
There are so many things a camera could do that it can't right now: * Sharing
photos on Facebook, Twitter * Post processing pictures (like Instagram) *
Automatic backup to Dropbox * Live stream videos

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pjmlp
That is what computers are for.

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dave1010uk
Could anyone who knows about optics say how this compares to Nokia's 808
PureView camera/phone?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_808_PureView>

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scotty79
I was seriously let down that my new washing machine doesn't run on android.

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fyolnish
There's a rumor site focusing exclusively on Nikon? : o

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rrreese
Not only that, there are rumour sites for most of the camera systems:

<http://www.canonrumors.com/> <http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/>
<http://www.fujirumors.com/> etc

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Gring
Don't forget <http://leicarumors.com/>

