is the complexity of newer digital cameras of value?

Hardware
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Yeah, I know the title is steeped in value judgement and personal opinions, but this is a topic which both intrigues and irritates me: intrigues because, like many people, I take pleasure in owning the latest ‘shiny shiny thing’, and irritates because, being a very slow learner, I can’t understand why certain of my cameras behave the way they do.

This has all been brought to a focus by my recent acquisition of a 15 year old Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1K with a total usage (based on solid evidence) of 5 exposures. After a few hours of delay, while the battery charged (much to my surprise), the camera worked as I expected. That is, I was able to use it without any problems even though I have never used, or even seen, a Panasonic Lumix G series camera before. Not only that but I was able to explore every control and setting that I need in my normal approach to taking pictures (as distinct to practicing the art of photography) without reference to the manual.

There is absolutely no way I could do that with my Fuji X-T30, even though I have had generations of their X series cameras. Even today I can make some, often unintended, change to a setting in the camera only to find that the camera now behaves in a way which completely confuses me and which can takes hours of studying the (woefully) complicated manual, or use of Google, to reset. Further more I often encounter situations where the camera explicitly does NOT behave as the manual says it should in response to certain settings.

Invariably I find that this is because there is some other setting, which the manual has not discussed in this context and which seems, to me, to have absolutely no connection with the setting I am having trouble with, which has not been set appropriately. ‘appropriately’ often means in conjunction with some third, or more, obscure setting which apply only when trying to photograph a white dog against a snowy background in Alice Springs in December - as long as it is not a leap year,the camera has not been rotated to portrait mode, the camera body firmware is at version 1.y or greater, as long as the lens is at firmware 1.z or less, while the flash has been used, but not in TTL mode, unless manual focus is in use, provided that a wide focus area has been set and if the AEL button is being held down while the AFL button has only been pressed - and so on and on …

The Fuji is altogether much too complicated for my ‘normal’ amateur use.

To a much lesser extent that applies to my Canon G7X II also, but only because I had a Canon Powershot S95 for years previously and had studied its manual to degree level… But I find that I still sometimes have to dive deeply into the manual to discover why the camera does what it does, or doesn’t do what I expect it to do.

This might explain why 80% of my images are of .CR2 file type and why I make little use of Capture 1, Fuji Version.

In contrast, I find that the Lumix G1 - a 15 year old camera, with a slow, small sensor, even slower processor and a plastic 14-45 four thirds lens - is not only easy to use but the results, both Raw and jpeg, are quite satisfactory to me, comparable to my much more modern Fuji X-T30 and my Canon G7X II. The support in darktable allows me to modify the G1 images to meet more specific requirements.

I have to ask myself what the expenditure of 1500 to 2000 (dollars or pounds) today, on a new camera and kit lens, would give me over and above what I find and can use on this Lumix G1 (current market value about 25 pounds) - and would it be worth that investment?

Comments?

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It’s hard to know what you mean, or discuss in detail, since you’ve mostly just given exaggerated unrealistic examples of the complexity you speak of. Could you give some concrete real-world examples of the sort of issues you face?

I find that 95% of the features of all digital cameras go unused for me, since I mostly shoot in manual.

Some of the things you pay for in the more expensive cameras…

  • more, and customisable, buttons (means immediate access to camera controls without navigating through menus)
  • better (and/or bigger) sensor
  • better (and/or bigger) viewfinder
  • better battery life
  • weather sealing
  • more robust (longer lasting) construction - metal rather than plastic, for example
  • higher burst rate

Some manufacturers do also hobble their firmware so that more advanced features (multi exposure, for example) are only available for the more expensive cameras but I haven’t seen this so much with FujiFilm (one of the examples you mention).

I do agree the FujiFilm menu system is unnecessarily complicated and it’s really hard to find what you need. Sony is pretty bad for that as well.

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Guilty as charged - but in order to provoke some response as well as a feeble attempt at humour (even spelled the correct way).

Without getting into too much detail - because that would encourage people to psend their valuable time ‘solving’ my problems, (which I don’t have, as I write), here are just afew things that have been hard work with the Fuji and, so a lesser extent, with the Canon:

  • Using flash in both TTL and non-TTL modes

  • Focusing on a subject seen through, for example, trees, in anything other than Manual focus
    mode

  • Using manual focus, especially on the Canon (compare to the split image effect on my Pentax Spotmatic from 1966 - simplicity and a delight)

  • Understanding which functions are assigned to the front versus rear dials on the Fuji, and why they work only some of the time.

  • Getting the swipe features on the touch sensitive screen to work - and how to switch the touch on and off

  • How AEF and AEL work and when does ‘press’ mean ‘press and release’ versus ‘press and hold’

Most of the properties you list as being attainable in the more expensive camera don’t have value to me as an amateur picture taker using the camera for about an average of 25 ‘shots’ per week: customisable buttons are just a cause of more things for me to learn and remember; a 10 to 15 megapixel sensor was big enough for me - I have never printed anything greater than A4 and usually much less; battery life is a nuisance: I have multiple batteries as a solution - I always losing them; weather sealing is not an issue to me - if the weather is that bad I don’t want to be outside with a camera; burst rate is not of importance for my main use-case: architecture and scenery.

Looking at the Fuji camera as I write, I remember now why I bought it: it reminds me so much of my Pentax from the early 1960s: so simple to use and get results from, which I still find so satisfying 60 years later. The Fuji looks ‘analog simple’ on the outside. On the inside it is a digital nightmare.

(Hah, just like my VWs of the same period: 1960s and 2020s - same cause I suspect: failure by overly energetic digital script kiddies, who fail to understand human-machine interface design.)

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Jumping straight to the end, the value for me of a new(er - still a few years old in my case) and bigger (full frame) over an older, smaller camera (I actually have an Oly EP-1 - the competition for the GX1 - and a Pentax K10D) is image quality…
Or to be more exact the flexibility it gives in terms of high ISO (so actually shutter speed/aperture flexibility in many of my use cases) resolution (so I can crop more) and dynamic range (mostly for exposure latitude as well as actual range).

My main cam now is a Nikon DSLR, but I do own multiple (!) older mirrorlesses as well. I do sometimes have minor issues with forgetting something, but as I shoot raw, once set up I don’t need to adjust much when shooting.

Sorry, not sure if this is quite on topic but seems the closest I could get!

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Interesting question. You got me to thinking about how I use my cameras, all Nikons so my ability to compare brands is nil…

I shoot raw only, so everything is pretty much enabled - this “enabled for this but not that” stuff drives me nuts. I try to streamline camera handling so my attention is focused on focus, then spend the majority of attention on composition. That also means no lens changing of I can avoid it. This is for all my normal shooting: sometimes, I find a reason to depart from that and try something like the two -shot HDR and I descend into your description of hell…

I use aperture-priority/f8 with highlight-weighted metering almost all the time, guaranteeing a fun time in post. No ETTR stupid pet tricks, no time or attention for that, sorry if that offends some. Focus mode, I fooled with those until I found the one that gives me a big box in the middle that I can lock on to a particular object and it follows that object while I compose.

To your lament, I have one way of working and I just farted around with the camera and manual until it succumbed to my nefarious intent. Thom Hogan writes good “why is that” guides for Nikon cameras, that helped a lot for the Z 6.

Where I really grok your frustration is with my goddamned cell phone…

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I have shot with (modern) canon, Nikon, sony, Fuji and Olympus (no Panasonic , and some other brands ).

I only used the manual of my Olympus once , to know the setting i needed for focus-priority. Olympus abbreviates all the settings in a way I can’t decipher them sometimes.

But besides that , i have no clue about the complexities you speak of.

Doesn’t mean they don’t exist (for you)! But it does mean that 1) other people have different experience and 2) i can’t really place myself in your shoes to comment properly :).

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Reviews and online discussions have been forced to near scientific test set ups to determine any differences which are then blown out of proportion to make the review relevant.

New models mean new features and each feature more niche. There are use cases and users for most if not all of these features. They are “nice to have” if and when the scenarios or interests appear and generally don’t cost that much for the manufacturer.

The spec focus seems to have accelerated when all cameras became good enough. Digital allowed the spec chasing to start over again. Then mirrorless provided a whole new set of specs to evaluate. Prolonging the spec chasing lease of life a bit. I think that is coming to and end soon. because the improvements are already academic except for niche use cases.

So no the complexity of newer digital cameras is not of value :slight_smile: Except if your use case benefits…

The interest in film photography is a strong pointer that the complexity and feature creep of digital cameras is starting to be a problem.

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Basically the same for me except in one circumstance: waterfalls. There’s always a ton of spray in the air it seems. None of my gear is weather sealed, not even the used Canon 70-200L I just bought. If I had dramatic scenery I’d shoot more in marginal weather, but that’s not the case.

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I find the Nikon manuals to give me enough to reliably set stuff, with the exception of auto-focus. For that, I would look to Thom Hogan’s guide, as he spends a lot of time testing such and writing sufficiently descriptive prose.

So, to your original question, I think the current complexity of newer cameras is of value, each feature to someone, or they wouldn’t spend time writing complex software to do things like recognize bird eyes… :crazy_face: Ironically, the complexity we face is as much about the manufacturers’ endeavors to make the complexity palatable to ordinary mortals.

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Well, I wish that were more generally applicable, because then I would be more amenable to forgiving their failures to make such complexity ‘palatable’.

Sadly, too many times, I have the impression that any ‘feature’ or ‘function’ can be created these days by smart software smiths which will give their employers some new competitive capability, no matter if, for the most part, this is a solution looking for a problem. Being able to create distinctive, but incomprehensible, marketing propaganda is usually more important than engendering understanding among the cohorts.

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I really think software developers want the fruits of their endeavors to be used, so they craft interfaces they think will be usable. Oh, it’s usually more complicated than that, they’ll engage peer reviews and a set of users in testing, but those populations are still too limited in size to encompass the wide variety of users and their needs/capabilities.

Sometimes in that chase, they come up with abstractions of basic behaviors that so obfuscate the real dynamics of the behavior to the point of making it unusable for more than just a few use cases. And, in a few cases, they concoct incorrect terms to make a mechanism look more like what folk are used to; “ISO sensitivity”, I’m looking at you… :frowning:

Don’t get me going about self-driving cars…

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just curious: who or what is forcing you to use all the extra functionality on your camera?

I am sure no company will invest development resources if there hadnt been customer who actually asked for it. so even if that functionality is irrelevant to your style of photography. for many other people it might be a killer feature. if you dont need it, ignore it and focus on the tools that apply to your style.

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Do you use the menu banks? I have them set up for different shooting scenarios, for example, my landscape mode has a 2s shutter delay and tends to have a lower ISO value, while my action mode has a minimum shutter speed coupled with auto-ISO. I do vary parameter in each mode while shooting, but they give me a base to work from.

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I was just starting to wind down after winding up over manufacturer-enforced additional camera complexity when you bring up the this example of unhinged, pseudo-technical marketing by companies who have had too much exposure to amino acids to the detriment of understanding the reality of controlling a moving vehicle within an environment of utterly unpredictable events.

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I guess then you didn’t work for the global organisation I worked for, for decades, before the corporate marketing cods-wallop became too much to bear. Granted there are always use-cases that are not my use-case, but the techniques used, especially by camera makers, to support those use-cases seem to lack imagination in their implementation. It all seems like a ‘willy-waving’ contest to see who can make the most inscrutable interface.

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My experience going from a 450D to a 70D (a while ago, looking to retire the 70D sometime this year), here are the features I found and used in the new camera:

  • More pixels
  • More ISOs
  • Better exposure in the semi-auto modes (Av/Tv)
  • More accurate AF (in viewfinder mode)
  • Usable AF (in LiveView mode)
  • Faster burst rate
  • Remote control via Wifi
  • Video
  • Top screen for settings
  • Tilt & swivel rear screen
  • Artificial horizon on rear screen and tilt indicator in viewfinder

And possibly some more things in the external flash control area, but I didn’t use the 450D with an external flash.

In recent years, the improvement rate has slowed down a bit, but going mirrorless is also an improvement (weight, size, noise…)

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Menu > Wrench > Buttons/Dials > Touch Screen > Pick your settings. It doesn’t get more straight forward than that. Hard to believe this is still a difficult thing to figure hour after hours spent reading the manual… There’s also an icon in the top right on the regular screen that let’s you cycle between tap to focus, tap to shoot, and off.

Use the smaller focusing box or the range limiter setting.

You can use split image on Fuji as well, along with some other manual focus helpers.

Hold the “Back Disp” button and it should show and allow you to change most functions of any button. AFAIK the functionality of the buttons(including dials) never changes, unless you’re in for example the gallery.

I think this is the issue. A camera is a tool at the end of the day, 20 to 25 shots per week are not enough to learn how to use more advanced and specialist tool, for that cadence there are point and shoot cameras which will lend themselves better to that.

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I own both the DMC-G1 and the DC-G9.

The G9 has a kajillion bells and whistles and suits my old shaky hands and crappy eyesight extremely well. The manual however does not suit my aging brain, grump.

The G1, now converted to full-spectrum, remains easy to use and is a joy to operate with it’s simplicity.

Ted

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So I will throw in my 2 cents worth. I have spent the last 21 years teaching camera classes. So I have watched and been a part of the transition form the first consumer digital SLR cameras to the latest versions. All in all what excites me is the development of the image sensors. Higher ISO and lower noise. The latest fuji have amazing sensors where you can under expose the RAW file at 100 ISO and then lift the exposure to 1600 ISO in Darktable or other software without compromising image quality and noise. You can not do that with an old digital camera.

However, the most important piece of any camera for great images is the nut that sits behind the viewfinder.

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I used to like the support calls that were closed with the annotation PBSK - problem between seat and keyboard.

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