... For me, the main problem with all current digital cameras is that they have a user interface that works like teletext or old teletype computer applications. If you grab your good old analogue, fully mechanical SLR, you will instantly understand what I mean: there's a handful of buttons and each one does what it needs to do in nearly the most simple way possible. Comparing that to the 17-button-press-for-this-then-3-clicks-here-and-we're-almost-there kind of UI now, it's clear that some improvement should be possible. Nokia's menu system was considered to be very user friendly until the iPhone came out. We need a similar revolution back to controls that focus on what the machine will be used for.
This is a common complaint and it's mostly just another fantasy as we reminisce fondly for the simpler cameras and simpler times of the past, and miss our photographic youth.
Most cameras nowadays have a complex of controls needed to configure and tailor their body operations and exposure system to your likings and, even more so, to configure their image processing systems for the output of JPEG images. Old mechanical cameras like a Nikon FM didn't have image processing systems, customizable operation settings, or configurable exposure systems. You can't do that kind of configurations setup with three knobs like you could when setting aperture, shutter and focus. Old mechanical cameras (thinking of the FM again) often needed only seven more controls ... set film speed, shutter release, film wind, declutch film drive, rewind, open back ... to have a complete control set.
Digital cameras need a lot more controls to make their settings with. Providing a discrete control for every setting creates a button/switch/knob nightmare which doesn't work. Even if you don't use the image processing system (because you capture raw format files) there is still a complex set of metering options to manage along with other settings which configure the camera to work as you want.
The good news is that most of these settings need to be used once or only rarely. So most of what you need to use, most of the time, are the same as that Nikon FM ... set aperture, exposure time, focus, and release shutter. No need to wind or rewind the film. That means that the in-use OPERATING controls are actually reduced.
Looking at the G1 ... configure the camera operations once, close the LCD, and set it into RAW capture, Manual exposure mode, manual focus. From that point on:
- on/off switch
- one menu to set the ISO sensitivity (one button, two selection arrows)
- one dial that clicks between setting the shutter time or setting the aperture.
- focusing ring on the lens
- shutter release
That's all you need to use to operate the camera past the configuration settings and make your photos with all the facility that the Nikon FM did. Setting the ISO is the only operation that takes multiple button presses, where on the FM you had to press and hold a lock button while turning a selector ring.
If they provided a digital camera that did what the Nikon FM did ... that is, had only raw capture, (no JPEG output), manual focus only, one metering pattern, match-needle metering, no histogram or other exposure setting options, only single frame capture, and replaced the LCD and buttons for setting ISO with a dial and lock button ... the controls would be as simple or simpler than the FM.
The question is, would anyone buy it?
I use all my cameras set up that way a good bit of the time. But in all honesty, I doubt I'd buy a modern camera that could do nothing else. My expectations of what a camera should be able to do have grown beyond what it was possible for an FM to do.
Thomas Wolfe was right:
"You can't go home again."