Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Sony

Out of control ?

 

Last but not Least in this roundup by manufacturer, we come to Sony. Like Panasonic, this is another very large Japanese corporation with a camera division. Also like Panasonic, Sony is heavily invested in the technology of imaging. It is a major provider of imaging sensors to makers of smartphones, surveillance equipment makes and, of course, cameras. As far as I am aware Sony sensors have found their way into one or several models from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, and of course, Sony itself.   

Sony and Cameras  Sony has no legacy of film camera making but was very early onto the digital photography scene. The Sony Mavica [Magnetic Video Camera] of 1981 was the world's first still video camera, if that makes sense. Sony has been making digital cameras ever since.  The company bought the photo imaging division of Konica Minolta in 2006 to boost it's presence in the DSLR market.

My Experience of Sony Cameras  Is limited. I have never encountered a Sony camera that I wanted to buy for my own use, which is interesting because I have no brand affiliation and have bought cameras from most other makers over the years. I did buy an RX100 for a family member who was about to embark on an ultra long distance hike, solo, fully independent and camping. The requirement was for a very small, light camera with good image quality and the RX100 fit the bill.  I would never have bought this camera for myself as it was not particularly pleasant to use in the ergonomic sense, and had no viewfinder.  

Sony -vs- CanoNikon  Sony has been trying for years to capture the number 1 spot from Canon and Nikon but has thus far been unsuccessful.

Sony and Innovation  Sony Corporation as a whole and the camera division in particular has a long history of adventurous innovation, often leading to interesting products but not always to commercial success.

For instance the DSC-D700 of 1999 was very adventurous, acquiring almost legendary status over time.  The DSC-R1 of  2003 was an avant-garde Bridge Camera type design which to this day attracts enthusiast interest.

But innovation risks inconsistency, as we shall see.  

Superzoom/Bridge Camera Group   Sony generated considerable consumer interest with the R1, so what goodies awaited the Sony fans when the R2  was released ?  Well, none. Nothing. No R2. End of the line, folks.

Sony has since then released multitudes of travel zoom and superzoom cameras none of which made a great impression on the market.  

Fast forward 10 years and Sony has returned to the advanced  Bridge Camera  theme  just this month with the RX10, which is creating a great deal of interest on user forums. Imagine what user base they could have built up if they had stayed with the formula and been steadily improving the bridge camera breed over that 10 year period. By the way, the RX10 appears to have significant ergonomic problems as reported on this blog recently.

Compacts  Sony has turned out so many slightly different models of compact camera over the years it would be difficult to count them. What they failed to do was identify and stay the course with an appealing, photographer oriented formula like, for instance the Canon G compact series.

Now Sony has at last produced an interesting compact in the form of the RX100/100Mk2. Will they stay with this and develop the theme or drop it like the R1 ?

DSLR  Sony made it's entry into the traditional flipping mirror and prism DSLR market with the A100 of 2006. Then came the A700, A900 and A850 then..........they dropped this idea completely.

The next big DSLR idea was a series of cameras based on the "Two Mode Live View" technology. This utilised a sub sensor in the hump for live view at eye level. This type of DSLR ran for about two years. In this time Sony produced many slightly different models. Some of these were quite well reviewed, others drew stern criticism from reviewers. One of them, the A380 I think, generated this comment form a well known review site....."The inadequate pinchy handgrip is frankly just annoying.."

Looking at photos of this series of models (in the A350-580 range) there appears to have been litttle consistency of ergonomic execution. There are various different handle shapes, control layouts and user interface arrangements. They surely can't all be right but they could all be wrong.

The next big enthusiasm was the SLT type of DSLR, with a fixed, non flipping mirror starting in 2010. Again the previous type appears to have been abandoned. Again Sony produced a multitude of models each so slightly and confusingly different from the other, that  one wondered what the point of the exercise might have been.

Mirrorless ILC  Sony entered the MILC market with it's line of NEX cameras in 2010. These featured ultra compact bodies with APS-C sensor. Many reviewers roundly criticised the NEX ergonomics and user interface. Initial models had no EVF but eventually the NEX 7 then NEX 6  (the 7 before the 6, go figure) appeared with EVF. The NEX 7 also had the  unique and, in my view ergonomically irrational "Tri-Navi" control wheel system. Sony changed the name of this system to something else after a while but I forget what the new name was supposed to be.

My point is that Sony keeps changing things, often for no apparent beneficial purpose and usually to the effect of confusing any actual or potential Sony customers.

Now just this week, I hear the NEX line is no longer. Sony is up to it's old tricks again, starting camera lines then abandoning them just as the customer base begins to warm to that particular theme.

At the same time Sony has announced the introduction of yet another camera/lens mount system in the form of the FE system, the first examples of which are the A7 and A7R MILC's. These cameras require lenses which are different from those for the A mount or the E mount.  On my early assessment the A7 appears to have significant ergonomic problems also.

Here we go again. It's all change at Sony.

So, why is Sony the adventurous not Sony the market leader ?  In my view:

* Too many major changes to camera lines involving new lens mounts and completely new lens lines.

* Too many enthusiasms, leading to camera lines being started then discontinued.

* Too many similar models within each line.

* Inconsistent ergonomics, often leading to compromised user interface, camera handling and operation.

Motor vehicle makers understand these things. The market wants innovation, but not too much and not all at once.  For instance Toyota has a line of vehicles called Corolla. Cars of this name have occupied the same market slot since 1966 and become the best selling car nameplate of all time. Not one of them has been technologically adventurous but they all keep up with the times and reliably do the job required of them. If you move from the previous model Corolla to the new model you can hop in and drive it away with confidence because you know all the essential controls will be in the same, optimal place for safety and efficient operation.

I don't think these fundamental and I would have thought obviously desirable qualities can be said to apply to Sony cameras over time.

Sony -vs- CanoNikon again  In my previous posts in this little roundup series, I accused Canon and Nikon of falling asleep on the job. Sony appears to have the opposite  problem, namely a style notably at the hyperactive end of the spectrum.

The Crystal Ball  Sony Corporation has the technology, capacity for innovation and energy to be market leader in the camera world. I believe the reasons they are not can be found inside Sony itself, not with any of their competitors. The prize of market leader is there for Sony to take. Can Sony sustain the necessary coherent, disciplined strategy for product development ?    I think the answer to that is.......maybe.........

You see, I suspect that the Sony guys understand technology really well but have a much less coherent  understanding of cameras and their users.  We shall see..................

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Samsung

Photo made with Samsung EX-1.

 

Samsung Cameras  The name Samsung describes a gigantic South Korean Chaebol (business conglomerate) which is involved in manufacturing almost everything from ships to (electronic) chips. Somewhere, almost lost in the Samsung behemoth,  is a tiny camera division. This made compact film cameras for many years. In the digital era Samsung briefly teamed with Pentax, supplying imaging sensors for co-branded Samsung/Pentax DSLR's.

My experience with Samsung Cameras  In 2010 I bought a Samsung NX10.  This was Samsung's first mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. For a first effort I thought it was pretty good. It featured quite good ergonomics and a likeable user interface. It was almost exactly the same size as the Panasonic Lumix G1 but was much better shaped, easier to hold and more efficient to operate. I  learned a lot about ergonomics by analysing and comparing these two cameras.  I discovered that two cameras which are the same size and which superficially look very similar can provide a very different user experience. I discovered that it is possible to analyse, name and categorise the ergonomic elements of that difference. The NX10 was followed by the NX11, a very mild upgrade of essentially the same camera. I briefly tried an NX100 but rediscovered that my camera must have an inbuilt viewfinder.

 I also for a time owned a Samsung EX-1 (TL500). This was a quite sophisticated compact camera with decent ergonomics apart from the absence of a built in viewfinder.  It was plentifully endowed with hard controls for the expert user. But it had a serious flaw in the form of  a strong tendency to overexposure with subjects having a high brightness range (bright sunny conditions). Since these conditions are extremely common in Sydney, Australia where I live, the camera did not last long in my bag.

After the NX10/11   I thought Samsung's early MILC efforts showed real promise for future development.   It seemed to me that someone who understands cameras, photographers and the basic principles of ergonomics appeared to be influential in the NX camera design team.

Maybe that person resigned or died, I have no idea,  but subsequent Samsung digital cameras started to veer away from the early photographer friendly style to a more "electronic" style, possibly in line with the company's smart phone business.

Samsung brought the "i-Function" feature into it's lens collection. I analysed this feature  here  and found it to be without ergonomic merit. It was, in my view a gimmick, perhaps designed to create a point of difference between Samsung and other brands. 

I bought a total of 10 lenses for the NX system over the years and found that as time went on it appeared to me that quality control in the manufacture of theses lenses was declining leading to an increase in faults and decentering errors.

Performance was never a strong feature of the NX10 and 11 but I hoped it would improve with the NX20. It did not. The NX20 retained the sluggish performance and tediously slow shot to shot times of the NX10.

So I abandoned Samsung and returned to the M4/3 system where they still make real cameras.  Samsung went on to make their cameras look ever more like "Smart phone with lens". The latest iteration of this theme is the Samsung Galaxy NX, which appears to be an attempt to merge a Galaxy tablet (in the rear) with a viewfinder (on top) and a lens (out in front)  This thing must be operated entirely by touch screen although actually doing so appears almost physically impossible. How anybody could hold the thing, look through the viewfinder and operate the touch screen all at the same time is beyond me.

Actually the Galaxy NX looks to me like an example of asyndesis.  This is a disorder in which separate ideas or thoughts cannot be joined into a coherent concept. It is not uncommon in the drawings of people suffering from schizophrenia. It might appear as a car with a horse's head at the front,  or some similar juxtaposition which makes no sense to the viewer but generally has some kind of significance to the artist.  Presumably the Galaxy NX means something to it's creators but I don't get it.

The Crystal Ball   I have no idea at all about the possible direction of  Samsung's future in the imaging business. Not a clue. The vast majority of photographs made with a Samsung device utilise a smartphone. I have no idea whether there is a place in the Samsung empire for proper cameras. Frankly I can't think of any reason why there would be. Most entities which have a camera division are making a loss on their camera business so why would Samsung want to go there ?  

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Ricoh/Pentax

Rough Road Ahead, Nullarbor Plain. This was the main East-West highway across Australia in 1968. We made it from Sydney to Perth in the vehicle shown in the photo with only minor damage: one flat tyre, one broken windscreen.

 

Memories of Pentax  I used Asahi Pentax SLR cameras for many years. In the 1960's, 70's and 80's they were the most popular camera for enthusiast amateur photographers.  I started with a Spotmatic then graduated to a ME Super. Many of my favourite old photos were made with these cameras.  I still have fond memories of using them, especially in the genre of street photography, which was much more viable those days than it is today.

In the 1980's I was exploring options for improved image quality and for a time owned a Pentax 6x7 medium format film SLR. This proved to be something of a monster. A kit with 3 lenses actually weighed more than a 4x5 inch field camera with 3 lenses. It did not last long in my kit but the 4x5 field camera stayed with me for many years.

Pentax was a technology leader, introducing many features such as through the lens metering,  which we now regard as routine.

Then Came Autofocus   In the latter part of the 1980's autofocus for SLR cameras was invented. Pentax was late to catch that bus and in consequence fell behind Canon and Nikon in the market place,  never to catch up. Even today, I sometimes read posts on user forums bemoaning inaccurate AF with Pentax DSLR's.

Our family bought a Pentax film zoom compact about 25 years ago. It worked reasonably well in good light, not so well indoors.

Apart from that I have not encountered any Pentax product that I might want to buy in the last 30 years. I say that as a long time Pentax fan, so it means Pentax has not been developing products which appeal to me.

Then Came Mirrorless  Last year Pentax attempted to join the Mirrorless ILC crowd with the K-01, one of the  least well conceived and  poorly executed  cameras  in recent  history. I call it the "Knock Out One", because it sure knocked Pentax' reputation pretty badly.

The next bright idea from Pentax was the Pentax Q, an MILC with the smallest sensor of any interchangeable lens camera. Just to confuse things they changed the sensor size last year from about 7.5mm diagonal to about 9.3 mm diagonal. The precise purpose of this thing escapes me but apparently they sell reasonably well in Japan. I saw an advertisement for the Q10 in an Australian photographic magazine recently. The main selling point appeared to be that you could get it in "100 different color combinations".  Really, that was the pitch.

What about Ricoh ?  Ricoh makes office equipment, machines, printers etc. It also has a small division which has been making cameras since 1938. In recent years these have tended to be niche market products.

About 20 years ago I bought a Ricoh GR1 film compact with fixed 28mm lens. This was actually a nice camera capable of making very good pictures but the 75 degree diagonal angle of view was a bit much for my taste so it did not last long in my bag. 

In the digital era Ricoh has continued to make derivatives of the GR1, to a generally favourable reception by a loyal band of Ricoh afficionados, who like to point out the camera's good ergonomics. Which is fine except the digital ones lack an eye level viewfinder. Oops.

In 2009 Ricoh introduced the GXR camera concept, the defining feature of which was it's interchangeable "Lensor" (Lens+sensor in one module) modules. Unfortunately for Ricoh, the market generally ignored the GXR which will go down in camera history as yet another failed bright idea.

Ricoh acquired Pentax in 2011, which is the reason they are grouped together here.

The Crystal Ball  In the absence of some dramatic revitalisation of the Ricoh/Pentax camera division I think the future is bleak. Both Ricoh and Pentax are making cameras with at best limited appeal. Neither is flourishing in the marketplace. Both have tried to rescue the situation with brave new products which flopped badly. I hate to think that a camera brand which was such an important part of my early and formative photographic years is about to disappear but that does seem to be a likely outcome.

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Panasonic Lumix

This picture has nothing to do with Panasonic or Lumix, but it's one of my favourites. The dog is taking it easy. Apparently there are more camels in Australia than any other country.

 

Background  Panasonic Corporation is a giant Japanese manufacturer which makes all kinds of stuff. It was, I believe, at one stage Japan's largest employer with hundreds of thousands of employees. In recent years Panasonic has fallen on lean times, posting successive annual losses of massive proportions. I believe the camera/ lens division regularly posts losses also. So why does Panasonic bother it's corporate self to make cameras ?   I don't pretend to know the answer to this question. It can hardly be to promote Panasonic brand recognition because the cameras carry a prominent "LUMIX" logo, which means nothing to most people of my acquaintance.

Panasonic has no  history of making film cameras, unlike Canon, Fuji, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Samsung.

Anyway, for whatever reason, Panasonic got  into the camera business in the digital era. It's first product was the LC5 compact of 2001.  I think this makes Panasonic the most recent entrant into the camera making world. Despite this, the company has built up a high level of in house capability, with expertise in aspheric and other  lenses and most of the mechanical, optical and electronic requirements of still and video cameras. From it's earliest days in camera and lens making, Panasonic partnered with Leica to share expertise between the two companies, one with a long and illustrious history of lens making, the other with electronic capability.

My Experience of Lumix Cameras  The arrival of the Micro Four Thirds system onto the market was of great interest to me, so I bought a copy of the very first M43 camera, the Lumix G1. In due course this was followed by a G3, GH2, G5, GH3 and G6. I have a GX7 on order. Actually it has been on order for over two months, with no delivery date, about which I am more than a little peeved.  I have owned 10 Lumix lenses in the last 5 years. My regular camera for most of the last year or so has been the GH3 with 12-35 and 35-100mm f2.8 lenses.

I also owned an LX2 and an LX5 compact for a time.

DSLR's   In association with Olympus, Panasonic had a brief dalliance with the 4/3 system DSLR. They produced the L1 in 2006 and the L10 in 2007.

Compacts  Panasonic in it's relatively brief history of making cameras has produced a multitude of different (but often only slightly different)  compact models. The LX2 made reasonably good JPG pictures and better RAW photos. But shot to shot time for RAW capture was about 6 seconds which was just ridiculous. A few years later I got an LX5 which was quite a nice camera. It made good quality pictures and had acceptable ergonomics except it had no built in EVF. This made it difficult to use in sunlight and difficult to hold steady in low light.  I came to realise that a camera without a built in viewfinder was no use to me.

Micro 4/3 MILC's  Panasonic's first and my first M43 camera was the G1 of 2008.  My experience with this camera started my thinking and research into camera ergonomics, leading eventually to the creation of this blog.

The problem, you see, was that the G1 had truly awful ergonomics, particularly as regards holding and operating. The shutter button was perched on the end of a small projecting handle, nowhere near where my index finger wanted to find it. The control dial was located beneath and in front of the shutter button where it was impossible to operate without completely releasing the right hand  from the camera. The cursor buttons were impossible for me to locate by feel so they had to be located visually which meant taking the camera down from the eye, completely disrupting the capture process to make adjustments which were required during that process.

I made many mock up cameras and mock up handle modules, trying to understand what exactly were the problems with this camera.

The 13 first posts on this blog, from February to April 2012 describe this process in considerable detail.

I sold the G1 and got a Samsung NX10 which was a much nicer camera to use.

After a couple of years I came back to Lumix M43 with the G3. This was another ergonomic disaster. The handle had shrunken to vestigial proportions. The cursor buttons were no better. The control dial moved to the rear but was so deeply recessed it could only be operated with the tip of the thumb, just below the nail bed. This was awkward, disrupted the grip and capture process and was painful.

I was so annoyed with Lumix, I went back to Canon in the form of an EOS 60D and some very well regarded lenses. But this just confirmed my growing view that the DSLR has no future.  The 60D would not focus consistently and I get very unhappy very quickly when presented with multiple randomly out of focus pictures. The whole kit was far larger and heavier than I wanted to carry around and I found the disconnect between eye level view and monitor view disconcerting.

So it was back to Lumix, this time in the form of the GH2. This camera still had ergonomic problems but it was a modest improvement on previous Lumix G Micro cameras. Then came the  G5 and that provided further modest ergonomic improvements. The handle was a better shape and the shutter button better located.  It appeared that someone in the Lumix design section was beginning to get the message about ergonomics.

The GH3  provided the biggest jump in ergonomic capability from one model to the next that I  have ever  encountered  in 60 years of using cameras.  Holding, viewing and operating were all dramatically improved over the GH2. I now rate the Lumix GH3 as having very good ergonomics and in fact the best ergonomics of any camera which I have ever used. It is still not perfect however and I have considered  here what improvements could be made to bring it up to an excellent standard.

Summary  On my evaluation Panasonic, the most recent entrant into the camera making club, is also the most improved ergonomically. It's G Micro 4/3 cameras have gone from absolutely dreadful  just a few years ago to very good and in my judgement, better than anything else available right now.   As a bonus, there are now many excellent Lumix and Olympus lenses available for the M4/3 system which becomes more appealing as time passes.

Crystal Ball  Panasonic has a lot invested in the technology of camera making. Much of this is very high tech with a high barrier to entry by newcomers. They can do imaging sensors, processors, electronics, mechanics, lenses and more. The company seems to be in the business for the long run. I think that  if Panasonic survives, and  if  it's camera division survives and  if said camera division becomes profitable, then Lumix could be positioned to provide some of the industry's better and more interesting products in the years ahead. Panasonic is now making good cameras which are appealing to photographers. But in Australia at least, their marketing is almost invisible. Panasonic really needs to get on top of this.

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Olympus

Climbing Mount Olympus ? Kilimanjaro in fact, but hey, it's a mountain.

 

Foundations    The Corporation was founded in 1919 although the name Olympus was not adopted until 1949. According to Wikipedia the Greek mountain was chosen as a name as it is the home of the gods in Greek mythology. Apparently the gods left home sometime this century because in 2011 Olympus was hit with a massive financial scandal which almost led to it being delisted from the Tokyo Stock Market.

Olympus' main business is medical and technical imaging, involving endoscopes, microscopes and similar. However the company has a long history of making cameras which it started producing around 1936. In it's heyday, in the days of film, Olympus had several big sellers, including a series of cameras branded Olympus PEN, another series called Olympus TRIP and a series of compact SLR's designated OM- and a numeral.

Olympus struggled with the advent of the digital era, but it did survive, unlike many of it's peers which fell by the wayside.  Olympus joined the Micro Four Thirds group and started selling M43 cameras in 2009.

My Experience with Olympus Cameras  Many years ago I owned a very small film compact called an Olympus μ-1, pronounced mew-1. It was impressively small, had a neat clam shell design and made pictures of reasonable but not excellent quality.

Last year I  acquired an OMD-EM5 body, battery grip and a selection of lenses. I reported on this camera  here.

DSLR's   Olympus and Panasonic  joined forces to make DSLR cameras to the [Four Thirds] standard. Panasonic soon pulled out of this venture leaving Olympus to carry on bravely but eventually without ongoing success in the marketplace.

Compacts  Olympus has been making compact cameras for many years and continues to do so. Some of these have drawn favourable reviews, others a range of less favourable comments, mainly on the issue of ergonomics and the user interface.

Olympus'  latest compact venture is the Stylus -1 with a small [approx 9.3 mm diagonal] sensor, a built in EVF and a constant f2.8 lens with a diagonal angle of view of  75 degrees at the wide end to 8.2 degrees at the long end (equivalent to 28-300mm on a full frame camera). This is a highly attractive specification set and is very much a move in the direction I think camera makers need to go.

Micro Four Thirds  Olympus' first M43 camera, the  PEN  EP-1,  was released in 2009. This was followed by 7 further PEN branded M43 cameras, none of which had a built in EVF. I regard this as having been a major problem for Olympus as cameras without an eye level viewfinder are very difficult to use in bright sunlight or with long lenses.

At last in 2012 they introduced the OM-D E-M5 with a proper, and as it happened very nice, built in EVF. The E-M5 ticked almost all the boxes [except for the missing built in flash] for a desirable interchangeable lens camera of compact dimensions, good picture quality and performance. It was an instant hit and may have helped rescue Olympus' camera division from oblivion. A large stake by Sony in Olympus no doubt also helped, as did Sony's sensors which lifted M43 imaging performance considerably. My own experience with the E-M5 was mixed, my main difficulties with the camera being in the area of ergonomics, the user interface and user experience.

Olympus' follow up to the E-M5, the E-M1 (Go figure, the M5 comes before the M1. There must be some kind of logic to that somewhere) appears to have rectified most of the ergonomic deficiencies of the E-M5. It has a well shaped built in handle, the thumb support allows the thumb to angle across the camera a bit more and  the buttons and dials are better laid out. It looks like a winner and most reviews are very positive.

The Crystal Ball   Olympus' camera division has thus far managed to survive a very dark and bumpy road through life. Apparently it is still making a loss, like most corporations' camera divisions, but there may be light on the horizon. The latest OM-D M43 cameras with built in EVF are very appealing and competent. The Stylus-1 superzoom venture could also be a winner if they get the details right. Olympus might just manage to stay and prosper. Maybe.

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Nikon

Head in the sand, going nowhere

 

An Illustrious History The Japanese corporation which was eventually named for it's most famous product, the Nikon camera, was founded in 1917. The first Nikon camera was produced in 1948. The Nikon name became synonymous with rugged reliability and excellent quality  in all things photographic. Nikon rose to the challenges of autofocus then digital capture and electronic operation.

Nikon Corporation is, I believe, the only entity which derives most of it's income from the manufacture of cameras.  The camera divisions of Sony, Panasonic, even Canon, are but a small part of the total corporate venture.

You would imagine then, that Nikon would be a leader in camera research and development and a leader in innovation in imaging practice. But some familiarity with Nikon's recent products would have to leave one wondering about that.

My History with Nikon Cameras  In the film days I briefly owned a little Nikon branded film compact. It's picture quality and performance were dreadful. This year I bought, reviewed and ran comparison testing on a D5200 DSLR with 18-200mm superzoom lens. Our family owns and I have fully tested,  two (!!) Nikon 1 Series V2 cameras, each with 10-100mm superzoom lens. I might have been tempted to buy one of Nikon's recent compact offerings but each of them is deeply flawed in one fashion or another, so no deal.

DSLR's   I think Nikon's golden era was 1950-1980.  The film SLR was the top camera for professional photojournalism and Nikon was the best SLR you could buy. The Nikon name was firmly established. Millions of people turned to Nikon when they wanted a top quality camera for personal or professional use.

Then along came autofocus, followed by digital capture and electronic operation. Camera makers with deeper roots in the electronics business challenged Nikon's primacy. But, to their credit, Nikon rose to the challenge. However in the last few years Nikon has fallen into the same rut as Canon. The problem is that Nikon's main income comes from DSLR's and the DSLR as a camera type has no future. There is no evolutionary pathway for the DSLR. So Nikon in recent years has been iterating more pixels, fiddling with  button layouts  and  making minor incremental improvements to the same basic DSLR design.

My review of the D5200 earlier this year hereshowed it to be a reasonably competent camera in some respects but it had many ergonomic flaws. Some of these are inherent in the DSLR concept,  others could easily have been fixed with better user interface design. The just announced D5300 is a very mild upgrade of the D5200 retaining most of the ergonomic deficiencies of the D5200.

Some of Nikon's DSLR's, such as the D7100, receive better reviews, particularly for ergonomics.

I see no consistency of ergonomic understanding at work  here. Various Nikon DSLR's have different control layouts for no particular reason that I can determine. Some have a fully articulated monitor, others have a fixed monitor.

Compacts  In recent times Nikon has been making some interesting advanced compacts.  But every one of them  has a problem which I regard as deal breaking. The Coolpix A has no handle, no viewfinder, no articulated monitor and no zoom lens, but they want you to pay more for this than many DSLR's. Huh ????   The P3300 has very good image quality for a small sensor compact but shot to shot time for RAW capture was reported by one reviewer as 6 seconds. Again, no handle, no viewfinder.  After several tries Nikon almost got the advanced compact formula right. The P7800 appears to have all the ingredients: handle, articulated monitor, plenty of controls and finally an EVF. But shot to shot times for RAW capture are quoted by several reviewers at around 3 seconds.

Mirrorless ILC's  Nikon has an entry in the MILC race, in the form of the 1 Series of cameras. By the way, the "1" designation is a reference to the diameter of the 1950's era cathode ray tube which might have been required to support an imaging sensor of about 16mm diagonal. The "4/3" and "Micro 4/3" designations arise from the same historical but now completely irrelevant source.

With the 1 series Nikon's engineers delivered something quite remarkable. The V1 and V2 cameras have some capabilities unmatched by anything else on the market at any price. Continuous EVF viewing at high frame rates, huge buffer sizes, 15 frames per second with continuous AF and focus on every frame. Spectacular stuff.

But the V1 has atrocious ergonomics. The layout and user interface is so poorly designed one has to wonder how it ever came to exist.  The V2 brings substantial ergonomic improvement but that camera still falls well short of excellence.

I recently saw a Nikon promotional video stating that all Nikon design is done in house and all of it by the same dedicated team. I find this difficult to believe. There is almost no consistency of performance, user interface  or ergonomic execution between the various Nikon DSLR's, compacts and MILC's.  How come one camera (the V2) can fire off  49 RAW still pictures in just over 3 seconds (in continuous shooting mode), with AF and AE on every frame then continue firing but at a reduced frame rate, while another (the P7800) can only manage one RAW frame (in single shot mode) every three seconds ??

Conceptual integrity  I think there is something fundamental missingin the Nikon design center. That something might be captured by the term conceptual integrity. The product development people at Nikon don't seem to have a clear direction as to the type of product which they should make or to which consumer this product might be directed.

Their current offerings are all over the place. Some have excellent picture quality but compromised ergonomics. Some of the DSLR's do most things a DSLR could reasonably be expected to do but are an evolutionary dead end. Some look good on paper but have compromised performance and/or ergonomics. There is little conceptual or ergonomic consistency between one camera line and the next or even between one model and the next within a line.

What does Nikon stand for today ?  On present offerings I would have to say...."Once great camera maker struggling to survive in a changing world but not managing very well".  Ouch.

The Crystal Ball    Like Canon, I think Nikon is in serious trouble. They face steeply falling sales in all sectors of production. Nikon's answer seems to be to concentrate on "full frame" ie 24x36mm sensor, DSLR's.  Their latest little adventure with the DF camera seems to be nostalgic wishful thinking that harking back to past glories will somehow rescue the company from it's present woes.  They are dreaming.  Nikon's problems are in the present and the solution to them will not be found in the past.

I don't pretend to know whence, or even if,  Nikon's salvation might come. However in terms of camera production the company is already sitting on a potential winner in the form of the 1 series of cameras. But Nikon having created the 1 series seems not to know what they might do with it. Well for starters, they could check out what Sony is doing with the "one inch" ie 15.9mm diagonal sensor.  There is the RX100 Mk1 and 2, now followed by the RX10 with very interesting specification indeed.  

Nikon could evolve the 1 Series into a highly attractive stable of camera types, some with interchangeable lenses, some with fixed lenses, some short zooms some ultra compacts, some superzooms.

Wake up Nikon, the big sleep beckons.

 

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Fujifilm

Having trouble seeing the forest with all those trees ?

 

Fuji Frenzy ?  In my summary of Canon's progress, or lack of it, with camera ergonomics, I accused Canon's product development people of having apparently gone to sleep.  The same could not be said about Fuji, which mysteriously calls itself FujiFilmin an all digital imaging era.  Fuji has a long history of innovation in imaging. In recent years they have delivered the EXR sensor then the X-Trans sensor. In short order they have delivered the X-Pro1, X-E1 and X-E2, X-M1, X-A1 and X-Q1.

The Fuji guys are definitely not standing still but the direction in which they are heading seems unclear to me. Maybe that is just a comment about the camera industry as a whole, which appears to be unsure of it's direction.

My Experience with Fuji cameras  In the film era I owned and briefly used a couple of fixed lens Fuji medium format cameras. These were "interesting" but did not last long in my camera bag as each had a very limited spectrum of capabilities. In the digital age, I have owned an X10 compact and  been completely baffled by the labrynthine complexity of trying to use the thing with RAW capture.  I  have had the opportunity to use an  X100 (the original version) and an X-E1. The family member who owned the X100 was extremely disappointed to find that a large percentage of photos of a never to be repeated family event were out of focus.

What is Fuji's USP (Unique Selling Point)?  Fuji has probably wisely not tried to challenge CanoNikon on their preferred turf, that being the DSLR. Instead their leitmotiv appears to be..... "something different". The different something might be a unique sensor design or it might be a different approach to the ergonomic layout of a camera. I will concentrate on the ergonomics.

Blending Traditional with Modern Design Elements  Many of Fuji's recent camera releases have attempted to blend elements of traditional design and styling with modern electronic operation. This works, to the extent the cameras make photographs, sometimes of excellent quality. But overall I believe the attempt to blend traditional with modern at the user interface has produced an inconsistent, muddled,  kludge of features nowhere near as simple as the classic M-Leica layout and less efficient than a modern electronic interface such as you find on, say, a Panasonic Lumix GH3.

In The Good Old Days  We used all manual, all mechanical cameras. Examples would include Leica M3-M6 and Pentax Spotmatic. These cameras had a marked clicky dial on the lens for changing aperture and a marked clicky dial on the top plate for changing shutter speed. You only got to change ISO (which used to be called ASA or DIN) when changing film. The user interface was simple to the point of spartan. But it worked and with practice could be  reasonably efficient.

Then Came Electronics  Soon we had Aperture Priority Auto Exposure, then Shutter Priority AE  then Program AE. In  many cases these new features were implemented using the existing aperture and shutter speed dials. But then someone (I know not who) came up with the idea of a Mode Dial and one or two mode dependent scroll wheels. When properly implemented this system could be faster than the old one, using less movements, each of lower complexity, to adjust aperture, shutter speed, both or ISO.  So most cameras now use that system as it can be more efficient.

The Fujifilm Way  There used to be a saying... "There is the right way, the wrong way and the Navy's way"... In the case of camera ergonomics this could be rephrased as ..."There's the old way, the new way and Fujifilm's way".

It seems to me there are two problems with the Fujifilm way.

First, the attempt to blend the old style manual user interface with modern electronics just doesn't work very well. There is no need to have an aperture dial on the lens, just as there  is no need to have a shutter speed dial. These dials are superfluous. Any one of several versions of a more modern, streamlined user interface could do the job more efficiently.

Second, Fuji's implementation of the Hybrid, ancient+modern interface across the many and proliferating numbers of models is inconsistent, to put it mildly.

On some cameras we find an optical viewfinder, some have a hybrid optical/electronic viewfinder, some have an electronic viewfinder, some have none. Some of Fuji's cameras have a shutter speed dial others have a Mode Dial.

Some lenses have an old fashioned, marked clicky aperture dial, some have an unmarked dial, some have none.

Many have a prominent dial located precisely where the thumb wants to rest. So to keep the thumb from pressing this dial accidentally many Fuji owners fit an aftermarket thumb support which slips into the hotshoe. This, of course prevents use of the hotshoe and also impedes access to the shutter speed dial. All this folderol for a dial which doesn't actually do much during normal image capture.

Most lack a proper handle, prompting many users to fit an after market one at considerable expense.

Most have a fixed monitor, on a camera back with plenty of space for an articulated one.

Some have buttons located in strange places. For instance some have the [AF] button on the left side of the monitor. This is the button which activates the process of changing AF area position. So to change AF area you have to release grip on the lens with the left hand,  push the [AF] button, return the left hand to the lens, release the right hand from the camera, push the 4 Way controller as required to move the AF area then return the right hand to normal grip position. Someone appears to have tapped the Fuji design guys on the shoulder about this, as I see on some recent models the [AF] button has moved to the [Down] position on the 4 Way controller.

Summary  It seems to me that the Fuji guys are doing things differently just to establish a point of difference in the market place, not because Fuji cameras allow the user to go about the process of making photos in any more efficient or effective fashion than those of more conventional electronic design.

The Crystal Ball   My crystal ball on Fuji's future is opaque. I value cameras with very good picture quality, performance and ergonomics. Some of Fuji's cameras deliver very good picture quality but many have suboptimal performance and ergonomics. So I have difficulty understanding why anybody buys them at all. Hang on, I bought some of them, why was that ???  I certainly sold them on pretty quick. My point is that there appears to by something about Fuji's products which appeals to some buyers. Maybe they seem like proper cameras, harking back to days of yore when a camera was a real camera not just an electronic gadget which happens to take photos. Is that it ??    I don't know.

Ergonomic Roundup November 2013, Canon

Art  Deco Building. Still standing but for how much longer ?

 

Market Leader  Canon is the current market leader. Given this I think it is reasonable to expect Canon to have more funds for research and development than other camera makers. I think it is also reasonable to expect that Canon would have spent some of that R&D budget on developing the best possible ergonomics for it's cameras.  Unfortunately there is little evidence of this.  

My History with Canon  I started using Canon cameras in 1990, in the early days of the autofocus era and soon after Canon switched from the FD mount to the new EOS mount for it's SLR cameras. Since then I have owned and used 5 film SLR's and 3 DSLR's. I have owned 4 G Series advanced compacts and one small compact. By the way, the main reason I stopped using Canon DSLR's was their erratic autofocus accuracy. But that is another story.

DSLR  Canon has been using the same basic shape and control layout for 20 years. If this were absolutely the best possible arrangement, incapable of further improvement, then no further ergonomic development would be required.

But that is not the case. Canon uses the same basic shape and style for all it's DSLR's, large and small. I understand they might want to project a uniform and therefore easily recognisable corporate style, but big cameras and small cameras need to be shaped differently as they are all used by the same sized hands.   The smaller DSLR's in particular have cramped holding arrangements which could easily be fixed with a different shape.  The mid sized DSLR's have  generally decent ergonomics but they could easily be improved. I wrote about this with reference to the EOS 60D here.

Advanced Compacts - G Series  I have shown herethat it is possible to design a camera which is very compact but still has decent ergonomics. In other words, it provides pleasing, efficient,  holding, viewing and operating. Canon's G series cameras have been dancing around these three ergonomic essentials for years without having produced a single model which puts it all together. Handles, thumb support, control layout, control modules (dials, buttons etc) monitor (fixed or articulated) viewfinder (currently and for years a low quality item which does  not accurately preview the picture) are all items with which Canon tinkers from one iteration to the next without ever bringing all the elements into a coherent and satisfying whole.

Mirrorless ILC's  Last year with great fanfare, Canon announced it's first ever MILC,   the EOS-M. You might have thought that being last player to enter the MILC game, Canon would have analysed all it's competitors' offerings, identified their strengths and weaknesses,  and presented the world with a category killer product. What actually emerged was arguably the least appealing new camera release in world history.  They took an entry level DSLR, removed the bits for holding (the handle and thumb support) chopped off the bits for viewing (the viewfinder and articulated monitor) and deleted many of the bits for operating (dials and buttons). They then presented this to the market at the same price as the original DSLR. ........

And then  wondered why consumers avoided the thing in droves.

Summary  Canon once had a dynamic, adventurous camera division not afraid to venture into new territory with regard to technology and design. Now  they appear to have gone to sleep. The disaster of the EOS-M indicates that Canon has lost touch with it's actual and more importantly, potential customers. Further, the EOS-M  suggests there is a lack of understanding about basic ergonomics in Canon's product development team.  They are able to iterate slight upgrades of an already established line, such as their DSLR's,  but when presented with the challenge of a completely new camera concept as with the MILC, they failed completely.

Crystal Ball  I think Canon is in serious trouble. If cameras are to survive the onslaught of smartphones and other phablets and gadgets which can take photos, they need to be engaging and enjoyable to use. They need excellent ergonomics.

The DSLR has no future and Canon has no credible MILC  with which to replace the DSLR.

I believe Canon's market dominance today is the result of brand  strength  built up in the years 1990 to about 2005. Recent years have not seen the same development in conceptual appeal, image quality, performance or ergonomics. I think consumers will eventually tire of Canon's lack of innovative development and look elsewhere.  I suspect the only thing which has, until recently,  been saving Canon from disaster in the marketplace has been weak and inconsistent competition from the camera making opposition.

Sony Alpha 7/7R, New Cameras, New Ergonomic Problems

Photo courtesy of Digital Photography Review  dpreview.com 
You can see in this photo the camera user's index and middle fingers are spread apart. In this particular photo the middle and fourth fingers are not fully engaged with the parallel type handle. The hand needs to move up and rotate anticlockwise. But then the distal phalanx of the index finger will want to find a shutter button about 15mm to the left of it's actual position. If the shutter button were to be moved across to the left, the control dial would then be in the wrong place. I think Sony needs to redesign the entire upper handle and top deck of this camera.

 

Lure of the compact full frame camera  Over 30 years ago, my main camera was a Pentax ME Super SLR taking 35mm film. This gave a negative size of 24x36mm, diagonal 43mm. In the digital era this imager size is often known as "full frame" although in those days it was regarded as the miniature format. Cameras using 16mm film were designated "sub-miniature".

Over the years, cameras grew ever larger, adding electronic components, autofocus, batteries, handles etc.

Now we see Sony trying to re-invent the compact (full frame) camera with 43mm sensor, in the form of the Alpha7/7R.

Actually despite all of Sony's clever engineering, these cameras are still larger than the venerable ME Super.

Camera	Width  mm	Height  mm	Depth  mm	Box Volume  cc
Sony Alpha7/7R, 2013	127	95	65	784
Pentax ME Super, 1979	131	83	50	544

 Technology stuff  No doubt there will be reams of material written and blogged about the technology in these new cameras. This blog is about ergonomics so I will concentrate on that.

Ergonomics  I continue to be surprised and disappointed that giant multinational corporations with immense resources, keep on producing cameras with clever technology but flawed ergonomics. The reason this surprises me is that good ergonomics costs no more than bad and the basic principles behind camera ergonomics are not technically complicated at all.

In one sentence, camera ergonomics involves putting body parts and control bits where the fingers want to find them. Why is that so difficult ??

Sony Alpha 7/7R  I have not yet had one of these in hand so my comments are based on photographs of the camera and photos of users holding the camera.

So, what's the problem ? 

An appreciation of ergonomics begins with awareness of the functional anatomy of the human hand. The relaxed human hand  takes a posture like that shown in the photograph below. In this position, the muscles and tendons are relaxed and the hand and fingers are ready for action. From this basic position the fingers can flex and extend, close up to each other or fan out further apart. The thumb can undertake greater or less opposition. (that is, movement of the thumb across to the opposite side of the palm).

This is the natural half closed position of a human right hand. A well designed camera will fit into this hand position because it has been designed to conform to the hand, not the other way around. 

 

I expect a camera to be designed such that the right hand will adopt this shape when it is holding the camera in "ready to operate" position. Some cameras achieve this quite well. As a result they provide the user with a comfortable, secure hold on the camera, with the fingers well placed to operate the controls, provided those controls are positioned where the fingers want to find them.

Notice that there is no appreciable horizontal or diagonal distance between the index and middle fingers. The index finger is somewhat higher than the middle finger, as you would expect.

Photo courtesy of  dpreview .com  
This shows the relationship between the index finger  (on the shutter button) and middle finger (tucked into the indent on the upper handle) as they grip the A7, shown in schematic cross section. The distance between them is about 26mm, an uncomfortable stretch for many people.

 

This is the position of a right hand as it would be if holding an A7, with the camera removed so you can see the relationships between the fingers. This position can be achieved, but is neither comfortable nor natural. There is no need for such awkwardness.

 

On the Sony Alpha 7 the design of the handle and right side of the camera forces the index and middle fingers apart. My measurements indicate a separation of about 26mm. Written on the page this might sound insignificant, but in the flesh it is quite an issue. 26mm is about as far apart as many people's partly flexed fingers can separate. This means the basic position is stretched and uncomfortable. Those lucky people with very flexible joints might wonder what I am talking about but for most people this will be a real issue. The attached photos illustrate the matter  in more graphic detail.

Photo courtesy of dpreview.com
Here is one possible alternative arrangement. The index finger is shown schematically on the red shutter button with a red control dial behind the shutter button. Separation between the index and middle fingers has greatly decreased.

Photo courtesy of dpreview.com
Here is another possible arrangement. This uses a parallel handle in the style of the Panasonic Lumix GX7. In this version the middle finger wraps over the top of and down the left side (as viewed by the user) of the handle. The shutter button stays where it is now. The control dial has to be relocated, either around the shutter button in Lumix GX7 (or Olympus EM1) style or in front of or behind it but at the same height. Again the two fingers are comfortably close together without the need for undue stretching.

 

The sad thing is that there is no functional need for the layout of arrangements seen on the top right and upper handle of  the Alpha 7.  There are several alternative layouts which would work much better. I have sketched just two of these in the attached photographs. And  look: there is a nice flat area on the left side (as viewed by the user) of the EVF hump for a handy set and see dial, but no module of any kind is there, go figure.

Summary I think the Alpha 7 cameras could form the basis of an attractive reprise of the compact full frame SLR style cameras of yesteryear. I think they will balance nicely with compact prime lenses, just as I used to use on the ME Super.

But Sony's designers need ergonomics lessons if their technologically interesting products  are to evolve into fully convincing cameras which enthusiast photographers will enjoy using.