Firmware bloat

[AbbeyFoto]

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Hands up I have too much kit and don't spend enough time doing serious photography. Well that has suited my personal circumstances. I do hope to reverse that balance. One thing is becoming apparent, many interesting modern cameras suffer from Firmware bloat. Yesterday I went to a 5 hour course on using a leading brand of DSLR. I learnt a good deal but I became more aware of my lack of understanding of the vast array of options available on modern DSLRs. Hopefully my use of said DSLR will improve but should I need to attend a 5 hour course to scratch the surface of this system? At the same time, I was studying the Fuji X100. I found the dpreview analysis very helpful but I left thinking the reported excellence of the optical finder, lens, sensor and jpeg processing was hampered by firmware bloat and ill-thought out bloat at that.

 

I am sure I could learn to be a better user of my Leica digital equipment (M and DMR) but I have no sense of Firmware bloat. I do hope Leica continue in this direction. Do you agree?

[NZDavid]

Chris, thanks for this and you are absolutely right: Firmware, software, computerware in general is decidedly bloated. It's over-complex and laden with features you will never need. Great fun for computer programmers, but does little to produce better pictures. Rather than learning about the myriad of program settings on their camera, most photographers would be better served by studying composition and going out shooting!

[lars_bergquist]

We are waiting for the first game apps for popular cameras. Who'll be first? Canon, Nikon, Panasonic?

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

[FlorianM]

True enough! On the bright side, when I find something on a new camera I either don't understand or that seems frivolous, I leave it on AUTO or OFF and forget about it. I go out and take pictures

[kdriceman]

It sure seems like a lot of bloat, but all of these high end cameras have fully manual options, you can always just set it on M and use it. They are also designed to meet the needs of many, many photographers, so they have to have many, many options. In my case, I shoot a lot of sports in variable light and having a camera and long lens with good matrix metering, that can quickly and accurately autofocus and track and can shoot 8 fps results in more usable shots which results in more money. It takes some firmware and menu options to provide that.

 

On the other hand, when I do street shots and most portraits I use my M9, manual mode works perfectly most of the time.

[phancj]

Personally there cannot be real bloat. Users have a choice which functions to use.

 

The caveat is for a small camera best to keep it simple not too many buttons, customization of menus should be a mainstay of all camera software so users can decide what menus to be in the camera and perhaps even the style.

 

For larger DSLRs the abundance of buttons on its already large body can be very useful, provided they are placed strategically. Of course whether they are strategic or not is again linked to personal preference.

 

We see mobile phone software, touch screen appearing on cams, I am certain other aspects including customization of menus, etc will be filtered up as well.

 

I like the simplicity of my X1, but I also like the full control at my fingertips on the Nikon D800.

 

CJ