Regarding Product Reviews — Digital Camera Review Sites Almost Always Miss Critically Important Characteristics, so Look for What the Pros Have to Say

27 May 2011

After using a camera, I’m often surprised how reviewers missed obviously important pluses and minuses

I’ve concluded that most reviewers (and most photo forum contributors) are not skilled photographers and have little to no insight into what actually matters in camera design.

Having lived in rural areas for the last 10 years, I’ve been dependent the standard Internet camera review sites for information prior to my online buying decisions. I have been seriously misled three times (shame on me) by multiple reviews that all missed genuinely critical weaknesses of the three systems that I have, fortunately inexpensively, dappled in.

(Being aware of my potential for stupidity insures me against indulging it too much.)

I now ignore most reviews and camera forums and seek out instead, often hard to find, comments by professional photographers.

Part of my adjustment difficulty comes from decades of experience with medium and large format film cameras that were designed for professional use. In those days we did not need to be concerned about the invasion of time-wasting gimmickry and deliberate cheapening that has accompanied the consumerization of affordable digital SLRs.

It’s probably safe to say that digital photography has brought us immediate gratification, but often at the expense of simplicity and old-fashioned “get out of the way” design elegance.

Pros know what matters, even when they disagree about which design works best

Here’s a three-old sample from Michael Reichmann’s invaluable The Luminous Landscape of the kinds of things that matter to people who know what they’re doing with camera equipment:

When people first begin to do photography seriously they become infatuated with image quality above all else, and don't pay all that much attention to a camera's ergonomics.

In other words, how the camera comes to hand, how it feels, where the controls are placed, and how easy or hard it is to accomplish basic and sometime not so basic tasks. Part of the reason for this is that the web forums are filled with opinions about image quality but little about handling, likely because few people have enough cross-platform shooting experience to really do in-depth comparisons.

Sidebar

Interestingly, it's been my experience that when professional photographers, writers, reviewers, and photographic educators get together they rarely discuss equipment's image quality, but rather prefer chatting and bitching about features and functionality. Food for thought.

As pros know all too well, great image quality, while important, does not trump handling deficiencies.

Reichmann's abbreviated review highlights the kinds of Canon/Nikon engineering differences that matter to me. He keys on important differences that virtually no reviewer that I have read ever does.

Reichmann’s essay serves as a paradigm for how reviews should be written.

Don’t tell me that handling these cameras in store will uncover all these “secrets”

It takes months of daily use to familiarize oneself with a new camera body (or system).

Only inexperience presumes that even a few hours of rental will uncover the irritations that often plague poor designs.

“So, what about Canon and Nikon, Pete?”

Reichmann recalls a saying from the era of electronification of film cameras:

A friend once said to me that Canons are the best cameras available designed by engineers, and that Nikons are the best cameras one can buy designed by photographers.

There may well be some truth to this aphorism.

That statement certainly characterized my impression of the differences (in use) between Canon’s 1n and 1v and Nikon’s F4 and F5.

In a way, it’s comforting that Reichmann still thinks the distinction between the brands is true. Sometimes overarching classification concepts make decisions easier, provided you know which group you fall into.

In Canon’s case, I often thought that their engineers missed the idea that brilliant engineering always has to funnel itself through the abilities and requirements of the ultimate user. Canon’s computer-like approach often left me wondering how to accomplish something that was efficiently simple to do on Canon’s previous mechanical cameras, but was now either hard to remember or time-consuming to do on its electronic ones.

Not that Nikon doesn’t have its parallel stupidities. Reichmann points out a few in his review of the D3/D300.

For example, with Nikon in film days, I often had the impression that someone really stupid managed to get himself assigned to the design team, and then contrived to introduce something idiotic into the product that no one else noticed soon enough to fix. Like the far too-difficult-to-use exposure compensation lock on the F3 and the F5’s unilluminated focus spot. If I could see well enough to see the unlighted focus spot, I would not have needed autofocus.

A geezer’s lament

These small-format frustrations were part of the reason that I found mechanical Hassleblads, Mamiyas, and 8x10 view cameras so comforting to use. They got out of the way.

In those days, I could use a photographer’s knowledge, rather than having to use programmers’ ever-changing “languages-of-use” that were supposedly good for me.

The digital photography age is great, but it is proving to be expensive. Today, one needs to buy semi-professional level gear to minimize frustrations that relatively inexpensive film gear used to accomplish in its sleep.

Engineering heights may have progressed, but I am not sure that engineering elegance has not gone downhill.

PeteFree.com

Regarding Product Reviews — Digital Camera Review Sites Almost Always Miss Critically Important Characteristics, so Look for What the Pros Have to Say