Rich Trenholm
Rich Trenholm writes about digital cameras, except when he's writing about films, music and comics. He does not drink tea and never has.
Friday 28 September 2007, 4:23pm
Crappy compacts: don't patronise us
When I started my first blog, back when I could still get into 30-inch trousers, my only rule was: no ranting. So as much as I hate it when people who've sat down in comfort on the 8:11 to London Bridge push in front of people who've had to stand up for the whole journey, you won't read about it in my blog.
But Jovis H. Grud, there's something that annoys me more than people stopping abruptly on the street. I've just finished reviewing the Kodak EasyShare M853, a budget compact that fulfills the criteria of being a camera in that you can take photos with it. And that's it. That's all it does!
It takes pictures and video, it's small, and it costs less than two hours in a strip club. Sounds awesome, right?
Wrong! Not good enough, Kodak! Three words for you: optical image stabilisation. Some more words: face detection. Aperture priority. Shutter priority. 28mm wide-angle lenses. Here's two more: manual control.
The compact market is settled in a rut, involving 3x zooms and 64mm (2.5-inch) screens. If I see another compact with a 64mm screen and a 35mm equivalent lens, I swear I'm going to dropkick it off the balcony at CNET Towers (not really, Nikon, Kodak and Canon). I just feel that cameras like the M853, or the Nikon Coolpix S200 or any other no-frills compact, are a tad redundant. Yes, I know, as a camera journalist I'm in a privileged position, and yes, I'm being snobbish when I criticise these cameras, and yes, I readily acknowledge that there is a need for simple, affordable cameras.
But open the Argos catalogue and you're confronted with a wall of underwhelming cameras. They might pay the bills for the manufacturers, but they're no blinkin' fun.
Comments on this post
I want to buy a value for money (cheap) wide angle digital camera. Any ideas? Thanks.
Posted by jeffrey stephen colligan on Mon 24 December, 2007 4:29 PM
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Thank you! Finally someone comes out and says it. And sure, no frills compacts are cheap.. ish.., but some of this stuff is just a software update away. PASM modes and manual focus is not *that* hard to implement. I do not for the life of me understand why manufacturers don't include those features that wouldn't cost them much if anything to implement. It *boggles* my mind as to why the new panasonic lumix DMC-FX500, which, ok, isn't a low cost no frills compact to begin with, can not shoot RAWs. It's just a software update, surely. WHY, why ohh why is Panasonic so blind? I initially thought that they were probably trying to differentiate their models. But that makes no sense! Selling a compact point and shoot that can shoot RAW's and bundling it with a free RAW editor could act as a sort of gateway dru-- er, camera; making the user discover the benefits of shooting in RAW. give an amateur the option of manual control and I bet a certain number of users will start playing around and get creative and they'll get more into their photography and they'll want to buy a bigger and better camera.. potentially building brand loyalty. Win win situation, right?
Posted by Anonymous on Wed 4 June, 2008 6:13 PM
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