Originally posted by falconeye Although IMHO moving aperture & shutter dials into their respective "A" positions is the most elegant and intuitive method to control a camera and avoids that ugly PASM dial ...
I'm not a fan of the PASM dial either, but I don't think that "A" positions on dials are a good replacement.
HyperManual and HyperProgram modes depend on the camera to change parameters, i.e., employ a singular automatic setting upon user request (-> green button). That would only work well with dials if the camera could actuate the dials so that they reflect the new value. I like the way these modes allow fluid changes between manual control and some level of camera support.
I would generalise that to only one mode (no PASM dial) with each parameter being in one of these three modes:
- continuous (depended parameter, implying continuous metering)
- singular, i.e., controlled temporarily, upon manual request (depended parameter, set with any parameter of this kind upon request (-> green button style)), or
- constant (manually controlled parameter).
I think soft dials, one for each parameter, would work best and I'm not sure I'd want to have the display of parameter values distributed to their respective dial positions. Having one centralised place would probably support quicker assessment of the whole situation.
Perhaps pressing dials on the top to cycle through the above three parameter modes would work well.