Okay Geek Farm
Concept camera of the future WVIL - Video
Brandon Davenport
When it comes to photography, it really boils down to having a decent camera and a good eye. Sure you can get away with an iPhone 4 or a consumer camera, but if you really want to do some real photography, you’ll need a good lens and a great camera. But when you reach that level of professionalism, you lose something valuable and exciting — ease of use, creative tools and social sharing right from the camera. This new concept camera called the WVIL seems to mix professional photography with all the fun and convenient consumer features, lets take a look…
The WVIL in action
The patent-pending WVIL system takes the connectivity and application platform capabilities of today’s smart phones and wirelessly connects them with interchangeable full SLR-quality optics — Artefact Group
So that’s the WVIL, made and developed by the Artefact Group — and when you really think about it, it’s pretty damn awesome. A magnetic system for attaching SLR-quality lenses and a giant viewfinder touch-screen to take, edit and view photos. Just the fact that you can take off the lens and use the camera as a tablet of sorts to edit photos and show them off is awesome, but social stuff just pushes it over the edge — Oh yeah, you can detach the lens and use it remotely (awesome!).
Hardware and Software
You saw in the video when the lady opened the sharing dialog, there were options for Facebook, Email and Dropbox (Twitter and Flickr are probably there as well) and that’s possible due to integrated WiFi inside the WVIL. There’s also Bluetooth, GPS and WirelessHD. It also allows you to connect with friends and see what they are sharing.
Back to the hardware — the screen is a 5” AMOLED display at a whopping 1920x1080 pixles and the camera supports a bunch of lenses like the Nikon F mount, Canon EF mount, Micro Four Thirds and Leica M mount. How is that possible? Well the WVIL has a custom magnetic adaptor that allows you to click lenses on and off like a pro, and when you have no lenses attached, the WVIL is just a tablet.
At the heart of the WVIL is a Cortex-A15 ARM Multi-Core CPU and 16GB of internal storage, plus support for microSDHC cards. The entire device is wrapped in a removable Aluminum and magnesium alloy frame which acts as a secure mount for your lenses when you are snapping photos. All in all, it’s pretty damn slick.
The software on the camera looks pretty awesome, allowing you to adjust focus, exposure, ISO, aperture and zoom right on the screen, allowing you to keep your eyes on the subject. The software also lets you to edit photos, add filters and adjust colors, exposure, contrast (basically anything you need to do on the go) and then send them off to the internet for everyone to see.
In Summary
The WVIL is obviously a long way off from showing up in retail stores, but the concept shows real promise when it comes to taking photos. There would really be no need to use wires anymore with the ability to send stuff to Facebook and Flickr — and also shoot photos into your Dropbox to then edit later on your computer. The fact you can detatch the lens and use it remotely is insanely cool, yet the the WVIL still works like a regular camera… perfection in our minds.
More info — Everything you need to know about WVIL
