Dumbing Down and Pricing Up Our Tools

The dumbing down of our society never ceases to infuriate me. Year by year the offerings on commercial television become ever more puerile, mobile phones become ever more gimmicky and I swear that the same basic movie plot has been retreaded (with only minor variations) for the last 50 (and counting) Hollywood pot boilers.

The pop culture articles of popular magazines have ceased to appeal to anyone except the ultra-voyeuristic and I do not even wish to DISCUSS the fact that no one seems able to digest anything more than a "three second grab" on the evening news.

All of that may be bad ENOUGH but NOW they are dumbing down the tools for my primary creative outlet - photography. I will not stand idly by and allow this to transpire without objection.

So far as still photography is concerned, the world is surely divided into two kinds of people.

There are those of us who expect cameras to provide high grade picture quality, speed of operation, reasonable durability, accuracy of viewing and above average image control. Moreover, the retired folk among us expect to be able to get cameras which embody these qualities without having to waste our limited cash on gimmick features which offer us no tangible advantages but nonetheless jack the price up.

There are also those who only use their cameras occasionally, are not especially discriminating on the matter of image quality but quite sensibly want the smallest, easiest-to-operate, most-convenient-to-carry piece of kit they can find.

Now I have no objection to dumbed down do-everything-but-make-the-dinner compact cameras. People who want that sort of thing are welcome to it - with my blessing. Just leave my upper entry level DSLRs alone!!

Just lately, the marketing gurus at Nikon and Canon have decided that it has become necessary to pollute the non-profession DSLRs with unnecessarily expensive features that will look "friendly" to compact camera users. It is presumed that these potential buyers cannot really see the point of DSLRs which don't operate like their old compacts. Rather than encourage people, moving from compacts to DSLRs, to "upgrade" their photographic skills, camera manufacturers seem ready to "downgrade" the DSLRs instead. Presumably this will allow new DSLR users to continue to produce the same convenient but shoddy images that they have long grown to know and love on their compact cameras.

What (may I ask) is the point of that?

1) It started with "live view" on DSLRs.

Compact camera users love to hold their light little devices at arms length, frame the shot and pull the trigger. The camera labours to focus on something and eventually gets around to capturing the image (often some seconds beyond the best opportunity). To make matters worse, because the LCD screen is ON, virtually all the time, the batteries are often exhausted after 100 images or so. But then, because the average compact camera user rarely shoots more than a few dozen images at a time - what does limited battery life really matter? Might I suggest that if you are serious about photography, it will start to matter very much when using a DSLR.

At the end of the day, people don't seem to understand that a good, bright real-time DSLR viewfinder will ALWAYS provide a clearer more accurate and faster idea of what you are trying to shoot than an LCD screen. The viewfinder feeds you all the essential shooting information you can't REALLY see on some pale blurry distant LCD screen half blotted out by the sun behind you. I don't know about you, but I really NEED instant access to shutter speed, aperture, exposure compensation and focus lock indicators as I work. Likewise if you are holding a DSLR to your face, while using the viewfinder, you have one more asset in your attempt to steady a relatively heavy camera in low light/long shutter speed situations.

What on earth is the point of a DSLR which is slow to operate, fails to show the essential shooting information, provides a pale, inaccurate view of the subject, can't be held steady, runs out of battery power in short order and (due to the need for a second "live view" image sensor dedicated for the purpose) costs far more than it ought to? I can't see a point. Does anybody else? Honestly?

Of course it can be pointed out that you don't HAVE to use live view to shoot with a DSLR. You can always go back to using it the traditional way. But if you are going to do that, why pay through the nose for live view capability in the first place?

2) Movies

Okay, it was argued, if you are going to have live view, why not include the capability to shoot movies? I find it amazing that I have to make the following points to presumably intelligent camera manufacturers. But here goes:

a) So far, the implementation of movies in DSLRs has been disappointing to say the least. One can't focus (automatically at least) when in the act of shooting a movie. It doesn't seem to have dawned on anybody that in movies, subjects actually .... er .... MOVE. Focus ought to move WITH them or what is the point?
b) Fussy photographers willing to shell out a couple of thousand notes for a decent body and lens probably CARE about the results of their photography. It seems clear that the best movies will always come from purpose-designed camcorders. Such customers will always prefer to use a camcorder for their movies, will they not? Given the clear weight of opinion on web-based photography forums, it seems obvious that being able to shoot movies on DSLRs is a marginal selling point at best.
c) By the nature of their design and the nature of their users, compact cameras will always be a better compromise if you want to shoot casual movie files. Why produce an unnecessarily expensive and unnecessarily cumbersome device to do the job of a much cheaper, much more convenient one?

Once again, so far as most traditional DSLR users (as opposed to newbie former compact camera owners), movie capability simply represents one more reason why non professional DSLRs finish up being more expensive than they ought.

3) Fold out LCD screens

I have been using digital still cameras (and most especially, digital SLRs) since the beginning. I have spent many hours in pressure professional situations. I have NEVER felt the need for a fiddly, bulky, vulnerable fold out LCD screen. I can well understand the need for a fold out screen if said device is your ONLY means of sighting the subject. This would be especially true if you are trying to keep the screen away from prevailing sunlight. I can also concede the usefulness of one in a media crush where you are trying to shoot over the heads of other journos and such - but really - how often do you find yourself in such a fix?

In the case of the recently introduced Nikon D5000, the incorporation of a fold out screen has meant that the entire body has had to be taller and heavier than would otherwise be desirable (at God knows what cost). To make matters worse (yet again) the size of the screen has had to be reduced from a full 3" to a smaller than desirable 2.8".

In order to heap absurdity upon absurdity it has to be conceded that one useful function for a fold out screen might well be to enable the subject to see him/herself in the screen during a self portrait. But the ridiculous D5000 fold-out screen, (mounted as it is by the lower edge, rather than the side) is inevitably obscured by the tripod upon which the camera must be mounted for such exercises!!!

Is it just me? Am I the only one who sees this cynical dumb-down trend for what it is? Please! Leave my perfectly satisfactory, light, cheap, easy to use, entry level DSLRs alone - for pity sake.