[Kunzite]

Not disagreing with you, actually the opposite, but have you seen how modern cars control radio, AC, etc.? It's all via a touch screen.
I prefer the way of using buttons for each major function. In cameras it means you can quickly change settings, in cars it means you can keep your eyes on the road while changing the aircon or whatever.
But it looks good, so who cares...
The K1's third wheel would've been very useful the other day for changing from low to high speed continuous.

Yes, that's why I used cars as an example.

The Smart Function dials are a nice addition (despite losing on the top LCD), making you less dependent on the menus. Some tweaks are needed, to find a better balance on what to include and what not, and how to better show related information.

---------- Post added 23-05-17 at 04:22 PM ----------

My old driving instructor always said, both hands should be on the steering wheel at all times, and in correct position. So no knobs either — everything is distraction when driving, even some music a person in the passenger seat may change or play for us. And as for passengers, seat belts should also go across their mouth.

It wasn't a very good instructor, if he told you to never change gears

I would not say knobs and dials are ideal for serious photographic tool; they are only necessary for a very complicated and heavy photographic tool. Pentax DSLRs are good imaging devices, but they are the most complicated and feature rich cameras in business, and generally are not light. And that is even with basic video features; I wonder how more complicated they will get with more advanced video! Most of those features are not essential; they are bonuses. But there are so many of them, that they beg for a complicated layout of hard controls to use them well.

On the other hand, seriousness is not dictated by the level of operating richness, but by the use of crucial imaging features that allow great results despite lack of bonuses.

Photography result directly depends only on (1) aperture, (2) shutter speed and (3) sensitivity, and if the control of those three is easy, camera can be quite simple and yet very serious too, if the components used to control these three (that includes quality lenses), and the quality of sensor and digital data transfer/manipulation, are serious.

In addition, heavier cameras benefit from more buttons and knobs because in order to hold such a camera, and still use its features, fingers can move only so little. Lighter cameras like Leica T benefit from a less complicated approach, but lighter cameras can be very, very serious.

You would not say it, but knobs and dials are ideal for serious photographic tool.
Pentax DSLRs' complexity stem from the rich feature set; the interface do a good job at hiding this complexity - yet retain access to the most important functions. Simplify it more, and it will get in your way.

Controlling aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity is no longer sufficient in the digital age.

[camyum]

I think i should keep it short to get a plus from other users who may read that, on the overall idea:

Something in between of a mess of "wheels and buttons" and the desert-like oddity look of LEICA bodies would be nice.
Or am I still wrong?

(since i cant remember having any problem using the K-5IIS out in the cold...)



And i want to give Mistral75 a "+1" for his research... since i also think, that the "Smartphones overrun camera biz"-myth is spread by Photo-Industry to rectify the still very high prices for ILC...and to make you believe in the "production-cost myth".

Keep in mind, that people who now do photos with smartphones, used throw-away-cameras back in analogue times or cheap compacts.

[Kunzite]

While I don't need 3 different ways of changing the ISO, I can't name a single control on my K-1 which would be in the way.

[johnmflores]

In photography, three factors are defining the outcome: (1) the aperture, (2) shutter speed, and (3) sensitivity.

Leica T controls (1) and (2) directly via knobs (same as a Pentax DSLR), and (3) is floating ISO, found as a preset in today's cameras, but was impossible in film era. With today's sensors, controlling of sensitivity for majority of consumer photography is almost eliminated in everyday circumstances, because of the superb sensor tech.

You are not pushing your vision far enough. Remove controls for aperture and shutter speed too; have the display show an active live preview with depth of field motion blur and have just one dial to adjust the depth of field/motion blur

[mee]

You are not pushing your vision far enough. Remove controls for aperture and shutter speed too; have the display show an active live preview with depth of field motion blur and have just one dial to adjust the depth of field/motion blur

Remove all the knobs, dials, switches, and buttons from the camera body. Let the camera decide when it want's to take a photograph.

[photoptimist]

As previously stated, photography directly depends only on (1) aperture, (2) shutter speed and (3) sensitivity, and if the control of those three is easy, camera can be quite simple and yet very serious too. It is serious if the components used to control these three, the quality of the sensor, the quality of optics, the quality of material, and the quality of digital data transfer/manipulation are serious.

That's only true under limited conditions. Letting AE and AF do it's automagical work is fine for a consumer camera which is maybe what the Leica is but it assumes that the user is an average photographer taking average pictures as dictated by the automation. It also assumes the DR in the scene does not exceed the DR of the sensor at the particular ISO setting required for the exposure.

But for more demanding photographers and more demanding conditions, the base automation fails and/or the photographer needs more control of the exposure (determining which exposure dimensions are fixed vs. varying, determining how and what the meter looks at, biasing the AE value with EV compensation, locking AE for one or more exposures, bracketing the exposure on a particular dimension, etc.), more control of the auto-focus (AF mode, AF priority, AF pattern, AF point selection, etc.), and more control of drive modes (single, low FPS, high fps, etc.). And if the photographer is a journalistic pro (e.g., working for Reuters), they may also want handy controls for white balance and JPEG development because time pressures or the client may require SOOC JPGs.

Finally, if the scene is dynamic or the photographer cares about their productivity, then they need all these controls accessible with a minimum of effort and no removal of the eye from the viewfinder.

[Kunzite]

Remove all the knobs, dials, switches, and buttons from the camera body. Let the camera decide when it want's to take a photograph.

Not good enough; do you really need a camera?
All you need is a smart image search engine, as every picture you'd want to take is already somewhere, on some site

[photoptimist]

I think i should keep it short to get a plus from other users who may read that, on the overall idea:

Something in between of a fustercluck of "wheels and buttons" and the desert-like oddity look of LEICA bodies would be nice.
Or am I still wrong?

No and yes.

On the one hand, you are wrong in that there are some that consider the K-1 to be a beautiful orgy of controllability rather than a clusterfcuk. More wheels and buttons, please!!!!

On the other hand, you are totally right that photographers clearly vary in their preferences for the ideal camera which may well include designs midway between the K-1 and Leica. Choice is good!

(P.S. And some seek designs even more spartan (and elegant) than the Leica. I know some pinhole camera people that use beautiful teak wood box cameras with no automation, no menus, no batteries, no ISO control, no aperture control, and shutter time determined by manually flipping a flag to expose or cover the pinhole. Their polished wood and brass cameras make the Leica look like an ugly stone-cold lump of industrial metal.)

[monochrome]

The question is really whether people want to give up features in order to have a "clean" interface. I use the pixel shift feature a lot, use TAv mode quite a bit, and find having multiple buttons on the back combined with three dials to be really useful on the K-1. But it could seem overwhelming to a brand new photographer as well.

True -> Last night I put my K-1 down on a table at home and didn't go back in that room for a copuple hours. When I returned I caught a glance at the camera from the rear angle over the right shoulder - so every Control except AF Mode was visible - and briefly thought, "Gosh. That's complicated".

[Rondec]

In photography, three factors are defining the outcome: (1) the aperture, (2) shutter speed, and (3) sensitivity.

Leica T controls (1) and (2) directly via knobs (same as a Pentax DSLR), and (3) is floating ISO, found as a preset in today's cameras, but was impossible in film era. With today's sensors, controlling of sensitivity for majority of consumer photography is almost eliminated in everyday circumstances, because of the superb sensor tech.
Multisegment metering, TTL and AF are also superb nowadays when compared to only 10 years ago. I mean, incredible sensors and incredible tech are given for granted, but cameras still look and operate like 30-60 years ago? When I look at today's Fujifilm's cameras, I get a heart attack!

Therefore Leica T needed no extra stuff anywhere because two knobs control all that must be controlled. It uses modern sensors, metering, AF, white balance, modern optics, etc. If one really needs something extra to control, it is quickly available from very large menus. Also menus can be customised, so that only those users really wants are on the screen! (no need to dive through same but endless menus over and over again!)

But look at the Japanese consumer cameras — they are just scaled down versions of large complicated cameras. And even such small cameras, still demand an SD card to operate, and the software is abysmal; horizontal menu driven via buttons, while buttons are so tiny that hardly can be pressed! I mean, what the …

And take a closer look, please — that entire camera segment suffers now, and is overrun by the smartphones.

I wonder why!

---------- Post added 05-23-2017 at 10:57 PM ----------



My old driving instructor always said, both hands should be on the steering wheel at all times, and in correct position. So no knobs either — everything is distraction when driving, even some music a person in the passenger seat may change or play for us. And as for passengers, seat belts should also go across their mouths.




I would not say knobs and dials are ideal for serious photographic tool; they are only necessary for a very complicated and very heavy photographic tool. Pentax DSLRs are good imaging devices, but they are the most complicated and feature rich cameras in business, and generally are not light. And that is even with basic video features; I wonder how more complicated they will get with more advanced video! Most of those features are not essential; they are bonuses. But there are so many of them, that they beg for a complicated layout of hard controls to use them well.

On the other hand, seriousness is not dictated by the level of operating richness, but by the use of crucial imaging features that allow great results despite lack of bonuses.

As previously stated, photography directly depends only on (1) aperture, (2) shutter speed and (3) sensitivity, and if the control of those three is easy, camera can be quite simple and yet very serious too. It is serious if the components used to control these three, the quality of the sensor, the quality of optics, the quality of material, and the quality of digital data transfer/manipulation are serious.

In addition, heavy cameras benefit from more buttons and knobs because in order to hold such a camera and lens, and still use its features, fingers can move only so little. Lighter cameras like Leica T benefit from a less complicated approach, but lighter cameras can be very, very serious.

What you say is true in a general sense, but not in reality. There are plenty of times that you want to do something like mirror lock up, use pixel shift (I do this a lot), change drive mode, etc. These are things that are not traditional features on cheaper/older cameras, but it does not mean that modern photographers don't use them frequently or that they don't benefit the final image (they can a lot). If I had to menu dive for them, I would be much less likely to use them, but as I can access them easily, I use them with impunity.

[pathdoc]

a consumer camera which is maybe what the Leica is

Not at the prices they demand new, they aren't. Sometimes I think I'd love to have one to shoot with for a day, but I have yet to understand why I should allow my wallet to be savaged for what can amount to the cost of a K-1 and any two fast zooms. Give me a scene, an ISO, a shutter speed, a focal length, an aperture and an equivalent-sized sensor and tell me exactly what it is about Leica which makes the price worth it.

[cali92rs]

Apple's design ethos of simplicity is fine if the user does not need any control over what the device is doing. But as soon as the user wants control, then all the dials, buttons, and menus start to appear. And with photography, there's a lot to control:
1) exposure(shutter speed, aperture, ISO);
2) auto-exposure(meter weighting, selection of which exposure dimensions are user-set vs. AE-controlled, the EV bias, meter locking, program line choice, ISO limits);
3) auto-focus (focus point/pattern, tracking/locking modes, AF priority/coupling to shutter action);
4) color(white balance, color temperature, color space, JPEG development);
5) flash (modes, balance, etc.);
6) drive & trigger modes (frame rate, MUP, remote, timer, interval, bracketing, etc.);
7) DR/IQ controls (highlight/shadow correction, HDR modes, RAW bit depth, noise reduction modes, sharpness);
8) SR system (on/off, horizon leveling, composition adjust, pixelshift, astrotracer, anti-moire, etc.);
9) screen controls (info mode, playback modes, zooming, etc.);
10...∞) cropping mode, viewfinder modes, card management, image size, GPS, WiFi, etc. etc.

Currently you can do almost all of that on an i-phone without dials and buttons. The main reason that there are those dials and buttons is because that is what photographers grew up with and are used to.
If (when) apple crams a FF sensor into an ipad mini body with a grafted Nikon lens mount (or whatever your favorite lens manufacturer is), it will be an interesting to case study to see if younger folks buy it and the SLR form factor goes the way of the turntable.

---------- Post added 05-23-17 at 12:59 PM ----------

You would not say it, but knobs and dials are ideal for serious photographic tool.

Yes, for heavy DSLRs with heavy lenses where you dont want to remove your eye from the viewfinder.
With a light (not-heavy) camera with light lenses, without a VF, they do not add much.

[Kunzite]

I disagree; knobs and dials are ideal regardless of the camera's weight. So is being able to keep looking through the viewfinder.

Those viewfinderless, knobless cameras do not fit on any reasonable definition of "ideal".

[cali92rs]

Those viewfinderless, knobless cameras do not fit on any reasonable definition of "ideal".

So said the fine folks at PENTAX forums.
Of course the people here will agree with you.

Maybe the billions of folks that have never owned a SLR/DSLR, but do own iphones (or other smart phones), would disagree.

[camyum]

...I don't need 3 different ways of changing the ISO...

+1 for admitting that ...
thats a truth not even the most "exerted" sarcasm cant cover...