Peter Epstein
Forum Enthusiast
First off, I've got to say I'm really quite happy with it. I'm quite confident it's the best digicam out there for me, and for many other people too. However, it's not perfect, and clearly not appropriate for everyone. Here are some things that I think could be improved, in no particular order:
1. I'd like more magnification during manual focus. Instead of a simple on/off choice in the menu, I'd like no magnification, 2x, 3x, and 4x as options.
2. Allow the manual focus ring to be used to drive the zoom when using auto-focus. Why waste such a great input device! SLR users are generally used to rings for both focus and zoom. Turning the focus ring when the switch is set to auto-focus does nothing now, so what's the harm?
3. Depth of field bracketing. Use the bracket step selected in the setup menu, and adjust the shutter speed and aperture in opposite directions (by the specified amount) to create 3 images with the same exposure but different shutter speeds/apertures. This would just be another choice along with exposure bracketing in the record menu. This would be especially nice for candid portraits. By the time you've adjusted the aperture and fired off the next shot, there's no chance the subject will have the same expression.
4. ISO 50. If possible, support a lower ISO for reduced noise. Not that the images are noisy at ISO 100, mind you, but if they could be better at ISO 50, that would be great.
5. I want the ISO to be on the jog dial like aperture, shutter speed, and exposure compensation. These are all exposure controls, so they should be grouped together. Since ISO doesn't deserve a button like exposure compensation has, this means some pretty big changes. Here is how I'd do it: Start by elimination the ISO setting from the menu. In auto mode, the ISO would always be automatic. However, in S/A/M modes, the ISO would be listed along with exposure compensation, f-stop, and shutter speed for easy access with the jog dial. It would always be manual ISO in these modes. The result is no auto ISO in manual exposure modes and no manual ISO in auto exposure modes. However, ISO becomes much more convenient to access.
6. When viewing a portion of an image in playback (zoomed in), allow the jog dial to work to switch between images. Stay at the same zoom level and the same position within the frame. This would allow you to compare a sequence of shots of the same subject to see which looks best for the critical part of the frame. This is especially useful when applied to a burst of 3 shots. Today, the jog dial only works to go between images if you're zoomed all the way out. Otherwise, it's just ignored. What's the harm in letting it function all the time? I suppose the concern is that you can't see the name of the file.
7. Playback zoom beyond 5x. Ideally, I should be able to zoom in until the pixels in the recorded image map directly to pixels on the LCD or EVF. This means the zoom limit is a function of image size.
8. Playback zoom seems sluggish even when the zoom control is pushed firmly. Not a big deal, but the camera is so zippy in other areas, this stands out. Panning could be a bit faster too.
9. Provide a way to separate the auto-focus from the shutter release button. For example, you could have a button on the left side of the lens that causes the camera to do a one-time out-focus (when switched to manual focus).
10. When using the flash as the primary light source rather than fill lighting, you generally want to stop down the lens a bit and use a somewhat faster shutter speed. The result is a dark viewfinder. It would be nice to be able to automatically brighten the viewfinder if the flash is going to fire. The goal would be to provide useful information for framing the shot, not to give any clue to the actual exposure. Since the flash will compensate for the shutter speed and aperture selected, this makes sense. In order to achieve this brighter image, the aperture would have to stay wide open until the shot was taken, so more light hits the CCD during preview. In other words, this is really a question of whether to do depth of field preview or not. That's what the menu should say: depth of field preview: on or off. I'm willing to mess with this setting when switching between flash photography (dark) and daylight photography.
11. Consider opening the aperture all theway during manual focus ring movement (while showing a magnified view). This minimizes depth of field which in turn yields more precise focus. SLRs don't preview depth of field until the user presses a button, so this change would more closely match the behavior of focus on an SLR. This means the depth of preview setting would have three choices: off, off during focus, and always on.
12. The flash popping up is quite loud. It can distract your subject. I'm not sure whether this would best be fixed by adding some kind of rubber stop, or by requiriing the user to manually pop up the flash to enable it (instead of pressing up on the D-pad).
13. Add more data to the list shown for each photo when viewing 3 at a time in playback mode. Focus distance and focal length (in 35mm equivalent) would be nice.
14. This camera has enough to brag about. Get rid of the silly "10x digital zoom" and replace it with "5x optical zoom".
With such a long list, you might think I'm not happy with the 707, but I assure you, that's not the case!--Peter Epstein
1. I'd like more magnification during manual focus. Instead of a simple on/off choice in the menu, I'd like no magnification, 2x, 3x, and 4x as options.
2. Allow the manual focus ring to be used to drive the zoom when using auto-focus. Why waste such a great input device! SLR users are generally used to rings for both focus and zoom. Turning the focus ring when the switch is set to auto-focus does nothing now, so what's the harm?
3. Depth of field bracketing. Use the bracket step selected in the setup menu, and adjust the shutter speed and aperture in opposite directions (by the specified amount) to create 3 images with the same exposure but different shutter speeds/apertures. This would just be another choice along with exposure bracketing in the record menu. This would be especially nice for candid portraits. By the time you've adjusted the aperture and fired off the next shot, there's no chance the subject will have the same expression.
4. ISO 50. If possible, support a lower ISO for reduced noise. Not that the images are noisy at ISO 100, mind you, but if they could be better at ISO 50, that would be great.
5. I want the ISO to be on the jog dial like aperture, shutter speed, and exposure compensation. These are all exposure controls, so they should be grouped together. Since ISO doesn't deserve a button like exposure compensation has, this means some pretty big changes. Here is how I'd do it: Start by elimination the ISO setting from the menu. In auto mode, the ISO would always be automatic. However, in S/A/M modes, the ISO would be listed along with exposure compensation, f-stop, and shutter speed for easy access with the jog dial. It would always be manual ISO in these modes. The result is no auto ISO in manual exposure modes and no manual ISO in auto exposure modes. However, ISO becomes much more convenient to access.
6. When viewing a portion of an image in playback (zoomed in), allow the jog dial to work to switch between images. Stay at the same zoom level and the same position within the frame. This would allow you to compare a sequence of shots of the same subject to see which looks best for the critical part of the frame. This is especially useful when applied to a burst of 3 shots. Today, the jog dial only works to go between images if you're zoomed all the way out. Otherwise, it's just ignored. What's the harm in letting it function all the time? I suppose the concern is that you can't see the name of the file.
7. Playback zoom beyond 5x. Ideally, I should be able to zoom in until the pixels in the recorded image map directly to pixels on the LCD or EVF. This means the zoom limit is a function of image size.
8. Playback zoom seems sluggish even when the zoom control is pushed firmly. Not a big deal, but the camera is so zippy in other areas, this stands out. Panning could be a bit faster too.
9. Provide a way to separate the auto-focus from the shutter release button. For example, you could have a button on the left side of the lens that causes the camera to do a one-time out-focus (when switched to manual focus).
10. When using the flash as the primary light source rather than fill lighting, you generally want to stop down the lens a bit and use a somewhat faster shutter speed. The result is a dark viewfinder. It would be nice to be able to automatically brighten the viewfinder if the flash is going to fire. The goal would be to provide useful information for framing the shot, not to give any clue to the actual exposure. Since the flash will compensate for the shutter speed and aperture selected, this makes sense. In order to achieve this brighter image, the aperture would have to stay wide open until the shot was taken, so more light hits the CCD during preview. In other words, this is really a question of whether to do depth of field preview or not. That's what the menu should say: depth of field preview: on or off. I'm willing to mess with this setting when switching between flash photography (dark) and daylight photography.
11. Consider opening the aperture all theway during manual focus ring movement (while showing a magnified view). This minimizes depth of field which in turn yields more precise focus. SLRs don't preview depth of field until the user presses a button, so this change would more closely match the behavior of focus on an SLR. This means the depth of preview setting would have three choices: off, off during focus, and always on.
12. The flash popping up is quite loud. It can distract your subject. I'm not sure whether this would best be fixed by adding some kind of rubber stop, or by requiriing the user to manually pop up the flash to enable it (instead of pressing up on the D-pad).
13. Add more data to the list shown for each photo when viewing 3 at a time in playback mode. Focus distance and focal length (in 35mm equivalent) would be nice.
14. This camera has enough to brag about. Get rid of the silly "10x digital zoom" and replace it with "5x optical zoom".
With such a long list, you might think I'm not happy with the 707, but I assure you, that's not the case!--Peter Epstein
Rant over. 1200 pitchas later I am still amazed at the image quality of this camera!