Tuesday 2 September 2008

Bah humbug to new cameras

Warning: grumpy rant content.

It's Photokina time, there's a flurry of new cameras being announced. Of course there's been the micro 4/3 announcement but no cameras, and a nice departure from the norm in the Panasonic LX3 (which I might well be buying). Buit for the rest, I'm left pretty cold.

Most of the new digicams continue the ridiculous trend of more megapixels, more dumb-ass features for idiots (face & smile recognition etc). Then there's the new DSLRs. Canon announced to 50D, fully justifying my recent 40D purchase - no features I want, a slew I don't (including the extra megapixels) and nothing that represents an improvement as a photographic tool. Then Nikon go ahead with the D90, inculding video. Some seem to be getting excited by this (Michael Reichmann right up there), not me.

A photo camera is for stills. I'm not a videographer and don't want to be. With so many other improvements missing that I do want (mirror lock-up button, higher dynamic range, large VF etc etc), this is just adding a bunch of useless nonsense that dis-improves (what's a good antonym of improve?) rather than enhances the camera as a tool, IMO.

I've been using my Zeiss Ikon a lot recently, and it's far more satisfying to use than most other cameras, with simple control that get to the heart of the matter. Why can't digital cameras be that simple? (More of which later)

Rant over.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Martin!
    Not too much good to say about most of the recent cameras. If you happen to buy the LX3, I'd be very interested to read what you think. I own the LX2 myself, and even if the image noise is rather noticeable, I can live with that. The one thing I find really annoying is the 4 seconds I have to wait between each RAW capture.

    Oh, by the way, Are you still in on the print exchange.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ranting is good, it seems every couple of months Nikon and Canon have to top each other.

    ReplyDelete

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