A dSLR that works like a film SLR?

<p>I have a Nikon D40. I hate the weird complexity of this camera. It's really more "computer" than camera. I grew up on Nikon F1, Canon A1 and cameras like that. You spent your time adjusting for great exposure and composition, not fiddling around with computer screens of endless meaningless menus and abominable buttons seemingly every place you want to hold the camera. <br>

Does anyone make a great dSLR that foregoes all the useless gee-gaws in favor of just solid performance? I'd like enough pixels to make passable 16 x 20 prints. I can't afford a $30,000 Leica. I can afford $1500.<br>

My Nikon Manual is 136 pages of fine print rubbish. I'd like a dSLR camera that needs NO MANUAL for a person who knows how to use a film camera. Anything?</p>

<p>You're over-thinking this. <br /><br />1) Reset the camera to factory defaults. Only takes a moment.<br /><br />2) Choose your ISO sensitivity, just like you'd choose the speed of the film you used to load.<br /><br />3) Choose your exposure mode - Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program, or Manual. Just like you did with any recent vintage film SLR. If you're use to older ones, just ignore that and go manual. <br /><br />4) Shoot pictures.<br /><br />5) Just like you used to do with your film, physically take the memory card to a lab's kiosk, and have them make you some prints. If you want to have a nicer, custom print made, you have all of the same options today that you had with film. And more, if you want to.<br /><br />That you consider the camera's other features to be meaningless, and the manual pages that describe them to be rubbish, suggests that you're not realizing how many variables you DID used to take into account before. When you were shooting film, was it meaningless to choose film for daylight or tungsten, or to put a compensating filter on the lens? Was text describing why, when, and how you do those things rubbish? If not, then neither is a current camera's White Balance menu and the manual pages that explain it to you. <br /><br />If you don't like the menu options that are related to focus points and focus modes, just ignore them. Put a MF lens on the body, and go.</p>

<p>Matt's comment has lots of validity, but the D40 is laid out more like a P&S than many of Nikon's other DSLRs. With a single command dial and other UI compromises, you have to dig into menus to do things in a way that the larger bodies "make simpler" if you already understand cameras.</p>

<p>But yeah, some of the complexity is necessary. Lots of folks like the OP go back and get a film camera because it makes them happy to shoot "old school" again.</p>

<p>Hi Mark,<br>

I had the same experience as you when I bought my first camera.<br>

I had always used hand-me-down SLRs -- Pentax Spotmatic and Canon FD cameras, with aperture ring and shutter speed dial. And nothing else.<br>

When I took a renewed interest in photography a few years ago, I bought an almost-new Nikon F80. It was still a 35mm SLR. But it was like nothing I had ever used before. Overwhelming. Like bits of a camera, abstracted, and grafted onto a computer. You can get used to it, but it requires new muscle memory and paying attention to different things.<br>

The advice you got re: putting the camera on Manual mode, is valid. Unfortunately, that is even less intuitive with your model of DSLR (the D40.) Because there is only one control wheel on the grip.<br>

The modern cameras I have gotten along with best have two control wheels, front and back of the grip. Because then I can have a physically seperate control for each of the aperture and shutter speed controls. I now shoot with a Pentax DSLR, and I go so far as to use the Customization features to reprogram the control wheels to put the aperture control on the front (towards the lens) and the shutter speed on the back wheel.<br>

I don't think you are alone in desiring a traditional control layout though. Leica obviously believe in it. But on most of the websites and photo groups, you will hear requests from people desiring a simple, high quality digital SLR with traditional controls. Depending on the group, people will be asking for a "digital Pentax LX" or a "digital Canon A1" or a "digital Nikon FM".</p>

<p>Joined p.n on 4/1.... ??? :-/</p>

<p>All digital cameras have reasonably complex menu systems, but I think the DSLR menu systems seem to be a bit better -- more understandable. Even the Leica M8 tends to require some thought though there are fewer options than say a high end Canon.</p>

<p>Really the only way to avoid the complexity is with film. Though even film cameras had the same effect going. The Minolta 7xi was my least favorite camera because of that complexity (and I'm a software engineer). The camera that came after, the 600si was much better, a really superb user interface.</p>

<p>I recommend with any DSLR (or DRangefinder) you study the manual once, use the camera a while, study the manual again and so on till you've learned all the options you actually need. You don't need anywhere near all of them. The complexity is there, but it can be handled.</p>

<p>I have a D40 and shoot in manual mode 80% of the time. It's really simple:<br>

- The control wheel = shutter speed<br>

- The exposure button located by the shutter release button + the control wheel = aperture<br>

- Set the Fn to control ISO, then Fn + control wheel = ISO<br>

- Turn Auto ISO off and forget the rest of the menu<br>

- If you need to make quick changes to metering, flash, AF, WB, press the bottom left button (I think it's a "zoom in" button)</p>

<p> </p>

<p>even the more recent film cameras are controlled much like current digitals. I recently got a Canon EOS A2 film camera and it was a smooth transition from my 40D. With the exception of the LCD on the back, all the controls are very similar. The shutter and aperture are set using the top LCD. So don't think that digital cameras are the first to do away with setting f-stop on the lens and shutter on the top dial, film cameras made the switch too. The fact is, all the menus and options on new digital cameras serve a purpose and can only help you to get more out of your photos. I'd learn how to use them and utilize and embrace them to progress your photography.</p>

<p>Sounds like the simple answer is "no" - there are no digital equivalents to an older style film SLR. Although I am not surprised, I am disappointed.<br>

I don't use my D50 every day. So, trying to remember 136 page manual worth of settings is a problem. Here's a kind of typical thing that happens: I take a shot, and then hit the preview button. Suddenly, the preview is in 4 x 4 thumbnails, or zoom mode, instead of a single image I wanted to see. Who knows what happened? Some button got accidentally pushed? But now I need to somehow find how to put it back to single image. Soon enough, I've pressed some buttons and suddenly I have a histogram over the image! How to get that annoyance off? More menus, endless twiddling through screen after screen. This kind of fiddling is for me, exasperating with no benefit.<br>

In terms of ergonomics software menus are always a lousy replacement for a switch. A multi-purpose button is worse than a dedicated one. I could be wrong, but turning the shutter speed dial, and turning an aperture ring are easier, more intuitive, friendlier and faster than the digital equivalent.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Even the Leicas have menus to click through. If your idea camera is a manual SLR, get a manual SLR - they work just as well as they used to, especially the newer ones that take alkaline batteries and have silicon meter cells. With your budget you can get an excellent camera body or two with a few lenses and have enough left over for one or two hundred rolls of film with processing and scanning to CD. You'll get digital photos without ever having to use anything digital.</p>

<p>Mark: the trick isn't to memorize the manual. It's to get a feel for how the people who wrote the camera's software have things organized. There is no randomness to the button pushing effects. You only have to experience, once, the fact that thumbing up and down on the rear control will walk your image display through several modes (with the histogram, with the image, info, naked, etc). Don't try to memorize what all of those are. Just scroll through until you're back to the way you like it. It's far fewer clicks than typing the word "equivalent," anyway.<br /><br />Me? I'm glad I can change ISO settings on the fly. That's a lot easier than backing out a roll of half-shot film, or carrying multiple cameras. So it takes a couple of button presses to go from ISO 200 to ISO 800. Once you've done it once, you know how. Forever after, you can do it in seconds, and have a huge leg up over that similar activity on a film body. <br /><br />The necessary complexity and experience and planning you use to have to carry in your head and express through the juggling of rolls of film is now presented as a number you can raise up and down on the camera, on the fly. Sure, it's different. But it's not a show-stopper once you've done it once.</p>

<p>"Even the Leicas have menus to click through"<br>

Funny, I just got done reading about the M9. One menu is all that is needed, and every function is a single function etc. The reviewer made direct comparisons to the overly complicated Nikon/Canon computer screens. Well, that made me laugh. You can spend $8,000 and get an elegantly simplified camera, but you can't spend $2,000 and get one! Less costs more! I love it. Everything I read about that M9 had me saying "yeah!" - until of course I got to the price - - "noooooo"<br>

I am going to try presetting my D50, and then carry some simplified cheat sheets for the few features I think I need. I am not unhappy with the pictures I get - it's acceptable although not outstanding. It's just a product that doesn't really feel right to use (for me). I never cared for those big Japanese stereo receivers with a thousand buttons on them either. I guess I like simple.</p>

<p>[[sounds like the simple answer is "no" - there are no digital equivalents to an older style film SLR. Although I am not surprised, I am disappointed.]]</p>

<p>Sounds like you didn't read anything that was written. It also sounds like you're not interested in discussion but rather are looking to project your misplaced anger. I recommend setting up your own blog. </p>

<p>I know plenty of people that have moved from film SLR to digital SLR without the slightest problems. These people were auto-mode users then and are still auto-mode users today. They have no problems using their cameras. </p>

 

<p>Rob Bernhard -<br>

Holy smokes there fella, that is one monster of an attitude!</p>

<p>Mark, I suspect that D50 would photograph blackened pots and kettles, both.</p>

<p>I went back to read some of the forum etiquette,and found this:"Rude or unhelpful posts will be deleted, and rude and unhelpful posters will be suspended from the forum."<br>

Mr. Bernhard, I assume that applies to guys with 10,000 posts just as it applies to guys with 10. So, I'm waiting here for your apology, ok?</p>

<p>Mark, it would be very risky for Nikon or Canon to attempt to emulate the simplicity of the Leica model for a digital camera or menu system. Web discussion forums seem to indicate that photographers have an insatiable appetite for more, more, more... more megapickles, more bells, more whistles.</p>

<p>A lot of folks on discussion forums will claim they want a dSLR comparable to something like a Nikon FM2N, Canon FTbn or Olympus OM-1 in simplicity - but would they actually support it with their wallets? Probably not. The handful of times I've seen major manufacturers take risks by deviating from the more-more-more paradigm, discussion forum warriors tended to shred the cameras even before the equipment was actually available to buy, based on specifications and rumors.</p>

<p>Try setting the camera on <strong>"P" </strong>for no brainer shooting. I shoot manual focus Nikkors exclusively on my D50. By simply adjusting the exposure via the histogram, I'm shooting fully manually. Which isn't much slower than matching a needle or an LED.</p>

<p><em>(Insert: 1 heavy moderator sigh here.)</em></p>

<p>Let's go easy on the n00bs on the Beginner Forum, folks. That's why we have a Beginner Forum.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>This forum is for basic questions about techniques for new photographers. Due to this, the Beginner's forum is much more tightly moderated than other Photo.net forums.Experienced photographers who can offer patient, helpful and informative replies are greatly appreciated here!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>However, it's also not the <a href="../casual-conversations-forum/">General, Let's Yack About What's Wrong With the Camera Biz Forum</a>.</p>

<p><em>(Now, where's the reset button for this danged forum...?)</em></p>

<p>Lex--<br>

Ahhh, well then, that's a good explanation I suppose. If that is what happens, then no one is going to go it alone in a different direction. It doesn't exactly explain the Leica approach though, does it?<br>

After doing a bit of digging around I discover that a similar question has been asked quite often. So, I am not the only one who prefers elegant simplicity apparently. Some expert commentators have made many mentions of the undue 'Byzantine complexity' of menu systems on cameras. So, I am comfortable that it's not "misplaced anger" - - ha ha. Misplaced memory brain cells possibly - - anger, no.</p>

 

<p>Ok, I've caused enough ruffled feathers over this. I will try a couple things mentioned here and just moveon dot org. If anyone however thinks of a camera that has the elegance of that Leica M9 for about $1500 bux though, please chime in! Until then, I'll just muddle through with a smile. Thanks fellas!</p>

<p>Hey, Mark, the digital is not so bad - you started the thread with a D40 and by the end of the same thread you already have a D50... :-)</p>

<p>@ whiggy whiggy--<br>

Ha ha...got me there. It's a D50 actually, I just checked.</p>

<p><em>"I grew up on Nikon F1, Canon A1 and cameras like that... I'd like a dSLR camera that needs NO MANUAL for a person who knows how to use a film camera." </em></p>

<p>From <a href="http://www.bythom.com/filmtodigital.htm">http://www.bythom.com/filmtodigital.htm</a> : </p>

<p><em>Forget trying to learn the complexities of the camera for a bit. Set manual exposure and manual focus and get the shooting differences as much out of the way as possible.</em></p>

<p>You know, I bought my dad a D40 for Christmas. I asked him if he's read the manual yet, or learned how to set the white balance, or use the histogram, or any of that. He said " Nope! ". He has also said, on more than one occasion, that it's the best camera he's ever owned. He's left it on factory settings and full auto mode. He seems happy as a clam at high tide.</p>

<p>Now, if I were to step into the DSLR world, I would want two control wheels. One for shutter, one for aperture. Maybe program a button+wheel for ISO and that would probably be it. I like shooting in manual mode with my F4, so I don't think outside the basic controls. Once I get really used to the camera, I would start playing with the other stuff.</p>

<p> </p>