Canon News has uncovered a smartphone lens add-on design by Canon.
On the surface, it looks like a lens addon, capable of different focal lengths. The different lenses in the design illustration seem to show that they are held together magnetically.
Canon has had some new designs and products such as the PowerShot Zoom over the last year or two, so it's possible that this too will end up a consumer product.
Some of our articles may include affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you.
now, it feels like an after thought when the boat has left harbor.
Phone makers add lenses on their own already, even adding multiple (tiny) sensors behind multiple lenses in the same phone already.
Let's face it:
- That phone has more CPU and GPU power than a camera
- The phone is highly connected to wireless networks (both cell/GSM as well as WiFi etc.)
- The phone has access to high end photo retouching software
- A phone's (touch) screen is far better than any ever found on any other device
- ...
And no matter what the phone makers keep adding as sensors and lenses in their ultra compact design, they'll never replace our DSLR (or mirrorless full frame for those that are there) camera's quality as the physical dimensions to do that are simply not there. Still that phone has Lightroom, Photoshop, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
The world today is expecting instant consumption for photography, not allowing a photographer a few weeks to process the images - the other attendees will have shared their crappy pictures long before the photographer gets home or to the office to process it all in Lightroom and send it to the (paying) customer.
So instead of making add-on lenses: making sensors(and lenses) that replace a phone's tiny camera and use the rest of the phone and its software to do editing in the field, to manage pictures, to upload it to social media, etc.
Then think about ergonomics while taking pictures and you'll end up with a need for physical buttons you can feel while taking a picture, to not have to watch a screen as the sun can make it impossible to look at while taking that picture etc.
I'm not talking about a crappy app by the likes of canon: just no. Just allow the phone high speed access tot the camera, and let the phone and it's third party apps do the rest and take control.
It's not just me either: it's also in articles like these:
Photography is About to Change Massively, Here's What it Means for You
So yes: I think there's a need to embrace parts of what makes a modern phone an appreciated device by almost all of us, but combine it with what makes a pro(sumer) camera wanted by photographers like the ergonomics, the sensor size, the choice in lenses, ...
On the other hand, why help your competitors?
Phone's like the iPhone 12Pro and Pro max have the capability to replace many point and shoot cameras, especially when their computational capacity is used. The results I have seen so far look ridiculously good.
I don't think they will ever replace cameras like the 1dx mkiii or the R5 etc as they don't have the resolution or the flexibility to interchange lenses etc.
I agree with a previous post in that Canon should focus on making their bodies more connectable with smart phones to allow these impressive and quite big OLED screens be used to increase how the DSLR / mirrorless body can be used instead of timers or remote release attachments.
Cannon Connect is OK but isn't that user friendly. Maybe concentrate on improving this and the Canon image app, that way the DSLR / mirrorless body becomes a really user friendly must have in conjunction with the smart phone that nearly everyone carries on them all the time.
Nor I would like a camera body that needs too often a phone to be controlled. It is really far clumsier to have to operate both a camera and a phone at the same time.
Canon hasn't released any new P&S or compact cameras for 2-3 years, so the competition on that front is over.
Canon has added smartphone connectivity, and there's LR for smartphones, so what's missing?
And if John Q Public has cell reception and an electric socket, a photographer can bring a 13" 4K laptop to edit photos the same day, e.g. from a hotel room.
People love dji pocket 2.
It's a very different device. It's a small stabilized camera working on its own. No need to attach it on a phone. I do believe the Powershoot Zoom could be a nice idea, but this ones reminds me of several phone add-ons that look good on paper but never went anywhere.