Camera Features as a Service?

Is ka-ching! the new shutter sound?

Like it or hate it, we’ve gotten used to software as a service. Adobe was one of the first major brands when it shifted its Creative Cloud suite of apps to subscription-only. In the past five years we’ve now reached a point where an app is a noteworthy outlier if it’s not a subscription.

Are Camera Features as a Subscription Next?

Photography hardware at this point has been like almost all other hardware: you buy it once, and it’s yours, with a usually-stable feature set. Cameras, lenses, strobes… they have a feature set, you make the purchase, and now you own it forever.

But unlike 20 years ago, camera feature sets can change. Firmware updates, originally only the realm of bug-fixes, are now used to deliver new features.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, camera manufacturers have figured out they could charge for feature updates delivered via firmware.

Will photographers accept this as a business model? Camera features as subscriptions or a one-time add-on purchase?

I’m aware of two companies offering this option right now. Panasonic has a “Filmmaker Upgrade” for its S1 camera that enables 4K 60p 10-bit, V-Log, and more (available now via Adorama). This past week, Sony announced a new “Custom Gridlines” option for the a7 IV that will allow photographers to load customized gridlines for use in camera and in HDMI output. Both the Panasonic and Sony feature upgrades are $150 (USD).

The camera manufacturers’ positions are that these are niche features not needed by most photographers, so they aren’t including them as part of the base feature set and only those who need them will pay. In many respects, they’re not wrong.

Consider if this is a new payment model we’re going to see become more mainstream. Might we end up in a photographic world where:

• face detection is included with the base feature set, but pet face detection is a $150 upgrade
• this speedlight has a decent recycle time, but for $100 it can recycle a second faster
• you can shoot panoramas the traditional way, or for $125 you can purchase a software upgrade where you pan the camera handheld and the software will automatically stitch together a final image

Each one of these is a niche feature unlikely to be used by everyone that purchases the camera, but potentially very useful to someone who is working in that genre of photography.

​Shaminder Dulai writing for DPReview makes an argument that this is a slippery slope. A comparison is made to BMW’s proposal to offer heated seats as a monthly subscription, and the luxury car manufacturer’s subsequent retraction of that proposal in response to consumer outrage.

The built-in iPhone camera app does most things for most people. It doesn’t do everything that an advanced photographer or videographer will desire. That leaves a market for apps like Halide or Blackmagic Camera to fill those voids. Apple could build apps that are more “pro” but they choose not to, and folks who want that functionality can spend money with other parties. This isn’t a direct comparison to the camera feature upgrades in that Apple isn’t the one offering the paid upgrade, but the underlying principle is similar.

Honestly, I’m on the fence on this one. I certainly hate surprise charges for unexpected things. On the other hand, with the hypothetical examples I cited above, I couldn’t care less about pet face detection. If I can buy a camera for $25 cheaper without that feature, and folks who want it will pay for camera features as subscriptions or an add-on purchase, I’m okay with that.

The danger area exists if manufacturers think they can offer broader mainstream features as paid upgrades or as a monthly service. A few examples that would cross the line might be:

• JPGs are included, but you pay extra for RAW images
• It’s a 100-megapixel sensor, but that’s only if you buy a software upgrade, otherwise you get 24-megapixel files
• In-camera battery charging is a premium feature for extra money, otherwise you can use a separate charging brick

What’s your take? Are camera features as subscriptions (or an add-on purchase) a reasonable way for manufacturers to offer niche features or is this a situation where we are going to end up being nickled-and-dimed again? I’d love to have you drop me a reply and hear what you think, but you should also voice those thoughts towards your camera companies and their staff. Are you on board?