Two questions...

[uhoh7]

(1) What do you think about the many options offered, usually by menu choices that may take more time to set up than physical switches and dials? Are they of use to you?

The options I never use are of no use. That's most of them. Even the ones I do use are easy to forget and screw things up 🙂

(2) Have you worked out any system that simplifies and speeds the operation of many modern digital cameras that you could recommend to others?

No

Oh, and a third question. Am I showing my age?

Yes. 😉

Quit complaining and deal with it. That's what we all have to do 🙂

I think everybody finds themselves cursing menus. They could be way better, and some, like Sony, are beyond terrible. But every step you take in modern life is fraught with one silly routine or the other. Try getting on a airplane. Program your DVR. Find a good doctor. PITA whereever you look LOL

 

[Larry Cloetta]

"P" is for "Perfect".

 

[Tim Murphy]

"P" is for "Perfect".

Dear Larry,

Funny, I thought "P" meant professional? 😉

I like to shoot wildlife and birds so I pretty much stick to Av priority and auto-ISO when it's available.

Menus would be less confusing if they could be set and forgotten. Every camera I own that is digital forgets everything when you swap batteries. That is an enormous source of frustration to me because I have a hard remembering exactly how I had everything set up.

I reckon that is an indication that my age might be advancing? That beats the alternative by a long shot though.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 😀

 

[TXForester]

I'm mixed on it. On the one hand I find there is a lot in the menus I do not need and treat the camera like a simpler film camera. Manual or aperture priority and ISO adjustment.

On the other hand, I've added the Magic Lantern hack to a SD card to give me trap focus and more choice over focus points. So that is another layer of menus items to deal with when I want them.

 

[Colin Corneau]

2 points:

• I think the abundance of controls and options are going on the assumption that the photographer has attained a high level of skill; these are things they know almost without thinking and therefore actually do give a greater level of control.

•*People actually get more freedom and learn more if they have 'fewer' options - someone just starting will learn more from a K1000 than they will from an F5, even though they essentially do the same thing.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

I'd like to see a camera with no LCD screen, 24Mp sensor with high dynamic range, only produces a RAW file, uses lenses with aperture and focus rings, and has a knob for shutter speed and one for exposure compensation (plus or minus 3 stops). Oh.. and a really nice EVF. Done.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Bill, I remember back in the early 1990's, I had been shooting with Canon F-1n's for many years and a display company asked me to shoot some pics for their sales catalog. The owner of the company was this eccentric old guy who insisted that I use their camera equipment to do the job. They had a Canon A-1. Going from my fully manual F-1n's to the A-1 seemed so strange, and so over complicated.

Now I look across my office to an old A-1 with a 50 SSC lens and it all seems so simple compared to the gear I use now.

Times change, we get older, and I know for myself, I do long for what seems like simpler times.

 

[Michael Markey]

The one I can't get my head around is auto ISO .... haven't attempted to use that at all on any of my digitals that offer it. I guess in film terms it's a little like using Diafine.

Thats funny Keith ... of all the auto controls I find that by far the most useful.

My GRV is set to TV/AV all the time ....I can choose the app and speed I want knowing that the iso is good enough to cover my back.

 

[Trius]

I've never understood all the chagrin over too many buttons or controls. You set your preferences and leave them alone or tweak as needed.

It's way too easy to hit a button in error and interrupt shooting. Manual film cameras had nothing on the back other than maybe an ISO reminder or slot for storing a film box end. Simple and sufficient.

 

[Trius]

I'd like to see a camera with no LCD screen, 24Mp sensor with high dynamic range, only produces a RAW file, uses lenses with aperture and focus rings, and has a knob for shutter speed and one for exposure compensation (plus or minus 3 stops). Oh.. and a really nice EVF. Done.

Plus plus plus

 

[jsrockit]

Thats funny Keith ... of all the auto controls I find that by far the most useful.

My GRV is set to TV/AV all the time ....I can choose the app and speed I want knowing that the iso is good enough to cover my back.

Exactly...

 

[willie_901]

(1) What do you think about the many options offered, usually by menu choices that may take more time to set up than physical switches and dials? Are they of use to you?

There are too many options.

Automation sometimes causes as much trouble as it eliminates. One example is the recent implementation of electronic shutters. People set the their cameras to automatically choose between mechanical and electronic shutter operation. In some circumstance the ES produces motional artifacts. When lights that flicker dominate (older fluorescent lamps are just one example) the ES images have severe banding cause by ES scanning aliasing with the lights' flicker rate. Naive photographers often assume their camera is defective.

Some brands offer reasonable on-camera short cuts to menu options they believe most people use. Other brands let us store several sets of operational menu settings to quickly switch between sets of menu parameters. The problem is the majority of the market expects this sort of complexity. For ever person who would welcome a minimalistic approach there are those who would criticize a brand for not offering a complex set of options.

(2) Have you worked out any system that simplifies and speeds the operation of many modern digital cameras that you could recommend to others?

Yes, but this is brand specific. The only automated functions I use on a regular basis are:

• aperture control (to minimize camera shake)
• exposure bracketing (to reduce the chance of overexposure)
  
  Not shooting JPEGs means a lot of Menu settings can be ignored.
  
  With an ISO-invarient camera the analog read-noise is constant so ISO automation is redundant with raw. One only has to worry about over exposure because at base ISO, compensation for sensor under exposure can be achieved during post production. I often use this method. I just set the shutter time and aperture and ignore the light meter. When practical, I use auto-bracketing to minimize loosing a shot to overexposure. Often this is similar to shooting without and LCD. The in-camera JPEG is too dark to review. Of course many brands allow one to turn LCD off which solves the "I wish cameras didn't have LCDs" issue. When the underexposure exceeds three stops (ISO 1600 for my camera), I almost always switch to B&W during post production.
  
  This leaves focusing. It can be useful to change focusing modes to match the task at hand. While many highly automated cameras can also be focused as one would manually focus a camera without any AF, it still takes some studying and menu time to figure out how to affect fast, minimalistic ways to implement virtual analog focusing. I often work this way. Sometimes I use AF and even automated face detection can be useful.

Am I showing my age?

In a way you are.

Like many of us you have a great deal of experience which means many of the automated functions and complexity are redundant. You are much more qualified to decide how to use the camera than strangers (the firmware developers) who have to guess what to do without being present. Decades of experience counts.

In a way you are not.

I will speculate young people would wonder how come they can't set up and store menu settings in-camera by using a user-friendly interface similar to well-designed apps they use daily with mobile devices. I would prefer to set my camera up with a well-designed phone or tablet interface. Then I could quickly switch in-camera between 3 to 6 stored sets of operational parameters I could define and name myself. After an initial effort, complexity and minimalism would not be mutually exclusive.

 

[MrFujicaman]

Bill, has it crossed your mind that all the &&$#@#@**( menus are why old school Leica's and Nikon F's, etc are being embraced by people who aren't as old as the cameras they're using ?

 

[Dektol Dan]

Two Answers?

Two Answers?

Bill:

1. Setting the ISO on a digital is like choosing a film type.

2. Forget all the other options and shoot like a film camera
using the best of your old skills.

 

[Range-rover]

I find that the newer the digital camera's they have more and more menu's in
them and it's just to much that I don't use them. How much do we need in a
camera to take great pictures, maybe at one point we'll go back to simple cameras
again but at this point no. The camera company's are having to much fun stuffing
them with features that most of us do not need.

 

[Chuck Albertson]

I'm only on my second DSLR (a D750, along with the user D7000 I've using for a couple of years), but I groaned when I opened the box and found a 500-page instruction manual. You have to triage the manual by going through it and flagging the bits you need to learn about (basic operation, autofocus), and block out the stuff I'm really not interested in (video, WiFi, in-camera processing, etc.). That takes time, and even though I'm a recovering geek it gets old.

Also, the Nikon manual tells you about what the menu selections are, but not much about what the selections will do. I usually have to pick up someone else's book (Thom Hogan, Darrell Young) for the under-the-hood stuff. It takes a while to get the camera set up for basic operation, and much longer to really get to know just the stuff you need to know. One thing about the D750 I like is that you can set up a couple of custom profiles, and they're accessible on one of the top dials so that you don't have to dig around the menus to do the same thing.

One of the things I like about the Monochrom is that its very basic operations are the same as the film Leicas, so there wasn't as much of a learning curve and I can shoot it alongside the film Ms without too much thought about which is which.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Oh, yes… plus black paint. 😛

 

[Oscuro]

1. I just learn the camera. I usually shoot in aperture priority and manually set ISO for indoors or out. The rest is selectable on the fly. Kind of like knowing where your turn signals are. To facilitate this I limit the number of camera systems I use.

2. Not really, except shoot a lot. Shoot a hundred frames a day - at least.

3. Isn't everybody?

 

[quadtones]

I seem to recall some ad copy, back in the last millennium, for a Pentax 6x7, pointing out that the camera only had a few controls: f-stop, shutter speed, shutter release, film advance. The gist of the copy was that there was "nothing between you and your creativity," or words to the equivalent.

Today, I continue to use M cameras, both digital and film, mostly manually. Efforts with Canon, Nikon, even the GR, seem to be spoiled by them having too many buttons, all getting in the way somehow.

I also recall a Steve McQueen movie, in which, holding his head in both hands, he says "Cut it out, man, you're hurtin' my melon!" [Which answers number 3].

 

[bmattock]

When you can turn off all the fancy stuff and shoot fully manually, I fail to understand all the bitterness and vitriole. It's not hard you cranky old women.