Cameras for photographers, by photographers

Michael Reichmann at Luminous Landscape just wrote an essay on why cameras often have glaring design flaws. It seems that the big problem at most camera companies is that there aren’t any photographic enthusiasts working in senior engineering and product management, and they don’t consult photographers in the early stages of designing new cameras. He doesn’t name any names, but it’s easy enough to guess which few companies are the exceptions: Leica, Pentax, and Phase One. Correct me if I’m wrong.

There are two great discussions in the forums.

Does this camera case make my butt look big?

Globe-Trotter’s 16" Slim Attache ranges from £375 for the Original to £680 for the Orient. The case made for this Fujifilm X-Pro1 set costs £2569.

This is not the first camera to come in a fancy box. Contax, Leica, Konica, Nikon, Rolleiflex, Hasselblad, and others have done it before. To my knowledge, however, this is the first time the box was meant for travel, i.e., to be seen with in public. I wonder how this attache supplements a fancy camera bag.

Via PhotographyBLOG.

An Oly by Any Other Name

I have several “first” posts in progress, but this came up and all of my plans went out the window. David Riesenberg, presumably a product designer, made some 3D models of what he’d like to see from Canon’s long awaited mirrorless camera system. It is essentially a flat-top mirrorless camera designed to seamlessly accept an accessory EVF that looks like an SLR prism hump. Personally, I am not a fan of mirrorless cameras with a centrally positioned EVF, and the Leica X1-esque pop-up flash makes me cringe, but I like that he put a combined shutter speed/ISO adjustment dial on it. Even though this kind of dial wiggles a bit, unlike plain shutter speed dials, it’s still very elegant. On the other hand, noise is not a big issue on larger sensors these days, so maybe it’s not as useful as it would have been a few years ago.