There really hasn't been much happening photographically in my tiny corner of the world. The best that can be said is that I've been working on other projects such as the bus project. The bus project takes up pretty much every non working minute of my life at the moment.
Otherwise, the news from the camera press is nothing if not entertaining. The big camera companies are now releasing digital SLR cameras with ludicrous amounts of megapixels at ever more ludicrous prices. Not only that but they're also releasing them with NFC (Near Field Communication), buetooth and wifi. All very interesting but it doesn't really address the major stumbling block of cameras. They're just too fiddly for a lot of people to use.
I love photography. I have a DSLR. It's about ten years old and 8 megapixels. I'm not likely to upgrade anytime soon. More megapixels don't excite me. Added video doesn't excite me either. Higher ISOs don't excite me as I mostly shoot at 100ISO. I'm happy transferring images from my memory card with a card reader too. WiFi is interesting but not exciting and only interesting if it can upload straight to my personal online cloud.
The problem is that the cameras are way in excess of their value in terms of cost. NFC is another stumbling block - NFC doesn't work reliably. As an example, I can put my Nexus 4 phone on my Nexus 7 tablet and try to NFC a file from one to the other. Occasionally, it works. Most of the time, it doesn't. It's a bit like stock market predictions - occasionally one is right which the advocates seize on as being the way to do things without caring about the times it doesn't work. For me, NFC is so utterly unreliable, I reckon I'd stand a better chance of knitting a jersey out of a rice pudding than of reliably using NFC. In fact, NFC is something I jus ignore, preferring to go the long way around of using bluetooth for file transfer.
So, what have the companies done to make cameras more user centric? Umm.... I'm still scratching my head on that one myself. Since they went digital, carrying the manual has become obligatory such has been the increase in complexity.
Otherwise, the news from the camera press is nothing if not entertaining. The big camera companies are now releasing digital SLR cameras with ludicrous amounts of megapixels at ever more ludicrous prices. Not only that but they're also releasing them with NFC (Near Field Communication), buetooth and wifi. All very interesting but it doesn't really address the major stumbling block of cameras. They're just too fiddly for a lot of people to use.
I love photography. I have a DSLR. It's about ten years old and 8 megapixels. I'm not likely to upgrade anytime soon. More megapixels don't excite me. Added video doesn't excite me either. Higher ISOs don't excite me as I mostly shoot at 100ISO. I'm happy transferring images from my memory card with a card reader too. WiFi is interesting but not exciting and only interesting if it can upload straight to my personal online cloud.
The problem is that the cameras are way in excess of their value in terms of cost. NFC is another stumbling block - NFC doesn't work reliably. As an example, I can put my Nexus 4 phone on my Nexus 7 tablet and try to NFC a file from one to the other. Occasionally, it works. Most of the time, it doesn't. It's a bit like stock market predictions - occasionally one is right which the advocates seize on as being the way to do things without caring about the times it doesn't work. For me, NFC is so utterly unreliable, I reckon I'd stand a better chance of knitting a jersey out of a rice pudding than of reliably using NFC. In fact, NFC is something I jus ignore, preferring to go the long way around of using bluetooth for file transfer.
So, what have the companies done to make cameras more user centric? Umm.... I'm still scratching my head on that one myself. Since they went digital, carrying the manual has become obligatory such has been the increase in complexity.
No comments:
Post a Comment