2022 BCN Awards: A Look at the Camera Industry in Japan (Which Has an Impact On Worldwide Sales, Too)

[Clix Pix]

I definitely am one who prefers to have control over my images from the moment I press the shutter button to working with them afterward in post-processing/editing. That said, I will admit that I'm happy with animal/bird eye-focus and smooth, pretty accurate tracking of a moving subject, it's definitely cool, but beyond that I have no interest in going way over the top in either in-camera or post-processing involving AI, AR, HDR or anything else. Camera manufacturers and software creators can put some of that stuff in, as long as they continue to offer me the choice to not use it.

Much of the technology which has evolved over the many years that I've been shooting is definitely beneficial and welcome. I really appreciate it! At this point in my life I would not be interested in returning to the days of film, handheld meters, time spent hunched over a negative positioned in an enlarger and then more time spent gently agitating the paper back-and-forth in a tray filled with smelly chemicals, and yet more time waiting for the paper to dry...... It was fun, but also challenging. Unforgettable, too. I would guess that many of us older folks look back on our wholly manual film cameras and our darkroom days and smile fondly but also have no real compelling desire to return to that. Of course I suppose for younger people, those who have never experienced this, especially the whole darkroom thing, it seems really cool, and, yes, there IS a certain mystique to it.

I hope darkrooms never disappear entirely -- they offer a valuable and irreplaceable intimate experience with one's film images that sitting at a computer and manipulating digital or digitalized images with Photoshop or Lightroom simply cannot equal. IMHO anyone who is serious about working with film really needs to be doing it all the way, embracing the full experience, which includes time spent in a properly set up darkroom.

 

[r.harris1]

Good points. However, setting such a "animals, eye focus, tracking, spot and other metering modes, people," and "automobile" are optional on the menu. You don't have to set the camera to do any of that for you. But lest say that you have to take several photos of a person or a bird that is moving around, but still want to keep the focus point on the person plus the eyes and only have a few seconds to do it; in this case manually can be quite difficult to achieve. Some of the late DSLRs incorporate eye focus and tracking, and now perfected-are incorporates on the newer mirrorless cameras. Canon just added an option to ID and track vehicles, but I am certain that other companies will do the same for use on both still and video photography.

Every new camera out there has manual and automatic settings one can use, and so most AF/M lenses. Even the use of IS and IBIS are optional.

Yep, totally get it! The techie in me is super impressed with what can be done. To your point, being able to pair it back to just what I want is key, so having things be optional is important. I can draw on the whiz-bang stuff if I want or go about my quiet, slow and manual way as the situation or desire warrants.