Still, co-founders Sergey Korzhenrvich and Yuriy Motin on Tuesday are opening an unusual camera shop on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto. With venture capitalists and entrepreneurs tripping over each other on its sidewalks, the city is as likely a market for their pricey subscriptions as any. Korzhenrvich and Motin are convinced the showroom can help sell customers on the dream of unleashing an artist trapped inside all of us. "If you own a regular camera, you get the hassles," Korzhenrvich said. "In our case, you unleash your talent from inside. You believe there is a great photographer inside you. And you will know that ordinary and mundane is photogenic."

Relonch wanted me all to fall in love with photography again this CES. But its camera is so radically different from everything I've used before, I struggled to put my faith in its promise. The company is based in Palo Alto, California, and its pitch is simple, if very Silicon Valley: A camera as a service. You hand in your old shooter (yes, really) and in return you get the 291, a unique leather-bound DLSR-shaped camera. It has an APS-C sensor, a fixed, 45mm-equivalent lens, an electronic viewfinder, a shutter key and, importantly, a 4G radio inside.

Relonch wanted me all to fall in love with photography again this CES. But its camera is so radically different from everything I've used before, I struggled to put my faith in its promise. The company is based in Palo Alto, California, and its pitch is simple, if very Silicon Valley: A camera as a service. You hand in your old shooter (yes, really) and in return you get the 291, a unique leather-bound DLSR-shaped camera. It has an APS-C sensor, a fixed, 45mm-equivalent lens, an electronic viewfinder, a shutter key and, importantly, a 4G radio inside.

You'd think the proliferation of smartphone photography would have sparked a revolution in digital cameras. Sure, cameras are more connected now than ever, and mirrorless technology has helped make them smaller and lighter. But the basics -- shoot as much as you want to a memory card and access the photos when and wherever -- have remained. So new ideas are welcome, however bizarre they might be. Enter Relonch, a startup that wants to upend the way we use digital cameras.