Hmmm. Each of the cell phones I’ve owned has lasted me about seven years, and I have always gotten new ones because I tired of the old ones, not because they broke.
But… android was originally supposed to be a camera firmware before google bought it.
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Which is the lovely irony in all of this …
Dunno if you all have seen this: https://pixii.fr/
They actively are trying to get the computational photography stuff into a non-phone camera.
It runs on an embedded arm board too. Very cool concept! Could benefit by freeing that firmware!
I think a camera with a FOSS (non hacked, sorry magic lantern) firmware would be an automatic buy for me.
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Now that there a few comments to my original post, an analysis of those comments can be said to support the view that cameras are too complex (as well as being too complicated).
I quite accept that there are different functions for different users - that’s how it should be, surely? But what I do not accept is the necessity to present an inappropriately complicated human interface to the exploitation of those functions. The Lumix G 1, with which I initiated this discussion, continues to impress with its easier usability compared to my other cameras, but I suspect that this is more to do with its limited set of function points compared to those others cameras then it is to do with the qualities of its human factors design.
In this regard I have not yet found a camera manufacturer who provides an elegant, effective, efficient and (above all) straightforward interface to the user. This a failure of imagination by manufacturers.
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Not necessarily. Each company does its best to implement functional menus for the users I suppose. Others make it better and others less efficient yet it’s on personal preference mostly.
Key concept is not to dive each and every time in those menus but to have shortcuts that will help you when you need them most.
The principles of photography remain the same whatever mean you use to fulfill the purpose.
Elegant and straightforward(*), I don’t know, but effective and efficient is already done: on a decent camera, eye in the view finder, you can set plenty of things with buttons under your fingers, while still watching your subject.
(*) but can you be straightforward when you leave the all-Auto mode? Users doing this are telling the camera that they wants to handle some of the complexity themselves.
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I don’t think there’s any functionality that I’d remove from my camera (well, maybe the video stuff), but companies could do a much better job of organising the functionality in an easy-to-remember way. So IMO the camera is not too complex but the menu system is poorly designed and bad at helping the user to manage the complexity.
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Yes, I quite agree; yours is a more correct statement about the ‘system’ as a whole. It better achieves what I was trying to say.
This.
I have a few of the more often-used functions in a couple of custom menus (my camera has basically no truly custom buttons) but even then I don’t have to go there often. Between the touch screen and buttons, I can do almost everything I need, almost by touch.
My biggest challenge isn’t how to make the camera do X, it’s when, why and how I want to use X – and exactly what X does, how it interacts with other aspects of the process, etc.
So while having a better physical interface is certainly desirable (no one likes bad design), it’s still less of a challenge for me than just getting my head fully wrapped around everything three camera does, to a thorough depth.
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It is lovely to see how they are trying to sell shortcomings of the camera as advantages. Rangefinder-style optical/mechanical focus without AF, all yours for a bit less than 3000 EUR, with Leica M mount, where you can choose between “expensive” and “very expensive” lenses.
I think that a significant part of the firmware is taken up by functionality to make “nice looking” JPEGs (color manipulation, local contrast, various enhancements), so it may be easier to make a firmware without that.
Personally, I would be happy with a camera that just reads the RAW bits writes them to the card, with some trivial processing for preview (eg boost the colors a tiny bit, map with a sigmoid, done). No white balance, no color options, no “scene mode” gimmicks for taking portraits with fireworks.
But I imagine that is a niche market, and a lot of people would be returning the camera to the store, because “the photos look flat”.
I think we need to consider two dichotomies:
One between “intuitive” and “effective”. I find Nikon cameras relatively complex, but very effective once you know your way around. Panasonic are easier, but remain somewhat cumbersome even when I know what I’m doing. Cameras need to strike a balance between easy, intuitive discoverability on the one hand, and fast, effective, complexity on the other. Do you optimize for (perpetual) newcomers or trained professionals?
And a second dichotomy between “configuration” and “operation”. A significantly higher degree of complexity is acceptable for set-once configurations, than for oft-used operational parameters. But the distinction is not clear-cut. For me, changes to flash and video parameters are rare, but high-speed shooting settings are frequent. Film simulation and JPEG settings might as well not exist for me, but they’re bread-and-butter for many. Of course exposure and AF parameters are important to everybody.
Which is all to say, there probably can’t be an optimal configuration system for all people, maybe except for extremely feature-limited cameras. Which is perhaps is a part of the appeal of a Ricoh GR, Pixii, or Leica.
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An interesting analysis - thank you.
I can’t avoid thinking, though, that any camera manufacturer today is actually just a project manager/integrator, co-ordinating the efforts of 3 types of supplier of professional services:
- Mechanical and Electrical design
- Software engineering
- Manufacturing/assembly.
Of these the ‘software engineering’ is by far the more important and costs more than the other services. Given the right skills, there is no limit to the functionality that can be provided - much of it rented or available via subscription.
Then logically speaking, there could be two dials implemented in the software:
- Dial A chooses the position of a pointer on the ‘intuitive’ to ‘effective’ scale.
- Dial B chooses the position of a pointer on the ‘configuration’ to ‘operation’ scale.
Rotating either of these dials can be done at any time but will result in a change to rental or subscription cost. I.e. the camera ‘manufacturer’ is, in essence, now offering ‘image capture as a service’.
Sadly this future has little connection with the long history of the ‘soft skills’ of photography, just like so many other activities in this new digital age…
IMHO you are a bit out of touch with reality… if only because lenses are conspicuously absent from your list.
Software is comparatively cheap. Writing good and faultless software is difficult, but you can easily build on the previous versions and but reproduction and distribution is very cheap.
Compare to the cost of designing a good lens, and then economically manufacturing it in numbers and within stringent specs.
You can look at the problem from the other side: what do manufacturers change very often? and what do they try to keep for as long as possible and milk every penny out of? You see the same sensors, processors and AF systems reused over several generations of cameras. Lenses have market lives that can span decades. and then you get several firmware releases per camera model…
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My thoughts, too. A basic camera at a premium price, requiring lenses at ultra-premium prices. And when you’re all done you’ve still got just a basic camera.
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I think you misunderstood my point. These are spectra, not scales. Different target audiences have differing requirements, and they can’t all be satisfied at the same time.
What is superfluous complications to you is essential parameters to someone else. There is no global optimum.
That’s grossly oversimplifying, I’m afraid. These are (mostly) Japanese companies, who do as much as they can in-house. They likely have expertise in myriad fields, and every single one of them is highly, fascinatingly complex. Even where components are “just” bought and integrated, this is typically done on close cooperation with the third party manufacturer, and to the specifications of the buyer.
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One bit of complexity that I wish some camera manufacturer would add is an option to display a raw histogram. Clearly the manufacturers think that the vast majority of the buyers of their cameras are shooting in JPEG mode.
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I used to jones the raw histogram too, but I got to thinking about it poring over a thread on the topic at DPRevived and I think I’d rather have in-scene “blinkies” based on the raw data. It’s too easy for small regions of blow to hide in the right-hand line of the histogram, not collecting enough pixels to make a bump…
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I’d take that alternative too…anything to give an indication of raw overexposure!
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Imagine someone coming up with a pro-grade, open-source modular (build-your-own) camera with fully customisable firmware that supported custom plugins. Bye-bye ‘don’t need,’ and hello ‘do need.’ Now that would be something to behold.
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