Vindication!

Here’s another shot taken with the new Fujifilm Fine Pix 3D W3 on full auto mode at the Musee Conti Wax Museum in New Orleans. This one at F3.7, 1/26 & ISO 800 shows the life sized wax figure of Louis Armstrong framed by Jazz Fest posters from 1996 and 2001 as well as other memorabilia and again. This is a great shot but you should see the 3-D version of this picture!

On June 13^th, I posted my latest thoughts on why I still don’t like digital cameras, especially full featured DSLR’s.  Well I just discovered Ken Rockwell’s “Is Slow Good, Or is Slow Bad,” blog post from June 26^th where he not only agrees with what I said but says it even better than I did.

Ken says, “It's horrible when marketing departments have loaded appliances that parade as "cameras" with so many junk features that few of us can master them well enough to take a picture.”

Wow Ken, tell us how you really feel! I agree whole heartedly and have been searching for a DSLR that works just like my SLR’s except with an electronic sensor instead of film – no luck so far.

In his post Ken seems to be struggling with his new Nikon D800 and has the following to say about this otherwise fine camera.

“On consumer electronics products like the D800, we now have 845 different options and menu items, which provide a total of over 5,439,486,960,532 different combinations of settings — of which only one is correct.”

I’m not sure about the accuracy of his math but again, I agree whole heartedly with his conclusion.

I highly recommend you check out his excellent blog at http://www.kenrockwell.com/ for an incredible amount of helpful information on both digital cameras and “real” cameras as Ken calls film cameras. Ken has only one flaw as I see it. He thinks the only two camera systems worth messing with are Nikon and Canon and his prejudices show through in his opinionated commentaries. Of course I am equally prejudiced in my preference for Pentax, go figure! 

In any case it’s good to know that I am not the only one who thinks that these new generation digital cameras are more than a little overwhelming.  Other than clinging to film we really have only two other options. Either we spend countless hours poring over manuals until we figure it all out and then constantly “fiddle” with menus before during and after our photo shoots, or as I fear more and more folks are doing, just put the thing on “Auto” and hope for the best.