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Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

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Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#141

Post by jfindley »

dheera wrote: post #2

Another thing I hate about a lot of recent camera hardware is the move toward cheap plastic, everywhere. I shoot pretty much only with old manual-focus lenses from days of yore. Most of my lenses are older than I am. They're all made of metal, built like a tank, and way easier to use. No fidgety UIs or menus to manipulate, perfectly calibrated infinity focus (slap the focus ring to the end until it stops and landscap…

On pro cameras, at least, although they have plastic outsides it's pretty strong plastic, and the actual chassis of the camera is cast alloy (usually magnesium-aluminium).

A nikon D3/D4/D5 will withstand a huge amount of abuse - at least as much as my more obviously metal pre-digital SLRs did. Another issue to be aware of is when using large, heavy lenses, a lot of stress gets put on the mount point and that most modern pro-orientated DSLRs are actually stronger than their old film equivalents in this regard, as the engineering has improved over time.

Re: arca-swiss plates - the reason camera companies don't do this is because of the licensing fee (source: I've talked to a bunch of them, and this is always their reply). I'm sure Thom is aware of this, but the licensing fee is not insignificant, and with extreme pressure to control costs it's not surprising that companies very rarely do this. Of course I personally would be very happy to see them included, but I know there are a bunch of people that don't use them, and would resent the extra cost to include them.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#142

Post by icantdrive55 »

jaggederest wrote: post #24
Steve44 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of the problems relate to the experience of the person behind the camera. Often you can see the choppiness when things are moving. That to me looks like they are using a high shutter speed which is inappropriate for cine work. In still photography if you take a picture of a waterfall on a bright day at 1/1000 you'll see every crisp drop, shooting at 1/30th will give a little bit of smoothing motion blur…

> My other bugbear is many cameramen appear to have forgotten what a tripod is. The camera wobbling about can occasionally at to the atmosphere but most of the time it is just annoying and distracting. Again a combination of lack of skill and production values. With projection and home displays lagging camera technology, I'd be surprised if the opposite didn't happen. You can do a lot of shake reduction with 2x the p…

Yea, over the years my best shots have been shot using a heavy tripod. There are times when I don't want to lug around that Manfretto tripod--a tripod that looks like you could mount a machine gun on it.

I've tried monopods, but my best shots are all taken with a tripod.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#143

Post by trm42 »

ekianjo wrote: post #63
wjnc wrote: post #43

As an economist: isn't this 'just' an example of software eating the world? One the one hand, quality camera's should keep upgrading the periferal hardware to keep match with modern IT-supplies and on the other hand keep a focus on durable products. Why wouldn't producers do this? Cost savings and probably price competition. The competition (smart phones) have a whole different market. They have a product that people…

> The competition (smart phones) have a whole different market. They have a product that people (regretably?) replace every 2-3 years. The market dictates the newest techniques. Pictures are sensors + software. Software has a much shorter improvement cycle. Hence, I would expect a continuously larger part of the camera market to 'fall' for the smartphone camera. Heck, the 'official' advice from my preferred reviewers…

At least Fuji and Olympus have realised the new model cycle is getting longer so they are releasing new firmware features until the replacing model is launched.

Canikon aren't doing new features in firmwares, seems more like bug fixes and Sony is somewhere inbetween at least with the A7-series...

Sony A7 series have also some kind of small apps you can buy and download from their store to your camera. Haven't seen that many apps there =(

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#144

Post by l33tbro »

dharma1 wrote: post #134
l33tbro wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you think that's the global shutter of the camera? Raw definitely helps with pushing the image in colour grading, but I always thought the nice motion cadence on the BMPCC comes from the fact that the global shutter scans the entire image at once when capturing a frame, which makes it more filmic and less jittery than rolling shutter sensors which scan a series of parts of the image to create the frame.

The BMPCC has a rolling shutter. Some other Blackmagic cameras have global shutter. I don't personally think there is a huge difference unless you're doing fast camera movement` I think the video quality is down to reasonably high dynamic range sensor, and RAW sequence capture, meaning you can actually access all that dynamic range

I thought they added a switchable global shutter mode, no? Maybe i'm getting it confused with another model. Probably!

I'm only now looking into DSLR's for a low-light option. Funnily enough, the ones that stand out to me are the Samsung NX1 and the Fuji XT2. Samsung oddly has great motion cadence, but awful macro-blocking. Fuji, unsurprisingly, has beautiful colours. Unfortunately both are only 8 bit, which is kind of a deal-breaker for me.

As an aside, how rare and cool to get to geek out on Hacker News over this stuff!

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#145

Post by coldtea »

thinkMOAR wrote: post #132
coldtea wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I never dropped my camera though, but i do run into things a lot, doors, doorposts, fences and most of all tiny people. Huh?

I'm not the most careful person with my camera gear. All my bodies and lenses have taken some blows here and there from, as i said, doorways, people, brick wall corners etc, flew through the car once, i just never let it slid from my hands on the ground or something. Typical i have a shoulder or wrist strap, ads (no im not affiliated) peakdesigns' or blackrapids' straps and wrist bands If any reading this still use t…

Mostly referring to the "tiny people".

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#146

Post by jpatokal »

clra wrote: post #6

Great article. I was hoping that the author would add something about the UIs of these cameras. The bodies of modern DSLRs are jampacked with every kind of knob, control, button, dial, and dongle that you can possibly think of. To a large extent, that's kind of the whole point — these cameras are for professionals and professionals ostensibly need to be able to adjust every aspect of their picture. But in practice, 9…

> The bodies of modern DSLRs are jampacked with every kind of knob, control, button, dial, and dongle that you can possibly think of. ... But in practice, 95% of users aren't using 95% of these adjusters 95% of the time.

Amen. I've been casually shooting with a Nikon D70 and now a D7000 for around 15 years now. Here's an illustrated guide to every single physical control on the D7000, which isn't even a high-end camera:

http://kenrockwell.com/nikon/d7000/users-guide/controls.htm

...and for many of those I'd need to read the manual to find out what they even do (Fn? Lv?) and I struggle to find any reason I'd need to twiddle with, say, the image compression (QUAL) so urgently that it needs a dedicated shortcut button.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#147

Post by oliwarner »

clra wrote: post #6

Great article. I was hoping that the author would add something about the UIs of these cameras. The bodies of modern DSLRs are jampacked with every kind of knob, control, button, dial, and dongle that you can possibly think of. To a large extent, that's kind of the whole point — these cameras are for professionals and professionals ostensibly need to be able to adjust every aspect of their picture. But in practice, 9…

> features are still bolted onto the camera that get used roughly never

I see your argument about making sensible choices on smaller form factors but DSLRs aren't point and shoot.

There's only one button I "roughly never" use on my D750 (the little "i" button). Everything else gets a hot supper. And it's not just that I use those features, I mean I use them all the time. In environments where I need the muscle-memory to affect them quickly. Things like ISO, bracketing, flash and focus and aperture priority modes. I don't think I'm unique.

I won't tolerate a camera that forces me to disengage with what I'm doing so I can fanny around in a menu system.

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#148

Post by sogen »

coldtea wrote: post #145
thinkMOAR wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the most careful person with my camera gear. All my bodies and lenses have taken some blows here and there from, as i said, doorways, people, brick wall corners etc, flew through the car once, i just never let it slid from my hands on the ground or something. Typical i have a shoulder or wrist strap, ads (no im not affiliated) peakdesigns' or blackrapids' straps and wrist bands If any reading this still use t…

Mostly referring to the "tiny people".

Kids

Re: Dumb Things Camera Companies are Still Doing

#149

Post by brudgers »

I love 1/4-20 sockets. Attach my camera to a flash bracket? Yep. Attach an eyebolt to attach a carabiner to attach a neck strap? Yep. Attach a hand strap or a 40mm, 80mm, or 200mm Arca Swiss plate. Yep. Yep, Yep and Yep.

There's nothing stopping a photographer from permanently attaching an Arca-Swiss plate to the bottom of a camera body with a bit of cyanoacrylate or some screws if it makes better photographs. For me, walking around with an Arca-Swiss plate on my camera made me appreciate that 1/4-20 socket is flush. Walking around with a 120mm plate made me appreciate that the 1/4-20 socket is flush both top to bottom and front to back.

Like everything in photography 1/4-20 and Arca-Swiss are defined by engineering tradeoffs. The cost of slower direct attachment of 1/4-20 is in exchange for the physical strength of bolted connection and the flexibility adopting a broader standard affords - I can build a camera mount from general components available at the hardware store (including round stock and a 1/4-20 die in a statistically unlikely universe).

edit: I left out all the electronic/software rants because photography is undergoing Cambrian explosion in regards to controls and computation (but mirrorless cameras are nothing new).

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