Comment by jpatokal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jpatokal | Hacker News Reader

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> The bodies of modern DSLRs are jampacked with every kind of knob, control, button, dial, and dongle that you can possibly think of. ... But in practice, 95% of users aren't using 95% of these adjusters 95% of the time.

Amen. I've been casually shooting with a Nikon D70 and now a D7000 for around 15 years now. Here's an illustrated guide to every single physical control on the D7000, which isn't even a high-end camera:

http://kenrockwell.com/nikon/d7000/users-guide/controls.htm

...and for many of those I'd need to read the manual to find out what they even do (Fn? Lv?) and I struggle to find any reason I'd need to twiddle with, say, the image compression (QUAL) so urgently that it needs a dedicated shortcut button.

> But in practice, 95% of users aren't using 95% of these adjusters 95% of the time.

Not a snark: maybe 95% of users didn't need a semi-pro DSLR and should have gone with a smartphone or a point-and-shoot instead? The remaining 5% need those knobs and controls, and would be left with a less useful camera if they were removed or simplified.

I'm in that 5%, for sure. When looking for a smaller camera than my DSLRs to carry around I was tempted by the Ricoh GR and Sony RX100 series, but ultimately their lack of manual controls turned me away and I went with Fuji's X100T.

I want long lenses for taking pictures of my kids playing soccer. The phone on my camera just isn't going to work for that. Nor will point-and-shoot telephotos because they're too slow to focus.

> ...and for many of those I'd need to read the manual to find out what they even do (Fn? Lv?) and I struggle to find any reason I'd need to twiddle with, say, the image compression (QUAL) so urgently that it needs a dedicated shortcut button.

Right! Physical buttons and dials are great, but after a certain point adding new ones isn't an improvement to the interface anymore. Too many of them makes the interface overly complex and more prone to accidental adjustment. `QUAL` is a perfect example of something that belongs in a menu.

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