Is There a Perfect Camera? I know what I want.
… and it doesn’t really exist today.
I saw this article today and it tripped my imagination.
From the article
“Today’s cars are dumb where they should be smart, and smart where they should be dumb. Enough already. Make a car that’s pretty much all dumb and watch it sell — because what automakers are giving people is so bad, they’ll pay more to have less of it.
Cars now are like budget smartphones with wheels: loaded with bloatware, unintuitive, and slow to operate. Carmakers have always struggled with user interfaces, but until recently the biggest problem we had was “too many knobs.” How I long for those days!
The proliferation of touchscreens and LCDs has made every car feel like a karaoke booth. Animations show reclaimed energy from braking, the speedometer changes color as you approach the limit, the fan speed and direction is under three menus. And besides being non-functional, these interfaces are even ugly! The type, the layouts, and animations scream “designed by committee and approved by someone who doesn’t have to use it.”
I wanna throw my hat into the ring for the same thing for cameras.
I want a good, solid, amazing, dumb digital camera.
OK, yeah, I am fine with autofocus, and stuff like aperture priority, even “P”.
Think the F5 Nikon. Whatever the F5 did with a glorious digital sensor.
I don’t want a hundred custom functions.
I don’t want to touch the screen.
I don’t want menus stacked under menus, under menus.
I don’t want or need video.
I just want a camera.
One that makes amazing photos.
I want to set the shutter speed and the aperture.
I want to hold it to my cheek and make an exposure.
WAIT… I don’t want the bells and whistles on the new cameras to go away. I love my D750 and my 6D. I love some of the cool stuff they can do. I am certainly NOT advocating for their removal.
I just want a dumb camera for making photographs the way I like to.
This was apparent to me on a recent trip where I took my D750 and my F5 on a short trip. I haven’t gotten the film and scans back but what I noticed is that I didn’t do anything different on the D750 as I did on the F5.
I composed, set shutter speed, aperture, and made images. I didn’t once touch anything on the D750 that was beyond the capabilities of the F5.
I didn’t need to touch any screens, set any custom functions, do any auto-bracketing, HDR, automatic focus stacking or review a myriad of lines and “interface stuff” on the back of the camera.
Those things are great to have when you need them.
But if you don’t need them…
(Note: I do have a Nikon Df and, yes, it does come very close to perfect. I love it. It is my go-to camera even though I also own a full Canon system.)
I imagine the camera would be very inexpensive to build. Just the simplest of tech, a nice big screen, opulent sensor, and a lens mount. Done.
Some of you may think I am against tech.
I’m not.
Some of you may think that I am a Luddite.
I’m not
Some of you may think I have lost my mind.
Hmmm… well, that may be possible.
The flip side of the coin is my Lumix DSC Z70. It does everything a camera could do. From in-camera focus stacking to auto-bracketing to 4K video. And I LOOOOOVE it.
But that doesn’t quell my interest in a simple-to-use camera with basic controls for times when that is all I need.
I used to have a very expensive turntable. It had lots of bells and whistles. I don’t think I used any of them. Now I have a more modest turntable and I put a record on, drop the needle and listen to music.
Actually less friction than trying to find my playlist on Amazon Music.
I own an Elantra. I cannot work on that car. At all.
I used to own a 1964 Ford Bronco. I could see the ground under the hood. I could fix anything under that hood.
My Elantra doesn’t do much more than that old Bronco did. It gets me from one spot to another.
I do appreciate a lot of the tech that got us to better fuel usage, fewer emissions, better air conditioning, and such. But I also wonder if we have given a lot away for those conveniences. Talk about being at the mercy of mechanics.
Maybe it is better now and I am just feeling a need for something more real, authentic, solid, and not overly designed.
I imagine I am not the only one that would love to have a big, beautiful, dumb camera in my hand when in the field. But I am not dogmatic about it. I don’t want it in place of all the great cameras we all love — I just want them to add it to the menu.
Put a “D” on the menu for “dumb” and leave me alone to make photographs.
Ya know.
What would be your perfect camera? Let me know.
I am a photographer, designer, and photo editor. You can find me at my self-named website or at Project 52 Pro System where I teach commercial photography online. This is our tenth year teaching, and it is the most unique online class you will find anywhere.
You can find my books at Amazon, and I have taught two classes at creativeLIVE.
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