How about a digital body with minimal menus?

[waynec]

I'm really over the menu's thing after trying and trying to turn off the histogram while out shooting. I guess I selected something unknowingly on my A6000 (things are not really labled to understand sometimes) which brought about the feature.. Had to go home later and look it up online. I really would love to have just a plain Jane body with the minimal selections. I could see P, A & S, Raw & Jpeg, exposure comp, and a few others, but when you get ino 100's of selections who needs that? I finally put the digital back into the bag and brought out my Minolta XGM with 24-85 zoom. What a joy to shoot with without having to look at all the crap on the screen. Set shutter speed on "A", focus, aim and hit the shutter button. Anybody else feel the same way?

 

[jsrockit]

I'm really over the menu's thing after trying and trying to turn off the histogram while out shooting. I guess I selected something unknowingly on my A6000 (things are not really labled to understand sometimes) which brought about the feature.

Well, Sony has the absolute worst menus in any digital camera.

Had to go home later and look it up online. I really would love to have just a plain Jane body with the minimal selections.

Leica or Sigma have minimal menus. A little less so, Fuji.

I could see P, A & S, Raw & Jpeg, exposure comp, and a few others, but when you get ino 100's of selections who needs that?

Sony users love that crap...

I finally put the digital back into the bag and brought out my Minolta XGM with 24-85 zoom. What a joy to shoot with without having to look at all the crap on the screen. Set shutter speed on "A", focus, aim and hit the shutter button. Anybody else feel the same way?

Not really... I set up the camera once and get to making photos. I use Fujifilm cameras. Really, you have to go with Fuji or Leica if you like classic controls in digital.

 

[Gregm61]

I really would love to have just a plain Jane body with the minimal selections.

I have one and love it, a Leica digital CL.

 

[splitimageview]

This is the most disappointing thing about modern digitals. They are still using antiquated user interfaces, with almost no change since the earliest digital SLRs from 20 years ago.

Can you imagine using a desktop computer using MS-DOS in 2020?

That's about the way things are in the world of digital cameras.

I have said for several years that whichever manufacturer updates to a truly modern UI will gain significant market share...

 

[Godfrey]

I have one and love it, a Leica digital CL.

That and, of course, for even more minimalism, the Leica M-D typ 262. No LCD, no menus, only two configuration commands really: time/date and update firmware. Otherwise, all discrete controls for focus, shutter time, aperture, and drive mode+self timer. That's it.

I loved mine, but sold it to help fund the Hasselblad 907x (which has a nicely constrained set of menus). 🙂

Of course, the Panasonic GX9 I bought on impulse a couple of weeks back (because I have a great set of lenses for mFT and liked how it looked ...) has so many options and menus I've only learned about a twentieth of them—and it's simpler than my Olympus E-M1!! But that's actually enough to do most of anything I want already. 😀

G

 

[Freakscene]

The Leica S dSLRs have by far the most minimal menus and controls I’ve seen. An S2 is pretty cheap now, but buying an old digital Leica can be a pretty fraught experience and lens price is stratospheric. You’d need to _really_ want those minimal menus. On top of that, the S2 seems largely unrepairable and the sensor might be susceptible to corrosion like the M9 series cameras.

Marty

 

[Godfrey]

This is the most disappointing thing about modern digitals. They are still using antiquated user interfaces, with almost no change since the earliest digital SLRs from 20 years ago.

Can you imagine using a desktop computer using MS-DOS in 2020?

That's about the way things are in the world of digital cameras.

I have said for several years that whichever manufacturer updates to a modern UI will gain significant market share...

Hmm. My Olympus E-1 (October 2003 manufacture date) has a much simpler and easier to figure out menu system than any Sony, Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, or Pentax I've used, regardless of year. Later Olympus models went with more layers of complexity and vastly more configurable features, of course. Leica M, SL, and CL cameras have IMO some of the simplest menu systems to understand and remember.

The Hasselblad 907x/CFVII 50c (and its X1DII sibling) has a pretty darn simple, modern, touch screen UI control system. I learned just about the entire camera in a 20 minute session just poking at the controls.. It is right in there with the Leicas for usability and rememberability.

G

 

[css9450]

Well, Sony has the absolute worst menus in any digital camera.

I agree. It doesn't happen often, but on those occasions where I need to change something outside of the "usual" parameters I usually shoot at, it results in me sitting down and searching high and low for it in the menus. Then I can never remember where I found it when the time comes to change it back.

In comparison, my Nikon DSLRs are so simple to use.

But I am probably doing it all wrong. I probably don't use about 99% of the various features on my cameras.

 

[waynec]

I agree. It doesn't happen often, but on those occasions where I need to change something outside of the "usual" parameters I usually shoot at, it results in me sitting down and searching high and low for it in the menus. Then I can never remember where I found it when the time comes to change it back.
.

Yeah same for me👍

 

[Dogman]

The Olympus OMD-EM1 menus drove me nuts. Add to that the worst control locations of any camera I've ever used and I was climbing the walls half the time. The only reason I kept using it was because the lenses were excellent and the files were beautiful.

But they all can get out of control quickly until you understand what each feature does. I love my Fuji XPros but I still get confused occasionally and have to try to remember what I did that caused the camera to do something weird. Nikons, not so bad. The Nikon and the Canon cameras I've used were fairly easy to grasp although they do a lot of things my other cameras don't do. Even though I haven't used a Canon in over four years, I think I could still pick one up one of their DSLRs today and figure it out fairly easily. But that Olympus....

 

[back alley]

I set a camera up one time... with a minimum of changes from how it comes out of the box then I shoot with it for a while.
then I sit down with the online manual and go page by page through it (with the camera in hand) to see what the settings mean and if I think a change is warranted...and that is usually the end of it for. I shoot pretty simply...

 

[zuiko85]

Who decides what is minimal....what is necessary?
The OP?
Me?
One of the 8 or 9 commenters so far?
In the film days for me an interchangeable focusing screen was non negotiable, I regarded it as necessary.
Now with 'kitchen sink' digital I just live with whatever they throw into the camera and try to not touch anything I don't need to.

Edit; Actually now I regard the definition of "minimal" as a cardboard box with a piece of photo paper taped inside one end and a pinhole on the opposite end covered by a piece of tape.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

"M" stands for "minimum menus".

 

[Michael Markey]

I have one and love it, a Leica digital CL.

.... me too .

 

[kangaroo2012]

It cannot be a sign of age can it?
I worked in a camera store in retirement and was amazed at the young tyre kickers who could pick up any camera and just use it, no matter how new.
I love Leica film cameras. Aperture, shutter speed and focus. What more could you want?
Cheers
Philip

 

[Bill Blackwell]

How about a digital body with minimal menus?

You mean like a Leica M10 variant?

 

[David Hughes]

About 17 or 18 years ago Leica made the Digilux-2 with a ring around the lens for focus and aperture and a normal conventional shutter speed dial and people liked them but no one copied them. They repeated it later with the Digilux 3 but again no one took the hint. So I guess people like lots of things to fiddle with, better than taking photographs, perhaps...

The worst is when a mystery icon appears for no obvious reason; like the fish swimming in a blue sea with Fuji's system I had on a camera. Then you have to sit down and go through the manual again and again. It turned out to mean colour balance for underwater photography, btw.


Regards, David


PS I've often wondered why you can't set the thing up for all time and then save the settings as your default on a SD card but there you are...

 

[robert blu]

About 17 or 18 years ago Leica made the Digilux-2 with a ring around the lens for focus and aperture and a normal conventional shutter speed dial and people liked them but no one copied them. They repeated it later with the Digilux 3 but again no one took the hint. So I guess people like lots of things to fiddle with, better than taking photographs, perhaps...

The worst is when a mystery icon appears for no obvious reason; like the fish swimming in a blue sea with Fuji's system I had on a camera. Then you have to sit down and go through the manual again and again. It turned out to mean colour balance for underwater photography, btw.


Regards, David


PS I've often wondered why you can't set the thing up for all time and then save the settings as your default on a SD card but there you are...

Well said, +1 !

 

[Freakscene]

The worst is when a mystery icon appears for no obvious reason; like the fish swimming in a blue sea with Fuji's system I had on a camera. Then you have to sit down and go through the manual again and again. It turned out to mean colour balance for underwater photography, btw.

I am a marine scientist, and use this one quite a bit, but some of the others I don’t use baffle me. There is enough room on the screen to write ‘underwater’ or ‘U/W CB’ which would make more sense. Why not make everything clearer? I am not a fan of Fuji menus.

Marty

 

[Out to Lunch]

The problem is that many 'film shooters' believe that a camera is a camera and never bother to read the manual of their brand new digital camera. Learn and adapt. As we speak, Leica and Fuji offer the best 'classic' camera design and feel. Cheers, OtL