Luminous Landscape Forum

Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Quentin on March 26, 2012, 10:45:26 am

Title: J'Accuse
Post by: Quentin on March 26, 2012, 10:45:26 am
Actually perfect is the enemy of the good, and if we try to ask for too much too soon we won't get the good in good time, as it were  ;D
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: image66 on March 26, 2012, 11:32:53 am
Apple's iOS 5.0 update is proof that they don't get everything right and it took over six months for them to fix the podcast player in the iPad after they broke it. But generally speaking, you are correct that Apple gets it.

My Panasonic DMC-L1 still has the same software flaws left behind after their initial set of bug fixes. They will never be fixed. Ever.

It's the same thing with every other camera. Once the camera hits production, a few people will fix a couple glaring issues, but otherwise everybody has moved on to the next deadline product release. And so it goes. This is the problem with new models coming out so frequently. There is never any perfecting of a product any longer. Of course, some companies have been known to take this to an extreme, but a good example of this is the Canon AE1 or Nikon F3 or Olympus OM-4Ti which were on the market so long that repeated revisions and improvements were made to the cameras. By the time we get to the last batches, they were about perfect.

Some manufacturers don't learn how to improve, though. My 2005 Jeep has the same manufacturing flaws as my 1999 did before it. Exact same vehicle from the exact same series. Six years later...

Between the lines, I think we can guess which camera manufacturer has triggered this essay. If my guess is correct, I ask the question of why haven't they fixed the glaring software flaws before releasing the new black model? I can only assume that the new interchangeable lens camera will never be fixed either.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Craig Arnold on March 26, 2012, 11:34:33 am
Consider the very recent history of camera development.

An astonishing array of innovation, technical achievement and sheer hard work coming mostly out of Japan. In a time when their country suffered great devastation from the earthquake, tsunami and radiation; where hardly a single family in the whole country escaped tragedy.

So from me a huge thank you and great respect to the engineers in the fields of electronics, optics and manufacturing who have achieved so much despite such adversity.

I have had my wonderful wonderful X100 for 1 year now. Fuji made a camera just for me, and I love it beyond words. And I appreciate the risks taken by Fuji management to get the funding to make it in the first place and the wonderful work done by the engineers.

Articulating my emotional response to this article would doubtless result in an instant lifetime ban, so I will leave it at that.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: fafield on March 26, 2012, 11:55:48 am
The problem Michael describes is one of user interface design, sometimes called "human factors.". I think the problem is more widespread than Michael suggests. The Ford Edge / Lincoln MKZ has been much downgraded by Consumer Reports and JD Power because of a very poor design of the vehicle's telematics (dashboard by Microsoft - literally).  Pick up any Motorola cellphone and tell me the user interface is anything more than a hack with totally inconsistent ways to navigate down and then back up menu levels. Many examples of poor UI can be cited. Only Apple seems to really get it.  Most of that credit is due to Steve Jobs with his maniacal focus on the UI and elegance in design. With Steve's passing, we need to watch the next iteration of products carefully.

Having spent my professional career in hi-tech R&D, UI design is relegated to after thought in too many companies.  The few who pay some attention usually form a UI committee, with the predictable result of "a camel is a horse designed by committee." Successful UIs come only by thoughtful design from the outset. Those that have been patched-up through testing feedback show it. How do we get the high tech community to change? By voting with our dollars.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 26, 2012, 12:55:44 pm
The Enemy of Excellence is "Good Enough"


That was a painful lesson I learned early in professional life.

I began photo-life working in an in-house photo-unit that was a service to the company engineers. We worked on a print, slide, film or whatever it happened to be until it was as good as we knew how to make it; my own specialty ended up being the colour lab. Then, when I left and went solo, I ran into the 'commercially acceptable' syndrome where I discovered that commercial labs wouldn't run the one extra filtration test that would have made the prints perfect. (I didn't have the volume to make my own colour processing, apart from Ciba, a viable prospect.) Result? Permanently unhappy customer, me, who tried to push as much as possible the way of Kodachrome or Ektachrome.

So what about cameras? I think there's an added factor there, beyond just incompetence or lack of care: there is more money to be made from delivering the 'new' than keeping the current alive. This works because it's digital, and the reasons/excuses allowing firms to hide behind this sorry state are manifold and all the manufacturers enjoy playing the same game: the updated model. And because it's digital, it all comes with a built-in passport that's the popular acceptance of constant change. It is built-in: people expect constant 'improvement' and they get constant change in its place.

As I mentioned today in another thread: I'd love another Series 500 'blad but wouldn't thank you for an MF digi box. Series 500 could have been for life. As Sedaka sang, more or less: she don't need improvement, she's just too nice to rearrange...

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Isaac on March 26, 2012, 01:24:47 pm


Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Quentin on March 26, 2012, 06:35:37 pm
I think we need to take a step back and realise the  marvels that we now hold in our hands. Perfect? No, because perfection is unachievable. Good?  I agree with with Craig - an astonishing array of innovation and technical achievement.  That's "good enough" for me.  

  
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 26, 2012, 07:24:23 pm
It is easy to be an armchair warrior. And naturally, only photographers know how to do it right (if it weren't for the fact they could never agree). It reminds of the editor that wanted an image of the sunrise over the pacific looking from the coast of California. It is easy to know more than the professional when you don't do the job.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: aduke on March 26, 2012, 07:34:20 pm
It is easy to be an armchair warrior. And naturally, only photographers know how to do it right (if it weren't for the fact they could never agree). It reminds of the editor that wanted an image of the sunrise over the pacific looking form the coast of California. It is easy to know more than the professional when you don't do the job.


And that reminds me of a cartoon I saw as a child, from a book of patriotic (read anti-fascist) cartoons. In this case, the subject being speared was an editor who asked his photographer to go out and photograph the black-out!

But back to the original point, the major problems with UI and controls in cameras is directly due to the planning and engineering groups not knowing how people would be using their product. At least not beyond the idea that you point the thing at what you want to photograph and press the correct button.

We can all get into almost any passenger car and drive off, mostly safely. This is due to the lesson learned by the US Army in WWII, where fighter planes were crashing because there was not a standard mode for vital controls, like the landing gear switch. In some planes, pushing is up lowered the gear, in some it raised the gear.

Alan
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 26, 2012, 07:45:17 pm
But back to the original point, the major problems with UI and controls in cameras is directly due to the planning and engineering groups not knowing how people would be using their product. At least not beyond the idea that you point the thing at what you want to photograph and press the correct button.

Really? The menus seem organized quite well on my cameras. Camera companies do research on how their customers use cameras. The menus are hardly random. Just because they are not organize the way you would like, does not mean they are not well organized.

We can all pick up a camera and take a picture and so I fail to see how cameras are somehow less organized than a car.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Peter McLennan on March 26, 2012, 07:47:00 pm
Arriflex produced what is arguably the most ergonomically functional 16mm film camera ever made.  Compact, lightweight and nearly silent, it was standard equipment for decades.  I loved everything about it. 

Except that one thing.  The integrated TTL exposure meter needle that sat halfway up the left hand frame line pointed up for underexposure and down for overexposure. 

What were they thinking?  ???

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: John Camp on March 26, 2012, 08:20:49 pm
In my view, the problem isn't a lack of photography enthusiasts in camera companies, but the dominance of engineers, whether or not they're photography enthusiasts. I once took a semester-long course in land surveying when I was working on an archaeological dig, and the culmination of that work was using the then-new total stations, which (to simplify somewhat) combine transits with rangefinders and computers. It took me several weeks to become reasonably proficient in it, but then I watched a civil engineer, who was not a surveyor, essentially work out how to run the total station, and how to survey (starting with his knowledge of basic trig) in an *afternoon.* That's the engineering mind at work - just as it was with the BMW iDrive. Because of the way engineers think, and their wide-ranging experience with computers and technical matters, many of them can work through a flawed piece of firmware without much problem. "See? You just hit three-six-three-four, and there you are, at Initialize." I'm convinced that they don't even *notice* what many of us experience as problems. That's not because non-engineers are dumb, it's just that engineer-think is not their primary mode of problem solving (nor should it be, despite what engineers think.) In fact, I'd call this kind of software/firmware "engineer-dumb," because they can't effectively empathize with their potential customers. Note that it's not that they don't want to, it's that they *can't.*

Maybe the best way to fix this problem is to pose it as an engineering problem. How do you design an effective system for an alien? Well, first (an engineer might say) you have to study the alien. If the camera engineers would study photographers as alien beings, I think they'd do their job better.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Isaac on March 26, 2012, 09:05:31 pm
Maybe the best way to fix this problem is to...

... use a design firm.

http://www.cooper.com

http://www.ideo.com/

etc etc
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 26, 2012, 09:10:31 pm
Camera companies do use design firms.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: image66 on March 27, 2012, 01:49:03 am
Camera companies do use design firms.

Which is how we end up with "Got Print?" buttons, but no MLU.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: ansel aperture on March 27, 2012, 02:02:08 am
"BMW recalls 1.3 million 5 and 6 series models worldwide

German luxury carmaker BMW is recalling some 1.3 million cars worldwide because of potential battery problems that could, in extreme cases, result in a fire".   [BBC  March 27]
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Craig Arnold on March 27, 2012, 02:54:37 am
The Sons of Martha
Rudyard Kipling 1907

The sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited
   that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the
  careful soul and the troubled heart.
And because she lost her temper once, and because she
  was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons, world without
  end, reprieve, or rest.
It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and
  cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that
  the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care
  to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by
  land and main.

They say to mountains, "Be ye removed." They say to
  the lesser floods, "Be dry."
Under their rods are the rocks reproved-they are not
  afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit-then is the
  bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly
  sleeping and unaware.
They finger death at their gloves' end where they piece
  and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry
  behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into
  his terrible stall,
And hale him forth a haltered steer, and goad and turn
  him till evenfall.
To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till
  death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matters hidden - under the
  earthline their altars are-
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to
  restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again
  at a city's drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a
  little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to drop
  their job when they dam'-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark
  and the desert they stand,
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's
  day may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path
  more fair or flat -
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha
  spilled for that!
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness
  to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their
  common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed - they
  know the Angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for
  them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet - they hear the Word - they see
  how truly the Promise runs.
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the
  Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons!
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on March 27, 2012, 03:29:57 am
I totally agree with you here, the dedication of Japanese people in these companies is exemplary.
I too had a negative response to the article, I think it was intended as flame bait perhaps.
The car analogy is ok, but cars are also a much higher value item so people expect them to be better, and they are heavily legislated to ensure certain standards are met. There are plenty cars out their that have been recalled (Toyota!) and there are plenty faults in cars that either go un-recalled or are simply annoying to me as the engineers view on how things work doesn't match my view on how they should work.
Another analogy would be the software industry whose mantra is 'release early, release often'. They develop by customer interaction and iteration.
But yes, sometimes it is frustrating to have a good product that is marginally flawed and the camera maker does nothing to resolve it. There are exemptions. The Fuji X100 is a great example. Amazing camera, but upon initial release it had quirks. Fuji have regularly released firmware updates that improved matters, but recently released 1.20 that not only fixes most of the issues, but adds new functionality based on (customer) feedback. The camera may still not be perfect to all people or all situations, but it is so much better and Fuji are to be congratulated on making a brave new camera, providing high quality support (worldwide warranty collection) and regularly improving the firmware.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Jeremy Roussak on March 27, 2012, 03:38:49 am
Because of the way engineers think, and their wide-ranging experience with computers and technical matters, many of them can work through a flawed piece of firmware without much problem. "See? You just hit three-six-three-four, and there you are, at Initialize." I'm convinced that they don't even *notice* what many of us experience as problems. That's not because non-engineers are dumb, it's just that engineer-think is not their primary mode of problem solving (nor should it be, despite what engineers think.) In fact, I'd call this kind of software/firmware "engineer-dumb," because they can't effectively empathize with their potential customers. Note that it's not that they don't want to, it's that they *can't.*
That's spot on, but a subset of a wider issue: the gifted (in whatever field) very often simply do not understand how anyone could have any difficulty with matters which are, to them, easy and straightforward. Even wider than that, the engineering mind, which loves a challenge, cannot understand that what to it is a fascinating problem is to others merely an irritation, a block in the way of reaching a goal.

If the camera engineers would study photographers as alien beings, I think they'd do their job better.
You mean they aren't?

Jeremy
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: David Hufford on March 27, 2012, 04:25:48 am
I totally agree with you here, the dedication of Japanese people in these companies is exemplary.
 To give credit where credit is due, not everyone who works at "these companies" is Japanese. That include those in Tokyo, let alone plants overseas. Of course, if you are talking about upper management/executive level, then your statement is a little closer to being correct. (I couldn't guess why that would be.)

An astonishing array of innovation, technical achievement and sheer hard work coming mostly out of Japan. In a time when their country suffered great devastation from the earthquake, tsunami and radiation; where hardly a single family in the whole country escaped tragedy.

The  last statement is not exactly accurate. The devastation from the tsunami was in the northeast (Tohoku) region. The Fukushima nuclear plants are also there. That area suffered enormous destruction. Tokyo had a stiff quake, but suffered little damage and few casualties. Things were mostly back to normal by the following Monday except for the threat of power outages and some transportation disruptions along with increasing concern about the problems with the nuclear plants. People in Tohoku and nearby areas suffered greatly, but most families outside that area---except those with friends or relatives there---escaped with little more than inconvenience. We certainly did in Tokyo, and that includes most of the staff (including engineers) at various Fujifilm offices. Further southwest toward Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, was barely affected by the quake.

Going to work after the quake for the vast, vast majority in Tokyo was in no way an act of heroism. We had to go to work. Since we wanted to have jobs, our companies---no matter the industry---had to find ways to keep operating and work around any difficulties from the quake which for most were problems of logistics and adapting to temporary electrical shortages. (Of course some camera companies---Nikon, for example---had factories in the Sendai area destroyed. I do not believe they lost any lives at the factory, but I am not certain of that.)

The fact that companies were able to turn things around so quickly is still an amazing accomplishment, but thankfully most did not have to do it having personally suffered a tragedy anything like people in Tohoku. People there are still living it and probably always will. There is a huge difference.

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on March 27, 2012, 05:55:12 am
Hi David, always good to get a factual update/correction and made for interesting reading.

 To give credit where credit is due, not everyone who works at "these companies" is Japanese. That include those in Tokyo, let alone plants overseas. Of course, if you are talking about upper management/executive level, then your statement is a little closer to being correct. (I couldn't guess why that would be.)

The  last statement is not exactly accurate. The devastation from the tsunami was in the northeast (Tohoku) region. The Fukushima nuclear plants are also there. That area suffered enormous destruction. Tokyo had a stiff quake, but suffered little damage and few casualties. Things were mostly back to normal by the following Monday except for the threat of power outages and some transportation disruptions along with increasing concern about the problems with the nuclear plants. People in Tohoku and nearby areas suffered greatly, but most families outside that area---except those with friends or relatives there---escaped with little more than inconvenience. We certainly did in Tokyo, and that includes most of the staff (including engineers) at various Fujifilm offices. Further southwest toward Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, was barely affected by the quake.

Going to work after the quake for the vast, vast majority in Tokyo was in no way an act of heroism. We had to go to work. Since we wanted to have jobs, our companies---no matter the industry---had to find ways to keep operating and work around any difficulties from the quake which for most were problems of logistics and adapting to temporary electrical shortages. (Of course some camera companies---Nikon, for example---had factories in the Sendai area destroyed. I do not believe they lost any lives at the factory, but I am not certain of that.)

The fact that companies were able to turn things around so quickly is still an amazing accomplishment, but thankfully most did not have to do it having personally suffered a tragedy anything like people in Tohoku. People there are still living it and probably always will. There is a huge difference.


Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on March 27, 2012, 07:06:44 am
I am in general agreement with Michael and what he has to say about camera ergonomics ever since I started reading LL, but this part of the article I take real issue with.

"As for the rest, I can only urge you to look at companies like Apple, who can manufacture an amazing 67 million new iPads in a one year period (as but one example), and yet who rarely have significant design flaws. And when there are firmware flaws, they are quick with updates. The reason is simple. Apple is, as a company, dedicated to excellence in both design and implementation. This is the reason why they are now one of the world's most successful and wealthiest corporations. They also are one of the best companies in the world at keeping new products secret, so any argument that having testers compromises secrecy is flawed at its core."

Apple being very successful is indeed in part due to good design, but not because of good design for the end user.
The major reason Apple are so very profitable compared to other companies is that their product design is concentrated in keeping costs down, often at the expense of the end user. Take keyboards on laptops, I'm typing this on the biggest MacBook Pro, yet it has the same compromised keyboard as the smallest Air and the wireless desktop option. No delete button, grief!! And even worse has modifier keys in a different place to my desktop keyboard, playing havoc with muscle memory. Which is particularly daft considering Apple only two keyboards sizes for all uses and yet they have a different layout of important keys. I experience less confusion going between my full sized Apple desktop keyboard and my 13" Sony Vaio than I do between my Apple desktop and my 17" MacBook Pro.

I have an iPhone and a Nano, but I threw away the earbuds that came with them as they are a single size and painful in use as they are way too big, thus unusable for me. I now have ear buds that take the standardised and cheap Sennheiser three sizes replacement rubber end pieces. Apple Mice are the same but the opposite problem, way too small and which lead to RSI on adult sized hands.

Single size devices to fit all sizes of humanity and varying sizes of laptop having the same tiny and compromised keyboard are simply cost cutting exercises which results in poor ergonomics, is really bad design. Hardly a case of form following function.
To my mind the worst design failing is making something pretty at expense of usability and sadly Apple do just that. But pretty sells far more products than ergonomics ever did.  :(

As for fast firmware updates and the like, I avoid any Apple product until version 3 or 4 as if it's software, it's usually too buggy until fix .3 or .4 and if it's hardware, it's usually too compromised. I finally got an iPhone with the 4s which is so much better than previous models, yet at same time really inferior in many basic ways to my 4 year old HTC. It's also better than my HTC in other ways, but and this is a big but, it is the worst mobile phone I have ever had with regard to the basic ability of being a mobile [that's cellular to to North Americans  ;)] phone and by a long way the most expensive mobile too. It drops calls all the time, sound quality is so bad people ask to ring me back on my landline and voicemail takes up to a week to arrive. As for Siri, it is an utter waste of time as it struggles with even well spoken British accents and a lot of Siri's service is restricted to the USA on the rare chance it actually understood you.
As for the iPad, a very useful tool in many ways but it is an internet device that doesn't recognize a large proportion of website content due to personal reasons at Apple, rather than end user concern. That is not good design to my mind.

Apple software is also as bad as many camera manufacturers stupid menu systems. Finder is possibly the worst software ever, without the ability to replace it with PathFinder, I'd simply bin OSX and install W7 instead and then buy a PC when it came to upgrade. iTunes - not quite as terrible, but again without script hacks it is near unusable in some very basic functionality. iTunes 10.6 is more like the original LR1 beta in terms of file management. And doing something as simple as add a track to a playlist in iTunes on my phone makes any camera menu system seem friendly.  :o In fact Apple's hatred of buttons and simplistic interfaces is very much like using a camera with fiddly menus, rather than dedicated physical buttons and control dials.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 27, 2012, 09:44:28 am
The "built by engineers" hypothesis would be good if it were true. There are more than engineers in the product teams. There are outside user inputs to the process. Most cameras work without the need for any knowledge of photography. The functions are not defined by engineering terms, but photographic ones (or invented ones that have nothing to do with either engineering or photography).
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: allenmacaulay on March 27, 2012, 10:52:50 am
I finally got an iPhone with the 4s which is so much better than previous models, yet at same time really inferior in many basic ways to my 4 year old HTC. It's also better than my HTC in other ways, but and this is a big but, it is the worst mobile phone I have ever had with regard to the basic ability of being a mobile [that's cellular to to North Americans  ;)] phone and by a long way the most expensive mobile too. It drops calls all the time, sound quality is so bad people ask to ring me back on my landline and voicemail takes up to a week to arrive.

There's a reason for that, Apple knowingly compromised the antenna design on their phones to make them slimmer and more fashionable.  It was a known problem in development but they went ahead and released it anyway.  On a related note, as with many other problems, it can indeed be fixed with duct tape.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-15/apple-engineer-said-to-have-told-jobs-last-year-about-iphone-antenna-flaw.html
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Fips on March 27, 2012, 11:26:58 am
Quote
Take keyboards on laptops, I'm typing this on the biggest MacBook Pro, yet it has the same compromised keyboard as the smallest Air and the wireless desktop option. No delete button, grief!!

For me it's an advantage to have the same keyboard (layout) on different machines. The missing delete key doesn't bother me as well as I find pressing 'fn' + 'backspace' just as convenient.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Hans Kruse on March 27, 2012, 12:51:59 pm
For me it's an advantage to have the same keyboard (layout) on different machines. The missing delete key doesn't bother me as well as I find pressing 'fn' + 'backspace' just as convenient.

I agree and I don't think the Apple approach in this matter is to keep down the cost. Steve Jobs was very keen on certain principles and as I recall it he didn't even like the arrow keys.

I have an iPhone 4 and although my old trusty Nokia from 10 years ago worked as well or better as a phone to speak in, I would never miss for the world all the functions in the iPhone. It is an amazing phone and not strange that it is selling like hot cakes. My only regret is that I didn't buy shares in Apple 10 years ago or even 5 years ago ;)

Regarding camera design I have always felt that camera makers didn't support customers adequately by firmware upgrades and didn't put fairly obvious functions into the cameras.

A couple of examples: On my Canon 1Ds mkIII the shutter range limit is from 1/60s to 1/8000s. This means that I want to use auto ISO (although you cannot find the word auto ISO in the manual, of course) and use Av mode I cannont choose e.g. a minimum shutter of say 1/250s or 1/500s which I might like for some wild life shooting. So instead I have to use Tv and set the shutter speed and use the aperture range to limit the aperture to say max f/5.6 (e.g. to avoid an f/4 on a 500mm lens). But there is no easy way to change the aperture range except going into the menu. Fortunately there is a Mymenu where the aperture range is inserted by me so I can find it quickly, but still!! Why isn't there an extra wheel that I can program for that purpose to control either minimu shutter speed in Av mode or maximum aperture opening in Tv mode?

Of course the usual comment on not having a MLU botton. I can better live with that since I store it in Mymenu for easy access, but still, why isn't there an extra botton to program this against.

When we use AF and point the camera at a certain point, wouldn't it be nice to know the DOF (which could be displayed in the viewfinder)? Or on the LCD screen get an indication of DOF when stopping the lens down with the button that serves that purpose? One can move the zoomed in display using the joystick and the DOF button pressed to see the DOF which is useful, but it would be nice and very useful with other ways to see this.

Now the 1Ds mkIII is more than 4 years old so the new cameras have of course fixed these things, haven't they?
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Isaac on March 27, 2012, 01:21:27 pm
Camera companies do use design firms.

I don't know which camera companies do design in-house and which work with design firms, and I don't know which aspects of design they do in-house and which aspects they work on with design firms - so I'll take your word for it.

I do know that the kind of expertise found in one "design firm" can be very different from the kind of expertise found in some other "design firm".

I do know that the comments being made in this discussion are about usability and I provided a link to a firm that specialises in interaction design.

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MarkL on March 27, 2012, 01:28:09 pm
If Apple made dslrs we'd all be choosing between a 32Gb version and a 64Gb version - not sure they are the best example ;)
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Frank Kolwicz on March 27, 2012, 01:48:40 pm
The topic has really gone off on some wild-goose chases, but a couple of you guys have hit it: the problem is the need for constant change, novelty for it's own sake, and that is driven by marketing. In a rational market, a mature product, one might think, would have converged on standardized or at least similar forms following it's intended function (like QWERTY keyboards). I would only expect the kind of wild variation of function layouts that digital cameras display in a brand new technology rather than one that's 150 years old (and, no, digitizing did not change the function of a camera any more than Fujichrome did.)

I don't think it's about having photography enthusiasts at the top of the corporate food chain in order to consistently produce well thought out, functional and satisfying cameras for users - there used to be cameras with consistent functional designs, they were mechanical. It's about the needs of the marketing department that changed when cameras went from being relatively specialized mechanical tools to ultra-mass-market electronic toys.

A lot of the defects and encumbrances that the manufacturers introduce are a product of the need to constantly come up with new buzzwords to fill real or imagined marketing demands and those demands come from the marketing department, not from customers or engineering, although engineering has it's own blame to shoulder for trying put as many frivolous options into a camera that the computer chip can handle ("hey, we still have 1.5% unused functional memory, how about a mode for photographing carp underwater?"), like the digital clocks that have so many functions you have to refer to the multi-page instructions and navigate down 4 or 5 menu selections just to reset the time.

And it's also from a desire to hold back or parcel-out real, desirable, properties to force a constant need for the user to upgrade and generate new sales instead of making a single camera that utilizes the latest tech and well-tested UI in one model, one that will retain it's value for more than a model cycle. We see this in things like firmware that cripples a function in one camera that's available in higher-priced models using the same hardware.

I find it hard to believe that designers want to make things different after successfully producing an acclaimed model and deliberately change it despite degrading the handling, performance or suitability for any given use. The excessive complexity and meaningless choices are driven by the desire for advertising bragging rights, not for coming up with a well-functioning camera.

Back in the old days of mechanical cameras, almost all SLRs had the same basic form and layout, as did most rangefinders. You didn't have to hunt around much to find controls (the simplicity helped a lot). Although some things like direction of rotation varied, the camera/lens still fit your hand pretty much the same way and the rewind lever was in the same place. You didn't need a couple of hours with the manual and an engineering degree to figure out how to control any basic function.

No matter what manufacturers want you to think, there are still only 3 functions that you have control over with a camera that affect image quality and those 3 things should have priority of access and consistency of location within brands: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Yes, there are genuinely useful and convenient things some times made available that do help creating better images in at least some situations. MLU, AF modes and the ability to shut it off, for instance, are necessities for me and there are photographers who have other specialized needs that go beyond the basics, but I don't see any new images, out of the camera, that couldn't have been made by a competent photographer with a Canon F1 or the equivalents from other brands 40 years ago. For my purposes, as a landscape and nature photographer, the digital equivalent of an F1 with those same basic controls would suffice for everything I do. In fact, that's how I use my 5DII, even though it took me hours to find and set the controls in that simple and familiar way and figure out that Live View gave me one-button access to MLU. Of course, I also had to get used to the new way those functions are accessed compared to the Xti that was my first digital camera and that makes it hard for me to use the Xti as a backup camera.

What purpose does it serve for every camera to have a whole host of mostly non-functional options, essentially false choices, vying for access space with the critical 3? (HINT: it makes advertising copy.) Learning to use a camera with just the 3 basic settings doesn't take all that long and really does make you a better photographer, rather than trying to figure out if "landscape mode" versus "floral" would work better for photographing your cat or *is* there a "cat mode" or a "black and white cat in the sun mode"?




Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Hans Kruse on March 27, 2012, 01:52:09 pm
If Apple made dslrs we'd all be choosing between a 32Gb version and a 64Gb version - not sure they are the best example ;)

Well, with a blink in the eye ;) But if we use Apple as an example and we discuss DSLR's then we should consider how the Macs like MacBook, iMac's etc. with OSX works compared to alternatives. I think anybody who have used multiple platforms would agree that the Apple one is more consistent and user friendly than any of the alternatives and to some degree at a price. And unpacking and installing an Airport Extreme is a breeze compared to almost any alternative I can think of ;) Apple didn't become the most valuable publicly traded company by limiting user options. An iPhone or iPad is not to be compared to a DSLR. I can only think of how the whole DSLR concept would have been rethought had it been Apple that had one that....
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Isaac on March 27, 2012, 02:37:30 pm
Apple didn't become the most valuable publicly traded company by limiting user options.

Limiting user options to options provided by Apple simplifies product design and keeps all the revenue at Apple.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Quentin on March 27, 2012, 02:45:39 pm
Limiting user options to options provided by Apple simplifies product design and keeps all the revenue at Apple.

Which is why I own neither an iPad nor an Apple computer. 
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Fips on March 27, 2012, 03:36:42 pm
Quote
What purpose does it serve for every camera to have a whole host of mostly non-functional options, essentially false choices, vying for access space with the critical 3? (HINT: it makes advertising copy.) Learning to use a camera with just the 3 basic settings doesn't take all that long and really does make you a better photographer, rather than trying to figure out if "landscape mode" versus "floral" would work better for photographing your cat or *is* there a "cat mode" or a "black and white cat in the sun mode"?

I do agree with you, that learning the very basics would make many people better photographers. But the question is: do people really want to be better photographers? I'm convinced the answer is 'no' if spending time and reading manuals is the way to achieve this goal. We, as enthusiasts and pros make the false assumption that the average DSLR buyer is as devoted to photography as we are. The reality is that most just want to have nicer picture and the impression that a big, pro-looking camera let's them do this. The market for the three-dial-camera is much smaller than one might think. That's why all those "carp underwater" and other "scene modes" exist.

Having said this, I have the impression that the demand for simplistic cameras is growing as more and more people are fed up with overcomplexity. That's why Leica is doing so well and why Fuji introduced the X-series. I'm certain that we can expect more such cameras in the near future. I'm certainly looking forward to it  ;)


Quote
Back in the old days of mechanical cameras, almost all SLRs had the same basic form and layout, as did most rangefinders. You didn't have to hunt around much to find controls (the simplicity helped a lot). Although some things like direction of rotation varied, the camera/lens still fit your hand pretty much the same way and the rewind lever was in the same place. You didn't need a couple of hours with the manual and an engineering degree to figure out how to control any basic function.


That's an interesting point which is brought up in many discussion about modern technology. The resaon that these cameras looked similar and handled similarly was because the function dictated the form. Form follows function. The rewind lever just had to be along the film canister axis, the penta prism had to be above the mirror box, and so on.
Now the thing is, that this doesn't hold anymore in many cases of modern devices. The extreme case might be an mp3-player. There is no function which defines a form. With flexible displays and batteries now available there is no requirement for any generic form at all. The same is true to a lesser extend with digital cameras. As a consequence designers become more important. But they don't need to understand as much of engineering but rather ergonomics. And that's at least as difficult. There are much more ways how to ergonomically arrange all the buttons, switches, and displays on a camera than possibilities given by a mechanical construction as it used to be.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 27, 2012, 03:41:47 pm
The topic has really gone off on some wild-goose chases, but a couple of you guys have hit it: the problem is the need for constant change, novelty for it's own sake, and that is driven by marketing. In a rational market, a mature product, one might think, would have converged on standardized or at least similar forms following it's intended function (like QWERTY keyboards). I would only expect the kind of wild variation of function layouts that digital cameras display in a brand new technology rather than one that's 150 years old (and, no, digitizing did not change the function of a camera any more than Fujichrome did.)

I don't think it's about having photography enthusiasts at the top of the corporate food chain in order to consistently produce well thought out, functional and satisfying cameras for users - there used to be cameras with consistent functional designs, they were mechanical. It's about the needs of the marketing department that changed when cameras went from being relatively specialized mechanical tools to ultra-mass-market electronic toys.

A lot of the defects and encumbrances that the manufacturers introduce are a product of the need to constantly come up with new buzzwords to fill real or imagined marketing demands and those demands come from the marketing department, not from customers or engineering, although engineering has it's own blame to shoulder for trying put as many frivolous options into a camera that the computer chip can handle ("hey, we still have 1.5% unused functional memory, how about a mode for photographing carp underwater?"), like the digital clocks that have so many functions you have to refer to the multi-page instructions and navigate down 4 or 5 menu selections just to reset the time.

And it's also from a desire to hold back or parcel-out real, desirable, properties to force a constant need for the user to upgrade and generate new sales instead of making a single camera that utilizes the latest tech and well-tested UI in one model, one that will retain it's value for more than a model cycle. We see this in things like firmware that cripples a function in one camera that's available in higher-priced models using the same hardware.

I find it hard to believe that designers want to make things different after successfully producing an acclaimed model and deliberately change it despite degrading the handling, performance or suitability for any given use. The excessive complexity and meaningless choices are driven by the desire for advertising bragging rights, not for coming up with a well-functioning camera.

Back in the old days of mechanical cameras, almost all SLRs had the same basic form and layout, as did most rangefinders. You didn't have to hunt around much to find controls (the simplicity helped a lot). Although some things like direction of rotation varied, the camera/lens still fit your hand pretty much the same way and the rewind lever was in the same place. You didn't need a couple of hours with the manual and an engineering degree to figure out how to control any basic function.

No matter what manufacturers want you to think, there are still only 3 functions that you have control over with a camera that affect image quality and those 3 things should have priority of access and consistency of location within brands: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Yes, there are genuinely useful and convenient things some times made available that do help creating better images in at least some situations. MLU, AF modes and the ability to shut it off, for instance, are necessities for me and there are photographers who have other specialized needs that go beyond the basics, but I don't see any new images, out of the camera, that couldn't have been made by a competent photographer with a Canon F1 or the equivalents from other brands 40 years ago. For my purposes, as a landscape and nature photographer, the digital equivalent of an F1 with those same basic controls would suffice for everything I do. In fact, that's how I use my 5DII, even though it took me hours to find and set the controls in that simple and familiar way and figure out that Live View gave me one-button access to MLU. Of course, I also had to get used to the new way those functions are accessed compared to the Xti that was my first digital camera and that makes it hard for me to use the Xti as a backup camera.

What purpose does it serve for every camera to have a whole host of mostly non-functional options, essentially false choices, vying for access space with the critical 3? (HINT: it makes advertising copy.) Learning to use a camera with just the 3 basic settings doesn't take all that long and really does make you a better photographer, rather than trying to figure out if "landscape mode" versus "floral" would work better for photographing your cat or *is* there a "cat mode" or a "black and white cat in the sun mode"?





We must be twins, you and I. Pleased to meet you at last!

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 27, 2012, 03:59:50 pm
The topic has really gone off on some wild-goose chases, but a couple of you guys have hit it: the problem is the need for constant change, novelty for it's own sake, and that is driven by marketing. In a rational market, a mature product, one might think, would have converged on standardized or at least similar forms following it's intended function (like QWERTY keyboards). I would only expect the kind of wild variation of function layouts that digital cameras display in a brand new technology rather than one that's 150 years old (and, no, digitizing did not change the function of a camera any more than Fujichrome did.)

I don't think it's about having photography enthusiasts at the top of the corporate food chain in order to consistently produce well thought out, functional and satisfying cameras for users - there used to be cameras with consistent functional designs, they were mechanical. It's about the needs of the marketing department that changed when cameras went from being relatively specialized mechanical tools to ultra-mass-market electronic toys.

A lot of the defects and encumbrances that the manufacturers introduce are a product of the need to constantly come up with new buzzwords to fill real or imagined marketing demands and those demands come from the marketing department, not from customers or engineering, although engineering has it's own blame to shoulder for trying put as many frivolous options into a camera that the computer chip can handle ("hey, we still have 1.5% unused functional memory, how about a mode for photographing carp underwater?"), like the digital clocks that have so many functions you have to refer to the multi-page instructions and navigate down 4 or 5 menu selections just to reset the time.

And it's also from a desire to hold back or parcel-out real, desirable, properties to force a constant need for the user to upgrade and generate new sales instead of making a single camera that utilizes the latest tech and well-tested UI in one model, one that will retain it's value for more than a model cycle. We see this in things like firmware that cripples a function in one camera that's available in higher-priced models using the same hardware.

I find it hard to believe that designers want to make things different after successfully producing an acclaimed model and deliberately change it despite degrading the handling, performance or suitability for any given use. The excessive complexity and meaningless choices are driven by the desire for advertising bragging rights, not for coming up with a well-functioning camera.

Back in the old days of mechanical cameras, almost all SLRs had the same basic form and layout, as did most rangefinders. You didn't have to hunt around much to find controls (the simplicity helped a lot). Although some things like direction of rotation varied, the camera/lens still fit your hand pretty much the same way and the rewind lever was in the same place. You didn't need a couple of hours with the manual and an engineering degree to figure out how to control any basic function.

No matter what manufacturers want you to think, there are still only 3 functions that you have control over with a camera that affect image quality and those 3 things should have priority of access and consistency of location within brands: ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Yes, there are genuinely useful and convenient things some times made available that do help creating better images in at least some situations. MLU, AF modes and the ability to shut it off, for instance, are necessities for me and there are photographers who have other specialized needs that go beyond the basics, but I don't see any new images, out of the camera, that couldn't have been made by a competent photographer with a Canon F1 or the equivalents from other brands 40 years ago. For my purposes, as a landscape and nature photographer, the digital equivalent of an F1 with those same basic controls would suffice for everything I do. In fact, that's how I use my 5DII, even though it took me hours to find and set the controls in that simple and familiar way and figure out that Live View gave me one-button access to MLU. Of course, I also had to get used to the new way those functions are accessed compared to the Xti that was my first digital camera and that makes it hard for me to use the Xti as a backup camera.

What purpose does it serve for every camera to have a whole host of mostly non-functional options, essentially false choices, vying for access space with the critical 3? (HINT: it makes advertising copy.) Learning to use a camera with just the 3 basic settings doesn't take all that long and really does make you a better photographer, rather than trying to figure out if "landscape mode" versus "floral" would work better for photographing your cat or *is* there a "cat mode" or a "black and white cat in the sun mode"?






That is called "I want camera companies to do want I want" argument. The trouble is, that "ideal" camera would only be perfect for one person.

It is also a false argument. Cameras are easy to use. Most cameras are not made for professionals. The cameras make better exposure than most photographers in the past could. And you can just as easily use manual controls if you wish.

BTW, camera companies make cameras that sell. So who is to blame for all those feature you don't want? Don't blame companies for customer preference.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Isaac on March 27, 2012, 06:10:09 pm
BTW, camera companies make cameras that sell. So who is to blame for all those feature you don't want? Don't blame companies for customer preference.

Please believe that I'm not actually trying to disagree with everything you write, but... :-)

Although I made the "Because camera users will buy them" comment, it's also obviously true that as camera buyers we can only choose between what camera companies offer for sale in our price range.

So the fact that a camera with such and such features is bought is not sufficient evidence that it was bought for those features - it might have been bought in-spite of some features, many features may have played no part in the purchase decision, and there may be other desired features that were not available for the price.

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Tony Jay on March 27, 2012, 06:15:21 pm
To me the issue is not so much the addition of perhaps frivolous functionality to cameras rather whether the package actually works as advertised.
Most Manufacturers in the last few years have had at least one, if not several, well publicised failures in this regard.

My $0.02 worth

Tony Jay
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: meyerweb on March 27, 2012, 08:58:30 pm
I think MR doesn't know as much about products outside the photo industry as well as he thinks.  Recalls from all the auto companies, including the vaunted Honda and Toyota, are all too common. BMW announced a recall just yesterday.  So is bad design all too common. The enthusiast mags (just like photo mags) tend to gloss over these things, but read Consumer Reports' car tests and you'll find lots of issues.  Every car I've owned has some things that drive me nuts. No car is perfect, nor will the same design choices satisfy everyone.

As for Apple, has Michael already forgotten the iPhone 4, the design of which causes signal dropouts if you hold the phone the way normal people hold a phone. And which still hasn't been fixed on the 4s. Apple design is far from perfect.

As with cars, no one set of design imperatives will satisfy everyone.  Design features that MR dislikes may be exactly what someone else wants. I've found some of the things he's criticized over the years to be of no import to me at all. Other things, which don't seem to bother him, I find inconvenient or annoying.  MR's opinion is just that.  Not everyone will share it.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on March 27, 2012, 09:05:41 pm
There's a reason for that, Apple knowingly compromised the antenna design on their phones to make them slimmer and more fashionable.  It was a known problem in development but they went ahead and released it anyway.  On a related note, as with many other problems, it can indeed be fixed with duct tape.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-15/apple-engineer-said-to-have-told-jobs-last-year-about-iphone-antenna-flaw.html
I have the later version and as it is encased in rubber sleeve that wouldn't be the cause anyway.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on March 27, 2012, 09:35:40 pm
For me it's an advantage to have the same keyboard (layout) on different machines. The missing delete key doesn't bother me as well as I find pressing 'fn' + 'backspace' just as convenient.
I agree and I don't think the Apple approach in this matter is to keep down the cost. Steve Jobs was very keen on certain principles and as I recall it he didn't even like the arrow keys.

Uh, if you read my post properly you'd have noticed that one of my big complaints is that despite such limited options, Apple still manages to make a mere 2 keyboard designs which are annoyingly dissimilar from each other.
And Fips, if you think using two hands is as convenient than one to do a very, very basic keyboard function, remind never to ask you for advice on design.  :P

It is correct that Jobs did not like arrow keys [or extra buttons] and he wanted to remove them from the keyboard too in the early days, luckily he was talked out of it. And the lack of arrow keys is one of the biggest irritants on the iPhone when trying to correct or add to text. The ease, speed and simplicity of arrow keys being replaced by a faffy magnifying thing which is very fiddly and at times really £$%^ing annoying to use. Way slower than cursor keys. The iPhone keypad is way slower and fiddlier to use than my old HTC, the reason - Apple made it simplistic, not easy to use. Though I do really like the capital letter memory ability.
The lack of a second mouse button on a Mac mouse one again turned a simple one handed function into a two handed function. Second button was later added, when it could be hidden [so as not to lose face] but was always off by default, duh!
My pet annoyance of Apple products is their making simple things more complex and fiddly to do because of Job's silly obsessions. For a clever bloke, he had some really dumb ideas. As for using the space bar in iOS to confirm autocorrect, who on Earth though that was a good idea?  Much easier not to enable it at all. At least Damn you auto correct (http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/) provides amusement.  :D
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: meyerweb on March 27, 2012, 09:38:21 pm

Back in the old days of mechanical cameras, almost all SLRs had the same basic form and layout, as did most rangefinders. You didn't have to hunt around much to find controls (the simplicity helped a lot). Although some things like direction of rotation varied, the camera/lens still fit your hand pretty much the same way and the rewind lever was in the same place. You didn't need a couple of hours with the manual and an engineering degree to figure out how to control any basic function.


Really?  Do you remember the Nikormat, with the shutter dial around the lens mount, and the OM-1, ditto?  Was it Alpa that had the film advance lever work from front to back, rather than left to right? Miranda made cameras with the shutter release on the front of the body instead of the top. I seem to remember at least one camera that had the rewind knob on the bottom, and one that ran the film through from right to left, with the wind lever on the left side. And if you include MF gear, the variety of control layouts is nearly mind-boggling.

Yes, there was certainly more commonality, but it wasn't universal, and it took decades to reach the level of standardization we had at the beginning of the electronic camera era. But digital IS different. There are many more functions that can be controlled, and many more pieces of data to display.  It's not surprising that different designers have different ideas of how to control and display those things. Perhaps, over time, we'll see more standardization, but I wouldn't ever expect to see the same level as in mechanical SLRs. You'd never get a majority of people to agree on what that standard should be.

In fact, especially with mirrorless designs, I'd like to see MORE variety. There have to be better ways to control a camera than the layout that was basically mandated by the need to have a film spool, a film take-up, and a mirror box in the middle. EVFs and electronic, rather than manual, controls should allow creative designers to come up with superior control layouts. Why, for example, do cameras have to be laid out in a horizontal manner? Would something like the typical video camera format work better? Why do I still have to rotate a camera (compromising control access) to take a portrait format image? Why can't I choose to move the EVF to the left or right side of the camera (to satisfy left and right-eyed photographers)?  There's no physical need to have it positioned above the lens any more. Why do I have to use my right index finger to press the shutter release?  Maybe using the thumb, or my left hand, would be better.

I'd like to see some designers start from scratch (kind of like Apple did), and really re-think the best way to control a camera, rather than simply parrot something created 50 years ago.

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: meyerweb on March 27, 2012, 09:39:16 pm
If Apple made dslrs we'd all be choosing between a 32Gb version and a 64Gb version - not sure they are the best example ;)

And have only one button, with everything else selected via menus and icons.... ;D
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on March 27, 2012, 09:54:36 pm
In a rational market, a mature product, one might think, would have converged on standardized or at least similar forms following it's intended function (like QWERTY keyboards).
Really bad example in one sense - the QWERTY keyboard was deliberately designed to be anti-ergonomic. The reason being with mechanical typewriters if you typed too quickly then the keys would jam, so layout was designed to be difficult to use and learn.

 
Quote
I would only expect the kind of wild variation of function layouts that digital cameras display in a brand new technology rather than one that's 150 years old (and, no, digitizing did not change the function of a camera any more than Fujichrome did.)
Except it did. My digital cameras have a huge number of different functions from my old film cameras and are designed differently as a result.


Quote
Back in the old days of mechanical cameras, almost all SLRs had the same basic form and layout, as did most rangefinders.
Funny as I remember them varying quite a bit. DSLRs are about as standardised as film SLRs used to be for higher end DSLRs. The less expensive models however tend to have stuff hidden in menus which can vary a lot more.

 
Quote
For my purposes, as a landscape and nature photographer, the digital equivalent of an F1 with those same basic controls would suffice for everything I do. In fact, that's how I use my 5DII, even though it took me hours to find and set the controls in that simple and familiar way and figure out that Live View gave me one-button access to MLU. Of course, I also had to get used to the new way those functions are accessed compared to the Xti that was my first digital camera and that makes it hard for me to use the Xti as a backup camera.
I think I looked at my 20D manual once and don't think I ever looked at either of my 5D manuals as the cameras were [to my mind] really easy to use.
But remember that just because an F1's feature set would suit you, for many others it would be very lacking. I tend like you, however to shoot on manual most of the time, sometimes using aperture priority with fill flash for some indoor work.








Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on March 27, 2012, 09:59:12 pm
That is called "I want camera companies to do want I want" argument. The trouble is, that "ideal" camera would only be perfect for one person.
Absolutely. You get the same daft reasoning in regard software with people complaining about software bloat, i.e. features they do not use. Forgetting that other people exist and they may find that 'bloat' extremely useful.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on March 27, 2012, 10:04:48 pm
As with cars, no one set of design imperatives will satisfy everyone.  Design features that MR dislikes may be exactly what someone else wants. I've found some of the things he's criticized over the years to be of no import to me at all. Other things, which don't seem to bother him, I find inconvenient or annoying.  MR's opinion is just that.  Not everyone will share it.
I once read a product review [not here] that criticised the product for including a particular feature. That feature was the one that swayed me to buy the product.
A good reviewer will bear other users in mind and generally I'd say Michael is better than most in that respect, other than his uncritical Apple comments in this article.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Les Sparks on March 28, 2012, 12:02:59 am
Jeffrey Kluger has a good discussion of why electronic things and digital cameras are really electronic things now are so complicated in  a chapter titled "Why are your cell phone and camera so absurdly complicated?" in his book Simplexity. Basically he argues that the designer/engineers aren't trying to please you, they're trying to please or impress a small group of reviewers and their peers. It's an interesting chapter--he also holds out some hope that things will get better probably sooner than we think.
Les
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on March 28, 2012, 02:48:04 am
Yes, there was certainly more commonality, but it wasn't universal, and it took decades to reach the level of standardization we had at the beginning of the electronic camera era. But digital IS different. There are many more functions that can be controlled, and many more pieces of data to display.  It's not surprising that different designers have different ideas of how to control and display those things. Perhaps, over time, we'll see more standardization, but I wouldn't ever expect to see the same level as in mechanical SLRs. You'd never get a majority of people to agree on what that standard should be.
Nor I think do we want people to agree as with choice we are more likely to find something that suits us as individuals. I always think of mobile phone OSs in discussions like this. I like the Nokia interface as I find it intuitive and easy. Other people hate it and prefer other OSs that they find quicker.

In fact, especially with mirrorless designs, I'd like to see MORE variety. There have to be better ways to control a camera than the layout that was basically mandated by the need to have a film spool, a film take-up, and a mirror box in the middle. EVFs and electronic, rather than manual, controls should allow creative designers to come up with superior control layouts. Why, for example, do cameras have to be laid out in a horizontal manner? Would something like the typical video camera format work better? Why do I still have to rotate a camera (compromising control access) to take a portrait format image? Why can't I choose to move the EVF to the left or right side of the camera (to satisfy left and right-eyed photographers)?  There's no physical need to have it positioned above the lens any more. Why do I have to use my right index finger to press the shutter release?  Maybe using the thumb, or my left hand, would be better.
I was in a second hand camera shop the other day and they had a large selection of early digital cameras for sale. It was pretty interesting to see the variety of designs and the risks that designers took with aesthetics and interface.
Yes, more choice would be good. I liked your ideas/questions above. Equally I bought a Fuji X100 recently and that 40year old classic design felt immediately right and intuitive to use. Good design, or conditioned muscle memory on my part?

I'd like to see some designers start from scratch (kind of like Apple did), and really re-think the best way to control a camera, rather than simply parrot something created 50 years ago.
We've already had that, it's called a smartphone isn't it? This could be fun though, I'm intrigued to see where all the touch interface opportunities lead.


[/quote]
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on March 28, 2012, 02:48:52 am
For me it's an advantage to have the same keyboard (layout) on different machines. The missing delete key doesn't bother me as well as I find pressing 'fn' + 'backspace' just as convenient.
Thanks, I didn't know that, really useful.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Fips on March 28, 2012, 03:27:19 am
Quote
And Fips, if you think using two hands is as convenient than one to do a very, very basic keyboard function, remind never to ask you for advice on design.

In fact, I find it more convenient as those two keys one needs to press can be reached with both hands in their normal writing position while I would have to move my right hand quite a bit to press the delete key on a conventional keyboard.
... but I guess the mere fact that I call 1.5 inches "quite a bit" shows that I spend too much time on computers anyhow  ::)
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: dreed on March 28, 2012, 03:41:02 am
Jeffrey Kluger has a good discussion of why electronic things and digital cameras are really electronic things now are so complicated in  a chapter titled "Why are your cell phone and camera so absurdly complicated?" in his book Simplexity. Basically he argues that the designer/engineers aren't trying to please you, they're trying to please or impress a small group of reviewers and their peers. It's an interesting chapter--he also holds out some hope that things will get better probably sooner than we think.

I like that argument.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 04:23:20 am
Changes in design.

I was sitting in line at a petrol pump a couple of years ago. The guy in front of me, in a large 4x4, began to reverse for some unmfathomable reason, and as he got closer, my concern turned to panic and I went for the horn. Except that I didn't. My immediate reaction would have sounded the horn on an earlier car, but not on the one I was actually driving. Only luck saved me from damage because the guy in front of the 4x4 moved off.

If the windscreen was dirty with pollen (as it is with yellow pine dust this season), I used to be able to sqirt, give the wipers a single or two wipes as I chose, and the screen was clean enough to be safe. Now, with the Fiesta, that appears an impossible task. If you squirt, the wiper comes on automatically and gives too many wipes, thus going beyond the helpful area and into the state where all you achieve is the spreading of smears, blinding vision more than it was when you started. Bloody clever.

The traffic indicator. I have more or less given up on its automatic cancellation. I went back to the Ford dealer, and he told me that his own Focus is exactly the same, and there's zilch that can be done about it... As for visually knowing you have failed to cancel the indicators, that's also very unlikely on the Fiesta because the two green arrows are placed at the outer edges of the dash, and perfectly screened by your hands in the straight ahead position. Had the lights been kept in the centre of the dash, you would see them at once and notice them flashing... Have the music on and you'll hear nothing from the little clickers.

The evening I collected the new car I drove home without being able to work out how to go from main beam to dipped. I've driven Fords here for over thirty years... The simple switching from Trip to Total mileage is also another pain in the ass to figure out. These things should remain the same. It should not be about looking clever and pretty, it should be about reliable, unchanged and instinctively accessible in an emergency. Sure, make the bodywork as different as you please, but why throw away what we had decades ago: the ability to see all four corners of the car from the driving seat. Now, we have to park by sound, the sound of breaking glass. Or pay hundreds more for a friggin' device to make up for that particular rotten design fault.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: John R Smith on March 28, 2012, 05:19:34 am
All very true, but nobody seems to care.

What we have, Rob, is the triumph of style over substance.

John
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: tetsuo77 on March 28, 2012, 05:55:36 am
"What we have, Rob, is the triumph of style over substance"
Well,funnily enough, and apparently, style sells. Substance, not that much.
And companies tend to go for profit, rather than goodwill or good feeling.

Aren´t they?

About the article:
Perfection goes against efficiency most of the times. And, from Picasso on [so to speak], the artist has trumped the artisan by a long stretch.

On the other subjet, about the user experience and about UI, there is so much to discuss that it will come as incredibly long discussion.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: 32BT on March 28, 2012, 06:13:19 am
If the windscreen was dirty with pollen (as it is with yellow pine dust this season), I used to be able to sqirt, give the wipers a single or two wipes as I chose, and the screen was clean enough to be safe. Now, with the Fiesta, that appears an impossible task. If you squirt, the wiper comes on automatically and gives too many wipes, thus going beyond the helpful area and into the state where all you achieve is the spreading of smears, blinding vision more than it was when you started. Bloody clever.

Oooh, +100 to that…

Or noticed how the soapy water doesn't even get a change to actually spread over your windscreen before the first wipe…?



Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 06:50:28 am
Oooh, +100 to that…

Or noticed how the soapy water doesn't even get a change to actually spread over your windscreen before the first wipe…?




So that's a partial cause of some of the mess I see! Original delivery issue! I never use detergents in the water, I only ever put in distilled water. To put in tap water, on this island, would seal the tiny holes of the jets within a week!

Oh! I also just discovered the Paint accessory in my computer before turning on here; that might prove more interesting than playing with cameras and PS! First thing I did was draw my version of the Manhattan skyline - most impressive, but as I have to go out to eat now, it will remain an exciting game for later on.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: barryfitzgerald on March 28, 2012, 07:16:47 am
Interesting I use the term "good enough" in a forum post recently in the D800 thread and we get an article about it  :-X
I think I have views which are almost the exact opposite of some folks which is fine because that makes things more appealing for a debate.

I was of course making a reference of "good enough" in relation to the resolution we now have available to us for DSLR and larger sensor type cameras. I would not like the phrase to be used as an excuse for some iffy design choices of companies that have obviously had some notable issues with products (Fuji most recently with their "orb" problems") one example.

I can't say I care for the Apple references either, yes it's a company that can make hugely successful and desirable products. But it's also a very proprietary company and often it's products do have some obvious "dumb ass" points about them. Let's not talk about the ipod/iphone where the battery isn't user accessible (least not easily). That is just one obvious and very simple point to make, you could argue I don't like Apple much and as a pc builder for many years you're right. But before we start showering love on this company do take a trip to your Apple store on-line and put an imac in your basket pick the cheapest one. I did and added 4Gb of ram making 8Gb in total (fairly bog standard these days)
If I tell you Apple charges you over €200 for an extra 4Gb of ram, I'll tell you I added 16Gb of DDR 3 memory for my desktop (reputable major manufacturer) for half the price of the Apple upgrade. I don't hold up companies who try to rip people off, I'd hope others wouldn't either.

Back to good enough (and leaving Apple aside) yes good enough is fine, silly quirks and issues we all want worked out.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MarkL on March 28, 2012, 09:25:47 am
I can't say I care for the Apple references either, yes it's a company that can make hugely successful and desirable products. But it's also a very proprietary company and often it's products do have some obvious "dumb ass" points about them. Let's not talk about the ipod/iphone where the battery isn't user accessible (least not easily). That is just one obvious and very simple point to make, you could argue I don't like Apple much and as a pc builder for many years you're right. But before we start showering love on this company do take a trip to your Apple store on-line and put an imac in your basket pick the cheapest one. I did and added 4Gb of ram making 8Gb in total (fairly bog standard these days)
If I tell you Apple charges you over €200 for an extra 4Gb of ram, I'll tell you I added 16Gb of DDR 3 memory for my desktop (reputable major manufacturer) for half the price of the Apple upgrade. I don't hold up companies who try to rip people off, I'd hope others wouldn't either

Indeed. We have an Apple-esque camera manufacturer in Hassleblad in that they have a closed system, desirability and high cost but yet they get seriously criticised on this site.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 28, 2012, 09:55:13 am
Jeffrey Kluger has a good discussion of why electronic things and digital cameras are really electronic things now are so complicated in  a chapter titled "Why are your cell phone and camera so absurdly complicated?" in his book Simplexity. Basically he argues that the designer/engineers aren't trying to please you, they're trying to please or impress a small group of reviewers and their peers. It's an interesting chapter--he also holds out some hope that things will get better probably sooner than we think.
Les

But his argument is false. The modern camera is very simply to use. Turn it on and set it to auto and take all the pictures you want. Just because there is a lot of choice and layers does not make it complicated unless the user wants to make it that way. You could also say the camera is simply flexible in that you can do more with it if you choose to do so.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: telyt on March 28, 2012, 10:10:18 am
The modern camera is very simply to use. Turn it on and set it to auto and take all the pictures you want.

In my experience auto is the enemy of excellence.  Too often it's not even good enough.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 10:20:48 am
But his argument is false. The modern camera is very simply to use. Turn it on and set it to auto and take all the pictures you want. Just because there is a lot of choice and layers does not make it complicated unless the user wants to make it that way. You could also say the camera is simply flexible in that you can do more with it if you choose to do so.



No, you're missing the point: do as you suggest and you do not get the equivalent of manual/film. What you get is a bloody compromise based on their views of quality. That's why I have had to configure the damned camera as close to neutral as I can. Using a proprietary auto setting wouldn't give me unadulterated RAW or even focus as and where I choose.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: BJL on March 28, 2012, 10:25:22 am
We have an Apple-esque camera manufacturer in Hassleblad in that they have a closed system, desirability and high cost but yet they get seriously criticised on this site.
The weird thing about that is that Hasselblad is overall no more closed that Canon, Nikon or any of the smaller format makers, which do not allow users to mix and match sensors with bodies from different brands and so on. Sometimes, indeed very often, a tool that is a complicated system of interacting components does benefit from an integrated, coherent design, and such designs are often at the cost of less modularity and mix-and-match options. Other times or for some other users, greater flexibility is referred. So long as both options are out there (Canon/Nikon/Hasselblad, etc. vs Phase One; iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7 vs Android phones; Mac vs Windows PC vs Linux; etc.) people should probably stop making dogmatic moral judgements about which is "the one and only true way", and just choose the option that works best for them.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: BJL on March 28, 2012, 10:42:43 am
No, you're missing the point: do as you suggest and you do not get the equivalent of manual/film. What you get is a bloody compromise based on their views of quality. That's why I have had to configure the damned camera as close to neutral as I can. Using a proprietary auto setting wouldn't give me unadulterated RAW or even focus as and where I choose.
It is quite easy with a modern camera to use only the settings and options comparable to those of manual/film cameras and ignore the rest, if that is one's preference. For example:
- Where you would use normal daylight balanced film, set white balance to daylight, no auto WB.
- Where you would use tungsten light balanced film, change the white balance color temperature. There are presets for this, so no Kelvin value need be memorized (And you can do it "mid-roll"!)
- Where you would just send the film to the lab for development (and printing) use default in-camera JPEG conversions.
- Where you wouldfiddle with developing and printing in the darkroom, use raw and fiddle in the computer instead.
- The choice between AF and MF is always there.

None of these setting choices takes more than a few seconds, and if you crave the simplicity of "good old days" mode, they only have to be done once. Also, finding out about them does not require reading the whole hundred page manual; the quick start guide usually covers most of it.


Let us avoid the false dichotomy of "use full auto 'green dot' mode" vs "thinking about every obscure option deep in the menus for every shot because anything else might give less than the best possible result, and so is not 'Photographically Correct'"; most of us find a balance between those extremes that we are comfortable with.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 28, 2012, 11:20:42 am
In my experience auto is the enemy of excellence.  Too often it's not even good enough.

You missed my point. You can make the act of photography as easy and as complicated as you wish. To imply that a modern camera is more complicated because it has more choices (which you can use or ignore) is not an argument.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 28, 2012, 11:27:19 am


No, you're missing the point: do as you suggest and you do not get the equivalent of manual/film. What you get is a bloody compromise based on their views of quality. That's why I have had to configure the damned camera as close to neutral as I can. Using a proprietary auto setting wouldn't give me unadulterated RAW or even focus as and where I choose.

Rob C

You can also make these cameras, and quite easily, as manual as you like.

And how do most of the setting affect RAW? Do you actually believe the auto WB setting on the camera affects WB?

But your Golden Age is just faulty memory. You had to rely on the engineers at Kodak, Agfa, Konica, and Fuji to give you the contrast and color of the image--it was their view of quality your were buying. And if you did not run your own darkroom, the film processor and printer as well.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on March 28, 2012, 12:06:51 pm
You missed my point. You can make the act of photography as easy and as complicated as you wish. To imply that a modern camera is more complicated because it has more choices (which you can use or ignore) is not an argument.
Where does Instagram on a smartphone fit into this? About 3 taps and you have some very 'pretty' pictures?
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: telyt on March 28, 2012, 12:20:39 pm
You missed my point. You can make the act of photography as easy and as complicated as you wish. To imply that a modern camera is more complicated because it has more choices (which you can use or ignore) is not an argument.

Nope, my comment was beside your point.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: telyt on March 28, 2012, 12:23:31 pm
You can also make these cameras, and quite easily, as manual as you like.

Depends on whether the manual functions are a primary focus of the design or percieved as an accomodation to old fuddy-duddies who refuse to be "with it".  Not all manual functions are equally usable.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 12:42:44 pm
You can also make these cameras, and quite easily, as manual as you like.

And how do most of the setting affect RAW? Do you actually believe the auto WB setting on the camera affects WB?

But your Golden Age is just faulty memory. You had to rely on the engineers at Kodak, Agfa, Konica, and Fuji to give you the contrast and color of the image--it was their view of quality your were buying. And if you did not run your own darkroom, the film processor and printer as well.


And here we go again, as ever on the Internet, sliding crab-wise from one premise into the arms of yet another close relative of the first.

That was the whole point about film – good film – and tightly controlled processing: you took it as a standard, a constant, a given, and everything else was up to you and how you used it. But your base line, the datum, remained constant. Today, you have to adjust just about everything to get back to that delightful state of operational virginity; I don't believe that I stated that it was Mission Impossible, just that it was a pain and awkwardly inconvenient to have to do it. As I think I also mentioned, I have both my digi bodies as Manual as I can make them.

I’m happy to learn that my Golden Age is but a failure of my memory; for a moment there I thought I’d actually experienced it! How falsely convincing experience can be; almost as real as looking it up in a book – sorry – the Internet.

Tell you what: you live your version of it and I shall struggle along in mine. Win - win, no?

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 12:50:17 pm
Oh, how I long to return to the Golden Age when I pressed a button and let Kodak do the rest.

Not.




Keith, come on now, you're too young to remember those days; you're just going by hearsay. Dammit, I suspect that even I may have missed that particular Golden Age boat!

Anyway, my daughter's coming to stay for a week, so I can forget about the hungry cellphone for a while.

;-)

Rob C

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 28, 2012, 12:59:07 pm

And here we go again, as ever on the Internet, sliding crab-wise from one premise into the arms of yet another close relative of the first.

That was the whole point about film – good film – and tightly controlled processing: you took it as a standard, a constant, a given, and everything else was up to you and how you used it. But your base line, the datum, remained constant. Today, you have to adjust just about everything to get back to that delightful state of operational virginity; I don't believe that I stated that it was Mission Impossible, just that it was a pain and awkwardly inconvenient to have to do it. As I think I also mentioned, I have both my digi bodies as Manual as I can make them.

I’m happy to learn that my Golden Age is but a failure of my memory; for a moment there I thought I’d actually experienced it! How falsely convincing experience can be; almost as real as looking it up in a book – sorry – the Internet.

Tell you what: you live your version of it and I shall struggle along in mine. Win - win, no?

;-)

Rob C


Rob, if you just want to stick to your version, why join the conversation?

BTW, shoot RAW and you are there. You also have a very unique view of the consistency of film-remember the time when folks were very concerned to get a run of film from the same batch. I have probably done a lot more work with film and processing if you think it was such a perfect material. Certainly no more prefect than what we have today in digital.
Title: default in-camera JPEG + daylight WB setting = film simplicity emulation mode
Post by: BJL on March 28, 2012, 01:14:10 pm
That was the whole point about film – good film – and tightly controlled processing: you took it as a standard, a constant, a given, and everything else was up to you and how you used it. But your base line, the datum, remained constant. Today, you have to adjust just about everything to get back to that delightful state of operational virginity ...
As I said above, to emulate that "standard, constant, given" behavior of film with lab processing, only a couple of easy steps are needed, not adjusting "about everything":
1. Use in-camera JPEG.
2. Set white balance to daylight, no auto WB, other settings at default.
3. For fuller emulation of the comforting limitations of film, set ISO speed to minimum and never change it.
Anything more complicated that that is an option, not a necessity.

Is this really so stressful, even for us old-timers?


P. S. In truth I would never eschew the convenience of auto WB; just use raw+JPEG mode so that occasional auto WB errors can be fixed later.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 03:53:24 pm
Rob, seriously, why on earth would I want to return to such a severely limited baseline, standard, constant or given?


Keth, I have no idea or agenda about why you should do anything; I speak/write only for myself. I can't be you, you can't be me, and that's how God made us. Be happy; your toys aren't mine and vice versa.

For the record, I wouldn't go back either because though I still have a beautiful F3, the food for it is beyond funny when it comes to the buying, a result of diminishing returns, as our Mr Kodak discovered.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 03:57:34 pm
Rob, if you just want to stick to your version, why join the conversation? BTW, shoot RAW and you are there. You also have a very unique view of the consistency of film-remember the time when folks were very concerned to get a run of film from the same batch. I have probably done a lot more work with film and processing if you think it was such a perfect material. Certainly no more prefect than what we have today in digital.




Snap! You obviously have the same problem, if problem it be.

Thanks, but I already do shoot RAW; the only jpegs I have ever shot are with the cellphone.

Quantity of work with film? I started using it professionally, full time, back in 1960; and you? Surprise me.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: default in-camera JPEG + daylight WB setting = film simplicity emulation mode
Post by: Rob C on March 28, 2012, 04:25:08 pm
As I said above, to emulate that "standard, constant, given" behavior of film with lab processing, only a couple of easy steps are needed, not adjusting "about everything":
1. Use in-camera JPEG.
2. Set white balance to daylight, no auto WB, other settings at default.
3. For fuller emulation of the comforting limitations of film, set ISO speed to minimum and never change it.
Anything more complicated that that is an option, not a necessity.

Is this really so stressful, even for us old-timers?


P. S. In truth I would never eschew the convenience of auto WB; just use raw+JPEG mode so that occasional auto WB errors can be fixed later.

1.  I never use jpegs in anything other than the cellphone where there is no better alternative;

2.  already dong that;

3.  red herring. Changes in ASA were not required by me during the course of any single shoot. I selected the film I wanted at the start and that was what was used throughout. In the studio, on the ‘blads, it would be TXP120 or Ektachrome 64; outdoors, the same or, on 35mm, Kodachrome, FP3/4 or HP3/4, again depending on time of day and subject. I didn’t even need to carry different film types at any one time. One knew what one was going to be doing. Perfectly convenient.

As for the multi-ISO of digital, yes, it can be a boon if you go out to shoot in a club or something like that, but it wasn’t my need then, and now, when I have shot musos, I find that auto ISO, indoors, is indeed useful. But it never was part of my pro life. Hell, there is a legacy of wonderful jazz and rock’n’roll photography shot way back when digi wasn’t even a bad dream in the film industry’s mind, and the quality/mood of that stuff is beyond the clinical sterility of digital, even my own.

However, we all know this is going nowhere, that we all love to make points and adopt positions – what else can anyone do here?

What others choose to think is just fine by me; I just don’t feel obliged to think along with them when I know differently from the experiences of my own life. That I may be wrong is certainly possible, as is the alternative that others may be wrong, too. If there is no single truth in a photograph, there is even less within the producers.

Rob C
Title: Re: default in-camera JPEG + daylight WB setting = film simplicity emulation mode
Post by: BJL on March 28, 2012, 04:40:07 pm
1.  I never use jpegs in anything other than the cellphone where there is no better alternative;

2.  already dong that;

3.  red herring. Changes in ASA were not required by me during the course of any single shoot.
I think you are missing my point, which is only that any complications of digital can be avoided if you wish to, depending on your priorities. For example, _if_ you were to desire simplicity comparable to just having the film developed and printed, _then_ you have the equally simple option of using default JPEG options (or choosing a selection of settings to your aste and sticking with them; comparable to experimenting with various films amd settling on one). Having additional options that need not be exercised, involving raw processing or such, does not make digital inherently more complicated, must more flexible.

And on item three, I was not talking about changing ISO speed, just pointing out that if indeed you do not feel the need to change ISO speed during a shoot, the ISO setting of the camera can likewise be set and forgottten. Some (not you) have complained of the problem of accidentally having the wrong ISO speed setting, but that is no worse than having the wrong speed of film loaded (and not as bad as loading film of one speed but leaving the ISO speed set to some other value from a previous roll of film.) So again, how is one worse off with a digitsl camera in this or any respect? That is my only question on any of this.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 28, 2012, 06:30:52 pm



Snap! You obviously have the same problem, if problem it be.

Thanks, but I already do shoot RAW; the only jpegs I have ever shot are with the cellphone.

Quantity of work with film? I started using it professionally, full time, back in 1960; and you? Surprise me.

;-)

Rob C

Started in professional photofinishing in the 80s--mundane stuff like dye transfer and photomechanical composites. ;)
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 29, 2012, 04:02:57 am
Started in professional photofinishing in the 80s--mundane stuff like dye transfer and photomechanical composites. ;)



Quite; I rest my case.

Q.E.D.

;-)

Rob C

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 29, 2012, 04:26:31 am
Rob, apologies, I'll rephrase the question.

Why on earth would you want to return to such a severely limited baseline, standard, constant or given?



The answer is at least twofold:

1.  I was perfectly happy using film and can assure anyone interested that I never felt it complicated, threatening or in any other way a bad deal. Yes, I did hate airport X-Ray, though, but managed to avoid most of it by making formal application to the various consulates through whose country I'd be passing. The only place the system failed me was the USA, and once Spain, and in Spain before I twigged about getting good documentation beforehand;

2.  the main problem with digital (for me) is that I have been used to looking at film after film on a lightbox and making pretty instant decisions about what I presented to a client and what stayed in the files or vanished into oblivion. In all the years since the D200, my first digi camera, I have never felt comfortable with digital editing, even for my own, private use where there may be only about fifty to seventy images as a maximum. Were I ever fortunate enough to land another calendar, I think I'd die of stress or old age before I managed to edit such a shoot running into thousands of images via a computer. It's alien to my ways of life, still;

3.  this thread began with the idea of complication and poor design (unless I'm mixing threads up, which is possible if one reads enough here) in cameras and as far as those parameters are concerned, I found film simple, instinctive and not at all frustrating. Nothing, since the 500 Series, has felt so right, simple and perfect for so many photographic applications, especially those that I face as an older man.

I realise from other posts that I am obviously the lone elephant, even possibly the rogue trader in an exchange of honest men, but nonetheless, that's how my reality of the two systems compares. Not a lot I can do about that if I want to be true to my own feelings and report them as such.

I could, I suppose, say nothing or just go along with the majority, but why? What would be the point for me or for anyone else?

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Tony Jay on March 29, 2012, 04:53:56 am
Luckily I don't feel the same way about digital photography.

I am able to sympathize though.
Nonetheless my bet is that your digital editing abilities are pretty good.

Regards

Tony Jay
Title: preferring slides light box to computer screen
Post by: BJL on March 29, 2012, 10:35:05 am
Rob,
    your new point about preferring to work with slides on a light box to doing something similar on screen (usually only allowing two or three at a time) makes sense. (But I rarely used slides, so I will not pretend to have a worthwhile opinion on this.) For the rest, I am happy with the perspective that has been articulated by Keith Laban, and by that guy whose screen name suggests that he is proud of his Pentax 645D camera, but avoids the too common partisanship of the MF vs smaller format debates.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 29, 2012, 12:53:20 pm
Rob, I do understand your preferences, but given your reasoning I have difficulty understanding why you are hanging onto a brace of "bookends" that you say are over complex and too heavy for you to use.

Anyway, enjoy the time with your daughter.

Best

Keith


Keith -

Thanks re. daughter; wish she could bring out her brood too, but one’s at home studying for exams and her Dad will have to play chef (¡he say!) the other still, as far as I know, in Paris.

Bookends. Well, as I have said before, the D200 cost me around the equivalent of 1800 quid in Spain, and was the first such body in Mallorca. I asked a London Nikon specialist last winter, from whom I was buying a lens, for a trade-in value for the D200 and it was a grudging 300 notes! I’m better off keeping it as a ‘just in case’ body. The D700 is all I will ever, AFAIK, require for serious work, whatever that is, and what I’d like is something like an M9 at a tiny fraction of the Leica price. In essence, something that I can carry around as easily as the cellphone but can give real, printable A3+ RAW files. It’s very frustrating to have found some nice abstracts when carrying the cellphone, working on the jpegs and then wishing they were something else!

Well, the ‘bookends’ are obviously no longer too complex because I have wired them to suit my manual mind; but that wasn’t the point of all of this, which I thought was about basic camera design and function as it comes out of the box. In that condition, and with those massive manuals, yes, I still think them far too complicated for comfort if one has the old experience as a yardstick to fine ergonomics and easy use, even for the novice; especially for the novice, when I come to think of it. If these things confuse me, how much more another person with no earlier experience to help him out?  Perhaps that’s one of the reasons for the popularity of cellphone cameras and the erosion of cheaper digital camera markets: people really don’t like a complicated life.

Regarding the heavy Nikon stuff: yes, I can manage to cart it around if something special has to be done, but that’s not leaving me open to serendipity, and being as I am, I have great faith in stumbling onto things, even if they turn out to be no more than old dog turds that can break your ankle when baked in the sun; Michael may have come across some such in Mexico, too. I have realised that an old shopping trolley can carry the Gitzo when I remove the cloth shopping bag, and it looks quite elegant, much like a golf buggy thing. But as I say, it’s not something you’d do on spec, as it were.

But all this aside, film is now too expensive for me if there’s no client to carry the costs. Not only is it expensive, but as far as the local sources tell me, I’d now have to post to Barcelona for my E6 service... In fact, my Palma wholesaler, with whom I’ve dealt since ’81, hasn’t seen me for over a year; well before that, his staff levels had been cut to the bone and his stock was almost zero: “I can get it for you from head office in Barcelona next week! If it’s in stock there.” Pretty hard to see much future in film now, sad to say; even the dentists are deserting it for digital X-Rays.

Rob C
Title: Re: preferring slides light box to computer screen
Post by: Rob C on March 29, 2012, 01:09:25 pm
I spent years using a lightbox to sort and select transparencies. They facilitated choosing between similar shots but left much to be desired in terms of determining image quality.

Now imaging programs allow us to compare and select at will and with the option of 100% views there's no longer any hiding place or excuses ;-)
 



Exactly it! And for fashion/calendars, that was the name of the game: many similar shots of each setup. And a loup would easily reveal expressions etc. out of the chosen few, the first selection being based on shape, colour and how well or otherwise the idea translated into two dimensions.

Today, even my cellpix take up such a lot of time, and they all look so similar and unlike the final file after I've worked on it for a bit. Transparencies cut all of that doubt away; in fact, they were what you hoped you'd get from the printer, in most cases, and in that sense they provided a master file for everyone with a fish in the dish to refer to when required.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 29, 2012, 02:35:21 pm
Light tables?

So, in Adobe Bridge, when I open a folder, it shows the contents (and I can change the size of the thumbnails so I can see 20 or so images). Simply clicking a thumbnail shows the image in the preview pane (I can also change the size of the preview pane). Clicking on the preview pane magnifies a detail. I can then classify the image as a second which can hide the thumbnail.

But you are right, a light table, of which I have used many, is just such a better solution unless you have not developed the required flick of the wrist to get rid of outtakes.

Quote
...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so...
William Shakespeare

I am glad you like film. It is a great medium and I am not being sarcastic--I closed my color darkroom a year ago because of supply problems. But there are no winners in this race. There is no difference in the complexity between a silver or bit process excepting availability of supplies--both can be as easy or complex as you want to make it.

I am not advocating one over the other. I believe the choice in a process and way of working is a creative one determined by an individual photographer.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: fredjeang on March 29, 2012, 03:54:08 pm
What I like is the "almost" before bought...

There are those girls you almost want to invite to dinner.

Then there are the one you actually do invite to dinner. Init?

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: fredjeang on March 29, 2012, 05:36:48 pm
Indeed, à la carte.

Keith, I visited your site again not a long time ago.

Rob in a post seemed to say that you are quite young; I of course don't want you to reveal your age, just that it seemed to me that the work you display is not actually a work of a young artist but long years on the craft.
I was blowned again by the mastering of the composition, apart from light. This is a very impressive mature artistical work.
To be honest, I don't know many people who are capable of doing such a spot-on compositing. It's all subtle, on the edge, but a few milimeters off and it's not working as well.  
Very impressive mastering indeed and I hope you're doing well with those beautifull photographs. You deserve it.

Best regards from Madrid.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: BernardLanguillier on March 29, 2012, 08:06:06 pm
Lightbox! Funny coincidence. I was looking at some images in spydergallery on the new iPad yesterday and thought... This really looks like a lightbox!

Of course there are a few workflow issues to iron out, but this tutorial may come handy!

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/ipad-howto2

Disclaimer, I have not tried this yet but I could perhaps see myself exporting to ipad a whole batch of images and rating them in Lightroom in parallel as I browse through them on the pad.

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 30, 2012, 03:40:43 am
Fred

Many thanks for the encouraging words, much appreciated.

No secret about my age, 62 and still counting ;-)

Best

Keith



A mere child! But hell, I've been thirty-nine and holdng for decades, so there's still time for me to work it out and fix on a more realistic figure! A figure less realistic would make the mirror more happy, but you can't have everything. Maybe I can Photoshop myself into something more like the man inside sees. Might help.

Rob C

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 30, 2012, 03:59:32 am
Light tables?

So, in Adobe Bridge, when I open a folder, it shows the contents (and I can change the size of the thumbnails so I can see 20 or so images). Simply clicking a thumbnail shows the image in the preview pane (I can also change the size of the preview pane). Clicking on the preview pane magnifies a detail. I can then classify the image as a second which can hide the thumbnail.

But you are right, a light table, of which I have used many, is just such a better solution unless you have not developed the required flick of the wrist to get rid of outtakes.
William Shakespeare

I am glad you like film. It is a great medium and I am not being sarcastic--I closed my color darkroom a year ago because of supply problems. But there are no winners in this race. There is no difference in the complexity between a silver or bit process excepting availability of supplies--both can be as easy or complex as you want to make it.

I am not advocating one over the other. I believe the choice in a process and way of working is a creative one determined by an individual photographer.


That's part of the problem: I have PS6, which gives me all of the control any of my pix ever need; to buy newer PS systems and get into 'Bridge etc, costs even more money on top, and I just don't have the financial return on photography since I retired to make that make sense; in fact, there is no real financial return on it, and the thrill of new, technical, photographic discoveries (to me) is far from thrilling. I know how to do what I think I want to do, and I see no reason to throw money at what has turned from job to time-passer. I won't even say hobby, because that would suggest an interest, a craving, that has mostly been wrung out of me over the years. In reality, I see digital photography as not a lot more than a licence for firms to screw ever more moolah out of people where film used to be a fixed-price solution once you'd bought what you felt you needed. As I've written before, 'blads and Nikons could have been 'for life', but now the emphasis is on pushing people into ever more changing equipment; in fact, gathering this stuff appears to be what photography is nowadays: a race to the biggest toy cupboard.

Nikon's own NX2, which I have, allows something similar to Bridge, too, but these all become steps added to the process, which if that's the part of photography one enjoys, then fine, enjoy. To me it is just more interference with what was of divine simplicity.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on March 30, 2012, 05:05:12 am
1.  I was perfectly happy using film and can assure anyone interested that I never felt it complicated, threatening or in any other way a bad deal. Yes, I did hate airport X-Ray, though, but managed to avoid most of it by making formal application to the various consulates through whose country I'd be passing. The only place the system failed me was the USA, and once Spain, and in Spain before I twigged about getting good documentation beforehand;

Having just travelled out to Russia with a high end laptop, server, backup drives, memory cards and cameras in my hand luggage I'm not sure I know which is more stressful, film or digital, at the airport! Still managed to leave a vital proprietary cable at home which messes with my backup strategy.

2.  the main problem with digital (for me) is that I have been used to looking at film after film on a lightbox and making pretty instant decisions about what I presented to a client and what stayed in the files or vanished into oblivion. In all the years since the D200, my first digi camera, I have never felt comfortable with digital editing, even for my own, private use where there may be only about fifty to seventy images as a maximum. Were I ever fortunate enough to land another calendar, I think I'd die of stress or old age before I managed to edit such a shoot running into thousands of images via a computer. It's alien to my ways of life, still;

Do you shoot more images per shoot/day with digital than with film?

3.  this thread began with the idea of complication and poor design (unless I'm mixing threads up, which is possible if one reads enough here) in cameras and as far as those parameters are concerned, I found film simple, instinctive and not at all frustrating. Nothing, since the 500 Series, has felt so right, simple and perfect for so many photographic applications, especially those that I face as an older man.

Returning to the thread, is it film that you found simple, or the cameras that used film (relative to todays multi button, multi-menu, multi-modal, mega-manual monsters)?

I could, I suppose, say nothing or just go along with the majority, but why? What would be the point for me or for anyone else?

Where's the fun in that? It's good to talk.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 30, 2012, 06:10:33 am
1.  Having just travelled out to Russia with a high end laptop, server, backup drives, memory cards and cameras in my hand luggage I'm not sure I know which is more stressful, film or digital, at the airport! Still managed to leave a vital proprietary cable at home which messes with my backup strategy.

2.  Do you shoot more images per shoot/day with digital than with film?

3.  Returning to the thread, is it film that you found simple, or the cameras that used film (relative to todays multi button, multi-menu, multi-modal, mega-manual monsters)?

Where's the fun in that? It's good to talk.


Hi Mike

2.  With digital, I don’t shoot more because I retired before digital came into my working life and the work ain’t there no more; what I do do, though, is shoot a helluva lot of personal stuff that I would never have dreamed of shooting with film, if only because of cost;

3.  I found film to be very straightforward in use; the cameras for film were also very easy to use. That’s not to say that digital ones are not: what it says is that digital ones come over-complicated, offering a host of options (for which you are obliged to pay when buying) that, in my case, are mainly cancelled out in order to make the damned things more user-friendly and instinctive in use. Of course, I’m aware I may be an exception, that others may revel in having the machine do the thinking, but the only bit of machine-thought that has endeared itself to me is the Nikon Matrix metering. Oh – I also like the auto ISO in very low light conditions. That’s it. But I could live just as well without either.

Perhaps one of the main problems with the high-end digital slr cameras, apart from the technical aspects I mentioned, is weight and bulk. To which one could add price. Buying an F or F2 was never as painful as buying their equivalents today; ditto Hasselblad. Of course, there is also the factor of the one being allowable against the business, whereas with no business… Either way, I never imagined the day would come when a ‘blad would cost the same as a reasonable new car!

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Tony Jay on March 30, 2012, 06:33:06 am
I agree with Rob that digital cameras have way too many gizmo type modes etc.
This issue is compounded by the fact that entry level cameras often lack somewhat more important functions such as depth of field preview (Quite useful when allied with live view) forcing one to buy up into enthusisast-level or even pro-level cameras.
Sometimes useful functions are also buried deep inside what can become daunting menu systems.

It is possible that the KISS principle has been well and truly abandoned by the manufacturers.
I do won a Canon 5D3 but feel that the HDR mode is just so much hype.

My $0.02 worth

Tony Jay
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Tony Jay on March 30, 2012, 09:19:47 am
I am certainly not a technophobe and I certainly don't let all the gizmo stuff to be found in cameras these days distract me from image making.
If the budget allowed I would almost certainly make the step up to medium format since the way I shoot would be compatible with the advantages that MF offers.
I love the possibility of levering everything I know about optics, digital sensors (in this case), exposure and compositional aspects to achieve the best of both IQ and aesthetics cum artistic value in camera.
The 5D3 (sensor) is different enough on initial testing to tell me that a settling in period will be required to get the best out of this camera.

Nonetheless, as an example, I feel that the HDR mode in its present state is practically useless, barely better than experimental.
I do a lot of HDR, not the grungy type so hated by so many, so have a fair idea.
As mentioned before I am no technophobe and I certainly want to take advantage of options that digital capture and post-processing can provide but I feel that a lot of the "functionality" of even professional level cameras is aimed at the uninitiated on an almost "point-and-shoot" basis that cannot possibly survive actual practice.
The real abilities of these cameras can sometimes be lost in the irrelevant hype.

My $0.02 worth.

Tony Jay
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on March 30, 2012, 09:36:10 am
I have always found it easy to ignore what I don't use.
Title: the disease of gizmos and no DOF preview predates digital
Post by: BJL on March 30, 2012, 09:59:02 am
I agree with Rob that digital cameras have way too many gizmo type modes etc.
This issue is compounded by the fact that entry level cameras often lack somewhat more important functions such as depth of field preview ...
Firstly that is hardly a problem of digital vs film: the profusion of "gizmos", and lack of DOF buttons on some SLRs, goes back to about the dawn of AF in film cameras, as far as I recall.

Secondly, the solution to such problems is just choosing a digital camera that does not insult your intelligence too much; not blanket criticism of them all. There are plenty of affordable digital "system cameras" that pass this test, by having a DOF preview button option and a top dial with PASM modes (maybe along with some cute pictures and a green square, which can easily be ignored if you are not interested) and being perfectly usable the way I use mine, with very little recourse to menus and such, so that the gizmos are at worst irrelevant.


And for DOF preview, live view on a digital camera makes it far more useful for me that it ever was with my film cameras, because with their OVFs, the image was usually too dim to make sense of when more than a couple of stops below wide open.


P. S. Digital cameras also often an addition DOF preview option that is far superior in cases where you can afford a bit more time: taking a test shot and examining it on the LCD, with magnification and panning. In-camera on-screen review and preview is a bit like Polaroid proofs made available to the masses!
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: fredjeang on March 30, 2012, 03:03:25 pm
I think I understand what Rob really means about the "golden age".

Here is an interview of my boss they did for a small retrospective of his work in Madrid: http://vimeo.com/31216410

I wouldn't like to be back on film age. But I'd like to live in the profession what those older guys have been living. I think the interview talks about what Rob is saying. (my boss is shooting digital and likes it, it's not about cameras, it's something else, and in this I agree with Rob, I don't see it now. Maybe it's there but I don't see it)
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 30, 2012, 03:55:04 pm
I think I understand what Rob really means about the "golden age".

Here is an interview of my boss they did for a small retrospective of his work in Madrid: http://vimeo.com/31216410

I wouldn't like to be back on film age. But I'd like to live in the profession what those older guys have been living. I think the interview talks about what Rob is saying. (my boss is shooting digital and likes it, it's not about cameras, it's something else, and in this I agree with Rob, I don't see it now. Maybe it's there but I don't see it)



Thank you.

Amazing to hear him echo my wail about the feeling at the end of a good shoot or trip. Heartbreaking. I wonder if the costs involved today allow people the luxury to overshoot just because they don't want to lose the moment, the state of grace?

If you read Sarah Moon's Interview in Frank Horvat's site, you find that she, too, just went on and on clicking the moment away.

http://www.horvatland.com

Only thing: I started twenty years before Pep and already it felt as if we were just hanging on; by the 70s it felt like it was slowing down in some ways, but accelerating in others.... I hope he still has it in another twenty!

Was that you rushing through the background at one moment, at 2.13, wearing a dark bandana?

Rob C
Title: Re: the disease of gizmos and no DOF preview predates digital
Post by: Tony Jay on March 30, 2012, 07:02:04 pm
not blanket criticism of them all...

I guess one of the weaknesses of posting on forums is the difficulty of completely presenting ones position in a single post.

I wouldn't have thought that my post amounted to a blanket criticism but rather a legitimate concern.

Reading back through my posts on this thread I emphasize that I am not a technophobe.
I have thoroughly embraced the advantages that digital capture do give one.
This would include not only in camera advantages but also those offered in post-processing.
I also found out, on my own, the brilliant advantages of combining DOF preview and live view with magnification to critically evaluate focus.

I shoot with professional level cameras to ensure that certain critical camera functions are present although I stand by my opinion it is ridiculous that not all SLR-type cameras do not have DOF preview, this presented as an example and not an exhaustive list.

It is possible that we are not really at odds over this issue.

Regards

Tony Jay
Title: Re: the disease of gizmos and no DOF preview predates digital
Post by: BJL on March 30, 2012, 10:25:43 pm
I wouldn't have thought that my post amounted to a blanket criticism but rather a legitimate concern.
Yes, maybe it was just a matter of wording, and being amidst another debate about the "sins" of digital. If you had changed a couple of words to, say "digital many modern cameras have way too many gizmos ...", I would have objected far less, because indeed some cameras do bury controls expected and appreciated by us enthusiasts and older persons in menus, in order to use precious dial space for "smiling baby mode".
It is possible that we are not really at odds over this issue.
Yes, quite possible!
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: fredjeang on March 31, 2012, 06:30:00 am
My thoughts too.

I think that we got incredibly more versatile and exciting recording mediums now. In term of camera design very little has been done but in the area of post-prod the gap is enormous.

Now, the politics associated with those are IMO completly out of control. It's not normal that you buy a camera and it's almost immediatly obsolete. It's to the point that we hardly have time to
learn deeply the tool. In fact what we buy now is already out-of-game. I find this particularly annoying because it obliges to a constant recycling without having really had the time to mastered totally
the previous tool. It goes too fast, it's like drinking 10 beers in 5 minutes. I sort of have an indigestion of upgrades and learning curves in such short periods of time. Without talking about the costs.

Instead of bringing on the market this bombing of tools to keep people in constant unsatisfaction and create the need of buying every 6 months, and as a consequence more and more reach us unfinished or problematics (Michael's article)
I'd rather have less frequency upgrades but much more robust and better designs cameras made to last more with a higher quality control and better service.

But that is not interesting for the big brands.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: fredjeang on March 31, 2012, 08:08:40 am
I beleive that you're right.

I have a friend here, non pro. I sometimes shoot with him talents in unformal sessions for the fun and practise. The guy had an Olympus E5 with the digital zuikos from the pro line. The image quality with strobes was simply stunning, one of the best output I ever seen from a dslr in controled light. The camera is completly sealed and built like a tank. It's possible to shoot talents under the rain or shower, the pro-line lenses are sealed too. Anyway...the guy was frustrated because it was only 12 MP. He sold it all and bought a Nex 7 with a couple of Leica and Voitlander lenses. First days he was on heaven because he broke the 20MP barrier and could feature the Leica logo, but then...Results? far behind what he could acheived with his former 12MP Olympus (in studio I insist). Yes, marketing brainwashing is quite powerfull. Like nicotine.

 
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 31, 2012, 11:49:36 am
I do understand what Rob means by the term The Golden Age of Photography and tend to agree with him when he applies it to that particular era, but not when it is then re-applied to the cameras and the medium of the era.  



Hey, we're closer than some might have been led to believe!

I don't want to discount digital as a receiving medium; I've posted here at some stage or another - or maybe elsewhere when I first bought and was still excited by my D200 - that the colour I was able to get from the digital files was probably the best I'd ever experienced. Period. But now I'd claim that for the D700. I did not feel that happy about digital b/w, though b/w conversions from Kodachrome (with dear old PS6) were beautiful. IMO.

However, that said, I can't make claims of affection for either camera! Neither can I truthfully claim that spending all this time on PS is any huge thrill. Neither was scanning and then spotting, but those are not problems associated with camera design and the stuff that goes on inside it, and how you may or may not get to those bits. Those actual production problems, post capture, are all problems associated with the digital medium per se, whether you start from film or from a sensor.

In my own situation, living in an area where water is at a premium, I had already closed my make-do darkroom because of the sense of wrong that I felt ever time I ran the tap. Digi allowed me a way back into print. For that, at the very least, I owe it a debt of gratitude. But not of love or blind adoration.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: John R Smith on March 31, 2012, 01:42:47 pm
In my own situation, living in an area where water is at a premium, I had already closed my make-do darkroom because of the sense of wrong that I felt ever time I ran the tap. Digi allowed me a way back into print. For that, at the very least, I owe it a debt of gratitude. But not of love or blind adoration.

That's very interesting. I had forgotten just how profligate film was in its use of water - for washing the films, and then the prints. Gallons and gallons of water, just tipped down the sink. Especially with fibre-based papers, which needed hours of washing every time I printed. Back then, I thought nothing of it, and just turned on the tap. But now it would make me think twice, even though we are not short of water here in Cornwall.

John
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 31, 2012, 02:50:29 pm
That's very interesting. I had forgotten just how profligate film was in its use of water - for washing the films, and then the prints. Gallons and gallons of water, just tipped down the sink. Especially with fibre-based papers, which needed hours of washing every time I printed. Back then, I thought nothing of it, and just turned on the tap. But now it would make me think twice, even though we are not short of water here in Cornwall.

John


That was the cruncher: I had been using resin-coated papers since coming here, hated them and their look, and decided that it was best to write off the whole thing, since that part of it was personal and not business; for business, for me, Kodachrome was uncrowned king!

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MarkL on March 31, 2012, 05:04:34 pm
I have always found it easy to ignore what I don't use.

Agreed, I don't understand this comment from people. I went from my Nikon FM to D700 and have never read the instruction manual. If you want you can only use it in manual and the only difference you'd notice is the weight, even the lens aperture rings are fully functional.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on March 31, 2012, 06:02:28 pm
Agreed, I don't understand this comment from people. I went from my Nikon FM to D700 and have never read the instruction manual. If you want you can only use it in manual and the only difference you'd notice is the weight, even the lens aperture rings are fully functional.




Let me be the first to congratulate you, if only because you avoided the later version of the FM, the FM2 that disallowed the use of non-AI'd lenses, rendering almost all of my many Nikkors instantly useless with that camera. Fortunately, I only had the FM and FM2 for one use: higher flash synch. The F and F2 were better for everything else, thank goodness.

I went to the D200 from the F4s, F3 and Pentax 67 11, and had I not read the manual first, I'd still  be looking at it in dismay, never mind what I'd have been doing with my D700!

As I've said repeatedly, there are those for whom digital is perfectly okay, and others, such as myself, for whom such cameras are a nightmare. And yes, I have managed to turn both of them into as near to manual as is possible.

Perhaps this might help your problem with understanding that others do have a problem where you do not?

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on April 01, 2012, 07:24:49 am
As for the multi-ISO of digital, yes, it can be a boon if you go out to shoot in a club or something like that, but it wasn’t my need then, and now, when I have shot musos, I find that auto ISO, indoors, is indeed useful. But it never was part of my pro life. Hell, there is a legacy of wonderful jazz and rock’n’roll photography shot way back when digi wasn’t even a bad dream in the film industry’s mind, and the quality/mood of that stuff is beyond the clinical sterility of digital, even my own.
I remember a similarly daft point of view on LL a few years back about how much more real/better/less sterile film was to digital. I posted a couple of B+W shots and the digital naysayers used them to prove their point as these photos were so much better than digital imagery could be. Except of course they were not only shot digitally, but with a small sensor pocket camera.

The problem with your memories of the 'Good Old Days' Rob, is like most memories is that they are flawed. The perfect example of this is when people go on about how much better music was 'when I were a lad' as they only remember the tunes that they liked and do not recall all the crappy songs they didn't. Despite the fact that rubbish music [i.e. music one does not like] has always been the larger part of the musical canon.
I also used film for many years and was a dab hand in the darkroom, but would never go back to such an inconvenient way of working again. There's nothing I cannot do better and easier with digital capture.
I'm taking about 35mm + MF sizes here. Large format is an entirely different beast with no real digital counterparts.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on April 01, 2012, 07:36:15 am

That's part of the problem: I have PS6, which gives me all of the control any of my pix ever need; to buy newer PS systems and get into 'Bridge etc, costs even more money on top, and I just don't have the financial return on photography since I retired to make that make sense; in fact, there is no real financial return on it, and the thrill of new, technical, photographic discoveries (to me) is far from thrilling. I know how to do what I think I want to do, and I see no reason to throw money at what has turned from job to time-passer.

Nikon's own NX2, which I have, allows something similar to Bridge, too, but these all become steps added to the process, which if that's the part of photography one enjoys, then fine, enjoy. To me it is just more interference with what was of divine simplicity.
I think possibly that if you were to invest in some modern software, you may enjoy that side of things far, far more. LR4 is is simply remarkable in what it can do compared to PS6 and very much cheaper than a newer version PS+Br, not to mention the ease of use and with a lightbox like ability too.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on April 01, 2012, 07:45:17 am
Firstly that is hardly a problem of digital vs film: the profusion of "gizmos", and lack of DOF buttons on some SLRs, goes back to about the dawn of AF in film cameras, as far as I recall.
Much earlier. The Canon A1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_A-1) was a camera that could stump seasoned camera shop assistants at times.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on April 01, 2012, 07:50:14 am
That's very interesting. I had forgotten just how profligate film was in its use of water - for washing the films, and then the prints. Gallons and gallons of water, just tipped down the sink. Especially with fibre-based papers, which needed hours of washing every time I printed. Back then, I thought nothing of it, and just turned on the tap. But now it would make me think twice, even though we are not short of water here in Cornwall.
I always felt uncomfortable about that and even worse was the chucking of noxious chemicals into the drains.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on April 01, 2012, 03:59:11 pm
I always felt uncomfortable about that and even worse was the chucking of noxious chemicals into the drains.




Agreed; and then they introduced legislation to prevent it (UK), and you had to organize some form of collection... I'd already left by that time, I think, as I have no memory of doing it.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: jjj on April 01, 2012, 08:43:42 pm
Legislation? - I don't recall ever hearing anything about that.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on April 02, 2012, 04:20:44 am
Legislation? - I don't recall ever hearing anything about that.

Yes, there was stuff in the BJP (of the time) about it. I think there were collection services set up to take the stuff away (or you had to collect and deliver to them) and extract the silver from the sludge. I left in '81, and I'd long been doing not a lot more than transparencies by then, so that's probably why I have no concrete memories of doing anything along those lines myself, only of knowing about it.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on April 02, 2012, 06:27:37 am
I think I understand what Rob really means about the "golden age".

Here is an interview of my boss they did for a small retrospective of his work in Madrid: http://vimeo.com/31216410

I wouldn't like to be back on film age. But I'd like to live in the profession what those older guys have been living. I think the interview talks about what Rob is saying. (my boss is shooting digital and likes it, it's not about cameras, it's something else, and in this I agree with Rob, I don't see it now. Maybe it's there but I don't see it)

Thanks for posting that link, his words were fascinating, and as for Pepe's photography ... I hope one day to see prints rather than just low-res video.

There is a lot of what Pepe says that is relevant to this discussion, but to my mind it is what he doesn't say that is more interesting to this discussion and the thread in general.

Does he talk about this camera or that, this lens or that, this technological frustration or another, this upcoming camera that will ...? Nope, he talks about photography, about his love for the medium, and more importantly about his love for his subjects. Not only his words, but the love for his subject is evident on his face.

Compare that to many of the discussions and posters on this photography forum, that photography forum, or any other forum. Gizmo this, Brand X camera that, this one is crap, mine is best, this interface/design is not good ... blah blah.

I call BS on 'the golden age of photography' and 'digital vs film'. This, IMHO, is a product of our marketing driven age. We strive so hard to have that perfect experience. We fit in a photoshoot in our spare time and expect to be creative. Our ideals of perfection have been learned by 1000s of adverts, magazines, tv, blogs...

Having worked as a professional landscape photographer for 8 years; having lived, loved (and photographed) in the landscape for nearly all my years; and having run landscape photography workshops; I continue to be fascinated by people 'trying' to make photographs, in the way they think the camera will do the work, in their trying to fit it in, in trying to achieve a certain image.

We all lead busy lives so trying to find time can be hard, but perhaps if we stopped for longer to watch and empathise. Certainly in 'The Golden Age' people probably had more time to watch, to go on "clicking away through the moment. Watching is important for photography, or any art. We need to watch our subject, understand it, empathise with it or at least understand what we want our photograph to say about the subject or the moment. The guy I met on Northumberlands coast one day who had visited 3 locations (with about a 10-20min drive between each) over the course of one sunrise was far from the path.

We need time to suffer too. Not in that existential way, but in having time to give to something till we are exhausted from doing it, from letting it seep into our bones, from letting our subject get into us and our whole outlook being our vision of that subject.

And we want to achieve certain images, maybe successful or a pre-defined notion of beauty ones. Joe Cornish in the UK has a lot to answer for. How many of us try to emulate his work? How many super wide angle shots in a Joe Cornish style do we see in magazines/websites? Don't get me wrong, Joe's work is beautiful and I enjoy visits to his gallery and reading/viewing his books. But he is his own voice that is his response to his subject and his feelings on it.

As others have pointed out product marketing seduces us. And camera interfaces further compound this. Even if we don't use those 'scene' modes they still IMHO subliminally suggest to us that the subject or moment before us must fit a certain category. We are distracted by extras on the camera that flash and beep. Extras that may only work in certain situations forcing us to further categorise the subject.

And they look pretty, damn it if I haven't walked back to my own camera sat their in it's space age and trick glory, on that carbon fibre tripod, and thought "wow, that looks just the thing for making photographs".

I've spent the last year on a commission for the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts producing 360x180 panoramic images and virtual tours covering the whole of the UK. As a commission it has been a true privilege to undertake, both in the subject and with a brilliant client who was fun to worth with and willing to take creative risks. I did a large part of my travel by bike and usually wild camped near to or on location for most of that year. I spent more time under canvas outside or under the skies than I spent time in my house. My empathy for the landscape during this time was unparalleled compared to any other time in my life. On the last month I was exhausted, ill and the weather was bad so I had to slum it and resort to hotels. Immediately I felt my empathy drop, my understanding and love for the landscape and my subjects reduced. It was an awful way to end such a sublime journey.

I took delight in the photography too. Whilst the panoramic setup to make parallax free shots for easy stitching looks a bit complex (to some), after a while I reduced the setup to simple, it became ritual. Screwing the head together, manual metering after evaluating the whole scene, manual focus always the same at 2.5m (with a fisheye at f/11 this is plenty dof). Wait, watch, wait, watch, click click click. Record sound after careful listening. Make supplementary photographs of details within the scene.

And then tieing it all together on computer. Photoshop became a joy (really), watching the image stitch on the screen like a print in the tray of developer, editing the sound, pulling it into a virtual tour with all the sounds and supporting photography, going full screen with the final tour and letting it spin away with the sound of waves, birds, people, bikes, dogs, it took me right back into the moment.

So here's my point. It's not the manufacturers at fault. It's us. Ignore the marketing, ignore the menus no matter how good or bad they are, whether you are Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, Hasselblad doesn't matter a damn. Rather than loving your camera, learn to love your subject, watch it, caress it with your thoughts, pre-visualise, whatever, just get into your subject.

J'Accuse? Yes, I accuse YOU, (and me).

PS Lots of coffee today and I think the straightforward Russian attitude is starting to rub off on me:-) No offence meant, especially to workshop clients who were always fun to work and photograph with.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Tony Jay on April 02, 2012, 06:45:28 am
Rather than loving your camera, learn to love your subject, watch it, caress it with your thoughts, pre-visualise, whatever, just get into your subject.

You do have a point!

Regards

Tony Jay
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: telyt on April 02, 2012, 08:47:46 am
So here's my point. It's not the manufacturers at fault. It's us. Ignore the marketing, ignore the menus no matter how good or bad they are, whether you are Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, Hasselblad doesn't matter a damn. Rather than loving your camera, learn to love your subject, watch it, caress it with your thoughts, pre-visualise, whatever, just get into your subject.

J'Accuse? Yes, I accuse YOU, (and me).

Thank you!!!
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on April 02, 2012, 09:55:11 am
But if it is not the camera's fault, who can I blame for my crumby photographs?
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Richowens on April 02, 2012, 11:04:16 am
The dog..........?
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on April 02, 2012, 01:07:26 pm
But if it is not the camera's fault, who can I blame for my crumby photographs?

I'm sure this is tongue in cheek, but it's a good point none the less. For me when it goes wrong it's a sliding scale between "I'm an idiot" to "I'm just not getting in the groove with this subject today" to "I'm not good enough to photograph this. Yet!"

I mean the last one, there are days when I don't even get the camera out as I would rather not take a photograph than try to make one that didn't fit the subject. That would be disrespectful. And that is why I didn't make much money as a professional:-(

With the exception of focus issues (i.e. autofocus picking the wrong subject, which is really my fault for not checking) I can't think of a single time when the camera was at fault.

BTW, I've not see any of your work, but I'm sure it's not crumby. I mean, you've got a MFD if your username is anything to go by, how can it be bad with such a camera????

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: theguywitha645d on April 02, 2012, 07:13:41 pm
I'm sure this is tongue in cheek, but it's a good point none the less. For me when it goes wrong it's a sliding scale between "I'm an idiot" to "I'm just not getting in the groove with this subject today" to "I'm not good enough to photograph this. Yet!"

I mean the last one, there are days when I don't even get the camera out as I would rather not take a photograph than try to make one that didn't fit the subject. That would be disrespectful. And that is why I didn't make much money as a professional:-(

With the exception of focus issues (i.e. autofocus picking the wrong subject, which is really my fault for not checking) I can't think of a single time when the camera was at fault.

BTW, I've not see any of your work, but I'm sure it's not crumby. I mean, you've got a MFD if your username is anything to go by, how can it be bad with such a camera????



Mike, I did not type my post with a straight face. But thank you for your thoughtful reply. BTW, my Pentax 645D can take pretty mundane images even though the technical quality may be there--and unfortunately I cannot blame Pentax.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on April 13, 2012, 04:49:48 am
There was a bit of engineer bashing above, and looking for something light to add to the copyright discussion I found this old gem. As an ex-engineer I sympathised with much of the above, and much of the following. Sorry I don't know the original source, it appears a lot on the Internet so could be anyone, but thanks to him/her anyway. Enjoy, and have a good weekend all.


Understanding Engineers - Take One

Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?". The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want.". The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

Understanding Engineers - Take Two
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers - Take Three
A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers.
The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!"
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"
The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."
"Hi, George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"
The greens keeper replied, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters who lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."
The group was silent for a moment.
The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."
The doctor said, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."
The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Understanding Engineers - Take Five
What is the difference between Mechanical Engineers and Civil
Engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers - Take Seven
"Normal people ... believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet." -Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

Understanding Engineers - Take Eight
An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress.
The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.
The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.
The engineer said, "I like both."
"Both?" they asked.
Engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

Understanding Engineers - Take Nine
An engineer was crossing a road one day when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."
He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."
The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you and do ANYTHING you want."
Again the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess, that I'll stay with you for a week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Ray on April 13, 2012, 05:12:20 am
Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?". The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want.". The second engineer nodded approvingly, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

That's hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.  ;D
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on April 13, 2012, 01:51:41 pm
Thanks, Mike, winging its way to a couple of friends!

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: telyt on April 13, 2012, 06:24:15 pm
Questions recent college graduates ask on their first job:

The recent graduate with the engineering degree asks "How do we make this?"
The recent graduate with the business degree asks "How much will it cost?"
The recent graduate with the liberal arts degree asks "Would you like fries with that?"

Re: Understanding Engineers - pretty much true, according to my wife.
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Peter McLennan on April 13, 2012, 06:47:57 pm
Three gentlemen are set to be executed by guillotine: a lawyer, a doctor and an engineer.  They are allowed the choice of "face-up" or "face-down".

Not wishing to witness his demise, the lawyer chooses face-down and lies down to await his fate. The blade descends with incredible force and speed, only to come to an abrupt stop just inches from his neck.  In accordance with tradition, if the mechanism fails, the victim is given a complete reprieve.  Wiping his brow with relief, the lawyer withdraws.

The doctor, too chooses face down.  Incredibly, again the blade stops just before impact and the doctor goes free.

The engineer chooses to meet his fate face-up and assumes the position on the block, gazing upwards with interest.  Just as the executioner is about to release the mechanism, the engineer yells "Stop!  Wait!  I think I see the problem!"
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: barryfitzgerald on April 15, 2012, 05:07:32 pm
Good enough is the enemy of rampant consumerism and I love every minute of it  8)
So you want that nice 4k TV..$$ flies up for the makers, but wait 10 years down the road 4k is old hat it's not 8k and yes we get to spend even more money on buying the same product yet again.

Someone asked me if I'd like to update my DVD collection (which is quite considerable it must be said) to Blu ray. It would cost me a small fortune to do that, and I have to say DVD is for me...well it's good enough and yes nicer than those old VHS tapes too! I'm sure the movie companies would love to re-sell me the same films in a new higher def format..problem is I'm not suckering into that one not one bit.  ::) It's a great strategy I have to say keep selling the same thing over and over again super profit bubble is what I call it.

I didn't buy a DVD player when they first came out, a friend of mine did cost quite a lot of money. Years down the road DVD players cost peanuts.
In fact I don't buy cameras when they first hit the shelves I wait, prices fall..and issues that might be a problem we hope get ironed out. Ditto on computers I know the market and how it works never buy top end of anything esp computers, today's top end is tomorrows budget processor. It's the inevitable consequence of electronics it gets cheaper over time. By all means go mid range if you want..but you pay a hefty premium at the high point.

I'm sure companies hate my strategy I didn't rush out and buy an ipad because I don't want one, nor an iphone, nor a blu ray player. I buy what I need..maybe I'm overly cautious, maybe I'm tight fisted. But I do think we live in an overly commercial world frankly I'm sick of it really..everywhere you go it's shoved down your throat. And if we are completely honest, we don't even need half this junk anyway do we? Food for thought, someone has to say it

Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: Rob C on April 16, 2012, 09:30:25 am
I'm sure companies hate my strategy I didn't rush out and buy an ipad because I don't want one, nor an iphone, nor a blu ray player. I buy what I need..maybe I'm overly cautious, maybe I'm tight fisted. But I do think we live in an overly commercial world frankly I'm sick of it really..everywhere you go it's shoved down your throat. And if we are completely honest, we don't even need half this junk anyway do we? Food for thought, someone has to say it




And I'm glad that you did.

Trouble is, somewhere down the line those manufacturers still get you: my extensive shelves of taped music cassettes are no longer playable in the car. Only CDs fit and I have few of those I want to play too often. As with LPs of yesteryear, there are perhaps two good tracks per package. So, ages of making selected tapes from my permanent stuff are now waste outwith the home.

Bugger them all, yet again.

Rob C
Title: Re: J'Accuse
Post by: MikeMac on April 17, 2012, 04:00:01 am



And I'm glad that you did.

Trouble is, somewhere down the line those manufacturers still get you: my extensive shelves of taped music casettes are no longer playable in the car. Only CDs fit and I have few of those I want to play too often. As with LPs of yesteryear, there are perhaps two good tracks per package. So, ages of making selected tapes from my permanent stuff are now waste outwith the home.

Bugger them all, yet again.

Rob C

I used to love making up mix tapes. Tapes for parties, tapes for friends, tapes for girlfriends. It was great fun. I don't particularly regret their passing because I had such a great time with them when they were current.

I hate the waste though. We bought a new TV last year, a nice LCD model, despite the fact our old Sony Trinitron CRT was still in good working order. We didn't need it, it was only bought partly as we wanted to buy one, and partly as my wife wanted the Freeview channels and there wasn't space under the TV for a separate box. Pretty rubbish reasons, and the old TV straight to landfill as no-one wants them. I'm pretty embarrassed about it really because it is so wasteful.

Just to add a touch of irony, three months later we have moved to Russia and the new TV has had to go into storage whilst we are away! Now I feel really bad.

Maybe Barry is right, we should make the best of what we have. Or take the time to understand our own needs and chose accordingly rather than being dictated to by marketing and sales blurb. There is enough choice out there. Are all the choices really so bad that we can't find one that suits us?