How about a digital body with minimal menus?

[David Hughes]

"Look at ebay or any other auction site and you'll soon realise that they bin the instruction books; it's rare to see a camera with a manual. (Sometimes I wonder if they bin the lens caps too... )"


Old school thinking. All manuals can be found online. Cheers, OtL

I read this all again and realised that I wrote what I've put in quotes and so I'd like to reply; a bit late but never mind...

Saying "old school thinking" is clever but sounds to me like politician's rhetoric for "old fool's thinking" and so this old fool would like to point out that old does not mean worse any more than new means better.

Often new means slightly altered or else corrected at long last but they do like to dress it up and so on to make it look like another step towards the promised land.

Secondly, having a manual as a PDF means I either have to print all two or three hundred pages or else continually switch on and look at a computer. That's a bit silly in the middle of a field when I need to know some obscure aspect of the thing to cancel it and start shooting.

It gets worse when they upgrade the firmware but leave the old manual on the website or DVD. That I've found out the hard way. Also the pdf's are not designed in many cases for printing as a book but for reading on a screen. So a bit of work has to be done to get the pagination right.

And it does have to be done because - unlike film cameras - all digital ones seem to want to be unique with strange/different ways of working. I've already said that I always look at the PDF's and print out the battery charger instructions and that's because even a simple thing like that can come (these days) in so many different varieties.


Regards, David

 

[Axel]

...
Secondly, having a manual as a PDF means I either have to print all two or three hundred pages or else continually switch on and look at a computer. That's a bit silly in the middle of a field when I need to know some obscure aspect of the thing to cancel it and start shooting...

I think it´s a bit silly to walk in the middle of the field with a lack of knowledge about the device I planned to use there.
It is easy to blame the new technologies at this point but not logical 😉

Just my 5cent.
Regards from Axel.

 

[Out to Lunch]

David, Rest assured that I don't equate ''old school'' with ''old fool''. This said, many people just don't print PDF files any longer. They used to download files to a PC or laptop computer, and today they, either download files to mobile devices, or grab them from the cloud, instead. Cheers, OtL

 

[Yokosuka Mike]

I think it´s a bit silly to walk in the middle of the field with a lack of knowledge about the device I planned to use there.
It is easy to blame the new technologies at this point but not logical 😉

Just my 5cent.
Regards from Axel.

I hear you.

I remember (a long time ago) being out in the middle of nowhere with my Canon F1n and the battery died. I thought no problem, this camera’s claim to fame is that it’ll work without a battery. Well it didn’t work; I couldn’t take a picture. I was frustrated. Luckily, another F1n user in our group (in the old days we went out in groups) had a spare battery and I was back in business.

Later when I returned home I found my manual and read it, I mean really read it. It turned out that for the camera to function after the battery dies one needs to physically remove the battery from the camera for the camera to work - meaning to be able to release the shutter even though the meter doesn't work.

Lesson learned; know your gear before going out in the field.

All the best,
Mike

 

[David Hughes]

I think it´s a bit silly to walk in the middle of the field with a lack of knowledge about the device I planned to use there.
It is easy to blame the new technologies at this point but not logical 😉

Just my 5cent.
Regards from Axel.

Hmmm, the camera in question has a 236 page pdf manual with a 4 page update. :-(

I know how to use it in P, M, A and S modes and how to use the flash for fill in. I ignore all the rest as I "set it and forget it" as many of us do.

I only know how many pages there are to the manual because of a surprise I got one day due to a firmware update being in the camera but not the manual's download.

It might be logical to memorise 240 pages of technical waffle but I also think it's impossible. Also I have my doubts about instructions written by people who think I can't recognise a human face and need a computer to help me do it...

Regards, David


PS It's worse than that; I wondered about the scene mode called Portrait. The thing will allow portrait mode in 16:9 aspect ration and with the lens unzoomed at 24mm (equivalent). I wondered why and later found that this mode enhanced colours and nothing else; so we all have redder noses. Wow! ;-)

 

[Godfrey]

...
Secondly, having a manual as a PDF means I either have to print all two or three hundred pages or else continually switch on and look at a computer. That's a bit silly in the middle of a field when I need to know some obscure aspect of the thing to cancel it and start shooting.
...

...This said, many people just don't print PDF files any longer. They used to download files to a PC or laptop computer, and today they, either download files to mobile devices, or grab them from the cloud, instead.

I haven't printed out a manual, or carried a printed manual, in many years.

PDF manuals do get updated, at least the ones from Leica, Hasselblad, Panasonic, and Olympus, as firmware revisions add features, etc. I download them, put them into Books or other PDF apps on my iPhone and iPad. One or the other of those devices is always with me.

The huge advantage is that I can search the manuals easily for content, I can also annotate and bookmarks the manuals with sections that I reference frequently, and if I have them stored on the net in my Books cloud storage, all the documents and annotations are available on every device and computer I use automatically.

Being able to carry several dozen instruction manuals (as well as hours of music, books to listen to, movies and videos) in my pocket rather than in a backpack or in the trunk of my car is a big plus to me. 🙂

I have yet to find any uses for a single one of those "scene modes" on any camera I've ever owned. I think this is because I capture raw files only, prefer to do raw conversion and make rendering decisions after the point of capture, and nearly all scene modes affect only the in-camera JPEG rendering engine.

G

 

[Sonnar2]

Yes, with a EVF that is good enough I wouldn't need a histogramm, White balancing and stuff like that.
Make it as simple and responsive as possible.
In a size of a Leica CL, with FF sensor, 0.8x EVF, *NO* display (but maybe a smartphone connection that is fast enough).

 

[David Hughes]

David, Rest assured that I don't equate ''old school'' with ''old fool''. This said, many people just don't print PDF files any longer. They used to download files to a PC or laptop computer, and today they, either download files to mobile devices, or grab them from the cloud, instead. Cheers, OtL

Thanks; at the time I thought how clever it was and mentally gave you a gold star.

FWIW, I think pdf's influence the way people think about books and so they sometimes get very slipshod. Especially when it comes to indexes. Worse still the camera's menu says one thing and you search verbatim for it in the pdf and they've called it something else. I guess human editors don't exist any more.


Regards, David

 

[David Hughes]

...PDF manuals do get updated, at least the ones from Leica, Hasselblad, Panasonic, and Olympus, as firmware revisions add features, etc. ...G

You were lucky, I searched verbatim in the pdf for the mystery item and got nowhere, then did another, fuzzy search and gave up.

Tried Google and went through pages of rumour about the update; finally found a press release and then a letter to customers and in that was a reference to the website with the 4 page pdf amendment.


Regards, David


PS The digital thing is not exactly stable, especially when compared with the M4... ;-)

 

[Godfrey]

...
FWIW, I think pdf's influence the way people think about books and so they sometimes get very slipshod. Especially when it comes to indexes. Worse still the camera's menu says one thing and you search verbatim for it in the pdf and they've called it something else. I guess human editors don't exist any more.

Human editors are the ones who help writers design and proof the content of those PDFs. I know: I was one of them (both a writer and an editor...) for a time.

The big issue is that much of instructional content is now intended for distribution not as a static PDF that is read like a book but as an "on demand" piece-wise part of a live, on-line help system. This is a huge difference because that's how the master ToC and Index get out of sync: the articles which comprise the individual components of the material are updated as nomenclature and usage evolve, but the ToC and Index tend to lag behind. Because of the assumption of always present fast search technology available now, they're considered second priority and, in many cases, are not even provided any more. Formatting and organizing content for a manual intended to be read from front to back is quite a different design meme to follow compared to formatting content for an on-demand help system backed by fast search context.

When I was writing technical documentation, I used to put an extra burden on my editor by producing two versions of every document I wrote—one for the on-demand help system and one to be downloaded as a PDF file. Same content, different organization.

It's a huge challenge because most companies see the documentation as an afterthought, not a primary part of a product's engineering development cycle, and the writing and editorial groups are typically under-staffed and over-whelmed by the volume of instructional material that the engineering development implies. The same is true for all documentation, regardless of print, PDF, or web-based presentation, and has been for many years.

G

 

[waynec]

Hey waynec, Sony A7r4 fixed the menus a lot vs the older ones, but the camera you want is M10. Or both, since the Sony has better color accuracy when paired w/calibration than M10 imo/experience. quick edit..i like M10 better for b/w and A7r4 for color but the latter best with old Mamiya 55/1.8 glass for me gives best color accuracy; i bought mine on ebay w/Mamiya 35mm film camera for ~$125, kept lens, gave away camera and other 50mm lens that came with it...best buy on a lens i ever got. (Also what i experienced is the M10 had real close color, but shooting an artist's portfolio of many colors led me to my conclusions; now i'd like to hook the Mamiya to the M10 if possible.)

Hey I'll remember that.
My b&w camera right now is a Minolta XGM with a 50mm F1.4. May wind up getting my Nikon FE repaired and using it along side.
I've got a Takumar 55 F1.8 thats sharp as a tack. Also the Super multi's in 28mm and 35mm although I may give them their freedom. Too many cameras & lenses.