Every time I read a Sony or Panasonic or any other electronic manufacturing companies camera described as a computer I grimace a little and I do wonder if this is just a cheap shot aimed to discredit these upstart companies. After all, who do they think they are making cameras? And good ones too! Shouldn't they stick to making computers, mobile phones and toasters?
I've only been using cameras for 45 years and although this might not be long enough and I may be a young upstart I just don't get the view that these cameras are or feel like computers, at all.
Yes, I currently have a Sony. It's my first Sony. I shoot using a mixture of AF and MF lenses and my A7 seems to work just like any other modern camera I've had and certainly not differently to my first modern automated Nikon 35mm SLR which I had decades ago. The aperture, shutter speed, compensation and ISO are all set with wheels or are just a button push away and I only dive into the menu to format the card or set the clock. Just like any Canon, Nikon or... some Leicas.
Lets lay off with the computer jibes. After all Leica now makes cameras which are as far removed from their old film rangefinders as anything Sony make.
If you're willing to think a bit, maybe it will come to you that people who remind you that your camera is a computer are doing you a favor. The iPhone and S7 Galaxy phones are hugely powerful little computers with superb screens sold by the hundreds of millions, and this is why when a tiny $10 camera module is integrated in the phone, the viewfinder is responsive, image processing is exemplary,
the screen is LARGE, BRIGHT, calibrated and
images look good. Also, the camera app is easy to use because it benefits from UI research and an API that has been amortized over thousands of AppStore applications that have generated billions of dollars of profit. Images can be exported straight away through a bulletproof wireless interface, and viewed all over the world.
Your average cheap SLR simply does not contain as much hardware, and this is why the screen is bad, it is small and not calibrated at the factory for cost reasons, the UI not responsive, focus lags and is imprecise, the electronic viewfinder is laggy, and the in-camera image processing not as good as it might be. The UI is quite often a mess because every camera manufacturer has to reinvent the wheel, and program every part of the interface kit. Your average "Pro" SLR eg. my Nikon D4 does not even integrate a WIFI interface.
Reminding the public that cameras are now computers will prevent them from expecting a free lunch, and make them realize that they will only get decent cameras if they are willing to pay for some serious dedicated hardware. Accepting that the camera is now a computer and employing standard UIs from the phone/computer industry will enable savings that can translate into image quality.
I'm not against wheels, dials and aperture rings - but I see no reason why a camera cannot have a standard UI on the backscreen and a SCREEN LARGE ENOUGH AND BRIGHT ENOUGH TO ACTUALLY SEE. LIKE MY PHONE.
Sticking a couple of wheels on top of the camera to "simulate" ISO and select shutter speed is not exactly the same as updating the computer hardware which makes the thing tick.
Edmund