Canon charges $50 per year to use a $900 camera as a functional webcam
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I bought a tank-based printer from a company that isn't HP to avoid exactly this kind of shit. Ironically the company I bought that printer from was Canon.
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Then why does it have high-quality streaming capability behind a subscription paywall?
No, it's complaining about a hardware feature being gimped by the accompanying software unless you pay a subscription. A driver should not gimp the hardware it drives. If you want to segregate features then you do it by making hardware with different capabilities, for example a cheap camera only capable of 720p and a more expensive one that can do higher resolutions.
Imagine a car maker who throttled your car's top speed to 30mph and its range to 5 miles unless you subscribed to their "premium" service, even though the car could actually perform a lot better than that.
Making an expensive high-resolution camera and then gimping its capabilities with a demand for more money is predatory. Simple as that.
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These are not new features. They are features that are intrinsic parts of the camera, and comes for free with other software if they didn't invest more money to make their own incompatible protocols..
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I think the G5X is a pretty cool camera, unique, in essentially the only dedicated camera with a fixed lens that isn't rubbish. (except for some very old stuff from before mobile phones..).
But the price is absolutely beyond bonkers insane for what the camera can do. I mean seriously Canon.
Sure the Z30 is a little bigger, but not a lot, and it is so much better as a camera, and cheaper, and very popular as webcam. For a good reason.
When you set up a webcam size typically isn't the prime concern - and if it is there are much much smaller options.
If you want to use the G5x as a webcam you insist on using a tool that wasn't really meant for the job.
Sure, shame on Canon for asking $5 per month even though the G5x is already absurdly overpriced, seriously makes me rethink Canon's reputation. I think not even Leica would be that shameless.
I am not kidding, but LOOONG time ago I had a PowerShot A80 and after that a PowerShot G1. The G1 was expensive back then, not anywhere as expensive as it is today.
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I'd have no real issue if they charged a one-off fee for the software. But a camera is likely to be used for a decade or more, and those monthly subs add up to a lot.
Also, with a subscription model, what's to stop Canon from switching off that server and saying "Your camera is obsolete. Buy a new one" in a few years time.
Also, with a subscription model, what's to stop Canon from switching off that server and saying "Your camera is obsolete. Buy a new one" in a few years time.
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This is ridiculous. BTW, subscription model existed for decades, and it can be done to benefit both sides. A medical company I worked for is selling some equipment. For 10% of the original price per year, the customers would get a full warranty, maintainance, support, SW updates.
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LOL When I promised to avoid cars with subscriptions, the cars stopped having the subscriptions for basic features before I even needed to buy my next car.
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So you don't mind being scammed by your daddy, but damned if anybody else learn from how you let yourself be abused by one company?
Note, the problem with Apple storage, is not that it costs something, it is the price, and how they cripple their products to make it the only easy option.
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They have an SDK that’s available to anyone and anyone can write their own software. And they do. There is other commercial software that uses the Canon SDK and provides this functionality.
I used the SDK in the past and created my own photo booth using old Canon EOS 50D and some arduino.
Their new CCAPI is actually based on http protocol, not proprietary. Free to use.
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Canon's EOS VR Utility costs the same amount, and it's needed to process 3D source clips of more than 2 minutes in duration. Sadly, it's pretty clunky and slow.
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Here goes a plan to buy Canon DSLR, out the window. Subscription for it's software? Thanks, not touching that with a pole.
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This was disheartening to read. My experiences with Canon have always been incredibly positive, and in fact, Canon was my "go to" example for stellar customer service.
I used to do photography semi-professionally (ie, it wasn't my full-time job, but I was getting paid for my photography), and happened to live not far from a Canon facility. Every single time I went there for something (usually it was to have them calibrate a particular body/lens pair before some important shoot), they did it and charged me nothing. It was always done "as a courtesy."
My favorite example is the time I went into that same facility with a photo printer I had had for years that was starting to give me trouble. I was very nicely told that that facility doesn't handle printers, but not to worry - they took my printer anyway, packaged it securely, shipped it to the proper facility for repair, and had it sent back to me directly. And again, charged me nothing ("as a courtesy") even though it had been years since I bought it, and the printer was way out of any kind of warranty.
And these experiences happened without me being a CPS member at the time (Canon Professional Services). From their point of view, I was just an enthusiast, and yet was treated this way.
That they have now resorted to BS subscriptions for things that should be free/included is incredibly disappointing.
I used to do photography semi-professionally (ie, it wasn't my full-time job, but I was getting paid for my photography), and happened to live not far from a Canon facility. Every single time I went there for something (usually it was to have them calibrate a particular body/lens pair before some important shoot), they did it and charged me nothing. It was always done "as a courtesy."
My favorite example is the time I went into that same facility with a photo printer I had had for years that was starting to give me trouble. I was very nicely told that that facility doesn't handle printers, but not to worry - they took my printer anyway, packaged it securely, shipped it to the proper facility for repair, and had it sent back to me directly. And again, charged me nothing ("as a courtesy") even though it had been years since I bought it, and the printer was way out of any kind of warranty.
And these experiences happened without me being a CPS member at the time (Canon Professional Services). From their point of view, I was just an enthusiast, and yet was treated this way.
That they have now resorted to BS subscriptions for things that should be free/included is incredibly disappointing.
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There are two parts to this affair: charging for an extra feature, and making it a subscription. In my opinion, the former is an undeserved criticism, but the latter is much less excusable.
On the charging part: G5X II was never marketed as a webcam. Not only is the feature not mentioned anywhere in the marketing material, the word "webcam" does not appear even once in the user's manual. The free tier of the webcam client wasn't even announced until 2020, a year after the body was released and the world was mired in Covid-19; the paid tier came in 2022.
In other words, what the guy in the article is basically demanding is that he get a brand-new feature that wasn't originally included in the camera, gratis. To me, this is about as justifiable as excoriating Microsoft for selling Excel as a paid add-on to Windows.
On the subscription part: I fully agree that this is a bone-headed decision. There is no good reason to make an app that shouldn't even require any feature updates a subscription, and even if there is, $5/mo is outrageous. By the way, this isn't even their worst offense: the paid subscription model for the iPad version of DPP, Canon's RAW development app really takes the cake for me. I mean, it's one thing to charge extra to unlock a new feature that isn't core to a digital camera; it's quite another to charge for a RAW-to-JPEG program, which is by far the most important companion app for any camera maker! Needless to say, I haven't bought the app.
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Sony, at least, makes their camera API, SDK, and libraries available for free, so if you don't like Sony's own tethering and image processing applications you can (with some effort) roll your own.
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Wasn't the proposal to make access to bread a subscription service the trigger for the French Revolution?
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The elgato camlink 4k hdmi to usb capture dongle. I use it with my Sony A7iv mirrorless camera. It works with any camera that has an hmdi output. Sure sony offers Usb-c Webcam functionality but IIRC it's limited resolution and 30fps,and requires you run Sonys desktop software to make it work. It's free but janky. The USB hdmi capture dongle is flawless and requires no separate software. While this Canon thing is annoying, using hmdi out should be trivial.
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Canon is weird. Their camera division keeps enshittifying but the printers at least are the only ones from the big brands that let you replace the heads from what I can tell. I know there was some kerfuffle a while ago about Canon recommending people disable some setting because they ran out of chips that tell the inks are genuine, but the point is that at least they HAVE that setting.
[rant]We have had a couple Epson EcoTanks which we were satisfied with until we had to replace the stupid ink pad. I know they've (and Canon) been called out because of this but newer printers have a replaceable ink waste cartridge, or so I thought. Turns out the cheaper ones don't but they get you because it is an actual fucking cartridge that you can pull out AND it's the exact shape of the replaceable one, which even fits! But the replaceable one has a chip, and the compatible printers have it in the firmware to reset it. But no, this cheaper EcoTank ET-2850 just told us the printer was basically bricked (we had to "send" it to them for repair which would be more expensive than a new printer).
Fuck that, I downloaded some hacky program to reset the ink waste counter (free to reset it to like 90% enough to see that it works before you pay), and then just bought the Canon MegaTank, which is working fine and even has replaceable ink waste tank, and print heads.[/rant]
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The Amazon lengthy description did not explain this clearly. Most reviews were happy with it. And for $20 I said sure I'll try it. It's poop for what I wanted. It does work well though, easy connection, etc....but REQUIRES 'the cloud' to work at all. I'm still trying to find a cheap option for what I want: Constant live feed to my computer with no internet required for cheap $.
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Yes they are, they're in the hardware, and disabled by the software.
So?
And yet if you pay you can enable a better quality stream. So obviously the hardware is capable of that.
So? We're talking about this camera, not some other one.
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I don't pay a penny for Apple's cloud offering, and it's not inconvenienced me in any way.
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My R6 MII indeed has this webcam mode. The blog author kinda didn't do anyone any favors with his mention that ALL Canon cameras are like this. The focus and the issue is Canon's scummy subscription model for an app that doesn't justify it. Hell, even charging per camera model could be fair, if you want to cover development costs. It's a one-and-done thing for the most part, until you need to support a newer camera, which they probably don't since the newer cameras have UVC functionality anyway.
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Just out of curiosity: why not Nikon?
Note: I'm a Nikon guy but not a fanboy. Canon, Sony, and Fuji also make great gear and if I didn't already have a meaningful investment in lenses I'd be open to switching.
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That's an absurd comparison. For one thing, a chiptune isn't a subscription, it's a one-time purchase. For another, the manufacturer is balancing durability, emissions, fuel economy, and drivability. A chiptune is giving up some of one or more of those attributes to make more power. A hardware driver has no such need for compromises.
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Was this subscription fee and related limitations knowable prior to purchasing the camera? If so, and this isn't some sort of bait and switch, it seems like the problem is lack of research on the purchasers part.
If I were purchasing what is primarily a point and shoot photo camera for video work, I'd probably put a little extra effort into researching it's capabilities and restrictions before purchasing.
I'll probably be downvoted, and honestly I do think that charging a subscription for this is wrong (though a one time charge for the software does seem reasonable to cover the development)...but people complaining about shit they bought because they do zero due diligence irks me.
If I were purchasing what is primarily a point and shoot photo camera for video work, I'd probably put a little extra effort into researching it's capabilities and restrictions before purchasing.
I'll probably be downvoted, and honestly I do think that charging a subscription for this is wrong (though a one time charge for the software does seem reasonable to cover the development)...but people complaining about shit they bought because they do zero due diligence irks me.
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No, those are the admission fees to live in a civilized society. There are plenty of places on the planet that don't charge taxes, however, I doubt you'd like to live in them.
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Shen COVID was hitting us and webcam were hard to find, Canon released drlrivers for some of their DSLR if I remember well.
I guess that gave them the idea to make it a subscription for more than super basic mode....
Now, I don't mind paying for it but not as a subscription l.
Sony does that on some models like the X70 video camera. 4K was not ready and camera was sold with it as an upgrade that was 500€ over the 2500€ base cost. Might sound like a lot but it is an XDCAM with Pro features, base price is in the cheap already for this kind of gears.
At least you own the 4K option for ever.
I guess that gave them the idea to make it a subscription for more than super basic mode....
Now, I don't mind paying for it but not as a subscription l.
Sony does that on some models like the X70 video camera. 4K was not ready and camera was sold with it as an upgrade that was 500€ over the 2500€ base cost. Might sound like a lot but it is an XDCAM with Pro features, base price is in the cheap already for this kind of gears.
At least you own the 4K option for ever.
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I think people simply think they need something better, but very few of them will end up with actually superior results compared to a modern high-end phone with similar price. This is due to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The lack of the latest computational photography features in these compact cameras, caused by inferior processing hardware and software, makes it hard to justify the advantage in sensor size and zoom range for anyone but very skilled photo/videographer, who use point and shoot only if forced by budget constraints.
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Any such device should have an open API. You buy the device, you have the right to know and use the API, forever. It's like the right to repair.
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A quick search shows they have both that and an SDK available. Unclear on precise terms of its use - because I'm not at all interested in it - but it's a thing.
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And, Nikon makes there SDK available for free. So there are third party apps for your camera. including webcam.
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Does any other smartphone brand connect to the Mac? If not, you might be living in a technology bubble.
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You remind me of the guys I knew in high school who thought putting a watermelon-sized exhaust and yellow tape on a Honda Civic made it a sports car. “Chip tuning” is disabling safety and durability features – you certainly can get slightly better performance if you don’t care about longevity of the engine or pollution but that’s not a conspiracy to disable features, and it’s never as much as proponents claim.
What Canon is doing here is different: the hardware easily supports it, there’s no cost to them for letting you use it, and there’s no downside in terms of hardware degradation. This is a feature hardware had back in the 90s, but some MBA realized they could get a bonus by charging you $60/year for hardware you already owned.
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