Cameras and Photography Explained

"Too often, when a company stumbles, it’s not because it made a fundamentally bad decision. It’s because it made a decision that benefited itself rather than its customers and lacked the perspective to understand that customers don’t applaud when you lower your costs or the quality of your product."

Nope, not my words (though obviously I concur 100%). Those are the words of someone I worked with in the tech industry, Apple documenter and reviewer Jason Snell (he was also former editor of Macworld magazine, where I was a columnist). 

Business is all about tough balancing decisions, always. Obviously, you want to keep the business going, thus you look closely at what benefits the business. But what really keeps a business going long term is the customers buying the products and services that are supplied, and every time you start to forget that you'll be penalized for it. 

I've been dealing with a plethora of emails that all pertain in some way to whether a company or product is "in balance" or not. 

Take ON1's recent decision to produce plug-in versions of the parts of its suite (which can already operate as a plug-in of sorts). As I write this you can buy the full ON1 Photo RAW suite for US$100, or, say, the Portrait AI plug-in that's part of it for US$70 (ditto the other plug-ins). At first glance that looks like "oh, ON1 is giving you a choice." At second glance, it looks like a fool's bet to buy the plug-ins individually. 

Now personally, I'm not going to use ON1's full suite. I'm settled in as a Creative Cloud user (which I'll get to in a minute), but am curious as to whether the NoNoise AI plug-in might be better in some cases than the tools I'm currently using. But I'm put off by a couple of things: first there's the strange costing—ON1 seems to want me to pay a lot extra for the work they did to make it an independent plug-in—but the thing that disturbs me more is that ON1 has been all over the place when it comes to the suite/plug-in models. I'm not sure that I trust them not to drop the plug-in again, as they've done in the past (and as Skylum has done with products I like such as Intensify [at least Skylum kept the plug-in still available for those of us who bought it, and it still works with Photoshop 22.5, which I can't say for a lot of other plug-ins I've bought in the past]). 

Before getting back to the "converter wars" and "plug-in maneuvers," let me talk about Creative Cloud for a moment. The move from perpetual product to subscription model was indeed jarring. But note what Jason writes in his article about software subscriptions and what they do for the company. I agree with him that it's mostly a stabilizing force, and I think that Adobe should at this point be given credit for their success, both for themselves and for their customers. 

I went back and looked at what I was paying to regularly update Photoshop (or versions of the Creative Suite, or Lightroom, depending upon the time frame—I've been using Photoshop since version 1.0). Beginning with the formation of the Creative Suite I was paying about US$190/year on average to keep my software updated (of which I used three programs in the Suite). And having to jump through hoops to do that, as their installers were notorious for wanting to see every previous version's CD and activation number when you tried to update. 

Today, I'm far better off. I'm paying an average of US$100/year to keep Photoshop/Lightroom updated (I'm aggressive about looking for annual discounts), and don't have to jump through hoops each time an update appears. While in some years I get more features added and better performance enhancements, I've also been getting a regular feed of bug fixes and minor updates, as well as OS support updates. I much prefer the current situation than the previous one with Creative Suite. I'm sure Adobe prefers it, too, as they get a regular, known stream of income from me and others on which to base their ongoing product development.

Just to be clear, the problem I have with the current Adobe system is what happens on subscription termination: I believe Adobe could have done a better job of providing on-going capability for long-term subscribers that wanted to get off the wagon. Much of the problem appears to be that Adobe signed licensing agreements for modules or technologies and doesn't want anything to do with them if someone stopped paying.

Because of the subscription income, I'm pretty confident that Photoshop and Lightroom will continue to progress as products. They'll keep up with OS and hardware changes, they'll fix bugs, they'll add features. 

I'm less confident about a number of other software companies, because they all show the signs of "scramble for on-going revenue." Spin-outs, spin-ins, template sales, book sales, pre-selling updates, and much more. And in so doing, that makes it more likely that the company looks out for itself first, and then stumbles because they forgot to look out for the customer. 

Skylum’s recent announcement of Luminar Neo sure looks like one of these scrambles. Why didn’t Luminar just get updated? Why did we get Luminar AI and now Luminar Neo? My guess is that it’s a revenue need driving these “all new” products that keep replacing each other. (Or do they replace each other? I can’t tell from Luminar’s totally messed up marketing messages, and I don’t have the time to order, test, and form an opinion about whether they do replace each other or not.)

Similar problems happen in hardware, too. I've been vocal about how Nikon shot themselves in the foot with DX. Starting when the D3 appeared in 2007, DX lenses got short-shrift in the lineup. Other than the 16-80mm f/2.8-4E, 35mm f/1.8G, and 85mm f/3.5G macro, the rest of the DX lens lineup was kit lenses (and updates), superzooms (and updates), and low-end wide angle zooms. The D300, and then the D500, were starved for appropriate lenses, so why is it that Nikon can't understand why sales of the D#00 line went down?

Likewise, earlier I noted that the primary complaint from full frame Nikon mirrorless owners was also lenses, in particular the lack of telephoto beyond 200mm compared to competitor's systems. Customers are not applauding the fact that the 14-200mm lenses are mostly in stock. They're asking why nothing beyond the 200mm barrier exists. 

I'm also on record as saying that the most recent Nikon camera, the Zfc, doesn't solve a user problem (it introduces new user problems when the dials don't work because of some other setting you chose). But it solves a business problem for Nikon, apparently, as it has at least temporarily improved Nikon’s Japanese mirrorless sales volume.

The pandemic is putting an interesting side pressure on the camera companies. While demand has increased for product this year over last, producing product to meet that demand is tough to accomplish given all the parts shortages, shipping woes, and travel restrictions (many key suppliers and plants require quarantines to visit). The natural inclination in this situation is to protect the business first, but I worry that this is going to ultimately come back to haunt a few companies. 

So here's a question no one asks (but should): if a Canon, Nikon, and Sony camera at a particular level were all basically equivalent in performance, which one would you buy? And why?

More and more I see people arguing over nuance in performance. A third of a stop dynamic range. Some anecdotal perception of slightly faster autofocus. The CIPA ratings for something (e.g. battery or stabilization). 

Couple that with people arguing over things they don't actually encounter or use (e.g. 30 minute video recording time versus infinite, or just 4K versus 8K or 60P versus 120P). 

So much of the gear discussion these days has moved away from useful information to a disorganized pile of too much un-useful information, that it's impossible to see forest for the trees. 

I've recently mocked Nikon's Zfc for being designed more for casual and fun photography, but Nikon does have a point: people used to enjoy taking photos rather than obsessing over gear nuance. This is one reason why I felt that the Zfc would be successful, though perhaps not the long-term hit that Nikon was hoping for. The Zfc is an approachable camera in design and function, though perhaps not quite as good in use due to lack of follow through on a few things, particularly things associated with those dials.

But let's get back to my lede: when things become functionally the same, how do you choose which to buy?

You already face a relative of this problem in deciding which auto to buy. Functionally, all new cars today do the basic job you need, which is to get you from point A to point B reliably and safely. While you might have chosen an auto that can go from zero to sixty in under five seconds and hit 130 mph (210 kph), are you really using those abilities or are those just bragging rights you sought ("mine goes to 11"). 

We pretty much reached the "basically equivalent" point in film SLRs in the 90's, with DSLRs in the late aughts, and here we are with full frame mirrorless pretty much at that level now (or very, very soon if you need a top pro camera). I've re-iterated my point lately: if you aren't getting good photos with any current interchangeable lens camera at up to the size an inkjet printer can produce, it isn't the camera that's the problem. That really is a relevant statement you need to consider. 

Now, it may be that some feature of some model might help you get past your problem (;~). Many who've picked up Sony mirrorless cameras and set them to all-automatic focus are getting better results than they got with the autofocus system they didn't bother to learn on their DSLR, so they proclaim Sony as a clear winner. This isn't performance, per se, but a feature controlling performance. With a little study, I get perfectly fine focus results with every full frame camera these days, DSLR or mirrorless. Indeed, in most cases—even on the Sony models—my controlled focus produces better results than Sony's all automatic modes. I'm comfortable with taking the time to produce a better result, some of you aren't. But at the same time I'm not sure that today Sony's all automatic is particularly better than Canon's or Nikon's: you have to get into nuance to distinguish them is my contention.

So why are you picking Brand A over Brand B? 

To me, this gets back to something that all the camera companies tend to be poor at: marketing. And something deeper than just advertising or product brochures: customer engagement. 

I'll return to the Zfc as a case in point: let's say that I buy into the Zfc as a fun and casual product I'll enjoy. Nikon's marketing just wants to get me to buy the box, and then they think they've done their job. Are they truly helping me in having fun using the product? Nope. They've moved onto finding another person to convince, because they have your money. At this point, Nikon marketing should have already sent registered Zfc purchasers a video entitled "Sharing your Zfc fun with others." Yeah, using Snapbridge and Nikon Image Space quickly and casually. Other "fun" handholding campaigns should continue with other topics. That's how you engage a customer. 

Of course, one problem Nikon is going to have with the Zfc is that it needs a set of lenses all of its own, and Nikon has fallen behind delivering the lenses it's already promised for other Z System users. Nikon's marketing will likely send all us Zfc registered users an email about the 40mm f/2.8 compact lens indicating that it's "just right for the Zfc." But I suspect they won't be able to tell me how to have casual fun with it ;~). 

This is not Nikon's first consumer rodeo. They've been in a lot of them, dating back to the early film SLR days (my mom had a Nikkomat). The problem is that once they've sold that customer a consumer product, they don't really know what to do next with/for that customer, and their house of cards collapses when they run out of new folk to target. Oh sure, they'll suggest that the customer move to one of their higher-end products, but what if the consumer customer just wants to continue having casual fun? What does Nikon have for that? [crickets]

Sony was on the right track with Alpha Universe and Kando, though the Universe has gotten to be a bit disjointed and seems to be plagued by entropy as it expands, and Kando was made into Kandidn't by the pandemic. Still, I feel more engaged with Sony than I do with Nikon, even though I primarily use Nikon gear ;~). 

I'm not going to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article for you, because you're the one that has to answer it. I find that many deflect from dealing with that basic question by cluttering their decision with lots of minutia that, in the end, won't lead them to a convincing answer. 

That's exactly why a lot of the Leakers and Samplers I noted in articles over the past decade have either Returned or are Still Sampling. Getting lost in the details, particularly details that weren't absolutely of importance to them, made them spend money on a product that ultimately didn't satisfy their needs (or wants). 

Camera makers, Web sites/influencers, and customers all face the same problem these days: where exactly should you be focusing your attention: past, present, or future? Do you even know where you're focusing your attention?

Don't dismiss those questions, as many of the discussions people are having about photography and gear today are rooted in those different periods:

• Past — You learned nomenclature, control systems, and workflow. "Learned" is in the past. You accumulated lenses, accessories, and other tools. "Accumulated" is in the past. It took time and money to do both things, and generally you don't like throwing away time and money, as both are finite. 
• Present — If you are out photographing today, what is it you're using, and is that good enough for what you need? Virtually all of you reading this site have a full set of gear and do regular photography, so the relevant thing here is has to do whether that is working for you. 
• Future — FODE (Fear of Dead End) is gripping many of you. You want to know where you're headed with your gear and skills, and if you need to make changes to stay current, relevant, and competitive. But more often you just want "more better." 

You can't change the past, you can change the future, but you live in the present. How's that work?

Meanwhile, the camera companies are dealing with the same three periods in a much different way. For example, multiple companies built up huge resources and assets predicated on a bigger market, so now they're trying to figure out how to jettison that "past" with as little disruption to the company as possible. Plants close, suppliers are let go, employees are transitioned to new jobs or out of the company. For the past decade, dealing with "past" things has been a big problem for top management in Japan, and has consumed much of their time.

Of course, today (present) the camera companies would like to sell you something, because keeping the cash engine working is what sustains the company. This, too, has turned into a time-consuming management issue by the pandemic, as supply chain and shipping issues keep popping up that keeps the "present" from working the way they want it to. Market analysts are all over the place right now—as are camera company internal analysts—in just how many units will end up sold in 2021. Is it fewer than 6m or more than 7m ILC that will be sold in 2021? The range of estimates is dramatically large, and the differences between the low end estimate and the high end one are big enough to completely distort sales plans.

The future is something that all the camera companies spend a lot of time on. There's a relentless progression in R&D to continue to move products forward and make them more desirable so that future sales exceed present sales. Here, however, some differences show up. Sony, for instance, worries about Canon taking away future mirrorless market share. If Canon does that well enough and the market doesn't grow enough, Sony's sales go down. So Sony needs to focus on "newness" and "better." Nikon, on the other hand, is more worried about playing catch-up: they have clear camera and lens gaps that will hold back future growth if they don't fill them. So Nikon needs to focus on "completeness." 

I've been reasonably consistent with the following statement since about 2005: "If a current ILC camera doesn't produce good images up to about the maximum size a desktop inkjet printer can product (13x19" or so), then the problem isn't the camera." I've phrased that in slightly different ways over the years, but it was true with DSLRs in 2005, and it's true of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras in 2021: the gear we already have is quite good. Good enough for most work (and yes, it's still better than smartphones for a lot, if not most, work, though if all you're ever doing is publishing at Instagram sizes, you probably wouldn't see that). 

Because I'm past retirement age, I sometimes wonder: "should I just shut down the product pipeline I currently consume (and produce), take a carefully chosen set of what I've already got in the gear closet and just travel while enjoying it?" Half of me would love to do that ;~). The other half, unfortunately, is a geeky, tech-oriented nerd that's driven by curiosity and loves seeing new things and learning what they can do. I actually see more difference between what I could do in 1975 versus today with video than I do with still photography, but I can point to lots of little things that all start to add up on the photography side; my long history of quickly adopting future products has produced better and better results. I'm a collector, I want to add more ;~).

Rumor sites tend to denigrate the present (and past), while embracing and embellishing the future. Many of the bigger photography sites tend to try to live in the present, probably because advertising and affiliate programs need present sales in order to work. Other sites, including mine, tend to wander around, mainly because we're wanderers to start with (it's so nice not having a boss telling me what I have to do).  

But I bring all this up because it's becoming more important to keep track of when you start thinking about photography and gear. I get a ton of "what should I do?" questions, but many of them are crossing multiple time boundaries in ways that the questioner isn't aware of. In particular, the past gets included into present and future questions because of the perception of "investment." Financial investment, typically. 

I have this quandary myself with the 400mm f/2.8 lens. Those lenses are expensive. Very expensive. I've got a very nice DSLR sample that's never let me down: beautiful images and rock solid build. However, having to contemplate using it on the FTZ adapter in the future is problematic. When bouncing around the veldt in a Land Cruiser, you have to keep your gear stable and not being stressed. Adding another mount to the equation complicates that. Moreover, the upcoming Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 S includes a built-in 1.4x TC, eliminating yet another mount I sometimes am using. One mount is much more secure than three mounts in the work I do and the places I go. Or, I could switch to the Sony 400mm f/2.8 on an A1 (I have the A1, after all). That would save me 61 ounces (1729g). Yowza. 

The thing keeping me from getting either benefit—mount or weight reduction—in the future is that I have an exceptionally good piece of gear to use in the present, and I spent a lot of money in the past to obtain it. So I have to balance benefits against consequences. Those of us with photographic businesses do have the ability to depreciate gear, which changes the money issue, but the mental aspect of replacing expensive gear can't be denied even if you can justify it dollar-wise. 

If you made it this far and didn't TL;DR on me, you're probably looking for some advice. Okay, here goes:

• Most of you are overvaluing the past. You get too locked into how much you paid for something versus what it's worth today (and you don't account for inflation or useful gain while using it, either). If you didn't get intangible value from your older gear that equalled or exceeded what you paid for it, you either got the wrong gear in the first place, or you didn't commit to using it. Either way, you have to get past that.
• Most of you are undervaluing the present. You have a camera or lens (or cameras and lenses). They take remarkably good photos (see my 15+-year-old comment, above). It's unlikely that you're being held back from doing interesting and excellent things photographically. When you are, you probably know exactly what the feature/performance/product is that would fix that. You get mad when the company you've been supporting won't provide that ;~).
• Most of you are overvaluing the future. Some product about to come out "is going to change my world photographically" is the common thinking. While that does happen from time to time, it's a rare occurrence in reality. For instance, viewfinder blackout is something I've coped with for years. I was looking forward to the day when that would go away (as far back as 1978, when I was using ENG cameras for video productions and realized that I'd be using something similar for still photography some day). But you know what? While I definitely like and appreciate the blackout free viewfinders of the Sony A1 and A9 models, using them also made me realize just how far along Nikon had gotten with the D5 and D6 mirror slappers. The blackout on those DSLRs is minimal enough that I don't lose composition on moving subjects, which was mostly what I was looking forward to.

This site has a relatively deep section on Technique, including one called Improving the Photographer. I'd argue that improving your photography starts with improving yourself. There are things you (and I) don't know about photography. Learn them. There are things you're not doing in your current photography. Start doing them. There are things you'd like to try in photography (e.g. multiple exposure or astrophotography or panoramas and so on). Start trying them.

I see a lot of people going down rabbit holes they don't need to be going down. The one that comes up most often is dynamic range and noise. I see photographers trying to correct noise that wouldn't be seen at 300 dpi at any common output size they'd use. They drop into the hole thinking that "camera noise ruined my image" when that wasn't the case. If the image was truly problematic, it was for some other reason. They missed exposure, they didn't light the subject, they are trying to print too big for the gear they've got, or they're just deflecting ;~). 

The pandemic gives us time to think about these things and get ready to do something about them for when life returns more to normal and we're out doing unencumbered photography again. I'm not off in the stadia and wilds taking pictures at the moment, so I have time to think about what it is I need to get better at, spend time learning how I might do that, and even set up some practice sessions now and then to test how I'm doing. It's rarely "new gear" that comes up as I consider this. I need to better myself first. That's probably true for you, too. 

This is not to say you shouldn't consider any new gear. Sometimes the solution is in a product you need to acquire. If you want to master panoramas, for instance, how are you going to rotate around the nodal point? If you don't have the accessories to help you do that, you'll do less well than if you did. Maybe you do want to print really big but only have a 24mp camera. So, sure, a 45mp or higher camera or maybe just stitching might be the answer. 

But those "gear answers" come because you take the time to study your "photography practice." 

So, final words of advice: take the time to study your current photography practices. Are they the best they can be? Are you quick at executing them (because photos are moments in time that don't tend to repeat, so you need to be fast to catch them)? What are you really struggling with? Often times I find it's not gear but inspiration I struggle with, and you need inspiration to drive composition. 

Homework:

1. Define your photographic past. What have you actually studied? What have you practiced? What gear did you accumulate, and why?
2. Describe your photographic present. What prompts you to go out and photograph and what keeps you from doing so? What can you do photographically, and what can't you do? Where do you photograph, and why? How quick are you to respond to photographic opportunities, and can you improve that? 
3. Envision your photographic future: What's next? What do you want to accomplish that you haven't? How do you measure success versus failure? Is it gear or technique that will give you the next boost in accomplishment?              

I try as best as I can to provide the products that my site readers want, though as a one-man band sometimes you might have to wait for your request to register ;~). 

One persistent request is that I return to providing paper books. That's simply not possible with the Complete Guides any more, unfortunately. They're far too big to be done well as paperbacks. The 800-page D3/D3s/D3x Complete Guide had binding issues and didn't stand up to any abuse in reading, at all.  Moreover, it was expensive to print. My Complete Guides now average over 1000 pages each—they are, after all, complete—which doesn't translate well to paper at all. 

However, since I started providing shorter books under the "Configuring the [camera]" name, I decided to once again try offering paper versions of new books. The Configuring the Sony A1 Camera book is now available on Amazon as a paper product, if that's what you want instead of an electronic one (you can also see a preview of the first few pages there, as well).

The downloadable versions of the Configuring books will now be priced at US$19.99, while the printed ones will be at US$29.99. If you want both, you'll have to buy the downloadable from my Web site, the printed one from Amazon. I have no simple way of creating a bundle without losing money doing so. The only way I can keep these books even modestly up to date is if I don't get discounted to death in pricing. 

One thing to note: while these Configuring books look good on paper, the inside pages are in monochrome in order to keep the cost reasonable. So, the Creative Styles examples, for example, don't translate well on paper as they do in electronic form. Other than that, the printed book is the same as the downloadable one. 

Along with the Sony A1 book, I'm also making my Configuring and Using the Nikon Z fc book available this way, as well. As I produce other products that are appropriate to on-demand printing capabilities, I'll make them available this way, as well. 

I'm not sure why I have to say this, but: please note that the printed books are printed on demand. That means that Amazon does not tend to keep any in stock, and that there is usually a few day period as they put the PDF file onto their machines and create a completed book before shipping it. My own experience with that is that it runs a week to ten days from ordering before a Prime member sees the van pull up with your package. 

One persistent request I get because I spent so much time at Galen Rowell's side in the 90's is "what would Galen be using today?" 

I think that's the wrong question. Moreover, asking one person to get completely and accurately into the mindset of another is fraught with problems to start with, and becomes impossible to when trying to guess what might have changed in nearly 20 years after his death. 

There's a better question to be asking, and it's coming up over and over again with the pros that are being targeted with the Nikon Z9 and Sony A1. 

The question is "what does [fill_in_product_here] provide me that I can use effectively?" 

So let's start with those considering the Z9 and A1. Much of the group that's grappling with the idea of moving to those cameras are currently using 20mp cameras. Cameras they believe have been specifically tuned to high ISO work. Many of them are already facing a persistent and on-going problem: they need to deliver images near instantly to their clients and agencies. As in "within minutes." More pixels seems out of alignment with that need, so they're balking. Moreover, the persistent notion that per-pixel noise is the most important thing to control in low light makes them resist more pixels in the first place. 

Nikon did something with the D6 that was somewhat brilliant for these folk: JPEG Slot 1+JPEG Slot 2. Save JPEG fine Large to the first slot, JPEG basic Small to the second slot. Push the second slot in real time to your client or agency. You still retain a high quality image that can be pushed later on demand, while providing Web-worthy images quickly. Sony did something equally brilliant for these folk with the A1: scroll through marked images (whether with protect or specific star ratings). You can chimp your images between plays, mark the ones to send, and go immediately back to shooting. Later, say between quarters, quickly step through your selected ones and push just those to your client or agency. My friend and Sony Ambassador Patrick Racey-Murphy is saying that he's already sent images to his clients before the other photographers around him even get to the press room to download from their cards at halftime. 

You'll note that neither thing I just mentioned is about dynamic range, frame rate, autofocus speed, or the number of pixels the camera has. The real monster that's being tamed in both the Nikon and the Sony case is workflow. Can I use those workflow things effectively? You bet. Indeed, I want both companies to copy the best workflow ideas of each other!

Now Galen was an adventure photographer, which is to say that he climbed mountains, went hiking deep into the backcountry, toured out-of-the-way places that were Nat Geo worthy, and more. Having been on many trips with him, it was not at all unusual to put in 15-20 miles of hiking plus several thousand feet of vertical every day. Which is why he kept working towards lightening his kit. That's not to say that he didn't constantly try new gear to see if it provided him with something he wasn't already getting—he always sought to be a "best" photographic practitioner—but often heavier and bulkier gear simply didn't meet the bar he set for mobility. So often times he opted for older product rather than new product. A stripped down F4 was smaller and lighter than the unstripable F5, so he re-opted for the F4 after testing the F5 thoroughly. 

It's impossible to predict what Galen would be using today if he were still alive and active, partly because so many options now exist that are under his original bar. But I could predict that he would be evaluating whether each item he considered would be more effective for his needs than his existing gear.

One thing that keeps getting forgotten in all the tech hoopla is that professional photographers have at their core a need to make money at what they're doing. Which means that new gear needs to have something hugely compelling that makes it worth buying. And amateur photographers want to imitate or echo the pros. But not only does the camera gear itself have to allow you to do something beyond what you're doing today, you also have to spend time marketing what you can now do to potential clients (even if that's just your spouse ;~). We went through a period in digital where "number of pixels" was something that you could easily market against your not-quite-with-the-times competitors. Today, not so much, despite the bump from 20/24mp to 45/50mp.

So first and foremost in figuring out the answer to the question I posed in bold above is this: what is it you're doing?

A landscape photographer, for instance, has far different needs than a sports photographer. Since I used sports in my earlier discussion, let me next lay out some things that would make me much more effective with landscape photography:

• Stacked focus, HDR, and pixel stitching simultaneously. Yowza. I need from X feet to Y feet with acuity (focus), from dark to bright captured with accurate data, and it would be nice to pull out the photon noise and gain additional acuity with a four-step pixel stitch to erase the Bayer pattern and temper the randomness of photons. And no, I don't want to have to do lots of calculations in the field to get all the variables set right. Start focus here, end it there, start exposure here and end it there. Done; press the shutter release.
• Location recorded and keyworded. Yes, use the GPS to get the exact coordinate data, but let me speak into the microphone and dictate an IPTC location field entry (e.g. "Just off the path of the John Muir Trail looking at Devil's Postpile"). Also, let me pre-create keyword lists (e.g. John Muir Trail, hiking, etc.) and have sets (or individual keywords) applied to an image.
• Capture the missing info. If I'm using my 19mm PC-E lens, wouldn't it be nice if the tilt and shift settings were saved in EXIF? Did I use an ND, graduated ND, or circular polarizer? Yep, stuff it into the EXIF data. (And if you tell me that these are "just filters" without an electronics, then you're telling me you have no imagination about how accessories can convey information to the camera. If Nikon wonders why they don't sell many filters anymore and thinks it's because of all the third-party knockoff competition, then they only have themselves to blame.) 

Would I rather have a 45mp camera with those things or a 60mp camera without? (Do I really need to answer that question? ;~)

The problem I see is that the camera companies, in their naive engineering and marketing efforts, have conditioned us to ask the wrong questions (e.g. "do I need 24mp or 45mp?"). Yes, those are simple to describe and market because higher numbers are always better, right?  But most of the time simple constructs like that don't really speak to a clear benefit that's going to make me a more effective, productive, and successful photographer. 

So, again, the question to ask is "what does [fill_in_product_here] provide me that I can use effectively?" When I ask that question these days, If find myself coming up with a blank for many of the products that are being introduced. That doesn't make them bad products, but do I need them? No.