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Would it kill the camera companies to come out with a DSLR that didn't require a couple of hours to learn the controls?
Basically, a digital version of the Pentax K1000. With that many controls.
Because you know, that? I'd buy that. The overcomplicated shit they sell now? No fucking way. Just gimme something that I can set shutter speed, "film" speed, f-stop, focus, and optionally zoom, then push the button and take the goddamned picture. No "modes", no craptacular UI on a wee tiny LCD screen.
For what they're charging for DSLRs, and as over-complicated as they are, the damned things should take the picture for me, without me even knowing there was a picture to be taken.
Posted by John C. Welch at 07:04 | Permalink
Comments
I think my K100D (also a Pentax, unsurprisingly) has simpler controls than a Nikon. (And I've never used a Canon or Olympus DSLR, so I can't speak to them.)
Setting shutter, ISO, aperture, and focus are easy (not quite as easy as a K1000 or my MX, because there aren't separate shutter and aperture controls for lenses that have no aperture ring, like the kit lens, but that's minor), and the sensor-based anti-vibration system makes every lens act like a VR lens.
The menus on the LCD are not needed for any of the tasks you mention - there's a short, simple interface to ISO setting via the 4-way control, but it's not buried in a menu - and you can tell it what range of ISO values to auto-select from, and I find that's more than enough control for my needs (which is typically wide-open available-light).
It has "modes", if you want them, but also does full-manual, even down to stop-down metering with M42 lenses on a K-mount adapter.
Posted by:
Sigivald 
|
February 28, 2008 12:46 PM
Buy a Nikon D40 or D60, put it on Auto or Manual and ignore the controls you don't understand. Better yet: learn them as you need them (you *will* if you're serious enough about photography to justify the need for a DSLR): aperture priority for macro, exposure compensation for sunsets, etc.
Posted by:
Ölbaum |
February 29, 2008 3:54 AM
Olbaum: No, actually, I won't need them. The guy who taught me photography, (my dad) took pictures at Indy and Elkhart Lake. Racing pics, crystal clear, with a SpeedGraphic.
In the 1960s, there was none of the stuff you insist is necessary. Does it make it easier to take better pics with less skill? Maybe. But none of those substitutes for knowing what you're doing.
Get a D40/D60? Why would I pay almost a grand, (and by the time you get done getting a decent lens or two, flash, etc, it's a grand for either), and then not using any of the features that Nikon made me pay for? Um...no.
In any event, that ignores the fact that it's not that I'm incapable of figuring out how to use the additional crap. It's that it's crap I don't want, either on the camera, or to pay for.
I don't need, nor want to deal with file formats and resolutions. The best of the former and biggest of the latter is fine. I can always get more memory cards. I don't want to deal with white balance and shit on the camera. That's what post-processing is for. The only features I'd want that weren't on the K 1000 are auto-advance, and autofocus.
That's it. Really. I've a little Canon G5. I use fuck all of the features on that.
Simplicity is what I want. Ignoring 23452345234 features is not simplicity
Posted by:
John C. Welch 
|
February 29, 2008 3:15 PM
Probably Leica has what you're looking for, but don't check the prices, they'll burn your eyes.
Speaking of which, how do you expect a camera manufacturer to remove features that cost virtually nothing to have (exposure modes, UI menus) from a camera, lose 80% of potential buyers in the process and be able to cut the price significantly?
Oh no, I forgot. They can probably reduce the cost by removing the LCD.
Posted by:
Ölbaum |
March 1, 2008 3:58 AM
It goes back to before the digital era (you know, when dinosaurs roamed the earth....) The manufacturers think only professionals or photo "fanatics" who'll pay any price without blinking, would even want an SLR. Aunt Edna is perfectly OK with a viewfinder. My one and only requirement for any camera more expensive than a disposable is to look THROUGH THE LENS! Not complicated, really. And oh, yeah, like you said, when I push the button, take the freaking picture already!
Posted by:
Gatesbasher |
March 1, 2008 5:04 AM
Olbaum, if it costs virtually nothing to put them in, then it would cost virtually nothing to take them out. Which means that there's not a lot of justification for there being essentially no DSLR below $500, and at least from B&H, nothing below $300.
Something's costing a lot of money, and I doubt it's the CCDs.
So perhaps, all those features don't "cost nothing"?
As well, one of the biggest uses of the K-1000 was in photography courses, because it forced the students to concentrate on the basic principles, and learn them, rather than spending a semester learning how to pick what mode to use in what situation.
That's not photography, that's using a matrix.
As well, it's not like there's a camera out there with a decent physical or on -screen UI. They're all overly complicated bloated pieces of shit designed for geeks who want to take pictures.
Why do you so virulently oppose the idea? You make camera software? Or are you that stockholmed into thinking the only way to take a good picture is with 2343452345 options and a shitty UI?
Posted by:
John C. Welch |
March 1, 2008 1:09 PM
I'm with John. I've had a Nikon FM since they first came out, and would love an affordable manual DSLR with good optics.
Posted by:
ElGordo |
March 6, 2008 3:01 PM
Never got around to answering this one. I'm not against the idea, I just believe it's unlikely to happen. In order to sell cheaply, it would need to be cheap to build and sell at a high enough volume for it to be worth it. But average Joe consumers want feature bloat (when was the last time you read it's awful the iPhone doesn't have an FM radio? Not long ago.), so the the camera you describe would probably not sell very well outside the kind of market you mention (people like you who know what they're doing, photography classes), which is not a very big incentive to develop it.
Posted by:
Ölbaum |
September 5, 2008 7:27 AM
The Pentax K1000 sold VERY well, almost unchanged for twenty years. So I actually do think it would have a healthy sales rate.
Posted by:
John Welch |
September 5, 2008 7:46 AM
