Killing Us Softly with Their Gear

hawkeye

hawkeye

steve
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I just wrote a post "Killing Us Softly....) for www.pixiq.com about the future of photographic gear. Please take a moment to read it and let me know what you think?

Steve Meltzer
 
skip directly to Steve's article by going here: http://www.pixiq.com/article/killing-us-softly-with-their-gear

Interesting article, Steve.

This reminds of the time when some good friends noticed the nice pictures that I was making with my Lumix G1 M4/3 camera. They decided that they wanted to upgrade from their old P&S digital. So after questioning them about their buying criteria such as budget, purpose, form factor, and other requirements, I recommended the Olympus EPL1. They went to the local BestBuy store (big box store) without me, and were overwhelmed by the number of choices. They called me from the store, and said that the EPL1 seemed to be much too complicated for them. I tried to explain to them that the EPL1 will work just fine as a P&S until they can grow into using its other features later, and to ask the salesperson to show them how it can work in P&S mode. But by the time they called me, the salesperson had already poisoned their minds with too many other choices.

They ended up buying another P&S. :bang:

--Warren
 
I'm glad to see someone talking about the issue of too much choice being a problem. I have yet to buy a small digital carry around camera because I can't decide which one to get, and haven't found one that will do what I want it to do- even though I know there are a few I could be perfectly happy with. Meanwhile, my young daughter is growing every day and I don't have time to process and print the film I shoot.

One question Steve- is English your native language? There are several grammatical mistakes in your article that maybe detract from your authority, and would certainly drive my high school English teachers nuts. If you aren't a native English speaker this can be forgiven, but you might want more careful editing before you publish. Just a thought- I don't mean to be a prig, nor do I want to detract from what is otherwise an excellent offering, and an insightful piece.
 
My problem is not having any options when it comes to cameras. I shoot film solely for the purpose of using a rangefinder camera. I'm unwilling to invest in a M8 or RD1, cannot afford an M9. That leaves me pretty much without any choice.
 
Nicely done, Steve, and so true.

I put off buying a digi P&S for years for just that reason. Now I focus on just a couple of brands and lines within them to reduce just that problem.

I don't quite understand what interest of the companies that variety serves.

About the cheese on the other hand...
 
Aaaarrrg! I find that having more than a single lens is sometimes daunting. I've given several P&S cameras as presents, and usually choose by price and color.
 
The thing is that buying a camera has become the same as buying jam and hairspray. And business gurus predict that quite soon all P&S-ing will be done with a cell phone. Perhaps the comparatively elitist Fuji X100 isn’t really a niche product but a sign of things to come: “real” cameras as toys for aficionados and pros.
 
Great article, I fully agree. One of the things I like about my GF1 is that the lens options from Panasonic are limited and the few available are decent. Of course, the other thing I like about it is that I can use my M-mount lenses on it. ;)

Cheers,
Rob
 
Steve, your article was far more enjoyable and valuable than another article on that website, Why Do People Still Love Film, which is almost insulting.
 
Your points are probably completely valid, and I too wish companies like Nikon would stick to, likesay 3 point and shoot models per year. However smarter business people than me seem to be doing quite well introducing camera after camera after camera. There are so many different markets or reasons a person wants a particular camera, and it just doesn't cost the manufacturers that much to make them.

I also worry about the waste factor. These little gadgets have to go somewhere to die, and I doubt many of them get recycled. If you've seen Edward Burtynsky's work you know what I'm talking about. It's pretty sad.

That said, I'm a very happy Nikon P7000 owner. If I don't sell it someday when the X100 is available used, I hope to get years of use out of it. Right now I'm doing a time lapse video of the snow melting with it, here in Minnesota. Can't do that with my Stylus Epic...
 
I also worry about the waste factor. These little gadgets have to go somewhere to die, and I doubt many of them get recycled. If you've seen Edward Burtynsky's work you know what I'm talking about. It's pretty sad.
Click to expand...
When I saw Manufactured Landscapes, my first reaction was to throw away all my electronic waste with the empty beer cans. If we need all this so badly, we'd better drown in it ourselves than send it over to China to be hand hammered to pieces.

But in the end it's just taking up shelve space now. Maybe it makes for a silicon stuffed sharkskin pie for X-mas 2011?
 
I remember when Nikon only offered the F2AS, F2A, F2 eyelevel, FE, FM, and EM. It was easier with the F2AS, F2A, F2 Eyelevel, Nikon EL2, and Nikkormat FT3.
 
Cheers Steve! You're right on the money with this one!
We just might drown in the choices we have these days. And that does not only goes for buying camera's.
 
Nikon doesn't really have that many cameras. There are models fading out and new models. Today, they really have only the D3100, D7000, and D700. Maybe the D3x, but potential D3x buyers are mostly going for the Sony A850 these days. Everything else is in clearance mode. Next year, they'll have a D4. But, I suppose you'd have to be a Nikon nut to know that.
 
Very nice article thanks for sharing. It goes back to a rant I have on software and operating systems, just because you can make it do something should you? Wouldn't it be better to focus on reliability, flexibility, stability, manageability and scalability than features that .001% of the people will ever really use?

I agree with the simple P&S, my GRD III is used like that 80% of the time. 15% is in macro mode and the other 5% it does some of the magic it can do but I do not really need. I'm hoping others (other than Ricoh and Fuji) will focus on elegant usable high IQ cameras and not on putting six different zooms in basically the same body. Almost as bad as the bedding industry over here in the states.

IMHO your english is fine, but then I still speak COBOL better than I do english.

Thanks.

B2 (;->
 
On one side is that, what we have today: an overkill of choices. On the other side we have the old communist system: an empty shelf 90% of the time. When they have something it's inadequate. No one wants this but I don't see that we will have something reasonable in between.
A friend of mine works for a premium car manufacturer. They had a multimillion project just to build a new software engine that ensures that a car is configured with parts that fit together. I read that few identical premium cars drive around in Germany because of all the a-la-carte options.
 
Nice article Steve. I went for the jugular and simply typed in: "Killing Us Softly" in the search field. Call me lazy but I didn't want to wade through the site.

Your article makes several good points raised concerning too many choices or "Trop de choix, tue de choix.” Not only are we bombarded with too many choices from too many companies but as you point out, we're inudated with techno-babble when all we want to do is take pictures.

We're way overdo to return to some semblance of simplicity.

Here's a novel approach camera manufacturers might want to consider:

Concentrate on QUALITY rather than QUANTITY!
 
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