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Simplicity...

Knorp

Well-known member
Tend to agree here: less is more :)
Frankly, I'd hate to loose the screen, but could do happily without the buttons and especially the video crap :banghead:

But then of course as always YMMV ...
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Dead technology glorified against the latest? :facesmack:
There is no such thing as dead technology. I did an interesting experiment a week or two ago:
A friend of mine gave me his Olympus 7070 that he didn't use anymore. I decided to take it for a swing, and was shocked to see what a bad camera it is. Speed, viewfinder, general electronics, LCD etc. Was it a better camera when it was launched? Of course not. It's always been a bad camera, but because it's digital, we accepted all kinds of excuses to defend the sorry little gadget. Compare that to most SLR cameras that one can buy for symbolic amounts nowadays. Many of them are still great cameras, decades after they were launched. They aren't digital of course, so it takes more of an effort to get the final image, but ergonomics are mostly great, and they will remain great.

Fast forward to 2016 and the camera phones. What is it that make them such great gadgets? Two things: They are easy to use and they are always available. Do the users switch between all kind of modes and dig into the menus to optimise their results? Of course they don't. Most users know how to switch to camera mode and how to take a photo. That's it, and maybe camera designers should learn something from that fact.
 
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Vivek

Guest
The old film tech hit a ceiling w.r.t. resolution, dynamic range, sensitivity, processing, etc, etc. Talk about compromise. :LOL:
 
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Vivek

Guest
Totally agree with that, Jorgen. :)

That message ought to sink in to some complaining about extra buttons.
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
There is no such thing as dead technology. I did an interesting experiment a week or two ago:
A friend of mine gave me his Olympus 7070 that he didn't use anymore. I decided to take it for a swing, and was shocked to see what a bad camera it is. Speed, viewfinder, general electronics, LCD etc. Was it a better camera when it was launched? Of course not. It's always been a bad camera, but because it's digital, we accepted all kinds of excuses to defend the sorry little gadget. Compare that to most SLR cameras that one can buy for symbolic amounts nowadays. Many of them are still great cameras, decades after they were launched. They aren't digital of course, so it takes more of an effort to get the final image, but ergonomics are mostly great, and they will remain great.

Fast forward to 2016 and the camera phones. What is it that make them such great gadgets? Two things: They are easy to use and they are always available. Do the users switch between all kind of modes and dig into the menus to optimise their results? Of course they don't. Most users know how to switch to camera mode and how to take a photo. That's it, and maybe camera designers should learn something from that fact.

Have you ever tried to convince a Leica man of that? :ROTFL: :LOL: :ROTFL:
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Have you ever tried to convince a Leica man of that? :ROTFL: :LOL: :ROTFL:
Ah, but a Leica M is one of the simplest cameras to use, particularly those without an LCD. In aperture priority, you aim, you focus and you press the shutter button. There's no reason not to use f/8 for those who don't know about more advanced figures with decimals and stuff. I've never owned a Leica, but I had a Rollei XF35 many years ago, an excellent little rangefinder camera with a fixed 40mm lens. All family members were able to get sharp photos with that camera. Again: things were easier before... or were people simply smarter?
 

k-hawinkler

Well-known member
Yup, you and your family members don't seem to have the Leica man attitude!
BTW, that's all good IMHO. :thumbs:
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
... and why I'd rather have an M-D.

Sitting here struggling to figure out how my E-M1 works, this was a great read:

https://ilfordphotowordpresscom.wor...blem-of-buttons-and-why-i-love-a-film-camera/

Hmm. My thoughts on this subject are complex, but there's a simple foundation to them: The problem I find with many a camera today is that the ergonomics of the body simply don't fit my needs. It's not "too many buttons" that bothers me. It's that there is no way to pick up or handle the camera without having to train my hands to do odd, unnatural things.

I don't find this to be the case with the E-M1, actually. The E-M1 has a very ergonomics design. It's a very camera with very complex capabilities and a motherlode of options, it takes a while to learn and configure to my personal desires, but once configured I have no problem working with it. The plethora of buttons and menus don't get in the way, the body is eminently well-shaped for handling and use.

It is also like that with the E-1, with the Panasonic L1, and with the Leica SL. Also the Nikon F6 and F, and many of my film cameras. Each of these cameras has a different range of features/complexity/configurability, but all have excellent, simple ergonomics that are easy to live with.

The Leica M digital models are interesting in this regard. I am carrying the M-P today. One of the things I most dislike about it is that it is hard to just pick it up off a table without either mashing down a few buttons or putting a thumbprint on the viewfinder or LCD, or on the lens. It does not have a plethora of buttons and menus the way the E-M1 does, but its ergonomics are not as good. The SL had more menus and about the same number of buttons, but proves to be a lot easier to handle without pressing the wrong thing inadvertently. When I compare the M-P to my M4-2, the M4-2 come out on top for ergonomics despite the fact that the thicker, taller M-P body actually fits my hands better: I can pick up the M4-2 without accidentally putting thumbprints in bad places, or changing the camera mode, etc, without having to grab it by the neckstrap.

Given the way I work with the M-P, and how I'd prefer to handle it, the new M-D model is probably the perfect Leica M camera for me. Not because of its simplicity so much (although I appreciate that as well) as because it does not provide any obstructions to my handling it and using it easily.

G
 
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fotografz

Well-known member
I like the title. Simplicity.

Maybe the subject should be about how technology has redefined the concept of simplicity?

On one hand, advancing technology appears to have added layers of complexity due to ever expanding abilities. On the other hand, things like seeing the effect of settings right in a mirrorless viewfinder can be pretty darned helpful. In a similar way, the first DSLRs with LCD images of the last shot taken was revolutionary for learning exposure, composition and especially if you were learning t0o work with lights. I recall wishing for a way to take a Polaroid with a 35mm film SLR when working with lighting. I even had such a contraption for a short while. Digital changed all that forever.

I think people who complain about overly complex photographic tools resent the notion of more stuff between them and the subject. I know I do to some degree.

However, that may be due to the more modern tendency to jump from one camera to the next in search for a little bit better this or that. Do we ever really get fully vested in one of these new cameras before we're on to the next one? Heck, even the placements and organization (as poor as its was) of the Sony A7R that I was just getting used to, changed when the A7R-II came out.

- Marc
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I don't find this to be the case with the E-M1, actually. The E-M1 has a very ergonomics design. It's a very camera with very complex capabilities and a motherlode of options, it takes a while to learn and configure to my personal desires, but once configured I have no problem working with it. The plethora of buttons and menus don't get in the way, the body is eminently well-shaped for handling and use.

G
But this is what I don't understand: For hundreds of years, or at least as long as machines and gadgets have been around, making products that follow a common standard has been seen as a big advantage. We have that in cars, cameras, computers and kitchen machinery. Although each manufacturer tends to make their own variation, they mostly follow certain standards, and the standards have been easy to learn and easy to relate to.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm given the option to tailor-make each camera to my own needs, and while that initially sounds like a good idea, it also requires me to do more work and to actually remember all the options that I chose. Then, next year when the new model is launched, there are different options and different buttons, and since the buttons don't have names like "WB" or "ISO" but "fn1" and "fn2", the only way to remember things for those of us with a squirrel brain is to attach small, yellow "Post-it" notes at each and every button. And if I borrow the camera of somebody else, somebody who does not attach "Post-it" notes to his camera, it's all chaos. How do I even take photos with this thing?

During the sixties and seventies, there were car manufacturers who made all kinds of fancy touches to the layout of the dashboard. Being a former Citroën owner, I know all about that. Friends borrowing my car were always a threat to themselves and others when moving along the road. For safety as well as practical reasons, this changed, and most cars today follow a similar, mostly identical, pattern for all essential functions, the same way as computer keyboards are more or less identical. These layouts may not be ideal, but since everybody use them, they are easy to recognise. No learning is necessary.

Not so with cameras. While there was certainly a large degree of standardisation way back in the sixties and seventies (except for this one Japanese company that decided that everything should turn in the opposite direction of everybody else... yes, I'm looking at you Nikon), individualisation is now all the rage. During my 30 years with the OM-1, did I ever feel the need for the film advance lever and power switch to swap places? Nope, I didn't, just like I never liked borrowing a Saab, simply for the reason that it took me a second or two to remember that the ignition key was next to the gear shift.

So, I'm struggling with the E-M1. Yes, the camera features excellent ergonomics, but I'm sure that any standardisation chosen by Olympus would be much easier for me to learn than spending time creating my own standards and then remembering them. If cameras came in two flavours, one with a locked standard layout and one with a free-for-all do it yourself lackofsystem, I'm quite sure that a large majority of people would choose the easy version, the one where the shutter release is that round button on the top right, not a combination of three buttons spread around the camera that have to be pushed in changing sequences depending on the moon phase and the trade results at Tokyo Stock Exchange the previous week.

And again, ask people what advanced options they use with their phone camera phones (or is that camera phone cameras?) and if they would want the option of individually changing how the power on button works depending on the day of week.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Standardization of machines and gadgets has certainly not been around for "hundreds of years", Jorgen. The industrial age only barely began in the 1700s, didn't really get rolling until the 1800s, and there were few 'standards' in the modern sense until the middle of the 1900s. For example, computers in the modern idiom didn't even exist until the 1980s and later. Cameras didn't exist at all until 1839 and didn't approach a modern notion of standardized operation even on 35mm film cartridges until well into the 1950s.

Even today, in automobiles the location of reverse gear on a manual transmission car isn't in a standard position.... Same for headlight switches, etc. And the automatic transmission PRNDLL pattern standard dates to the early 1970s before it became a standard. (And seems to be going away now that there are hybrid-auto-manual paddle shifters, etc... :)

No camera I know allows you to customize the power on/power off button, nor does any smartphone to the best of my knowledge, so that's a bit of hyperbole. You customize how your smartphone's camera works by installing apps that control the camera differently, and learn how the apps work ... I have several of those and use them when their specific features fit my needs or desires. I use the standard Camera app most of the time, because most of the time it does well enough and I don't have to think about it.

I don't recall that so many cameras all operated the same, according to some standard, in the '60s, '70s, '80s, or '90s either. Those cameras were a lot simpler then, however, and it was just easier to figure them out because they didn't do a heck of a lot other than move film, set exposure, and release the shutter. It took some time to figure out how to load a Rolleiflex Automat, which was different from loading a Rolleiflex T, which was different again from loading a Yashica twin lens reflex that looked almost identical. Never mind loading and using a Hasselblad vs a Mamiya RB67, or a Leica M3 vs a Leica IIIf. I jammed a friend's Nikkormat FTn three times by changing lenses the wrong way, despite that I'd done it before AND had a Nikon F Photomic FTn myself. All different...

I think you're just confusing yourself by thinking that you MUST customize everything because you CAN. Stop. Return the E-M1 to its defaults and learn it well just like that ... It works well enough for the 85th percentile use. Then tweak a couple of small things as they make sense to you and fall properly to your fingers, so that it suits you to the 98th percentile, and then accommodate the 2% that doesn't.

Simplicity is a state of mind more than anything else.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Standardization of machines and gadgets has certainly not been around for "hundreds of years", Jorgen. The industrial age only barely began in the 1700s, didn't really get rolling until the 1800s, and there were few 'standards' in the modern sense until the middle of the 1900s. For example, computers in the modern idiom didn't even exist until the 1980s and later. Cameras didn't exist at all until 1839 and didn't approach a modern notion of standardized operation even on 35mm film cartridges until well into the 1950s.

Even today, in automobiles the location of reverse gear on a manual transmission car isn't in a standard position.... Same for headlight switches, etc. And the automatic transmission PRNDLL pattern standard dates to the early 1970s before it became a standard. (And seems to be going away now that there are hybrid-auto-manual paddle shifters, etc... :)

No camera I know allows you to customize the power on/power off button, nor does any smartphone to the best of my knowledge, so that's a bit of hyperbole. You customize how your smartphone's camera works by installing apps that control the camera differently, and learn how the apps work ... I have several of those and use them when their specific features fit my needs or desires. I use the standard Camera app most of the time, because most of the time it does well enough and I don't have to think about it.

I don't recall that so many cameras all operated the same, according to some standard, in the '60s, '70s, '80s, or '90s either. Those cameras were a lot simpler then, however, and it was just easier to figure them out because they didn't do a heck of a lot other than move film, set exposure, and release the shutter. It took some time to figure out how to load a Rolleiflex Automat, which was different from loading a Rolleiflex T, which was different again from loading a Yashica twin lens reflex that looked almost identical. Never mind loading and using a Hasselblad vs a Mamiya RB67, or a Leica M3 vs a Leica IIIf. I jammed a friend's Nikkormat FTn three times by changing lenses the wrong way, despite that I'd done it before AND had a Nikon F Photomic FTn myself. All different...

I think you're just confusing yourself by thinking that you MUST customize everything because you CAN. Stop. Return the E-M1 to its defaults and learn it well just like that ... It works well enough for the 85th percentile use. Then tweak a couple of small things as they make sense to you and fall properly to your fingers, so that it suits you to the 98th percentile, and then accommodate the 2% that doesn't.

Simplicity is a state of mind more than anything else.
You take my ramblings far too literally, Godfrey.

Most 35mm cameras loaded film the same way, from the tiny XA to the mammoth F5. Why then are memory cards loaded in umpteen different ways, print side out, print side in, from the side, from the bottom, together with the battery, behind a separate door. Yes, film has certain restrictions that memory cards don't have, but that shouldn't prevent designers and engineers from agreeing on a standard that works better than other solutions. Apparently, it does.

Medium format is a completely different story. Professional tools are made for people who invest time in getting to know their gear. I own a GX680 and I never expected it to work like other cameras, simply because it's a unique tool made for a unique purpose. An amateur camera, I expect to pick up and use without having to read any instruction manual, the same way I could with an SLR of times past. Unfortunately, some digital cameras, I can't even switch on without reading the first 22 pages of the manual.

Interestingly, if we look at mirrorless cameras, the company that makes cameras within that category that resemble traditional SLR ergonomics the most is Panasonic, who had never made photographic equipment before they joined 4/3. Their cameras are totally boring, mostly with a somewhat daft design, but they work as one would expect a camera to do. Apparently, they did some research before they started.

As for headlight switches, I haven't driven a car in decades, or since I gave up on Citroën, that doesn't turn on the headlights by rotating a stick attached to the steering wheel column, but I mostly drive Japanese cars nowadays.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Argumentative rhetoric.

Most analog cameras could be picked up and figured out in a matter of minutes. Yeah, a few cameras had odd film loading procedures, but in most cases those procedures didn't change model to model and people tended to stick with a brand anyway. The ubiquitous V camera for example ... learn to load one you could load the next 20 years of models.

Cell phones are used heavily because they are simple, not because you can get apps to control the camera ... making it more complex.

Cameras like my former A99 and current A7R and A7R-II are electronic devices with complex procedures even for basic functions ... requiring memorization of menu locations and what function is assigned to what button or series of buttons ... and that includes accessories. Then the next model is launched and the menu has been shuffled and the buttons relocated.

Turning everything off or not customizing these tools, negates the very notion of availing ones self of the very advancements they paid for.

So far, the penalty of higher functioning tools has been complexity.

Whether it has to be so complicated, is the real question.

- Marc
 

4season

Well-known member
Simplicity can be yours if you really want it, but don't expect to find it in any store :ROTFL: Use the same camera long enough, and it'll eventually seem pretty simple.

I'm enjoying a bit of film photography too:

Not because I needed a break from my Sony A7 (original model) but because I discovered that "new" Zenits could be had for a song, and I had never used one before. But it's easy to forget that stuff could be tricky to do well with film.
 
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