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12/04/09
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It's not bigger than your head. I can still see traces of an albino with his hair on fire.
12/03/09
What about surf and other water photographers who rely on those buttons in the water housings we use? The touchscreen would be useless in those situations.
12/03/09
For some reason the combination of pressing a button and turning the wheel simultaneously eludes a lot of amateur photographers. I know so many people who have DSLRs but keep them on automatic everything because they try to learn the buttons once, get frustrated and give up.
12/03/09
Considering a number of people take pictures in all sorts of weather conditions (like biting cold), I see some of them avoiding this like the plague.
12/03/09
I wouldnt imagine it would be very easy to use the touchscreen with your eye to the viewfinder so I doubt this will be the end of buttons and dials. Like said, maybe for the cheap consumer models.
12/03/09
My bet is only the entry level rebels and other consumer cameras would go all touchscreen, while the pro bodies get touch screen and buttons.
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If you were Aperture focused you can just say to your camera "1 stop or 2 stops lower". Or you can say "1.7f" "22f". That my friend is how future cameras would work.
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As for keeping the eye on the subject, all DSLRs have a very comprehensive display within the viewfinder that shows the major settings. Anyone who has used DSLRs for an extended period of time can change the settings without taking their eye off. For e.g. I only need to rotate the sub command dial for Aperture, the main command dial for SS and extend my ring finger down for DoF preview. And if I'm in Aperture or shutter priority, I move the index finger back a wee bit, press a button and turn the appropriate dial and voila! I have exposure compensation. All this is way simpler than it seems while reading.
And yes, it can all be done with, er... one eye closed.
12/03/09
12/03/09
Look at the DSLR as a whole. The basic design is more than half a century old and many newer configurations have come and gone. But it still remains more or less the same because the system just works. The mirror, crude and mechanical in a way is yet to be bettered by the most sophisticated EVFs, for e.g.
Make no mistake, a touch screen is cool to have on say, a Sony T series Cybershot. But not on my DSLR. Not when I'm doing an important shoot where the settings need to be changed in a split second. No thank you.
12/03/09
Just because something is cool (touch screen) doesn't mean it's applicable to all gadgets. Cars still use the good old combustion engine and it's almost 2010.
12/03/09
12/03/09
Think about the form factor of the camera, and where it needs to be placed in order to take pictures: At the face. Hard buttons are important here because you need to perform functions without taking your eye off the viewfinder.
Now, for viewing your shots on camera, I can see that this would be a nifty novelty, but not so much that it would warrant the added functionality: Anyone who bothers to be familiar with the hard controls on a camera can manipulate these very easily for zoom/pan.
I'm not saying touchscreens won't have an impact on *cameras*, but as noted elsewhere in this thread, not for cameras beyond the consumer-level.
Anyone who's worked with a touchscreen-only remote control knows: Tactile feedback is key for some things, and you can't get that (nor do you need it) with touchscreen.
12/03/09
I can see how people who use live-view would benefit, but in my experience, very few of my photog buddies ever use the live-view feature either. It's good to have options though. Touch-screen would be the first thing i'd disabled.
12/03/09
Another thing that’s great about a touch screen is that you don’t have to move your camera around to focus. You can easily put your focus square anywhere on the screen. And you can do it without taking your eyes off your subject or need to move the camera from your composition. AND you can quickly refocus on something else on in your frame if you have to, again, without ever moving your camera composition.
Trust me, once you use something like this and get use to it you’ll wonder how you ever used stupid buttons and sub-menus.
12/03/09
I can see touchscreens being useful for image reviewing and maybe for setting focus on liveview, but most definitely not for eye-on shooting.
On another note; I don't know about everyone, but the click of the command dials as I change settings is one of the most enjoyable aspects of handling a DSLR for me.
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Technology that improves user experience is good. Technology for technology's sake? Not so much.
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In your focus recompose scenario works for most instances as the camera’s AI can pick out what you want to focus on but many times its picks the wrong item. What do you do in those instances?
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On a pro body, I use the focus groups to switch focus as needed.
-Using my tactile directional pad.
-Without taking my eyes off the viewfinder.
With Nikon's 3D color tracking, the camera nails focus almost all of the time.
Seriously my friend, go out there and shoot some pics. Then tell us if it's as hard as you make it out to be. As MANY photographers attested to in this page, tactile controls are an asset to the professional photographer. Not a liability.
12/03/09
when someone will produce a bicycle where the handlebar has been replaced by a touchscreen you'll run to buy it? good luck trying to ride that... the ideas here is the same...
simply buttons & rings are there for a reason.
I don't know what experience in photography you may have but the control touchscreen is just a gimmick.
12/03/09
I use the Panasonic GF-1 BTW. I find that over the years that the controls of a camera are far from optimal. Unless you take RAW exclusively you have way too many buried sub-menus to go through to get what you want. To me, a touch screen/voice commands combination have always appear, to me at least, to be the ultimate goal. It allows for the most intuitive experience in camera usage. There’s very little learning required. Whereas I can see why Canon people tend to stick with Canon, not just because of the lens investment but the learning curve required to become intuitive with the camera. The same can be said with Nikon. The fact of the matter is that it’s NOT so simple to take photos with a buttoned DSLR. It only becomes simple after many hundreds of hours spent learning where the buttons are so that you don’t have to look. A touch screen and speech commands would eliminate this. You can use a Canon as quickly as you can on a Nikon. Perhaps that’s not so good for the manufacturer but that’s true from the user’s point of view.
Like Jobs I always look for a simple solution to complex problems. Before the iPhone people like you were saying how you need to have a physical keyboard and that no one would buy a touch screen device but guess what, you’re wrong. Using the old paradigm to do things and saying that things can’t be improved is silly.
12/03/09
Add on top of that the speech commands and you can just tell the camera, "night shot", "portrait", flower" etc and the camera will automatically turn on/off the things it needs to with one command instead of you turning/pushing 10 buttons. It’s almost like a universal remote control for your entertainment system where you just hit one button and the remote will turn on all the devices that needs to be turned on in order for you to watch a DVD or play a game. The beauty of it is that you can even customize many "macro" commands on the camera so that it will switch the camera to whatever functions you want for particular situation. So for example, you have a certain setting for when you take night shots, you can just say, "Noob’s night shot" and it will automatically change and set all the settings you programmed. One command can actually make as many changes as you want. How sweet is that? What would anyone with a brain want to fiddle around with stupid buttons?
All you need to do is put a small cell phone mic near the bottom of the screen where your mouth will be when you have the camera up to your face. It’s the most awesome camera with perhaps just 2 buttons.
12/03/09
I personally don't like EVF's. My favorite feature of an SLR is being able to see exactly what the lens sees, NOT some electronic recreation of the scene ripped from the image sensor. There are other advantages too, like what to do when you want precise focus on one very small item when you're shooting in harsh sunlight. NO screen can properly compensate, and your detail will be all washed out.
You're also not taking into consideration stability. By having one hand on the camera, one hand on the lens, and the viewfinder at your eye, you've created an extremely stable base from which to shoot. I guarantee that arrangement alone secures at LEAST a full stop over holding the camera out away from your body. Mechanical IS can only compensate for so much movement. Add a heavy lens to the front of a camera, use live view, zoom out, and you'll see what I mean...
I have to agree with others here. This isn't an issue of tired old ways crippling innovation, there are very good ergonomic reasons why the SLR has remained virtually unchanged for decades.
I think the best outcome would be a combo where buttons are left intact, and a touch screen is implemented. It would be easy to disable the touch screen for those that want to shoot through a viewfinder (my camera already turns the viewfinder off via proximity sensor).
12/03/09
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That goes double for voice commands. Talking to my camera? Seriously? No, thank you, I'll stick to what isn't annoying and obtrusive to everyone around me.
12/03/09
Lastely, you can still have your eyebrow/eyesocket acting as a tripod for you since the viewfinder sticks out away from the screen. You can even design it so that there’s even more room for you to use your eyebrow. Granted it’s not as large a surface area as an cheek but it’s good enough.
I can have my settings in the camera with just one voice command before your even hit your first button to adjust the camera. How simple is that? My camera body will only have 3 buttons. On/Off/ shutter/ voice.
12/03/09
again if it is used to navigate in the menus may have some utility but replacing the controls wheels is just a step in the wrong direction.
Go figure I use Nikon... just I don't wish such atrocity to hit the poor Canon users...
Call me a luddite but for me cameras need only to have just the shutter button and 3 controls: speed, aperture & iso...
the rest can go away :-)
12/03/09
No one said you need to shout. Since your face is already next to the mic you'll only need to whisper. In any case, this is for the open minded next gernation of DSLR users.
12/03/09
Based on your previous posts, I think you're just seriously out of touch with the care and feeding of a DSLR.
We can all look at a new technology and form opinions on how well we believe a modification will handle. Those opinions may change over time as we gain more information, but as it stands now, putting a touch screen on a DSLR sounds like a stupid idea to me.
How did I come to that conclusion?
I weighed the advantages against the disadvantages.
For example, you talk about using the touch screen to select focus points. But I can already do that with the nipple on my 20d with the added advantage of tactile feedback.
If you had any decent experience with a DSLR, you would know that. Thus, I don't think you're even really qualified to analyze the situation here.
I just don't see how useful a touchscreen will be when I normally have the camera positioned as in the pic in my next post.
Not only can I not see the screen, but my face is over the part of the camera where the screen is currently positioned and it's not accessible to my thumb.
/yes you can move the screen, but then you need to figure out where to put a thumb rest and figure out the grips etc. IMO, all of this is more trouble than it would be worth.
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Also, the mic is next to your mouth, you do know there are proximity mics that would eliminate any sounds that are more than a few inches away from the mic, right?
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12/03/09
"I bet I can say "2f" faster than you can click with your wheel, especially if you're starting from 22f."
i have rarely (if ever) needed to make that great an adjustment in the field during shooting. normally it's small adjustments one or two clicks of the wheel. i have voice command with noise reduction on my phone. it doest't work that well nor is it that precise.
"No you don't you can still use the viewfinder just like a wheel. " - there is no tactile feedback, which is very important when making small adjustments.
"I will be when the tech improves. Just slapping a digital sensor and screen on an old DSLR is not my idea of an improvement. No thought has been given to really improving the design." - i don't discount that the technology might get there someday to counter the problems with the design, but we are not there now. If you want to argue that "sometime in the future this might work," then you are right. With what we have now, it's just not a practical alternative.
"I bet I can point to where i want to focus with my thumb fast than you can with your nipple. Faster and with more precision. How's that not an improvement." - the was the ONLY area where i said it would be an possibel improvement (assuming you can get better batteries).
"The problem with you die hards is you're too emotional about it and not seeing the potential efficiency of such a system. In anycase, it's your lost." - reread my comments, i am hardly a "die-hard old timer." All i am saying is that with the current technology that exists today, it's not a feasible option for higher end SLRs. If they can make it work and be practical in the future, all the better. This isn't an emotional argument, this is me sharing my opinion on practical use over the years.
12/03/09
- You don't cover an opera and keep talking to your camera to change settings. You'll be thrown out in no time. Yes, even if you whisper. And good luck registering even a whisper during an Iron Maiden concert.
- You don't whisper to your camera when you're shooting a macro of a housefly. Not if you want your painfully set up rig to go to waste.
- NOBODY goes from f22 to f2 in one shot. f22 (I don't use it anyway. Too much diffraction. f16 is as high as I go) is used for tripod landscape shots and your camera is basically useless at f2 in that setup. In reality, we DSLR users dial in a third or two of exposure. Something that according to ALL DSLR users who posted here, is done beautifully by the dials.
- The whole reason a top display (and a smaller one at the bottom for pro DSLRs) exists is to help one conserve precious battery life. A touch screen is certainly not going to help here.
- The whole reason why higher end DSLRs have more buttons is to help users dial in exactly what they need. Quite a few people upgrade JUST for this. (I mean, why get a D300 if the D5000 has the same sensor?). I urge you to post a poll in ANY photography forum and see how many favorable replies you get from regular DSLR users about trading their tactile controls for voice or touch.
As I said before to you, your ideas are nice for the amateur user who wants an extra bit of control without going through a learning curve. But not for the serious photographer. By the same yardstick, why not implement touch and voice activated commands in Airplanes and battletanks? I mean, it'd make life so much easier for the Pilots and armymen, right?
No. Different situations, different solutions. You have a good solution. Just not to the problems DSLR users have.
12/03/09
I LOVE the tactile controls on my DSLR and how I can change settings without taking my eyes off the viewfinder. At most, I use my top LCD panel. All the menu settings are usually done at home before the shoot and the main display is used only to review shot images and histograms.
A touch option is interesting to have, but touch replacing tactile controls would most definitely slow me down on the field.
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For example, I work with Photoshop and Illustrator a lot and it would piss me off if all my shortcuts and tools got moved to 1 touchsceen.
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