New cameras, kind of spooky

I must be real basic (yeah I know). Looking at the dials, looking at the menus on the back of not only my small camera, but DSLR's and you know what, it gives me the creeps. It really does.

What half of those functions and menus do, I will never know and I don't really want to. A bit of a hypocrite I guess in that, I love progress, I love digital and yet, I think its all gotten too complicated in a way.

Someone mentioned the other day about a Nikon FM2. I would go one further and mention just the "FM".

What ever happened to KISS, just keeping it all so simple and easy.

Heck I must be getting old Anyone feel the same, or is it just me (more than likely )

Danny.

I am getting old, Danny. CRS syndrome hits with alarming regularity, so that's why I use a view camera: It is easy and slow.

-PB

Ah, the dreaded CRS. Along with that, I also suffer from CSS (seeing) and CHS (hearing). It's no fun growing old...

Old cameras - do they still make 35mm film?

I still prefer my EOS 1V. Its fast , accurate, and I can blow up any size I desire off a slide.
The processing is great. I take it into a local lab and have my feedback in two hours. Over the years I've learned to shoot right on a great percentage of the time. Editing is great over my light table. I don't worry about correcting WB etc. If needed I can scan the slide and make adjustments if necessary.

However I also have (2) digital bodies that I use mainly for wildlife. I love the 1.6 factor and when traveling I don't worry about keeping my film cold etc. I am a rookie shooting digital and I try to shoot right on but have trouble at times with WB etc. I also dislike the dust factor
cleaning my 1V was not a problem. However from a cost standpoint (film&processing) you can't beat digital.
I believe I have the best of both worlds shooting both formats. It adds some variety to my life.
Of course you have to understand that variety at my age can be dangerous. I'm thrilled when my feet hit the floor each morning

Oh I agree Don, digital is just fantastic to work with.

Heres my point. If I take my old Canon A1's or T90's, there a couple of dials and a few metering things to set up, but thats about it. Probably more complicated than other 35mm Slr's. But so darn easy with no menus. Ok, we now have white balance which is great to have. Just that I switch on my daughters small Fuji or Canon camera and what comes up all these darn menus to set, and I ask myself, why, what for.

All I want to do is take a photo. Not take a course in push button engineering on a small LCD screen. It drives me nuts. Even my Panasonic and Sony is push button and menu mad.

So if someone can make a manual digital camera only, let me know. Ha, contradiction in terms I guess.

What brought this on is that I was just looking at Dpreview at this camera, very nice

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0803/08030501olympuse420.asp

Then I come down to the "Exposure Modes" and this happens............

" Programmed auto (P) with flexible program
• Shutter-priority auto (S)
• Aperture priority auto (A)
• Manual (M)
• Scene program AE
- Portrait
- Landscape
- Macro
- Sport
- Night + portrait
• Scene select AE
- Portrait
- Landscape
- Landscape + portrait
- Night Scene
- Night + portrait
- Children
- Sport
- High-key
- Low-key
- Digital image stabilization
- Macro
- Nature Macro
- Candle
- Sunset
- Fireworks
- Documents
- Beach/snow
- Panorama (when using Olympus xD-Picture Card"

Wheres the menu or button that just says, "I just want to take a photo". Thats the button I'm looking for

Danny.

All I can say is, I'm lucky if I remember to change the iso setting on my camera, and to either turn the in-camera stabilization off or on...after taking a number of shots and realizing I forgot yet again.

CRS, CSS (and CHS!) are excuses we are allowed to use as we get older.

Wow, Danny! It's a Little Wonder alright..makes you wonder who's the idiot who came up with all those settings! Not only that...what's the difference between "macro", "macro", and "nature macro"?

Danny,,,,,,,One of the greatest thing about Digital is that it brought down the price of Film Camera's .I purchased a great backup Canon EOS 1V for $600. When I started with my digital camera I had a check list to make sure my starting menus were in tact. I must say though its great to be able to change film speed at anytime. I understand the frustration but once you get onto it there are a lot of advantages.

Good Luck

Perspective on sticking with film: You're at a place where your wife wants a photo of herself in front of something she'll only see once, Grand Canyon, etc. The instant feedback of digital to make sure she didn't blink or make a weird face: priceless.

Donald Norman, design philosopher extraordinaire, calls it "creeping featurism." And rails against it. Read any of Norman's design books, especially The Design of Everyday Things. Brilliant.

Well I remember.....Underwater....with my Nikonos I, III, IV, and V.... the most I could get were 36 photos in a dive. Then try changing film on a boat wearing your dive gear..... don't get any sand or salt water in there either! Now I can fit around 650 RAW 15 MB photos on one 16 GB CF card. My record so far is 170 photos in a 96 minute dive on one tank. Do a day's worth of diving ( 3 or 4 dives) and never have to even open the camera housing until you get home. Cool stuff !

Oh dear. To the scanners of the speed reading technique Read S L O W L Y

No one is knocking digital photography, I could not live with out it. Its those features and how they grow, almost useless features just to sell a camera. Its a bit like having a 30 megapixel CCD / CMOS and yet, using a $10.00 lens, there is no point

Digital rocks, but come on, those features are not really features at all.

Danny.

Yeah....I guess the topic was drifting a bit... I agree with your original premise. It's like putting mud flaps on your Porsche...

Digital = electronic = complex. we accept that. But why should we? The problem is digital = not a camera but a computer. With computers you get programmers who love to program; more features = more programming (I know i once was a programmer).

I miss my Leica M3. Nothing extra, nothing complex -- just what was needed.

Here's an idea -- custom made cameras -- the buyer picks from a menu of the features she will actually use and the camera as delivered has only those.

What do you think?

Frank

P.S. Cut the getting old crap. If you think like that you might as well check into the local funeral home! Sure some of us need to adjust to our new set of capabilities (more limited in some ways but we do have more 'wisdom', don't we?) but life is a never ending journey (until it ends) Enjoy!!

I am enjoying this discussion on "progress", I'm heading off to Moab, Utah in 3 weeks and as I list my choice of lenses to take, I realise how much I will enjoy shooting film in my Hasselblad and Eos 1V bodies. I'm only taking the digital for the poloroid effect. (i.e.) instant feedback on comp and lighting, but capturing the image on good ol' film. I only shoot manual and can't understand how a camera can decide for me what my eye's should be seeing. And yes, Charlie, I do use my digital underwater too, but can you imagine my taking 220 film backs on dive trips? I still remember those days.

The intersection of elegance and electronics is almost the null set.

Pete D.

Wow, It really suprises me that so many people seem intimadated by new technologies. I believe we must remember that technology is only a benefit if the user chooses to use it.
True there are many options on devices such as digital cameras. That by no means forces anyone to use them. If a person likes to shoot in say AV mode, manual focus, ISO 200, Daylight for a WB, then set the camera there and forget it. That's KISS (keep it simple stupid). There is not a thing wrong with that. But remember your not the only one using that brand/model of camera. Maybe Joe Blow would like to learn how to take advantadge of some other set up that can be offered, and with a push of a button and turn of a dial they can be at Shutter priority, auto focus, servo mode focus, ISO 1600 and capture a Great Horned Owl in flight 45 minutes after the sun has set!
I think it is important in our life to find a comfort zone and try to stay within that when possible. If yours is to not play with new high tech gadgets, that doesn't prevent you from using them, just find your spot and in the words of good ol' Ron Popel, Set it and Forget it!
But Always, Always have fun.

Brad

I don't even understand how to use all the functions on my digital watch yet. Let's see, it's an altimeter, barometer, compass, thermo.....

Charlie,,,Is it ok to have mud flaps on a GMC Safari?

I have mud flaps on my G9...can't get them to work right tho....

I do miss the ol film days and at one time had a few old folders that were really simple. I have to say that I've hosed up more things with film than I have with digital. Forgetting to load film and then taking 36 photos was my worst. One I set up my digital, I've not played much with the many menu features. Other than switching ISO.

When my aging parents got their first VCR player they had so many problems with it that I suggested they keep it in the bathroom for a nightlight. The over complication in the age of electronics has baffled me.

Frank said, "P.S. Cut the getting old crap. If you think like that you might as well check into the local funeral home! Sure some of us need to adjust to our new set of capabilities (more limited in some ways but we do have more 'wisdom', don't we?) but life is a never ending journey (until it ends) Enjoy!! "

I am enjoying life more now than I have ever done. Sure, there are ups and downs, and I recognize that my body is aging, but I am still a goofball at heart and always will be.

I agree regarding 'Creeping Featurism': It true for everything--even my coffee maker! I will draw the line when I have to make menu choices on a toilet paper holder! To wit...Hmmm? Let's see...single or multi sheets; flower print or plain; one-ply/two-ply; quilted/non-quilted; scented/unscented? Oops, too late! Darn!

-PB

Hi Preston,

I agree -- I too have never been happier than I am at 64. Of course retirement has something to do with it.

Re the thread here -- I am reminded of my most favorite photographer -- Henri Cartier-Bresson. He had a simple 35mm camera and I believe used 35 & 50mm lenses almost exclusively. His famous book is called "The Decisive Moment" in its English version but the original French edition was called "Photographs Taken on the Run!" He believed he was taking 'snap shots.' His camera technique was reportedly like ballet and his eye might have been the best in the history of photography: question what would he be using is he were 35 today? My guess is a pencil and paint brush. He was an artist at the start and artist the end. If taking a good image was as difficult as it is now in his day we might not have had a HCB photographer.

Of course there is also the possibility that he would use a good P&S, ignore most of the features and publish a modern "Photographs Taken on the Run."

Cheers,
Frank

Great forum. At 66, I too am glad just to be able to lift a camera. Being "on top of the grass" each day makes it a GREAT day!. I'm still able to work almost every day as a photographer for a yearbook company. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Digital world, but now that I'm there, its not so bad. I still like to go out and use my "old" Nikon F5, set on manual, and "make" photos the old fashioned way! But digital has given me the opportunity to get shots that heretofore would have been impossible. I just hope, film never goes the way of the old "wet plates."

Very interesting views now we realise that we don't dislike digital, just the so many features of it. Scared of it we are not obviously, we are all here talking to each other on the net for a start .

Brad, certainly not intimidated by technology at all. I program and run CNC routers and lasers for the woodworking industry, CNC Plasma cutters for the engineering industry. A lot of us do our own web sites, we use graphic software in the blink of an eye, so its not being worried about technology at all. In fact, we embrace it M8t. Love it. We love digital photography with a passion, just some of those features are going overboard IMO anyway.

Look at those exposure modes I posted up there and try and work out what algorithm the "Lightning" exposure mode will do. Does it sense when a strike is coming and open the shutter and then close it, nope, surely not.

So mister Joe Blogs wants to take a shot of lightning. He sets up the "Lighting"mode and then what, says a prayer. He should be learning to set the shutter to either a long exposure or to the "B" setting and open the aperture to suit and use the lens cap technique when the lightning appears, then close it again.

So exactly how useful is an exposure setting like "Lightning", "Candle", etc and as Toni pointed out, what the heck is "Macro" and "Macro Nature" ???. Thats an exposure setting now ??. I must be missing something

Frank, I'm with Preston M8t, the mind says I'm 25, the body says "who the heck are you kidding mate"

All the best folks and very interesting points here. Thanks

Danny.

I don't want anyone to think I'm against digital. I love digital; it changed photography for me. Part of my regular job involves programming. But I agree with Donald Norman and others who criticize the design of digital products as unnecessarily, needlessly complex. The remote for my DVD player has 112 buttons; the remote for my digital television has 84 buttons. Come on!

Microsoft Word is a software example of the problem. Version 5.1 was a rock-solid, no-nonsense tool that did absolutely everything I needed as a guy who writes for a living. The current version 12.0 has an immovable tool bar across the top so I can insert graphic images at any time, tries to complete my sentences for me and has the gall to try and correct my grammar. Heh. Oh, and these "features" are hard to turn off. It's the user interface equivalent of 112 buttons.

My mother-in-law's gas range has more than 50 buttons and controls. My telephone has 47 buttons, several with completely incomprehensible icons. To enter a billing code on the office photocopier requires you to press more than 30 buttons, all in exactly the right order.

My Olympus E-500 has something like 25 "modes" (none of which I used). As a couple of folks have noted, does someone actually think a novice can figure out how to use the "modes"? Or that even an intermediate level photographer won't use his/her own settings instead?

Digital is good. Digital is great. But the human interface to digital is pretty dreadful, whether it's appliances, televisions, computers or cameras.

Thanks, I feel better now.

By the way I was just informed that there are 3-4 more picture style modes I can download from Canon. Nostalgia, Clear, Emerald, and Studio Portrait.

P.S I forgot Autumn Hues.

Don wrote:

By the way I was just informed that there are 3-4 more picture style modes I can download from Canon. Nostalgia, Clear, Emerald, and Studio Portrait.

P.S I forgot Autumn Hues.

Classic Don.

Now if you could just download a pair of legs for the camera, you could let it go out on its own M8t or better still, download the coffee maker will ya

Jim : Exactly it.

Danny.

Jim,

"Feature" bloat in 'productivity' software is a pain, and I agree regarding MS Word! I am of the belief that the only way to make the human-digital interface truly user friendly is for all these gadgets and software to capabale of responding to voice commands.

"I want to take photo of a sunset with a candle illuminating the couple in the foreground. Set up the proper exposure for me."

Eeeek! Now we have a camera that does our thinking for us! Sort of like Danny's walking camera. I think this is something that we should all avoid, because the creative process is virtually eliminated for the sake of expediency.

Automation certainly has its place. I won't deny that; but care is called for.

-PB

-PB

Danny, you've bought up a good subject that reflects my unhappiness with the way many consumer products have been engineered including our new digital cameras. As someone involving in test in electronic engineering groups for three decades, I learned how to set up and use all kinds of complex instruments, machines, computers, and software long before it all dribbled down to the general public. Even our old 35mm cameras had lots of buttons and switches that we needed to check each time before use. Nothing so horrible as having the ASA dial being on one setting then on a following trip loading a different speed film and not bothering to check that. However with miniaturized electronic devices the complication becomes greater mainly because one needs to poke about menus sometimes just to find out what settings are active. Some devices have special icons that attempt to communicate each setting on a status display, however when looking at the often tiny lcd screens the difference in tiny pixel shapes is often rather obscure and vague itself. Like one almost needs to have the user guidebook open at the same time to make sense of it all. Yeah the User guide you left at home.

Setting up small miniaturized equipment is different than large equipment that has all the space for lots of buttonsor large viewing screens because real estate is limited. It is easy to lay out controls for a larger product in an organized logical manner but as an interface gets smaller, tradeoffs are the only choice. Once controls as buttons become too small for our fingers, issues of difficult physical finger manipulation or accidental bumping arise. Thus there are engineering tradeoffs between buttons that are used most frequently and functions that can only be accessed by some sequence of programming. Complicating that are issues of having too many things about our lives that are all these miniaturized products with such controls, all layed out uniquely. Thus at times one can be mentally confused about which one they are actually controlling.

One difficult issue is knowing from day to day how a particular product is set up. If one regularly needs to change some settings, it is likely one may not always recall how they had set something up during their previous session if such settings don't return to defaults. Thus on my Coolpix, I often have to poke about some menus to see where a few key settings set before proceeding. It would be useful if some products like cameras included a few overall user setup functions on some kind of hidden multiswitch they could quickly load on use without having to poke about all over. Actually many products simply return to defaults once a device is powered off so that a user is less likely to get into such problem situations. Likewise there are always some functions that are saved in memory from session to session. However I'd like to see more user control in those areas.

Another issue is due to marketing concerns for products that will appeal across a broad spectrum of consumers, products have many more functions than most individuals have any interest with. Thus our digital cameras have all these special preset modes for the many scene situations, though some of us often have interest in using 20% of the modes. Wouldn't it be nice if we could remove all those other modes or control settings from usual menu visibility into a hidden area? Thus one would not have a mode dial with 10 modes where one never uses 6 of the modes but rather just 4 with the others only active if one removed the hidden visibility options. And when going into menus, items one only needed to set up when brand new would not be visible. One of the worst issues on my Coolpix is how the mode dial is often in the wrong position. It is so small that in dim or bright sunlight situations I can hardly read the dials or LCD which is a considerable nuisance.

Of course all this complexity can get in the way of our need for simplicity when approaching creative photographic challenges. That is one reason I like using my view camera. Although it has a certain level of mechanical complexity, I have long since learned to work within that complexity so can put my full awareness on the creative process instead of distractions on the camera. ...David

Fascinating David, thanks for that and well stated.

So could this be a sign of the different ages we face. For example, at 25 for me personally, the more buttons and features the better. Now I find that 90% of those are just a complete waste and maybe at my age now, I know there is no point to those features and extra buttons. At 25, I couldn't see those points and always just wanted more. So could it be age or just experience through time that changes it. Hmm, interesting.

Flash, theres one for ya. I switch on the camera now and even the small built in flash has its own menu, with far too many features. So what do I do, whack on the 522 and it never gets to auto.

Fascinating. Don't start me on mobile phones either . The best part of a mobile phone, is that the battery can come out ...........because I can't figure out how to turn it off

Danny.

Like Preston, I have only one thing to say about that. I've really been enjoying 4X5. No menus. No buttons. Just mechanical bits.

http://www.ladewigs.com/Gallery/v/Mel_family/etc/Tachihara_01.jpg.html

http://www.ladewigs.com/Gallery/v/Mel_family/etc/lensboard_03.jpg.html

All great comments in this post. I have always wondered how much cheaper the new DSLRs would be if we had just the Tv Av and Manual modes. All the stuff with picture styles etc seem like a waste of engineering and $$. Of course the WB must be part of the digital world and the various exposure compensation modes and metering choices are necessary.

Now with all this stuff Canon can still not provide us with a simple approach to mirror lock up!

Great post and thread and have enjoyed reading all the comments.

Jim DeWitt said it all for me! I couldn't agree more.

Cheers to all.

Danny, I fully know the "feature shock". I went straight from a Nikon FM2 to a Canon 10D then the 30D. No AF film body in between. Man! All the knobs, buttons, bells, whistles. I still don't know what the knobs and buttons do, but the bells and whistles sure are purdy.


Bruce