CCC Forum

Thom Hogan has written an article ostensibly about Nikon DSLRs, but which is relevant for all the DSLR brands aprt from his final point which is Nikon specific. I find myself in agreement with the first four points he makes, but less so for the remaining three. His conclusions, though, reflect my views.

http://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/sev ... still.html

For me, it feels as though the camera industry is in a hiatus. The move to mirrorless cameras seems to be inevitable but while the products currently on offer have many benefits, ultimately they fall short of what DSLRs provide. Consequently I have limited interest in purchasing either, although that is at least in part due to having sufficient gear to meet my needs. It has not been planned in any way, but I find myself with different systems which I use according to circumstances.

• Fuji X-Pro1 - great image quality, provided the subject remains still. Both the relatively slow AF and chronic lag with the EVF mitigate against shooting anything which moves. The optical viewfinder is limited, especially at longer focal lengths and lacks parallax correction at shorter focussing distances. The X-Pro2 addresses many of its predecessor's issues, but its high price deters me from further investment. It is simply too much to pay for something which does not fully meet all my requirements. From what I have seen of the X-T2 so far, the same is likely to apply to that as well.
• Olympus E-M10 (Mk 1) - Great little camera which is discreet for street photography and caters for some subject movement. Both Olympus and Panasonic have some really good lenses which make it tempting to consider m43 in the long term. But not yet.
• Canon 7D (Mk 1) - Fast focus and good controls, but often gets left at home due to its bulk.
• The exotics. Everything else I own, all of which have their own virtues and drawbacks which limit the use to which I put them.

I would like to rationalise, but for the reasons previously stated the outlay involved makes it difficult to justify such a move. One day. One day.

I'd go one more and agree with his ergonomics point too. At the end of the day they are tools for the job and as you say, one day it might be worth switching... but until it makes cost & performance sense I have no pressing need.

davidc wrote:I'd go one more and agree with his ergonomics point too.

I was halfway there with him. I kind of concur that the Olympus menus are a mess, but I hardly need to go back in there once I had spent a couple of hours setting the camera up. The touch screen SCP (Super Control Panel) is incredibly useful for setting the most commonly used controls. The one quirk, which could be fixed in firmware if Olympus wanted, is that in aperture priority I cannot set the direction of the rear dial when it is used for exposure compensation and I find the default counterintuitive. Quite why that should be when everything else is so configurable is a mystery.

davidc wrote:.... one day it might be worth switching... but until it makes cost & performance sense I have no pressing need.

And therein lies the problem facing the camera industry, What most people have already is good enough and there is no compelling reason to change.