As a very happy new owner of a Canon 60D, I find myself reflecting on things that I miss from past cameras I owned:
- Voigtlander Vitessa -- the look and feel. Classic. I hope that camera's still somewhere in my parent's basement, and didn't go to the great "garage sale" in the sky.
- Canon A1 -- that 'first new camera' experience
- Canon T90 -- aside from--or maybe because of--the weight, the camera felt terrific in my hand.
The T90 had a great Exposure Lock feature: when using spot metering, pressing the exposure lock multiple times would cause the camera to average those readings. This was ideal for high-contrast scenes. For example, place the metering spot on the critical highlight, press the exposure lock 3 times, then meter for the shadows, press the exposure lock once, and the exposure would be an average of those 4 readings. This was simple, intuitive, and gave the photographer great control. I hope that this feature makes it into a future release of Magic Lantern.
AA batteries. Sure, the intelligent battery in the 60D is nice, but they are expensive, require a dedicated charger, and the proprietary batteries mean you loose the convenience of being able to find batteries in just about any market or kiosk world-wide.
Eyepiece shutter. The T90 had a nifty little lever on the side of the eyepiece to close a shutter when taking long exposure shots. No need to remove the padded eyepiece cover. This was a much classier (and undoubtably more expensive) solution than the crappy piece of plastic that Canon supplies now. - T70 -- Why did I buy this anyway? Oh yeah, I needed a backup body to toss around. Nothing much to miss about this camera.
- S30 -- I miss the small size and weight. The 'stitch assist' mode for panoramas was helpful, and something I'd still like to have. Most of all, I liked the sense of 'rediscovery' of photography when I went digital (actually, this is not something that I miss now, because the 60D has brought that sense back for me in a way that the next 3 cameras on the list did not).
- S60 -- I miss the time-lapse mode -- select an interval (1-60 minutes) and the number of frames to shoot (2-100), and the stitch assist mode.
- XTi -- What do I miss? The light weight and, hmm... um.... what... Next.
- XSi -- What do I miss? The light weight and the ability to specify the number of shots to take when on self-timer (1-10). This is ideal for the ubiquitous self-portrait vacation shots and larger group portraits. Again, I hope this feature will some day make it into Magic Lantern.
Finally, I miss having aperture control on the lens. Having started with FD lenses, when I'm shooting with manual exposure I sometimes still reach for the lens itself to change the f-stop. For me, there's a cognitive disconnect in having that control on the camera body and off the lens.
So, what do you miss from the ghosts of cameras past?
