I understand it's probably because the GPS functionality is integrated into the same RF chipset that's handling wifi/bluetooth, but it would be possible to make a "no transmit capability" camera that still has GPS metadata functionality, with GPS receiver chip and an antenna tuned for 1400-1600 MHz, since ordinary consumer grade GPS is a receive-only technology.
But that would still possibly present a problem for serious government use where it can't have an antenna of any form in it.
The camera (even the regular model) does not have its own GPS receiver at all. It relies on a smartphone to transmit GPS coordinates over Bluetooth.
This is pretty common in modern cameras, presumably because most photographers expect to be able to turn their cameras on and off very rapidly, and it would be difficult to maintain a GPS fix with that usage pattern.
Well Nikon has a GPS module (Nikon GP-1, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_GP-1) for the hotshoe that does work, so I dont think that is the issue. Also at least on my D850, turning off the camera does not turn off the bluetooth automatically, and it can sync photos to the smartphone while the camera is off, so depending on how much power GPS would use, it could be possible to have it run in the background. And turning it off keeps some things running anyway, like showing the number of photos still available, so coordinates could be saved for a little while after turning off.
I had a GP-1 at one point. It would take several seconds to get a GPS lock, so about a third of the time my images had no GPS or I had to wait for the light to indicate it was working. Not very practical in my case. Also it connected via an awkward cable.
I don't think it's impossible. We aren't talking RTK here, you should be able to get a usable fix quickly. You also have some other advantages. For starters, the GPS coordinate doesn't need to be taken at the exact instant the photo is taken. If it takes a second to get the coordinate, that can be done in the background while the photographer continues to do their thing. Another advantage is that people never hold their cameras upside down, so the antenna can be pretty directional.
Getting a GPS fix from the satellites alone with no internet connection or stored data takes a few hours, not seconds. First you have to listen to the very slow data channel that tells you where the satellites are that takes a few hours to transmit the complete set before repeating.
No it doesn't, the time to first fix from cold start of modern GNSS receivers is in seconds (24s on the NEO M9N). Assisted GNSS using data from the internet reduces that to under 2 seconds (see https://content.u-blox.com/sites/default/files/NEO-M9N-00B_D...). Of course this can change based on the GNSS environment.
Even in the worst case the almanac (the data that is streamed at 50 bits/second) repeats every 12.5 minutes not hours.
> Getting a GPS fix from the satellites alone with no internet connection or stored data takes a few hours, not seconds.
It takes less than 15 minutes (in the worst case):
> The receiver is missing or has inaccurate estimates of its position, velocity, the time, or the visibility of any of the GPS satellites. As such, the receiver must systematically search for all possible satellites. After acquiring a satellite signal, the receiver can begin to obtain approximate information on all the other satellites, called the almanac. This almanac is transmitted repeatedly over 12.5 minutes. Almanac data can be received from any of the GPS satellites and is considered valid for up to 180 days.
That's just false. I wrote firmware for cheapo GPS modules that got a DGPS fix in seconds. And there are other tricks you can play to bring the latency down, knowing the use case.
This does not jibe with my experience with my long-in-the-tooth Garmin when it cannot connect to my phone and has been recharged after a total power down. It can take minutes but not hours.
That works for phones (and you can download it from the internet if out of date). It doesn't work for cameras which are usually turned off until you want to take pictures.
> It doesn't work for cameras which are usually turned off until you want to take pictures.
The GPS almanac is valid for 180 days, so if you can save it (it's 15000 bits, ~1.8 kB), and keep time within ±20s and assuming a position of ±100km of your last fix, you can do a "warm" start with-in a minute:
A completely cold start takes less than 15 minutes.
And yes, cameras are usually turned off, but they do still trickle some power to keep the on-board clock going: so as long as you use your camera once every six months, and in the same city, there's a good chance you'll get a quick fix.
All I know is I've never seen the GPS module for my 10+ year old Pentax k30 take more than a few minutes to get a fix after months of having the battery completely removed, and it has no network connection.
Even if it only had RX-only RF capabilities, that means that is a vector for an inbound wireless attack. At the very least, the kind of places that restrict wireless devices probably do not want any pictures or other artifacts to exist tagged with precise location metadata.
But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. In fact, I doubt there's really anything one would consider a wire in a camera body. Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.
> But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. […] Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.
Anyone who's had to get newly developed hardware through EMI certification in recent times can tell you that it's quite easy to accidentally make PCB trace work as an antenna. Not necessarily a great antenna but enough to emit some random signal and fail certification. 3 GHz is 100mm in wavelength, and a quarter wavelength makes one of the simplest antennas… that's only 25mm. The whole story is much more complicated but the thing is that the scales are in range.
Bluetooth antennas that are just traces on a PCB board are very common. Think about how small a bluetooth earbud can be and still get pretty incredible range.
Trace antennas are very specifically designed shapes given the PCB material and other nearby components and structures. It’s never “just a trace”.
You’re right that traces can emit and receive RF, hence why things like FCC limits and testing exist even for unintentional emitters, but even failing devices which greatly exceed the limits have traces which are many orders of magnitude worse at being antennas than a typical trace antenna.
What is the point? As long as your camera has a decent clock, you just need to record a gpx during your shooting session with an external device and you can add geolocation after you download your pictures. IIRC Darktable can do that.
Seven years ago, I landed a fairly trivial job with a temp agency, and we were tasked with plowing through document archives and collating them all for the scanning team. Our client was a huge company, and though none of us were sworn to secrecy or anything formal, I figured I would do them a solid, and refrain from bringing in any device with a camera, microphone, or transmitter. At the time, this was possible because I didn't rely 100% on my smartphone for transportation and everything else...
So I delved into the fascinating and still-extant world of standalone MP3 players. I selected a SanDisk Clip Jam, and it had like 8GiB onboard, an sdcard slot of course, an FM radio receiver, and really cool firmware. It was very simple, robust, extremely light, compact and portable. It was the size of a matchbox and it could clip onto your sleeve or belt, or whatever.
And it met all the requirements. It had no BT, no WiFi, no sensors of any kind, and it did that job very well of music playback, however I found it. And it could indeed store arbitrary files, so being the kind of hacker I am, I stashed a copy of my password manager encrypted database, plus a full install MSI of the application. And I included some README.txt that would indicate who owned this thing and how to return it, if lost.
I really miss that thing for its elegant simplicity. With the Swiss Army Knife nature of smartphones, I still long for the specialization and compartmented functionality of separate devices.
There are some fantastic hi-fidelity audio players coming out of China the last few years that are basically modern homages to the SanDisk Clip concept
The original iPod shuffle was essentially a USB stick with an audio port and some buttons, and I used it in just the same way as this. I think it was only £20 or £30 in price, a great product.
The original Shuffle really was excellent. Amazing audio quality for the time, about as much UI as you needed for a day or two's music, good battery life, and a configurable amount of file storage space if you needed it. And it even managed to look a sort of abstract cool.
No worries - the crappiness of snapbridge has certainly made me think twice about buying a Nikon in the future. I typically pull directly off of the SD card instead anyways.
Huh. When I rented a Z7 ii about 5 years ago, I found their Android app to be pretty great. (My next big camera is likely to be a Nikon, in part due to the nice app)
I don't use it for my primary workflow, but I use the Android app all the time for "grab a couple of interesting shots to send to friends, from the parking lot right after a hike/nature shoot", and it's fine for that (and for firmware updates.)
I assume the average person buying the standard model could then just disable WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS if they so chose? So this really is for high security situations?
I correctly expected "wireless-free" to mean no support for wireless connections, which to me seems the simple and obvious interpretation. It doesn't necessarily mean it's wired (data transfer could be limited to removable memory cards), but B&H says:
"The camera does still have a series of ports for physical, wired connections for data transfer and power supply"
It means exactly what I expected. The wireless connectivity has been removed (for regulatory compliance in situations where wireless isn't allowed), but wired connectivity is still there.
Somehow the article manages to repeat this obvious stuff about 7 or 8 times...
I wonder if that hardware on the normal Z6 III is on a daughterboard, and if removing it makes the OS complain (like having no color ink mean some printer-scanner-combos won't scan).
The article also explains that retailers have had customers ask for this, which is why Nikon is trialing selling this through those channels instead of direct, as usual.
You don't really have to market something like this. There is a VERY small subset of users that NEED this feature, and they will seek it out. The kind of user that wants this is not as price sensitive as a consumer. A few hundred extra dollars doesn't matter to an organization that needs this for an RF sensitive scientific environment, or a secure facility.
See also: iPhones with cameras removed. You've likely never heard of them and they are not marketed at all, but if you are one of the few that need one, you know they exist, and the price premium doesn't matter. $1400 for a used 2020 iPhone SE, if you're curious. That's a 10x premium on what you would pay for that phone anywhere else.
What I took away from their explanation was that they built this for those contract customers (the kind you are talking about) and have had regular consumers asking for this (who want this for other reasons) - why else would they put it on B&H and not just a contact us page on the company website?
I don't know how you can say with confidence that a few hundred dollars and not marketing this wouldn't have an effect on sales.
At least the earlier Fairphones continued to work even if you removed some modules (like the camera & microphone), and all you needed for that was a regular-priced Fairphone, a screwdriver and a few minutes of time. I not sure if it's still the case for the current Fairphone, but I don't see why it should've changed either.
I won't claim to NEED the feature (I'm not a 3 letter agency or anything) but I'd like to have it on general principle, and I'd pay extra for it, though probably not $400 extra.
Will someone really pay me $1000 to remove the camera module from an 2020 iPhone SE? Are there some huge obstacles to that? I've disassembled the 2016 model (for battery replacement) and it was a pain, but not a $1000 pain.
For that matter, what about just attacking the camera from the front, with a drill?
Looking at pictures, it appears cameraless iPhones tend to have backs without camera holes / lumps, so some custom work is involved beyond just removing the module. Though there’s going to be a degree of “the government can afford it” in the pricing.
Drilling has some obvious issues, most notable if you go too deep you’re going to hit the screen.
And perhaps more importantly for the final price, if you’re paran^W concerned enough about security to the degree of commissioning custom iPhones without cameras, you’re also not going to let a random guy from the street drill into them.
(You also need to remove the front facing camera, which is also a more involved operation.)
You aren't the market. They don't really care to sell to you. Honestly, they probably actively don't want consumers to have these cameras for after sale support reasons. They would much rather sell you the standard camera and just tell you to turn off the radios if you don't want to use them.
These devices are sold to large institutions. If I need to give 30 employees at, say, a nuclear plant phones without cameras that they can take near classified/confidential equipment, I don't want a guy with a drill, I need a company that can provide 30 phones, a regular supply of replacements and a trustable piece of paper for the security auditors saying these devices are compliant. I need a phone that our security can glance at and know that it is ok. A phone with a drilled out camera is not the same as a phone with no camera for these purposes.
If I need to take photos inside that plant, and make sure that the photos will not be exfiltrated without going through a security audit, I need that camera.
At the scale that these institutions operate paying an extra $1k for a phone or camera that has security compliance outsourced is a no-brainer. Your sourcing team will spend more money investigating if the DIY route is possible than they will just buying from a trustable vendor.
I understand it's probably because the GPS functionality is integrated into the same RF chipset that's handling wifi/bluetooth, but it would be possible to make a "no transmit capability" camera that still has GPS metadata functionality, with GPS receiver chip and an antenna tuned for 1400-1600 MHz, since ordinary consumer grade GPS is a receive-only technology.
But that would still possibly present a problem for serious government use where it can't have an antenna of any form in it.
The camera (even the regular model) does not have its own GPS receiver at all. It relies on a smartphone to transmit GPS coordinates over Bluetooth.
This is pretty common in modern cameras, presumably because most photographers expect to be able to turn their cameras on and off very rapidly, and it would be difficult to maintain a GPS fix with that usage pattern.
Well Nikon has a GPS module (Nikon GP-1, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_GP-1) for the hotshoe that does work, so I dont think that is the issue. Also at least on my D850, turning off the camera does not turn off the bluetooth automatically, and it can sync photos to the smartphone while the camera is off, so depending on how much power GPS would use, it could be possible to have it run in the background. And turning it off keeps some things running anyway, like showing the number of photos still available, so coordinates could be saved for a little while after turning off.
I had a GP-1 at one point. It would take several seconds to get a GPS lock, so about a third of the time my images had no GPS or I had to wait for the light to indicate it was working. Not very practical in my case. Also it connected via an awkward cable.
I don't think it's impossible. We aren't talking RTK here, you should be able to get a usable fix quickly. You also have some other advantages. For starters, the GPS coordinate doesn't need to be taken at the exact instant the photo is taken. If it takes a second to get the coordinate, that can be done in the background while the photographer continues to do their thing. Another advantage is that people never hold their cameras upside down, so the antenna can be pretty directional.
> people never hold their cameras upside down
I'm not to sure about that. I rarely keep my camera (close to) fully horizontal.
Also for macrophotography when you want to have the camera very close to the ground on a tripod, upside down is often used.
You don't have to. There are GPS satellites along the horizon too. As long as it isn't literally upside down.
Turning your camera upside down is an old trick to see over crowds, since the viewfinder is now at the bottom.
This trick is also used extensively in submarines.
Getting a GPS fix from the satellites alone with no internet connection or stored data takes a few hours, not seconds. First you have to listen to the very slow data channel that tells you where the satellites are that takes a few hours to transmit the complete set before repeating.
No it doesn't, the time to first fix from cold start of modern GNSS receivers is in seconds (24s on the NEO M9N). Assisted GNSS using data from the internet reduces that to under 2 seconds (see https://content.u-blox.com/sites/default/files/NEO-M9N-00B_D...). Of course this can change based on the GNSS environment.
Even in the worst case the almanac (the data that is streamed at 50 bits/second) repeats every 12.5 minutes not hours.
> Getting a GPS fix from the satellites alone with no internet connection or stored data takes a few hours, not seconds.
It takes less than 15 minutes (in the worst case):
> The receiver is missing or has inaccurate estimates of its position, velocity, the time, or the visibility of any of the GPS satellites. As such, the receiver must systematically search for all possible satellites. After acquiring a satellite signal, the receiver can begin to obtain approximate information on all the other satellites, called the almanac. This almanac is transmitted repeatedly over 12.5 minutes. Almanac data can be received from any of the GPS satellites and is considered valid for up to 180 days.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_first_fix
That's just false. I wrote firmware for cheapo GPS modules that got a DGPS fix in seconds. And there are other tricks you can play to bring the latency down, knowing the use case.
This does not jibe with my experience with my long-in-the-tooth Garmin when it cannot connect to my phone and has been recharged after a total power down. It can take minutes but not hours.
I'm no expert on GPS, but once you have the stored data it's good for several days isn't it? So after the first fix it shouldn't be too onerous.
That works for phones (and you can download it from the internet if out of date). It doesn't work for cameras which are usually turned off until you want to take pictures.
> It doesn't work for cameras which are usually turned off until you want to take pictures.
The GPS almanac is valid for 180 days, so if you can save it (it's 15000 bits, ~1.8 kB), and keep time within ±20s and assuming a position of ±100km of your last fix, you can do a "warm" start with-in a minute:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_to_first_fix
A completely cold start takes less than 15 minutes.
And yes, cameras are usually turned off, but they do still trickle some power to keep the on-board clock going: so as long as you use your camera once every six months, and in the same city, there's a good chance you'll get a quick fix.
All I know is I've never seen the GPS module for my 10+ year old Pentax k30 take more than a few minutes to get a fix after months of having the battery completely removed, and it has no network connection.
Even if it only had RX-only RF capabilities, that means that is a vector for an inbound wireless attack. At the very least, the kind of places that restrict wireless devices probably do not want any pictures or other artifacts to exist tagged with precise location metadata.
>Can't have an antenna of any form in it.
All wires are antennas...
But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. In fact, I doubt there's really anything one would consider a wire in a camera body. Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.
> But the short wires in a Nikon camera are not long enough to be a useful antenna. […] Everything is probably just traces on a PCB.
Anyone who's had to get newly developed hardware through EMI certification in recent times can tell you that it's quite easy to accidentally make PCB trace work as an antenna. Not necessarily a great antenna but enough to emit some random signal and fail certification. 3 GHz is 100mm in wavelength, and a quarter wavelength makes one of the simplest antennas… that's only 25mm. The whole story is much more complicated but the thing is that the scales are in range.
At >= 2.4ghz, you measure antenna length in mm.
Bluetooth antennas that are just traces on a PCB board are very common. Think about how small a bluetooth earbud can be and still get pretty incredible range.
Am I missing something? Most IoT devices use trace antennae
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microstrip_antenna
Trace antennas are very specifically designed shapes given the PCB material and other nearby components and structures. It’s never “just a trace”.
You’re right that traces can emit and receive RF, hence why things like FCC limits and testing exist even for unintentional emitters, but even failing devices which greatly exceed the limits have traces which are many orders of magnitude worse at being antennas than a typical trace antenna.
There's enough space for one.
Traces can be antennas
I think you wrote this comment with the compiler’s pedantic warnings turned on.
If we're being pedantic, all conductors are antennas.
What is the point? As long as your camera has a decent clock, you just need to record a gpx during your shooting session with an external device and you can add geolocation after you download your pictures. IIRC Darktable can do that.
Seven years ago, I landed a fairly trivial job with a temp agency, and we were tasked with plowing through document archives and collating them all for the scanning team. Our client was a huge company, and though none of us were sworn to secrecy or anything formal, I figured I would do them a solid, and refrain from bringing in any device with a camera, microphone, or transmitter. At the time, this was possible because I didn't rely 100% on my smartphone for transportation and everything else...
So I delved into the fascinating and still-extant world of standalone MP3 players. I selected a SanDisk Clip Jam, and it had like 8GiB onboard, an sdcard slot of course, an FM radio receiver, and really cool firmware. It was very simple, robust, extremely light, compact and portable. It was the size of a matchbox and it could clip onto your sleeve or belt, or whatever.
And it met all the requirements. It had no BT, no WiFi, no sensors of any kind, and it did that job very well of music playback, however I found it. And it could indeed store arbitrary files, so being the kind of hacker I am, I stashed a copy of my password manager encrypted database, plus a full install MSI of the application. And I included some README.txt that would indicate who owned this thing and how to return it, if lost.
I really miss that thing for its elegant simplicity. With the Swiss Army Knife nature of smartphones, I still long for the specialization and compartmented functionality of separate devices.
There are some fantastic hi-fidelity audio players coming out of China the last few years that are basically modern homages to the SanDisk Clip concept
https://hiendportable.com/xduoo-x2s-english-review/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalAudioPlayer/comments/1rm7fj8...
The original iPod shuffle was essentially a USB stick with an audio port and some buttons, and I used it in just the same way as this. I think it was only £20 or £30 in price, a great product.
The original Shuffle really was excellent. Amazing audio quality for the time, about as much UI as you needed for a day or two's music, good battery life, and a configurable amount of file storage space if you needed it. And it even managed to look a sort of abstract cool.
Really pure product design.
Shuffle and iPods undoubtedly primed consumers and the market for the iPhones to come!
> no Nikon SnapBridge
Unless they significantly improved that app, in the last eight years or so, it may not be a great loss.
The Snapbridge app is still not great, but in 2019 Nikon released a firmware update for older cameras, so you can use other apps, such as cascable: https://lrtimelapse.com/news/free-wifi-nikon-firmware-update...
The newer Nikon cameras dont require snapbridge for using wifi.
WHAT? This is news to me. Does this apply to newer cameras as well? I have a CoolPix P950, and I'd love to ditch the Snapbridge app
I somehow assumed Nikon did it to all their cameras, but it as far as I can tell it only to holds true for DSLRs and mirrorless.
Sorry to disappoint :(
No worries - the crappiness of snapbridge has certainly made me think twice about buying a Nikon in the future. I typically pull directly off of the SD card instead anyways.
same with canon, the app requires full access to your photos to run (not just add permission)
people should know that a USB-C to USB-C cable can easily import to the photos app on an iphone with a decent UI
> people should know that a USB-C to USB-C cable can easily import to the photos app on an iphone with a decent UI
This is amazing intel. Thank you.
Huh. When I rented a Z7 ii about 5 years ago, I found their Android app to be pretty great. (My next big camera is likely to be a Nikon, in part due to the nice app)
I don't use it for my primary workflow, but I use the Android app all the time for "grab a couple of interesting shots to send to friends, from the parking lot right after a hike/nature shoot", and it's fine for that (and for firmware updates.)
Like I said, it's been a while, but the iOS app enjoyed a 1-star rating on the App Store, for quite some time.
I assume the average person buying the standard model could then just disable WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS if they so chose? So this really is for high security situations?
You can turn off those features in software on any of their cameras, but for secure facilities it needs to not exist.
This is for high security, or high RF sensitive environments. Governments and institutions are the target market.
Disabling the hardware without bricking the whole thing rather than trusting the software makes all the difference.
Why not switches like the pine phone?
Because the customers don’t trust that you won’t just flip those switches whenever you’re planning something nefarious.
It's a shame it costs more. I'm sure there are people who would like the non-wireless option, but would rather "save" $400.
Economies of (lack of) scale.
Unless you need it for a high security environment that's limited to civilian procurement, why? I'm struggling to see a use case beyond that
Less cognitive and screen clutter for one. Less things to break and cause unintended consequences.
In other products: less weight, smaller size.
Unitl 2016 cameras with GPS could not be sold in mainland China (old secrecy regulations), so this is not anything new.
I guess modern integration has put Bluetooth and other devices together with GPS in one module.
No, most cameras, including a regular version of this model, don’t have a gps module. See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48770393
"For the first time"?
All of my Nikons are wireless-free. Some of them are even battery-free.
“special version for the first time”. Your nikons that are wireless free don’t have a version you can buy with builtin wireless.
"Wireless-free" is such a ridiculous designation; you have a double negation and it still doesn't mean what you might expect (that it's wired).
I correctly expected "wireless-free" to mean no support for wireless connections, which to me seems the simple and obvious interpretation. It doesn't necessarily mean it's wired (data transfer could be limited to removable memory cards), but B&H says:
"The camera does still have a series of ports for physical, wired connections for data transfer and power supply"
It means exactly what I expected. The wireless connectivity has been removed (for regulatory compliance in situations where wireless isn't allowed), but wired connectivity is still there.
It's a Nikon Z6 III with WiFi and Bluetooth removed.
Somehow the article manages to repeat this obvious stuff about 7 or 8 times...
I wonder if that hardware on the normal Z6 III is on a daughterboard, and if removing it makes the OS complain (like having no color ink mean some printer-scanner-combos won't scan).
>Nikon tells PetaPixel that this is to evaluate potential market demand for similar products moving forward.
Yes, evaluate market demand by making it more expensive and doing 0 marketing. /s
Am I crazy in thinking that doing it this way is close to meaningless?
The article also explains that retailers have had customers ask for this, which is why Nikon is trialing selling this through those channels instead of direct, as usual.
You don't really have to market something like this. There is a VERY small subset of users that NEED this feature, and they will seek it out. The kind of user that wants this is not as price sensitive as a consumer. A few hundred extra dollars doesn't matter to an organization that needs this for an RF sensitive scientific environment, or a secure facility.
See also: iPhones with cameras removed. You've likely never heard of them and they are not marketed at all, but if you are one of the few that need one, you know they exist, and the price premium doesn't matter. $1400 for a used 2020 iPhone SE, if you're curious. That's a 10x premium on what you would pay for that phone anywhere else.
What I took away from their explanation was that they built this for those contract customers (the kind you are talking about) and have had regular consumers asking for this (who want this for other reasons) - why else would they put it on B&H and not just a contact us page on the company website?
I don't know how you can say with confidence that a few hundred dollars and not marketing this wouldn't have an effect on sales.
At least the earlier Fairphones continued to work even if you removed some modules (like the camera & microphone), and all you needed for that was a regular-priced Fairphone, a screwdriver and a few minutes of time. I not sure if it's still the case for the current Fairphone, but I don't see why it should've changed either.
I won't claim to NEED the feature (I'm not a 3 letter agency or anything) but I'd like to have it on general principle, and I'd pay extra for it, though probably not $400 extra.
This never gets old: https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthus...
Will someone really pay me $1000 to remove the camera module from an 2020 iPhone SE? Are there some huge obstacles to that? I've disassembled the 2016 model (for battery replacement) and it was a pain, but not a $1000 pain.
For that matter, what about just attacking the camera from the front, with a drill?
Looking at pictures, it appears cameraless iPhones tend to have backs without camera holes / lumps, so some custom work is involved beyond just removing the module. Though there’s going to be a degree of “the government can afford it” in the pricing.
Drilling has some obvious issues, most notable if you go too deep you’re going to hit the screen.
And perhaps more importantly for the final price, if you’re paran^W concerned enough about security to the degree of commissioning custom iPhones without cameras, you’re also not going to let a random guy from the street drill into them.
(You also need to remove the front facing camera, which is also a more involved operation.)
You aren't the market. They don't really care to sell to you. Honestly, they probably actively don't want consumers to have these cameras for after sale support reasons. They would much rather sell you the standard camera and just tell you to turn off the radios if you don't want to use them.
These devices are sold to large institutions. If I need to give 30 employees at, say, a nuclear plant phones without cameras that they can take near classified/confidential equipment, I don't want a guy with a drill, I need a company that can provide 30 phones, a regular supply of replacements and a trustable piece of paper for the security auditors saying these devices are compliant. I need a phone that our security can glance at and know that it is ok. A phone with a drilled out camera is not the same as a phone with no camera for these purposes.
If I need to take photos inside that plant, and make sure that the photos will not be exfiltrated without going through a security audit, I need that camera.
At the scale that these institutions operate paying an extra $1k for a phone or camera that has security compliance outsourced is a no-brainer. Your sourcing team will spend more money investigating if the DIY route is possible than they will just buying from a trustable vendor.