Today’s camera is just a lump of disposable consumer electronics - a device that will be obsolete in a couple years, to be regularly replaced and discarded. It’s no different to your computer, car or mobile phone. What’s the problem?
Complexity? That’s a myth. As pointed out above, anyone here can pick up a new camera and take a photo without the slightest confusion. You may not know what all the buttons and menus do. But what’s the problem? You don’t need to know, as you won’t use most of the functions. Reports tell us that people ignore most of what their devices do. Take smart phones: how many apps are on one? I’d guess between 20 and 40. Yet people
typically use just the same 5 (which apps these are varies from person to person).
Cameras may seem complicated to some people if they have the wrong attitude towards these disposable consumer devices. Modern cameras are designed so that any one person has available the handful of functions they need to use the device exactly as they want - whether that’s just old-school shutter speed and ISO with everything else manual, or shooting video in PAL with upload via Bluetooth. You’re not meant to know about and use everything on a modern camera - if you don’t know what something does, you probably don’t need it!
The aim is flexibility. You can ignore most functions and keep the camera for years and years, treating it like a film camera. Or you can take advantage of new artificial-intelligence functions like face recognition and matrix metering, replacing the camera regularly (the Sony A7 series has a new version every 2 years like clockwork).
I personally now treat digital cameras as disposable devices, no different to my mobile phone; lenses are the items I invest in and I keep long term.
My attitude has changed. I once bought a new Leica M8 - seduced by the quality of its manufacture (brass, custom leather covering!), seduced by Leica’s “buy for a lifetime and upgrade” lie. I was an idiot then.
My current camera is a Sony A7R II. This meets my specific needs, including putting my lenses (all manual) at the fore. To me today, the camera is just a tool, so I went out of my way to pick up a cheap, beat up Sony but which still worked perfectly: I used to own a Nikon D800E until recently, but my current photography project is more suited to the more-modern Sony. My next project may be better suited to yet a different camera, so I may well replace the Sony.
It’s possibly worth noting that I use very few features that Sony provides. I shoot only in manual mode with manual lenses, and never record video. So, that’s pretty much only shutter speed, ISO and centre-weighted metering plus a few modern conveniences like image stabilisation). But that’s still entirely as intended by Sony: as I said, manufacturers aim for flexibility of use.
In short, today’s digital cameras are disposable. Stop thinking of them as objects. Photographs are like coffee - we know what we want, and savour it; the camera is simply the paper cup, to be thrown away when it’s no longer of use!
