Yer, I have been guilty of PBSK on many occassions. Trying to learn Linux after a Windows background I suffer a lot of PBSK and the language used by Linux users can often fall into the category of WTF.
Also PICNIC - Problem in chair, not in computer 
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I am intrigued. Could you impress me further by telling me more, please ?
In my neck of the woods it’s “PEBKAC”, Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair.
Yes that’s what it is here as well. Also the ID10T error.
I think like any device made these days unless it is a one trick pony then 80% of the people will use 20% of the features but at the same time 80% or more of the people will likely buy a device that reports or has 20% more features than another…whether they need it or not…
Technology moves fast and people are now programmed to future proof… just in case even if they never use it…
Its everywhere… cell phone users pay for GB of unused data and on and on…
No big deal - send the camera to the likes of Kolari they remove the UV/IR blocking filter from the sensor assembly. On mine, the RGB CFA was left in place but the red filters pass plenty of near IR allowing one to get the full-spectrum look after some messing around in an editor.
HTH
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I would be happy if I got to shoot even that much. My last real outing was April 9. I have plans every week, but work continually gets in the way.
I switched to Fuji (X-T20) a few years ago, and have generally enjoyed the experience. I find that the dedicated dials and the Q menu allow me to avoid 90% of the menu hell that I felt with my D7000. I do sometimes (ok, often) forget my customizations from shoot to shoot, but I blame my memory for that. My solutions are:
- RTFM, the whole FM.
- Make notes of how I set up a particular function on the camera and how I use it, in terms that make sense to me and including the rationale for doing it the way I did, and links to any references.
I no longer need a memory. 
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Wow that’s a lot! I’m generally doing good on average to get 3 or 4 in a month or two that rise above ‘delete’ status (although certainly don’t reach real keeper status). I’ll sometimes end up with more over a short period of time but only if I’m on a trip (2 or 3 times yearly at most). As long as I’m home the number is very low.
This. Both.
I make notes and sometimes don’t ever refer to then again, but the process of making then helps me learn.
But then I forget and I have my notes (and manual!) …
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Just as you will use 10% of your camera’s features you only need 10% of the manual, so I always write my own summary and keep it up to date as I learn more and change my settings.
No one should ever RTF camera M! What a crazy idea 
I have sort of flicked through mine just to see what it’s like. I’ve not learned anything from it.
Cameras just need to allow:
- Exposure
- Focus
- Data capture at the fidelity required by the output and style of photography
Those are generally quite similar across cameras. I also use gps, pixelshift and wifi transfer but all those are pretty easy to figure out on my cameras. I do get stumped the two times a year I want to use self timer, but I’d never use the manual to figure it out! I also set five user modes that I almost never use but it’s good to have that burst mode jpeg setting for that one in five years sudden need for rapid capture. I take, it seems, a lot of photos. I dont know my average but I share about a total of 70 a month for different audiences.
those are pretty easy to figure out on my cameras.
Yes, but you get subject to the bias of “the first thing that works”, which is not always the best way to do it. And these are things you look for. How about things that can help, but that you never heard of (for instance, mirror lock-up)?
Of course, instead of RTFM you can NTFM (Navigate The F[…]ing Menu) but you can set something by mistake and then take a while to figure out why the camera behaves strangely.
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My peculiar circumstance is that being unemployable (almost 3 decades too old now and probably unemployable on the basis of terminal ignorance (for example, I use my phone only for phone calls)), I don’t get interrupted by work. I ride a bike every day and always carry a camera with me. Now that I’m fairly sure that the idea of a digital camera might just work, I have overcome my entirely rational fear of wasting a shot on my precious 36-shots-only film rolls. This means that my photo reject rate is high - typically 70% to 90%, so even though I take a lot of shots, the are few keepers.
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Living the dream.
I’m retired now two years, so I can identify with the “work-no-interruption” thing (fortunately!). I theoretically shoot landscapes which means my subjects are somewhat few and far between – both in time and space. I don’t shoot:
- Sports
- Events
- Family / friends / holidays
- Wildlife / birds [1]
- Macro [2]
- Street / urban
- Weddings
- Portraiture
…or pretty much anything other than landscape. I like good wildlife / bird photography but can’t do it (for several reasons). And I have nothing against the others, just no interest in personally doing it. It really annoys me when non-photographers (i.e., the public) notice me and start asking questions. Arghh…
Anyway, my point is to maybe illustrate why my photo count is so low.
1. If I had the gear ($$$$$!) and subject matter I could be tempted
2. Macro could be theoretically interesting but only in a studio / technical environment
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Interesting discussion. I don’t know how many photos on average I take per week… it varies from 1 to 2 thousand when I go to a two day motorsport event to zero, if I’m busy with work or whatever.
I should do a count up on my hard drive…
But I have quite varied tastes - motorsport of course, events (sometimes), landscape (of I think a more minimalist kind - I don’t as a rule like the kind of classic glory sunset shots that seem to define landscape photography), urban scenes, not really street although I do try occasionally… and anything else really that strikes my fancy…
It did take a while to get comfortable with my Nikon DSLR (now plural), but after sustained use they now seem very logical and nice to use.
My opinion really on the OP topic is that there are so many different use cases, styles of photography and maybe more importantly ways of working that it will always be a case of “one person’s dream is another person’s nightmare” as far as user interfaces go.
My 2c!
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The shutter count on my 4-year-old camera is 70,504. My speciality is photographing carnatic (South-Indian classical) concerts, and I actually did more over the covid years than usual, as I had access to private recordings at a venue that was making daily videos for youtube streaming during times when public gatherings were not allowed here. But… I became a bit of one-trick pony, seldom picking up the camera for anything else unless going on a trip.
As for the advanced features of my relatively modest Sony APS-C camera: I seldom venture into most of the menu, and there are parts of it I don’t even understand. But there are still features from the more “professional” full-frame range that I really want.
Certainly I read the manual, such as it is, but more usefully, I watched a dozen videos and read at least two books. Those books add the why would you want to aspect that is completely missing from Sony’s simple list of functions.
The complex stuff, an example or two. One thing I have become completely used to, for the circumstances in which I shoot, is changing colour temperature as often as some change basic exposure settings.
One thing that I think could solve a highlight over-exposure problem I often face is adjusting “knee” settings — and I am still completely baffled by this. But I’ll dip in sometimes, until I start to get my head around it.
Additional features? Complexity? Bring it on! If I don’t use something today, I might tomorrow. Or next year. And if it turns out to be never (like all the video functionality: I just don’t do video) then that’s fine too.
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If you shoot raw (as most people interested in photography do these days), then once you have selected the focal length and composed your picture, you effectively have the following degress of freedom:
- exposure time,
- aperture,
- focus,
- iso.
So if you had a camera with 4 knobs/dials/rings/whatever on it, you would be all set. (And of course a button to turn it on, view images, etc). And if you only shoot stills or landscapes, and have a lot of time to compose your images, that would be perfectly sufficient.
But people use their cameras for a lot of other things, and do not always have time for careful adjustment and review, because the subject itself moves or the light changes, and the scene never comes back. So most innovations happen on these fronts.
First, autofocus. It has come a long way from having to point the center field at the subject, to modern MILCs having eye and face and animal and whatnot recognition. Whether you need these features is up to you, but this is where camera manufacturers have been competing heavily for decades, with the latest features trickling down from flagships to mid-tier models.
Second, exposure. Metering is pretty trivial, but the problem is that digital sensors have a pretty limited dynamic range compared to film and are much less forgiving. All the controls and the algorithms stuffed into your camera are there to help you make the best trade-off given the dynamic range of the scene, quickly.
The bottom line is that if you have a bit if time to compose your shots and are willing to learn how your camera works, then you can get a decent camera kit (body + 1-2 lenses, used) below $1000 today and make nice images. But if this does not apply, then the following may help (in no particular order):
- image stabilization, in body, lens, or both
- burst shooting, to capture fleeting moments
- bracketing (focus, exposure, aperture, various combinations)
- auto iso control heuristics (some cameras have more sophisticated controls)
- various levels of AF sophistication (tracking, eye, etc)
- customizable buttons
- saved presets for various scenarios (C1, C2, preset banks, …)
- … (I am sure I missed a lot of things)
Obviously these need to be controlled somehow, hence the complexity of interfaces.
Personally my favorite menu is in the Panasonics, I do find it very easy to navigate. But this is a personal preference, YMMV.
(I had the pleasure to see a pro photographer who shoots interiors work recently. Hasselblad on a tripod connected to a MacBook with a large screen. Each shot composed for about 30 minutes or more, experimenting with various angles, moving stuff by 2cm, etc. One scene, one shot.)
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Which begs the question, why do all the features that are most beneficial to amateurs appear first in “pro” cameras?
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