Are we losing touch with our cameras?

No, it is dead simple to change aperture, shutter speed etc on a modern DSLR. It is infact created like that because it is faster and simpler to do it that way for the average user.

So it is just you that need to adjust to a different way of doing it.
 
Reminds me of as Herb Keppler article written when the newer generation of compact SLR's came out and he listed all the features being stripped, such as DOF preview levers.

All I can say is... I'm not losing touch with my cameras.
 
On my dslr 50% of the time I shoot in manual the other 50% in aperature preferred, I don't think I'm losing touch. I think most people that read this forum will answer the same. If you posted the question somewhere else, the answer might be different.
 
All of this depends on user preference.

There are cameras for the 'You press the button, we'll do the rest' crowd, and those users have never really been in touch with their cameras, even before the introduction of digital.

There are other users (and I count myself to that group) who take their new camera into their hands and start to play with its controls for an hour before they even shoot the first frame. There certainly are digital cameras for that clientele as well, and I know what I am talking about, because I own such a camera.

Oh, and BTW, using any automatic mode on a camera does not necessarily mean that this function is intransparent and leaves the user guessing what is going on. If I as a user care about what is happening as I use my camera to take a photograph, I can have my camera tell me so, and I can intervene if I do not agree with what the camera does. So, if I have chosen the right camera, I will certainly stay 'in the driver's seat', even if I use automatic function modes.

It's not the camera - it's the user who cares about or ignores being in touch with his/her camera.
 
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I'm a manual exposure fan, and use it almost exclusively, but this article is nonsense. One still has to frame the right thing... the camera doesn't do that for you. I hate when people think auto-exposure = the camera taking the picture for you. It simply means the camera took care of the techincal concerns so one can focus on composition / moment.
 
Much of the aperture-shutter-iso relationship is rote. - like multiplication times tables. Although there are time you might want to wonk with it for creative effect, 95% of the time you just want proper exposure. Isn't the camera taking care of that which is simply a rote mechanical/mathematical relationship a good thing? Doesn't that free you up to be /more/ in touch with the subject of your photo, instead of the camera?
 
i like the phrase "karaoke photography". in some ways, i think that is why i am slowly transitioning to film from a DSLR.
 
Surprisingly enough, people like automated cameras. There's plenty of hand-wringing about the death of metal mechanical manual cameras from a small group of photography enthusists but most people don't give a hoot. They just want a camera that will deliver adequate exposure and focusing with minimal fuss. Who can blame them?
 
Steve Meltzer makes a valid point about practice-acquired instinctive/ intuitive familiarity with controls. But I think he then confuses this with the nature or type of these controls. I don't see why someone can't become instinctively familiar with controls of any type of camera (assuming it has controls!)
 
Most of the technological improvements in cameras came about by the feedback of photographers themselves. Most professional photographers embrace any technology that makes their job easy with a lot of enthusiasm, so are parents with small kids, average camera users and even some of the photographer artists. I believe a famous Japanese photographer uses a compact Ricoh on auto mode and there are many videos of famous photographers speaking about how they love a particular digital p&s... As much as I love to have full control over my picture taking process, I would like technology to be there just in case.
 
Well, that's one reason I got a Leica. Keeps me in touch, literally.:)

I'm of two minds about this. Grew up with film cameras..with knobs, dials, etc. It's not so much those I miss as much as how (relatively) simple those cameras were to operate. Photographing with them felt...well, I can only call it "purer," for lack of a better word.

On the other hand... the thing about a lot of these digital cameras, with auto-this and do-everything that, is that they leave you free to concentrate on the most important thing--capturing that fleeting "decisive moment."

So I've learned to live in both worlds. When I need a break from my computer-with-a-lens, I'll pick up one of my old film-burners for a change of pace.

Frankly, I think the REAL threat to Western civilization is the rise of Blackberry, texting, Twitter,etc. Everybody's talking these days--but not to each other. I'm thinking of the times I've seen two people out on what appears to be a "date," but they're not talking--instead, they're each totally absorbed in texting on their "personal communication device"....
 
GSNfan said:
Most of the technological improvements in cameras came about by the feedback of photographers themselves. Most professional photographers embrace any technology that makes their job easy with a lot of enthusiasm, so are parents with small kids, average camera users and even some of the photographer artists. I believe a famous Japanese photographer uses a compact Ricoh on auto mode and there are many videos of famous photographers speaking about how they love a particular digital p&s... As much as I love to have full control over my picture taking process, I would like technology to be there just in case.
Click to expand...

Just in case what? Sorry, I genuinely don't understand.

Cheers,

R.
 
Paul Luscher said:
Well, that's one reason I got a Leica. Keeps me in touch, literally.:)

I'm of two minds about this. Grew up with film cameras..with knobs, dials, etc. It's not so much those I miss as much as how (relatively) simple those cameras were to operate. Photographing with them felt...well, I can only call it "purer," for lack of a better word.

On the other hand... the thing about a lot of these digital cameras, with auto-this and do-everything that, is that they leave you free to concentrate on the most important thing--capturing that fleeting "decisive moment."

So I've learned to live in both worlds. When I need a break from my computer-with-a-lens, I'll pick up one of my old film-burners for a change of pace.

Frankly, I think the REAL threat to Western civilization is the rise of Blackberry, texting, Twitter,etc. Everybody's talking these days--but not to each other. I'm thinking of the times I've seen two people out on what appears to be a "date," but they're not talking--instead, they're each totally absorbed in texting on their "personal communication device"....
Click to expand...

Maybe five years ago now, I saw a young man walking down the road in a nearby city, accompanied by three pretty girls: all late teens/early 20s.

If I'd been that young man when I was 20, I'd have been walking like a prince. Surrounded by pretty girls? Wonderful!

But all four of them were on their mobile 'phones...

Cheers,

R.
 
I don't think we're losing touch, but I think it's a different kind of touch. Surely people have developed their own ways of handling a dSLR just as fast as an RF user could.

I first though of it as letters and email. Both do the job, but how you create the final product and express yourself in such a way is different.

I personally find physical controls (aperture rings and all) easier and faster to use than electronic (?) controls, but it used to be the other way around for me...
 
Pressing buttons instead of using dials could be okay, if the buttons were placed in the same position on every camera. I have had 5 different Canon DSLRs and I have had to sit down and RTFM every time to locate most of the functions - and after that spending a couple of months trying to remember where the functions are. Functions that for the greater part demands that I remove the camera from my eye and take a look at the screen.

Picking up a film SLR I can (with a few exceptions) be pretty sure where the shuttertime and aperture rings are situated...

Operating your camera should be second nature - I am really looking forward to the x100
 
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