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Nikon D2H: Digital Camera + 802.11b Option
k_stamour writes "Wow, the Holy Grail of Digital Cameras! -- the Nikon D2H. Considering the ever-dropping cost of 802.11b gear, it may not be too long before WiFi is found in lower-end Digi-Cameras. The remaining cost would be to get decent performance out of a small embedded Wifi antenna.
This Nikon is Geared for Sport/Action/News Shots. Think about it: a photographer can be on a scene of a newsworthy event, and over the hours of attending, the publisher could already be printing/posting the photographer's pics before he removes the camera strap from his neck! With this cam, a WiFi access point, and Internet access, they could post their pics in real time on the web from anywhere in the world. Of course, the above conditions would need to be meet every time for real time uploads." The 802.11 access is through an optional external transceiver module, model WT-1.
802.11b takes up a lot of power (for a small device, anyway). The camera would either have to have some monster batteries or not be able to take very many pictures at all. Also, are CompactFlash cards able to read/write to different files at once? It seems like writing pictures would be hard if someone was trying to read one at the same time.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
This would be awesome to use as an unlimited source of storage space. No more expensive 1 GB cards to buy.
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And how does this Holy Grail of digital cameras interact with the Second Holy Grail of digital cameras -- battery life?
May we never see th
Live crowd shots from Mardi Gras, up the skirt shots, etc. etc. etc... :D~~~~~~
I think another soon-to-be application is when you are on road trips, and as you take pictures during the trip you can just hit the download key, and it immediatley upload the pics to your car PC, which also just got released from Xenarc Technologies.
Planet P
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Considering the ever-dropping cost of 802.11b gear, it may not be too long before WiFi is found in lower-end Digi-Cameras
Forget 802.11b gear and all that. The prices of regular digital cameras are themselves not dropping as much as I would like. The other day, I assembled a great PC for $150 and I'm sure two years down the road, I can build even greater one for that money. But, digicams are still priced at $150-$200 for a decent piece and I don't feel like spending that money knowing that $150 is powerful enough to get you a good computer.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
Bluetooth would make much more sense. Mobile networks are already everywhere and BT power consumption is much smaller that WLAN. But that wouldn't make /. headlines, would it?
Not sure about this one...
I find myself imagining coming home from my holidays to discover my camera's been hacked and I've got someone else's holiday photos...spooky.
If said newsreporter was taking pictures where there happened to be a WAP, who's to say that he couldn't use connect his camera to a laptop and transfer the pictures from a 802.11b card on the laptop? I would think it wouldn't stress the camera batteries as much.
;)
I must admit though, it seems like a nifty idea, nonethe less
Join the TWIT army now!
Back when "Internet Appliances" were the buzz, you'd get naysayers posting on here ridiculing the idea. And in the media. They'd sneer, "Great, now I can surf the internet from my stove, or find out what is in my fridge over the web."
But this camera is an example of what most people with some foresight were thinking of when they talked about internet appliances... normally unconnected devices that get net access and gain cool features.
Now bring on the powered WiFi speakers that play streamed digital music in any room from a personal media device (TiVo-like entertainment center combined with WiFi) or home computer.
And yes, I still want a good, cheap touch-screen webpad with wifi for net access from my couch, bathroom, kitchen table, hammock outside, etc...
Considering the size of an image from this camera (got to be over 3MB each, depending of JPG compression, or much large if RAW images), I wonder about the speed of transmission. If you've got a full 1GB microdrive to send, you're going to be waiting a while. Also, the module seems huge, and a sizeable increase to an already hefty camera. I would like to try one out though... -James.
So if someone intercepts the signal and cracks the encryption to extract people's private images, do we call those people WarDriving Cyber-Papparazi?
Sony has been making cameras with bluetooth for a while, the FX77 is quite a high spec camera which offers the ability to send pictures to other bluetooth devices. Such as a GPRS mobile phone so you can upload them to the internet. A bluetooth laptop so you can save directly to its hard drive, eliminating the need for expensive Memory sticks.
Some of Sony's digital cameras which don't have BT built in have the ability to support the CLIE Memory Stick Bluetooh adaptor.
This is not news.
There is no god
The camera's 802.11b thing plugs into the camera in two places, one to the USB port and the other to the power source. It then has the ability to transmit the photos to an ftp server.
No mention of WEP or any other type of net xfer.
Seems to me you'd want to set up an upload only account on the ftp server. Just in case someone gets some bright idea to start grabbing ftp accounts.
Don't know why it requires two plugs (later hack more than likely), but this thing looks like it takes up quite a bit space and it doesn't look like you can keep the camera on the trripod when it's plugged in.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
When will they start putting GPS receivers in digital cameras?
I want to know the exact location of where I've been taking pictures!
-- four
Think about it- 802.11b doesn't have that kind of range; even in the open, it's 300 feet tops, unless you get antennas to focus the signal, and that's not practical unless you know where the photographer is going to be.
This sounds much more like a toy for studio photography, cutting the downtime by transferring pictures in the background. The only other option is Firewire(which most true pro cameras have; prosumer digital SLRs for the most part don't). Even the microdrives, which are some of the fastest compactflash devices around, are pretty sluggish, compared to the camera directly sending the file over firewire(without even storing it, save in temporary high speed memory).
I can see this being a potential hit with the 'event' photography market- ie, like guys who set up at a kids sports games and offer portrait services. They like anything that reduces their clutter/setup time or gets the photo to their servers(for printing) faster. I didn't see the specs on the camera, but if it's cheap enough, they might bite(the event photography people don't usually invest in the several-thousand-dollar cameras, because it's not necessary).
Please help metamoderate.
A cheap touch-screen wifi webpad would be great.
... alarms are programmable from anywhere ... plays your digital music that's stored wherever for wake up, or gathers news reports from around the world ... tells/shows you the latest weather conditions for your area.
I'm waiting on the internet-enabled clock radio. Never needs to have the time changed (thanks to NTP)
Anyone seen something like this?
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
at the next G8 meeting or protest rally. How long 'til protestors -- or police -- are using this to keep everyone up-to-date on what's happening? And how much longer after that 'til police -- or protestors -- are using something like Driftnet to see what's being photographed?
Carousel is a lie!
The WiFi is interesting, but the lack of firewire is a disappointment, and in terms of shooting features (resolution, frame rate, etc) it is pretty much the same as the Canon 1D, a camera which Canon is expected to replace this fall. The low resolution and high frame rate show that it's intended for photojournalists rather than the general consumer market. The D2H will probably slow or stop the flow of photojournalists switching from Nikon to Canon, and maybe put a little more pressure on Canon to improve their own cameras, but I'm not sure it will have much other effect.
While it is quite cool (in the gadget-gee-whiz-sense) to have wireless connection to a digital camera, it is not in my view even close to the Holy Grail of digital photography. The main reasons to use this feature are a) convinience (which is eaten away by the fact that you need an external unit) or b) people who really need to send pictures to somewhere else ASAP.
In the case b) the photographer loses his/her chances to edit the pictures later or even to choose the best pictures. Good for first impresssions, not much for anything else.
Holy grail for professional digital photography are for example cameras that use a full-sized sensor; then you wouldn't need different lenses for digital and film photography.
On the hobbyist front I'd like to see more standards. The Four Thirds -standard sounds promising, and I'm hoping Canon or Nikon would embrace it.
[ Antti Rasinen ]
As an ex-journalist who started out as a newspaper reporter/photographer, I laugh when I see what some people are envisioning for this camera. Here's a news flash. Most of the time when you're shooting news events, there's not a WiFi access spot or the time (or NEED) to set one up. While I can certainly come up with theorectical uses for it, I can come up with even more potential problems in handling things that way. A laptop and a cable is still a much better (and cheaper) solution where Internet access is available, IMO.
It seems to me that this is an example of geeks liking a new technical solution and not realizing that existing technology is better for the people who really use the equipment to get actual work done.
No it's not! Bluetooth is too slow for transferring hundreds of megabytes at a time... -James.
The Nikon D2H is a camera specifically targeted to sport photographers. You don't need 8 frames per second if you're in the studio or even out covering events. Instead, this camera shines when used to capture fast action like sports.
Here's where wireless is a GOOD thing: one wireless access point can be placed on the mid-field sideline and allow the newspapers and magazines to grab images while the photographer shoots. This is a major advantage on nightly deadlines. Even when shooting just regular digital and using a laptop with wireless, newspapers are limited to getting the photographs at the end of each half because photographers can't risk missing a critical piece of action.
Battery life doesn't matter as much in sporting events. The game is pretty much a set length and an appropriate number of batteries can be brought and traded out at the end of each half/quarter/etc.
As someone who has worked at a daily newspaper that has used both film and digital and where football is a front page event, this is a great announcement. We used to have to send someone to night games to pickup and develop the film at halftime. Now pictures can be downloaded, selected and corrected for newspaper use in realtime. Newspaper staff never complain about finishing earlier rather than later!
That said, I think wireless makes sense in THIS camera. I'm not sure I'd want it in the field or even in a consumer camera to take pictures on vacation and on holidays. In those situations, I would take the longer battery life any day.
It seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point on this one.
I think it's less targeted at "immediately beaming your pictures from the field" than it is targeted at studio photography.
The high-end Nikon digitals may be good enough for journalism, but most of the people I know who use them are doing studio work, like product shots, fashion, etc.
If this is well designed, it could improve the pipeline speed of a product shoot, as it's often different people doing the different processes: shooting, color correction, comping. layout, etc. Now, the initial stage of this process can be made (closer to) parallel.
It certainly is not a revolutionary change (like the introduction of digital photography was), but it could represent an evolutionary change, where the photographer doesn't have to interrupt work to carry the microdrive over to the server for image uploading.
Now, some people will say "but many pros already have their cameras hooked up full-time via firewire, so this won't change the process at all!" I almost agree -- this removes the annoying tether, so you can move the camera around without cable snarl.
Then, with Sony and others set to WiFi enable the entire known universe, maybe this *will* eventually be a take anywhere, shoot, and upload kind of thing.
We shall see...
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Unfortunatly, this isn't the holy grail of digital camera. I'm not even sure what the holy grail would be, to be honest.
It's a very specific camera aimed at sports/news/action photographers. The Wifi addition is also a niche product, mainly for photographers in large agencies like the AP
It probably wouldn't suit anybody else, especially since most people complain about the 4mp resolution.
Anyway, here are some links to other previews:
Handson Preview:k on/slr/D2H_UK1.html
http://www.letsgodigital.be/webpages/firstlook/ni
Preview:
http://www.digitalreview.ca/cams/NikonD2H.shtml
Nikon expert spec analysis:
http://www.bythom.com/d2h.htm
Personally, I'm excited because this is the first Nikon DSLR to do 8fps, plus they have a new TTL flash system, and the 2.5inch LCD on the back is the biggest yet (great for "chimping", a term for gaping at your images instead of watching the action)
Someone up there ^^^^ mentioned costs of digital cameras. I'm not sure how many here have followed these DSLRs but they're not cheap by a long shot.
This Nikon will probably arrive at a street price of around $3000 USD for the body alone. Add to that the fact that your lenses will have to be adjusted (if you own Nikon equipment already) as there is a multiplying factor that has to be taken into account for the size of the sensor; I believe with Nikon cameras it's 1.5x. This is due to the fact that the sensor is not a full 24x36mm (i.e. full frame film).
Unless your a professional photographer or an advanced amateur that's spending his/her weekends shooting weddings in 35mm or you're independently wealthy; you're probably going to have to wait a few years before the price of these puppies comes down to the "consumer" level.
Cheers
Zip
"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside"- Marshall McLuhan
I've been shooting with DSLR gear for 3 years now, and I've tried a bunch of high-end cameras including the Nikon D1X and Canon 1DS.
My analysis of this new Nikon based only on the dpreview article, is that it seems fine for sports and news photography where framerates matter, but outside of that market it is difficult to see the how the improved features addresses the things that have been missing on the Nikon family of DSLR's.
The big thing that's been missing is a full-frame sensor. Why is this important? Well, all Nikon DSLRs to date, including this one, have used an imager that is 1.5 times smaller than a normal 35mm film frame. This means the sensor only sees the middle part of what would have been exposed on a normal film frame, which in turn means the camera suffers from slight myopia. All attached lenses have a virtual magnification factor of 1.5x over stated spec. As such, a nice 20mm wideangle lens becomes a dull 30mm lens, which produces a constricted view. Landscape and indoor photography generally suffers from this lack of wideangle support.
Canon addressed this problem with their (very expensive) 1DS camera which has a full-sized imager chip, but this doesn't help photographers with a gear bag full of Nikon lenses - they don't fit on a Canon. I think many photographers would have liked to see Nikon come up with a full-sized imager on their D2 series.
There are far cheaper DSLR's with high-rez sensors. Take the very affordable Fujifilm Finepix S2, for example - a handsome 6 megapixel sensor and fully Nikon lens compatible. Same magnification factor as the D2H, at 1/4 the price. Some photographers would probably find the flimsy Fujifilm body and awkward ergonomics unsuitable for pro work, but I know many photographers who'd rather save their money and buy one of those, or an old battered D1X, and then wait for Nikon to come out with the full-frame unit they have been waiting for.
It's also disappointing to see that Nikon apparently have dropped IEEE1394 and GPS support. USB2 is cheaper, dumber, slower and less reliable than firewire, and the GPS thing was a neat 'gimmick' that could have had many useful applications. The beautiful photos on the California Coastal Records Project were all shot on a D1X with a GPS attached - this permitted the photographers an exact shooting record of where the pictures were taken.
The rest of the improved features just don't justify the cost unless those 8fps are crucial to your line of business. The wi-fi stuff looks like a gimmick - consider the limited range of 802.11b - but it is conceivable to imagine an assistant photoshopping the pics you shoot from a nearby laptop. Nothing I'd pay extra for, though.
I don't recall any Nikon Digital SLR camera with a full 24x36mm sensor.
From the D1 through to the D100 and now the D2H the sensor size has been 23.7x15.5mm therefore you will need to adjust your lens collection accordingly.
Also keep in mind that not everyone that shoots a camera is shooting "action" shots or birds/animals in the distance. Wide angle lenses, along with tilt/shift lenses are important for architecture and landscape photographers.
So yes, the multiplication factor does indeed matter.
Cheers,
Zip
"The answers are always inside the problem, not outside"- Marshall McLuhan
The D2H is aimed at newspaper or online (read: not magazine) photographers that shoot sports among other things and have a quick turnaround time.
The 4MP is plenty for newspapers.
8 fps is great for sports shooters.
When you're shooting 8 fps at 4MP per frame Compact Flash cards fill up quick. I personally would rather spend $300-500 once for the little wireless attachment than $250 a pop for 5-10 512MB Compact Flash cards.
Most digital photographers have laptops in their car at the event they are photographing. Having a PTP wireless network between your camera and your car unloading your CF cards on the fly would be nice.
At events that you have to park more than 300 meters away chances are, eventually, they'll have an access point set up.
Bottom line: It's going to be a nice perk unless Canon makes one too.