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Comment by QuackyTheDuck | Hacker News Reader

> While watching her, he realised the pictures would be out of focus because of the settings. He then decided to design a camera that won't let you make a mistake. This camera is the Olympus Pen ee series.

I’m a bit surprised that the author doesn’t explain how the camera prevents out of focus photos (but mentions the auto exposure feature instead).

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It's fixed focus, it's also a "half-frame" camera (~APS-C-ish, except it's portrait because the film still runs horizontally of course), meaning half the image size compared to full-frame, so more depth of field with the same parameters. It also has a slow lens - about equivalent to a 40mm, f5.6 full-frame lens.

Looks like the camera has fixed focus. So the distance from the subject is fixed.

Ah, the good old "the plebs sometimes make mistakes so we take away their choices. For their own good!" Fun to see it somewhere else than computers.

I think it’s a little different in the analog camera world: it’s common to buy lenses or bodies with “fewer” features, since there are mechanical and image quality tradeoffs to stuffing everything into a single component.

For example, it’s common to buy a “prime” lens, i.e. one that doesn’t zoom. But you wouldn’t describe that as taking away choice; it’s an intentional choice to prioritize size and other parameters (sharper images due to fewer elements, faster apertures).

Fixed focus cameras have been around forever because they are mechanically simple, reliable, and easy to operate. The thing is that they are usually set with a short hyperfocal distance. This means that the manufacturer is not choosing where the focus is as much as putting everything in focus. This removes any opportunity for mistakes and avoid fiddling with any focus ring and concentrate on other things. The trade off is much more subtle than “manufacturing taking freedom away bad”.

There’s also always been manual focus lenses if you want, so I struggle to see where the problem is.

I don't think the analogy quite carries over. With computers there are only a few major operating systems, so the simplification of design directly reduces choice. Cameras are different. There are a vast range of bodies and lenses to combine, all creating different possible images. And people can easily understand the difference between an automatic and a manual camera, or between autofocus, manual and fixed focus. That's just one more choice.

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