PetaPixel published an article entitled If You Think ‘Cameras Have Gotten Boring’ You’re Looking at Photography All Wrong, and I’m not so much interested in talking about that article in particular as I am of the idea of why new cameras might seem boring. There are probably a thousand different ways to look at it, and they’re likely all legitimate—I’m not suggesting that my explanation is better, it’s simply my thoughts and opinions. You might agree or disagree, and that’s perfectly ok. So, why do new cameras seem boring to some people?
I read a book last year, entitled David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell, that was quite fascinating. I’m not a mathematician by any stretch, and I’m certainly not a statistician. For those who haven’t read the book, Malcolm talks a lot about the inverted-U curve (that is to say, an upside-down U). There’s a common pattern found everywhere (that’s often ignored) where something goes up a little, then up steeply before it begins to flattens out as it nears the peak, followed by a slow decline, then a steep decline. Can you picture the upside-down U?
Above: A short excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath from Amazon’s website. Seriously, read the book if you haven’t yet done so.
Let’s take a topic like autofocus, which a lot of people talk about in the Fujifilm world, but much less so outside of that. Photographers who use Sony cameras, for example, don’t discuss AF, except to occasionally remind everyone else just how good it is. In the PetaPixel article, the author states, “Sony managed to… improve processing for better autofocus….” Do Sony photographers care? If their AF is already super-duper awesome amazing, does it matter that it just got a hair better? I’m sure that 99%+ of Sony users wouldn’t be able to distinguish a difference, and only a tiny fraction of a percent of users would note that it makes a real, practical difference to their photography. While the improved processing for better autofocus may have been a substantial technical feat, for most people who use the gear, it’s inclusion or exclusion doesn’t matter in the least.
The reason why it doesn’t matter is that autofocus on Sony cameras (and some other brands) is near the peak of the inverted-U curve. Each improvement has less-and-less-and-less of a practical benefit to the users, who already find it more than good enough for each and every situation. In some circumstances, AF was prioritized to the detriment of image quality. If autofocus is already amazingly incredible beyond what you even need, any improvements will seem boring. They’re more gee-whiz than anything else. It’s like the famous line from The Incredibles, spoken by the villain: “And when everyone’s super, no one will be.”
With Fujifilm, there is some room for improvement. Fujifilm’s AF isn’t trash like some have hyperbolically said, but it isn’t peak like Sony’s. Fujifilm’s AF is more than good enough for most photographers; however, it is occasionally less than ideal for some situations. If Fujifilm “managed to improve processing for better autofocus” just like Sony did, it would not be perceived as boring because Fujifilm is not at the peak of the inverted-U. The improvements would make a real, practical difference to a larger percentage of the users. But, with each improvement, they inch closer to the peak, and eventually they’ll reach it (a bet some will still complain, though).
I think digital photography technology is near the peak of inverted-U curves in most categories. This means it’s an amazing time to be a photographer. We should have a deep appreciation for just how fortunate we are to have access to the gear we have. At the same time, camera advancements are easy to take for granted. An improvement that a team of experts worked tirelessly on for years might seem ho-hum, because the usefulness of it is minor for a small percentage of people, and is otherwise unnoticeable. That’s just the way it is at the peak.
New cameras aren’t boring because they’re boring; they’re boring because they’re so good they do everything we need them to and more. They’re so good that our expectations have become incredibly high, making it more difficult to wow us. And, when you’re at the peak of an inverted-U, it’s easy to step a little beyond it. Take a step forward, and you take a step down. For instance, Sony’s new Dual Gain Output technology increases the dynamic range at low ISO when using the mechanical shutter, but can give a lower dynamic range when using the electronic shutter than cameras without this technology—a step forward, but also a small step down.
I’m not picking on Sony, they were just the primary subject of the PetaPixel article. Actually, I’m pointing out that they’ve managed to get to the peak of inverted-U curves almost across the board, which is an amazing feat. It puts them in a tough position where advancements seem boring to their customers. Some areas where they’re not at or near the peak of the curve are JPEG output, color science, and stylish camera body design. If they make improvements in those areas, they’re less likely to be perceived as boring. For Fujifilm, they’re near the peak in those areas, but not in some others. In my opinion, camera manufacturers should self-identify where they are on various inverted-U curves, and put more efforts where they’re not at or near the peak, and less effort where they’ve already achieved greatness.
A long way to go yet.
Motorised mount, controlled from the camera body via an as yet unspecified interface standard. Maybe military tech.
All to frame stunning images of Hobbys hawking for dragonflies or Daubenton’s bats in crepuscular lighting, hunting over water.
Technology, absolutely.
Craft, in managing the technology, definitely.
Art, in the choice of conditions and venue, maybe. Not my thing.
For myself who barely knows how to switch up to AF. Who goes from macro bellows rigs, thru my manual Zeiss and Voigtlander glass back to bellows mounted long stuff from Leitz, Novoflex, Schneider and Fujinon it is all a bit like watching a flea circus.
I spent my first decade using manual lenses on fully manual cameras. My first DSLR was like learning photography all over again. The AF seemed amazing to me at that time (I’m sure it is beyond “terrible” by today’s standards…), but I was more comfortable manually focusing, so I tended to do that. I don’t manual focus nearly as much anymore, but I do enjoy using vintage lenses from time-to-time, which makes me feel spoiled by the AF… and I think: I should practice this more. Thanks for the comment!
Thanks for the acknowledgement.
Over the years, I partially trust Nikon. I also like the way the T5 locks focus with my Nikon 100-300mm, like locking on a missile. Not fast, but accurate.
Never trusted the Canon approach, 3 out of 5 will be good, despite the speed.
Bottom line, my headset is still from my dad and plates.
You have one shot. If you can’t get it 100%, rechecked, in the time, don’t waste the plate.
“One shot, one kill.” Will never change.
An aside. If the press were sent off to an incident and they missed it. Out came the cash to re-stage it!
Best Rgds.
Very good article Ritchie.
And I relate to the post of Fujirumors on the Sony’s new Dual Gain Output technology.
Indeed photography tech is incredible / amazing nowadays. Still ‘Wow’on many parts for me coming film and older film and digital Nikon camera (which were top of their class at the time) + the 10 years journey with Fujifilm. But indeed might very soon become ‘boring’ in a way that marketing will try like they did in the past to make it less boring (I remember for example APS film when it came…).
Fortunately Fujifilm as still room indeed to grow, especially on AF side (not a big concern for me either though). But I can understand others concerning.
Fujirumors put it very well with the experience of Mattia Campos. Very relevant of where Fujilm is sitting now tech and image quality now. So reaching steadily the top of the inverting U but also changing the market habits. Which is super great.
I was happy to read this article and Mattia Campos’ experience with Fujifilm.
So the journey with Fujifilm will be for some time not boring at all! That for certain!
Thought gen V is after 10 years of hard efforts more than pretty cool, and good enough for me in every part.
Hence, if gen 6 do not provide significant improvements (AF, but also sensor – dynamic range – and processing wise, aka more speedy but still less consuming in energy giving better battery life with the current batteries we have, more IBIS system less and less bigger, the organic sensor tech,…), well it might be coming ‘boring’, and I’m right now thinking hard and twice, having transitionned to gen 5 for many tech reasons, IF I will migrate to a gen 6 camera (X-Pro 4, or X-T6) or not IF something truly innovative is not put in this gen 6, more so if gen 6 will be simple a small improvement on gen 5.
Fujifilm stated many times that we will way for a big change/ improvement in gen 6.
I hope this the engineer voice and the marketing one.
We shall see, and there will be a lot of debate on that matter for sure.
Though, I see even with a gen 6 coming about with little improvements and interesting second path: Fujifilm did super great in putting gen 4 sensor with gen 5 processor! Gen 5 processor gave a very serious boost in performance and capabilities (+ bringing all the goodies like film simulations) on gen 4 sensor, and with a lesser ownership cost.
Hence with gen 6 coming, which might or might not be ‘boring’, a new camera with a gen 5 sensor combined with gen 6 processor might be not boring at all and be worth the buy. Along with IBIS continuing improvements and more so size reduction.
Let’s see what Fujifilm engineers are and will cook for us.
I hope too Fujufilm will continue on the path of 1″ sensor and bring us at last a compact and super compact camera with present day tech. That will be definitely not be boring at all for me! And be an immediate buy along many others who like me waited extra very long (despite the ‘Nay’ vote on Fujirumors which might not be anymore very representative…).
Not very many people call Fujifilm’s cameras boring, despite the AF not being “class leading” or whatever. If you were to take a poll of which camera maker is the most exciting, Fujifilm would likely rank at or near the very top. That won’t last forever, I’m pretty sure, but for now, it’s an exciting time to be a photographer, especially one with a Fujifilm camera….
I concur fully with you Ritchie. Exiting time to be a Fujifilm photographer to say the least 😉
Happy Christmas 🎄
Merry Christmas!
I don’t think photography would be particularly fun if everything just worked perfectly. If the camera always nailed focus, if colors were always “right,” and if there was never anything to think about or adjust. At that point, it easily turns into just taking pictures without really being present in the process.
When I got my Fujifilm X-T1 with the Fuji 35mm f/1.4 when it was released, I truly enjoyed having to set everything myself, and as we all know, the 35mm f/1.4 isn’t exactly fast focusing. The same goes for the X-T30 first generation. Both cameras have their limitations, but that’s exactly what makes them feel alive to me. They ask something of me as a user. I still own both of them, and together with the X100VI, they are perfect for me, precisely because they aren’t perfect.
And I think this also helps explain why we’re seeing more and more people returning to film photography. Film slows you down. It introduces uncertainty, limitations, and consequences. You can’t instantly check the result, you can’t fix everything afterward, and every frame matters a little more. That imperfection seems to be something many photographers are actively seeking again.
When everything becomes extremely good, we start to miss the imperfect. The slower pace. The small obstacles that force us to think, choose, and engage more deeply with what we’re doing.
For me, photography isn’t about removing every obstacle. It’s about having something to work with and something to work against.
Disparate things here. One obvious and one actually important.
You clearly revel in there being craft in your process. Part of “achievement and satisfaction”.
For many, the craft is all. Being a racing driver or pilot, is nearly all craft. Same word in French.
I often like my photographs though only the client has to.
Art, I think not but certainly a form of Journalism.
Analogue can be a secure loop, especially if self processed. The antithesis of a disreputable night out, posting everything into the permanence of the ether, never pondering the desirability of such action.
The “but you did it mum” or being shewn evidence at interview, may haunt in twenty years time.
Note the trend for analogue social events, single use cameras, gifted.
No electronic process is ever secure, the more capable our technical marvels, the greater the vulnerability to interference.
We thus have no concept nor control on the behaviour of bad actors here.
No directors say, “and how secure is this?”, only the military ask..
Commerce just needs to beat rivals to market at the target price point and hang the consequences.
Security improvements may come with the firmware revisions.
Maybe some Japanese and German exceptions.
Best Rgds.
I agree with this. Imperfections. Obstacles. Delays. These are all good things, if we allow them to be. Limitlessness is an enemy of art; limitations are essential to the creation of art. Thank you for your comment!
You seem to be suggesting, art requires a mastery of a related craft. Usually, the case but set in stone!
Interesting article. I agree with the U-curve concept. Aside from professional photographers, where the right camera sometimes makes the difference (failing to capture the moment of exchanging rings at a wedding can impact one’s reputation and therefore one’s career), I believe that for all other enthusiasts, innovative technology is more of an excuse to treat themselves and “pat themselves on the back,” even if deep down we know that “wearing an Omega Sea Master watch doesn’t make us James Bond.” Just yesterday I was reading an old article by a professional who indicated that the Fuji X-E2 was more than suitable for professional use, to the point that he abandoned his Nikon DSLR. These days I see a lot of young YouTubers/influencers criticizing the X-T5 or X-E5 because their AF performance is poor, but then when you look at their photos you realize that photography is something else entirely. Oliviero Toscani was right: there are “photographers” for whom the medium doesn’t matter much (they even use old Polaroids) and then there are all the others: the “clickers”. We probably need a U-curve for each target market.
PS: So I took my old Nikon F301 with its 50mm lens out of the closet, loaded it with B&W film, took 24 economical shots (it worked right away after 20 years of sitting still!), developed them with the old Tank, and scanned them. The result was my usual very mediocre images, but at least I still remember how to develop a negative, and I had fun.
It’s a fun exercise to look at reviews of “old” gear from six, seven (some kid is going crazy right now), eight, etc., etc., years ago, and read the glowing praise. Even if you don’t own that gear, just think about how much better the latest iterations are. For some reason our expectations and perspectives have shifted a bit, and what once we thought was amazing, somehow is no longer “good enough.”
Great exercise with your old Nikon F301!
I dunno. I feel like that inverted-U stuff is hogwash. But maybe that’s just a math thing. This is a parabola, with hard stops at 0. Doesn’t seem accurate to put hard stops on things. Reality feels much more asymptotic, approaching but never reaching a value. I recall one time when I was teaching a Probability class as a grad student, and I had everyone report back the number of eggs they had in the fridge. Most were under a dozen, as you might imagine, but there was one answer of 36 or so. The house was where a bunch of athletes lived, and they together ate and bought eggs in prodigious quantity. Sure, that’s an outlier and unorthodox situation, but that’s also LIFE. Outliers happen, and this inverted-U with it’s hard intersections doesn’t begin to approach that.
If you want to go Pareto with this, I’ve got more sympathy. Something more probabilistic doesn’t seem to feel as proscriptive and limiting. But that’s going more into philosophy of statistics. Are parameters and distributions “real” beyond our observations, or do we just have data that trends a certain way?
//
As a core, I do think there’s a fair claim that most cameras do very well what most people need, and the last 5%, 10% of the cameras capacity are beyond what most folks need. So improving that doesn’t really FEEL that huge to most folks. Combine with inflation and tariffs, and it feels like prices are going up fast for improvements most folks don’t need, and I can understand feeling underwhelmed by each iteration.
That said, I do think there are potential quantum leaps in photography that aren’t practical. My earliest SD card for my first digital camera wouldn’t hold ONE raw file from a modern digital camera. A Fuji X-series camera is going to shoot 14-bit color, GFX can go to 16-bit. That could be higher (although the file sizes get even larger), but the screens we use for devices probably can’t really show them. Most folks probably can’t print it, either. Look at something like the Sigma BF, which has higher dynamic range JPEGs. Again, not all screens can display the theoretical dynamic range within camera files–screens clip faster than the sensors and camera files. With video, 10-bit 4:2:2 is very good, but clearly it could reach up closer to what photographic color can reach. But there’s also little practical reason for it to happen. Almost surely, actual megapixel counts could get a lot higher. Sensor technology can probably include more megapixels, but there are probably already more than most folks can reasonably use, and the computing power of internal processors in cameras is no doubt even more strained. There’s little point.
I guess that’s just another way of saying I don’t think there’s an actual, real, hard upper limit. But are we near the edge of the practical upper limit, given the current world? Yeah, probably.
Malcolm Gladwell also has a book about Outliers (that’s the name, it’s also a good read).
I think there’s the technical inverted-U, and the practical inverted-U; sometimes they overlap, and sometimes they don’t. For example, AF technology might only be 25% of the way towards what is technically possible, but if it’s already beyond good enough for 99.99% of photographers, then that last 75% is nearly meaningless. Of course, there are paradigm shifts that happen rarely-yet-occasionally which shake everything up (the outliers…).
Thanks for the input!
I tend to think about these issues in terms of the “three differences”: measurable difference, visible difference, and significant difference. Measurable is a performance difference you can measure (duh): sensor A has a given value of RMS noise, sensor B has another. Visible is a difference you can actually see in a photo if you look at A and B side by side. Significant is a difference that will make the photo viable, or not. On top of it you have to layer some definition of “most of the times” and “for what I do” (or “for what most people do”). In general, improvements that are not significant most of the times for what one does should be relegated at most to the “nice to have” bucket and NOT something driving your choices. For instance: going from 10 to 11 stops of DR will NOT be significant for me (I would argue, for most people) unless in a tiny number of niche cases. Where significant means: I would not take or reject the photo with the lesser performance.
Modern cameras are not boring, the boredom comes from obsessing on marginal performance details that will not give you images you would otherwise lose. The problem Is the unreasonable expectation.
Greets,
My parameters are simpler. Can you go 4ft x 5ft or do you still have to settle for less.
Back when, going this size with a mirrored camera was in itself a challenge.
Vibration has always been the death of image quality.
Go bigger or photographing cookery, use a GX or a ‘Blad. (Whisper, sheet film.)
Rgds.
Malcolm Hayward.
Of the “three differences” you mention, a new camera with a “significant difference” is quite rare, but I think the expectation that too many people have is that each new release should be in this category. Most releases fall in the “measurable difference” category where something can be stated as improved on-paper, but in practical reality, there’s no noticeable difference “most of the time” and “for what most people do”. So perhaps it isn’t boredom so much as it is disappointments from unreasonable expectations. Thanks for the input!