As a follow-up to my article on buzz (below), one comment I received needs a bit more addressing. Many of the products I mention have "style." In other words the form has appeal. But style is similar to technology. By itself style doesn't necessarily contribute to the joy of photography. It does when the style is in support of a photographer-centric approach (e.g. Leica, some of the X100).
A lot of cameras are bought because of cachet, something to which style contributes. A lot of M9's and D3's and even 5DII's hang around people's necks more to show off their wealth and good taste rather than to take better pictures. This is similar to the person that buys a Ferrari (or Corvette, or even Camaro these days). It's not the ability to drive faster that is important, as here in the US you really can't drive faster than even a Prius can easily achieve. It's the fact that men think that women will like them more and other men will be jealous of them when they see them behind the wheel of Prestige Car of the Year.
So, yes, style sells cameras. But it doesn't get them used. In order of importance to a true photographer, from least to most:
- Style. Looking good or being made of titanium doesn't take better photos.
- Technology. Having all the latest chips and gizmos and features isn't, by itself, useful.
- Photographer-centric design. Bingo. Having the critical necessities in direct control at your fingertips is the most important part of a camera design.
This is not to say that I wouldn't want style and technology in my cameras. But they play supporting roles and shouldn't get in the way of the most important aspect of design. Sony used to get this. Apple mostly gets it. Samsung is starting to get it. Nikon tends to get it on their high-end camera mainly because they spend so much time with a true designer on that product.
So let me give you a recent example to illustrate my point. The Sony NEX-5 has appealing style to it. It's small, it's got a real grip, the swinging LCD is useful, the debuttoning of the camera makes it seem like it will be simple to use, the lack of a hot shoe makes for a cleaner look. Some of those style points help, some detract (the proprietary hot shoe replacement under the awkward plastic door is one of the most fouled up bits of design I've ever seen in a camera).
In terms of technology: state of the art sensor, great video capability, massive size reduction. That sensor is appealing, as it performs at state-of-the-art DSLR levels in low light. So is the size reduction. Score one for technology in support of joy of photography.
But then we hit the photographer-centric part of the design. There isn't any. Everything was buried into a menu system, and a menu system that still seems unfinished, at that. In the initial form, it was totally buried--you couldn't even program one of the three buttons to bring something you wanted to control up to the top level. Fortunately Sony fixed that, so we're slightly better off than before. But with three buttons and a wheel we have to at a minimum get aperture, shutter, ISO, exposure compensation, exposure mode controls to the top level, and we obviously don't have quite enough things to put them in. So ultimately the style aspect of design trumped the joy of photography part. Not the right decision in my book.
Fortunately for Sony, the pluses just barely outweigh the minuses. At least in low light where it's become my preferred "carry around" camera (with the 16mm pancake). But if I had to pick a more jack-of-all-trades small system to carry around, I'd pick one of the m4/3 bodies, because they didn't forget the photographer quite as much in their designs.