Dear camera makers,<\/p>\n
Canon’s 1Ds Mark III is 21 megapixels. Please, acknowledge that Canon has won on the megapixel front, and move on. My camera’s resolution is 6 megapixels, and I have a flawless 20×30″ print from it. 21 megapixels is too many<\/em> for most uses. Going further is wasteful.<\/p>\n Nikon has the right idea, though: improve things other than resolution. My camera maxes out at ISO3200, and the pictures are very bad there. Sometimes, though, ISO3200 isn’t enough. In a dimly-lit room, there are times when ISO3200 still gives me 1\/8 of a second or slower shutter speeds. My lens is pretty slow, with f\/3.5 as its widest, but even using something like Canon’s 50mm f\/1.2 lens, I might not be able to get a useful shutter speed.<\/p>\n Nikon’s D3 goes up to ISO25,600. The images are practically useless at that point. But at least they’re trying. To you camera makers, I present a challenge: top them. I want to be able to shoot at ISO25600 (“25K?”) and get clean images. Can you do it? I bet you can, especially if you quit trying to one-up unnecessarily large resolutions.<\/p>\n Oh, and give us innovative new features, too. Or let us write our own apps! Why isn’t there “aperture bracketing?” Say I’m not sure whether f\/4 is enough depth of field. Why can’t I take the picture at f\/4, f\/5.6, and f\/8 and decide afterwards?<\/p>\n Why, on a camera body that cost $2,000 new, is there no “intervalometer” to let me, say, automatically take a picture every 5 seconds? I can buy a $150 accessory to do it, but is it really that hard to make it a software feature? <\/a><\/p>\n HDR<\/a> photography is all the rage. Why not have an “HDR Composite” feature, that will meter for the darkest region, meter for the brightest region, and automatically bracket across the whole range? (Bracketing is not at all new, but it’s “dumb” bracketing — I can do +1\/-1 or +2\/-2. What if I want to go from +3 to -5 in 16 steps?)<\/p>\n Why do no cameras have an embedded GPS? It’s not the most useful feature, sure, but it’s cool. Make it a “module” people can upgrade to. I’d be awfully tempted to buy it.<\/p>\n It’s slowly becoming a reality, but why not have a USB2 port and let me plug in accessories? Currently USB2 ports are just for copying images to your computer. Why can’t I stick my thumb drive in and record to that? Or my external hard drive? And why can’t I just copy pictures over to my external hard drive right from the camera? Why do I need a computer?<\/p>\n Why are the LCDs on back such low-resolution? Play with an iPhone for a while, at 160ppi, and then look at any camera’s LCD. It looks like comparative crap. That LCD is important, too: I’m trying to see how my image out. Why would you give me a piece of crap for that? I’m yet to see a camera with an interface that doesn’t look like it predates Y2K, either. Again, play with the iPhone. It just looks cool<\/em>. Don’t overdo it, but would it kill you to at least make the interface on your cameras look nice?<\/p>\n Some really high-end lenses have an IS\/OS feature — basically, the lenses compensate for minor shake through the use of a gyro. This feature gets rave reviews from anyone able to afford the $2,000 lenses. Why not build an IS sensor<\/em> into your camera instead, so that, regardless of lens, your sensor stabilizes for minor shake?<\/p>\n Please, camera makers of the world, quit it with megapixels. Let’s go for some innovation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear camera makers, Canon’s 1Ds Mark III is 21 megapixels. Please, acknowledge that Canon has won on the megapixel front, and move on. My camera’s resolution is 6 megapixels, and I have a flawless 20×30″ print from it. 21 megapixels … Continue reading