Oscuro
He's French, I'm Italian.
Yep. That about covers it.
robert blu
quiet photographer
Showing my age, not afraid of this 
...in the old times if you had a knowledge of what photography was based on you could use any camera because they all had the same simple controls, iso, aperture, shutter and focus.
Now there are too many options, you must learn a complex "instruction book" and if you change camera there will be new different instructions...
I agree once you set the basic you can ignore most of them (and it is nice to have many options) but if by accident you hit without knowing a wrong button you loose the control...
This is why my only digital camera is the Leica x1 which I bought 5 years ago and still use...simple controls and minimalistic menu...
Sumarizing:
1- yes, too many options and...
2- what already said, set main parameters and forget everything else
3- yes, and that is nice
robert
...in the old times if you had a knowledge of what photography was based on you could use any camera because they all had the same simple controls, iso, aperture, shutter and focus.Now there are too many options, you must learn a complex "instruction book" and if you change camera there will be new different instructions...
I agree once you set the basic you can ignore most of them (and it is nice to have many options) but if by accident you hit without knowing a wrong button you loose the control...
This is why my only digital camera is the Leica x1 which I bought 5 years ago and still use...simple controls and minimalistic menu...
Sumarizing:
1- yes, too many options and...
2- what already said, set main parameters and forget everything else
3- yes, and that is nice
robert
mdarnton
Well-known
I mostly ignored the controls on my Nikon D300, but my new D7200 has two user settings on the control knob that I have set for the two most common uses I have for the camera, and that's been a nice thing to have. One's set for studio strobe shots, low EI, full manual control; the other for high EI B&W, A priority, which are the only two things I'm usually doing with it. If I had one more user setting I'd set it to EI400, A priority, Auto white balance, and I'd never look at a menu again. Like others, I'm still using center-weighted metering, and for AF, a single center spot, lock and recompose. The Nikons do incredible focusing tricks, but I haven't figured them out. Actually, most of my lenses (bought after I got the D300) are old manual focus primes, so I rarely use any of the DSLR focus modes, anyway.
I know I could fuss with things a lot more, but I'm more interested in not fussing, so I don't. You just have to learn to ignore things. For instance, I don't shoot raw. It's an extra bother, with theoretical advantages, but who are we fooling: the Nikon does jpegs WAY better than my M3s and M4s and Tri-X, and I lived with that level of quality for 40 years just fine. Do I actually need another 5%? No, I do not.
I've messed around with the menus enough to know where it all is, and set up some custom menus, but I view the D7200 the same as PhotoShop--it will do things I never need to do, and I don't need to understand every feature.
Aside from Leicas, my other 35mm film cameras are Nikon FGs. I have never felt that I needed anything more the the basic Leica offered than an OK meter, and so the FG is perfect. I never had any interest in the fancier film Nikons. The FGs stay on A about 100% of the time. When I am carrying Leicas I don't use a meter and haven't for decades--if I have to pull one out, that's too much bother. Even when I was shooting news I never used a motor--line up one good shot, no spray and pray--so that's all unexplored on the new cameras, too.
I know I could fuss with things a lot more, but I'm more interested in not fussing, so I don't. You just have to learn to ignore things. For instance, I don't shoot raw. It's an extra bother, with theoretical advantages, but who are we fooling: the Nikon does jpegs WAY better than my M3s and M4s and Tri-X, and I lived with that level of quality for 40 years just fine. Do I actually need another 5%? No, I do not.
I've messed around with the menus enough to know where it all is, and set up some custom menus, but I view the D7200 the same as PhotoShop--it will do things I never need to do, and I don't need to understand every feature.
Aside from Leicas, my other 35mm film cameras are Nikon FGs. I have never felt that I needed anything more the the basic Leica offered than an OK meter, and so the FG is perfect. I never had any interest in the fancier film Nikons. The FGs stay on A about 100% of the time. When I am carrying Leicas I don't use a meter and haven't for decades--if I have to pull one out, that's too much bother. Even when I was shooting news I never used a motor--line up one good shot, no spray and pray--so that's all unexplored on the new cameras, too.
Michael Markey
Veteran
Exactly ....
Ronald M
Veteran
I use KISS, Keep it simple stu
It is found by selecting M
Leica has 4 presets I can make
Nikon has 4 banks for image , + 4 more . I have a bank set for landscape, one for speed lights and parties, one for studio portraits.
I use Nikon picture control and have made some custom ones using curves. This works for JPEG only and NEF must be opened in Nikon software to read the codes.
If one tries to figure all this out every time from scratch, he will go crazy.
It is found by selecting M
Leica has 4 presets I can make
Nikon has 4 banks for image , + 4 more . I have a bank set for landscape, one for speed lights and parties, one for studio portraits.
I use Nikon picture control and have made some custom ones using curves. This works for JPEG only and NEF must be opened in Nikon software to read the codes.
If one tries to figure all this out every time from scratch, he will go crazy.
Tom Parkes
Newbie
I set the camera up once when I first get it and then leave it alone. Other than the basic controls I'll adjust ISO and white balance and very occasionally, drive mode, all of which have proper physical controls on my D4. I have ISO assigned to the movie record button so I can adjust it looking through the viewfinder and spot metering on one of the front function buttons that I can press and release to drop in and out of spot metering. Early on I assigned a couple of features I might struggle to find to a custom menu page but have rarely visited it. At the end of a shoot I zero the camera back to ISO 100, Auto WB, single frame, NEF.
I absolutely wouldn't use a camera where everyday features were assigned to a menu system. The experience of trying to shoot movies on the D4 quickly illustrates the impracticality of that.
And yes, the M6 would be my desert island camera.
I absolutely wouldn't use a camera where everyday features were assigned to a menu system. The experience of trying to shoot movies on the D4 quickly illustrates the impracticality of that.
And yes, the M6 would be my desert island camera.
jim0266
Established
I've embraced manual mode with auto ISO while using exposure compensation in all my cameras, except one: the Canon 6D, which cannot utilize EC in this mode. Canon botched it with this camera.
When you think of your sensor as film with infinitely variable ISO speeds from shot to shot, does it really matter what the ISO is set to? I know what shutter speed and aperture I need. I have complete creative control of the situation and can still use exposure compensation to "bracket" shots if I want to ETTR or underexpose for the situation.
When you think of your sensor as film with infinitely variable ISO speeds from shot to shot, does it really matter what the ISO is set to? I know what shutter speed and aperture I need. I have complete creative control of the situation and can still use exposure compensation to "bracket" shots if I want to ETTR or underexpose for the situation.
willie_901
Veteran
Well it can matter.
Auto-ISO is actually auto-brightness. When you do what the light meter tells you to do, increasing ISO decreases exposure. Decreasing exposure reduces the signal level so the signal-to-noise ratio and dynamic range decrease. After the shutter closes the ISO amplification creates the global brightness predicted by the light meter.
The issue is whether or not a camera's automation algorithms reliably uses the lowest possible ISO in all circumstances. Occasionally automated control of different functions conflict with each other and a gratuitously high ISO is applied. People often make purchasing decisions based on less than a stop of signal-to-noise ratio differences because they want a lower high-ISO noise level. So if the automation functions under expose and then compensate by a half stop of excessive ISO amplification, the perceived advantage is lost. This effect is easiest to see shadow regions.
Auto-bracketing exposure when ISO is held constant is beneficial. This is a way to maximize exposure.
Of course in-camera JPEGs benefit the most from auto ISO. Post-acquisition brightness is always optimized. Unlike raw files, pushing JPEGs in post-production to compensate for under exposure is limited by JPEG compression. The data you need is missing.