A seminal event?

I may be wrong, but Tuesday's (2008.04.29) announcement by Canon of new firmware for the EOS 1D Mark III and EOS 1Ds Mark III cameras is perhaps the first time we have seen actual new features provided by software upgrade.

Perhaps this is the first inkling of an epiphany on the part of the god Kwanon.

Interesting, and encouraging. A very small precursor, however, may have been the update to the Mark II firmwares that allowed for use of SDHC cards.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Beat me to it; I posted another reply saying much the same thing. The only other time I can remember was DPOF (or DirectPrint etc.) support once the standard was agreed - and the formatting of SHDC cards in the MkIIs I guess...

Canon: Please open-source the camera firmware!

Speaking as a software engineer, I find it ludicrous how reluctant camera manufacturers are to add easily-implemented software features to their cameras. What is worse, they abandon the old models, yet give us users no way to compensate, by, for example, open-sourcing the firmware or by giving us an API so we can install and run our own software modules on the cameras. A DSLR is a *computer*, and camera manufacturers need to treat them as such - which means exploiting the wonderful nature of software. From a software point of view, a camera really is a rather simple device - and users modifying them do not incur the risks of, say, modifying your car's operating software (which may result in loss of life, etc.)

I praise the efforts of the group that has managed to hack the firmware of some of the Canon compact cameras, and I so wish somebody will achieve the same on the DSLRs - I would be prepared to put some serious effort into this, but unfortunately I am not an experienced reverse-engineer at the firmware level.

Every time I have to dig into custom functions to enable mirror-lockup on my 1DMkIIN I get infuriated at my inability to program this computer I have bought. I imagine a 5D user is even more furious at the useless direct-print button. It *could* be so simple to add:

• In-camera HDR
• Proper focus bracketing (coupled with the 1D2N's speed would be lovely)
• Focus stacking
• Proper BULB-exposure control (like the Leica M8) where one can tap the shutter to open, and tap again to close (no need for remote or tethered shooting).
• etc.

The slow pace at which these features are added to new, expensive cameras are frustrating - they could likely easily be added to existing cameras in firmware. Sometimes people ask for impossible (hardware-limited) features, but as somebody who has a reasonable understanding of the hardware/software boundaries of my camera, I would give my left testicle to be able to program my 1D MkIIN.

The problem is, Canon will never let go of that *control* - and most likely the firmware operating environment has not been designed to be subjected to 'hackers' - i.e. there are probably no clear bounderies between the modules which could damage the hardware of the camera, and those which could not. However, if they open-source it, I have no doubts that the open-source community could put a *proper* operating environment in place in no time, putting Canon's generally poor (in my humble opinion, although I cannot make statements as to the camera firmware code) software to shame.

The Four-Thirds system should have done this, it would have truly differentiated them!

Hi David,

A nice thought, but will it make them more profit? Unless they see a dollar in it, virtually no company these days does anything. Show how they will increase profit, for less effort, then you may get somewhere. World wide, I am uncertain as to how many 'open sourcerers' would have a particular product and be prepared to experiment, anyway, and follow it through, so that lesser mortals would be able to use it.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray West said:

Hi David,

A nice thought, but will it make them more profit? Unless they see a dollar in it, virtually no company these days does anything. Show how they will increase profit, for less effort, then you may get somewhere. World wide, I am uncertain as to how many 'open sourcerers' would have a particular product and be prepared to experiment, anyway, and follow it through, so that lesser mortals would be able to use it.

Best wishes,

Ray

Click to expand...

Hi Ray,

I fully agree with the first part of your statement re. the profits, etc. As far as the second part is concerned, I tend to agree with David. You see, I always try to buy IT products which are either already open source or are built in a reverse engineering friendly way. Those are my choice products, for example certain Linksys routers which allow Linux to be installed on them. There are millions out there who do the same like I do. So my "prediction" is, once an SLR camera allows this reverse engineering, many folks will rush out to buy it just because of that. So the number of users increase and so the s/w functionality and the attention paid to it grows. It is a self-fulfilling-prophecy, really . Or am I being just a dreamer now?

Cem Usakligil said:

It is a self-fulfilling-prophecy, really . Or am I being just a dreamer now?

Click to expand...

No Cem, I think you are right. A lot of people will buy a camera that is truly "upgradeable" and upon which can be installed different and ever-increasing functionality.

Ray, I don't think "Mere mortals" would have to be able to write the software any more than what you have to be able to write an e-mail client, but let us coders do the hard work, and both the mere mortals, not to mention Canon, reap the benefits. All done "for free".

Let's be honest, Canon should not be in the software business - they are in the electronics and optical instruments business (with their camera line, in anyway). If they made their platform friendly to external influence (since they were/are CLEARLY not listening to the years and years of whining us users utter at them regarding silly print buttons, mirror lockup, auto ISO, etc etc) they can go back to focusing on the base operating environment (firmware) of the camera, as well as the hardware/lenses. All the interesting and hard work in the software front would be done for them. Imagine firmware specifically tailored to macro shooters (i.e. to do in-camera focus stacking) or sports shooters, wedding photographers, etc. The possibilities are endless.

This would force other camera companies to either try to keep up with the in-house software (and Open-Source software has shown this to be basically impossible, e.g. Microsoft can in no way compete with the diversity and functionality available with free ["free" here referring to freedom of rights] software) or also open-source their camera software.

This is a hypothetical dream I know will not come true soon, as this would put so much more power in the hands of the consumer (and never again make possible the situation we had years back with the software-locked-down features of the EOS 300D compared to the more expensive 10D which was later enabled through hacked firmware, e.g. ISO3200, MLU, etc) but the software world has basically fully made this transition, so I don't see why the camera industry can't follow suit.

Hear, hear!

Hi Cem, Dawid,

Dawid Loubser said:

No Cem, I think you are right. A lot of people will buy a camera that is truly "upgradeable" and upon which can be installed different and ever-increasing functionality

Click to expand...

Well said.

. . . This is a hypothetical dream I know will not come true soon . . .

Click to expand...

Likely true, but this does not nullify the attraction of your outlook.

. . . as this would put so much more power in the hands of the consumer (and never again make possible the situation we had years back with the software-locked-down features of the EOS 300D compared to the more expensive 10D which was later enabled through hacked firmware, e.g. ISO3200, MLU, etc)

Click to expand...

Indeed. I entered the Canon EOS world via the 300D, and was heavily embroiled in all that. And where are the Russian "guys" now that did that firmware hacking - they disappeared off the face of the earth just as a subsequent "revision" of their work was expected to emerge!

I myself have been very gratified by the trend to open architecture and to standards that have a firm "intellectual" basis relatively independent of partisan input (of course made practical by the fact that it is so easy today for a manufacturer to convert from a proprietary system to a "standard" via firmware updates).

In my days in the standards arena (1961-1968), decision making had a fiercely partisan component, with IBM and various others feeling that they were battling for their corporate lives over the argument as to whether the graphical representation of the ASCII character "vertical bar" had a gap in it middle or not, or whether in serial transmission of ASCII characters, bit 1 or bit 7 should sent first.

A gigantic political watershed issue was whether RCA, entering the mainframe computer business in the mid 1960s, would have the native character set of their flagship line (the Spectra 70) be the EBCDIC character set used by IBM or the just-then emergent industry-standard ASCII character set.

When the announcement was made that the RCA Spectra 70 line would use EBCDIC, my report to the affected standards committees on the implications of this had the caption, "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for General Sarnoff".

I was fortunate to be "sponsored" as a delegate to these various committees by my employer at the time, Bell Telephone Laboratories (and a bit earlier, AT&T itself), whose management never gave me any political instructions whatsoever. They felt that whatever position I took would certainly be informed by discussions with my colleagues, and that a technically good decision would be best for everyone (including the Bell Telephone System itself, which they viewed as immortal and would ultimately would best benefit from good, non-partisan technical-economic decisions).

Best regards,

Doug