Why can't (or won't) Canon make cameras like this anymore?

I like the new design of SLRs, the retro design is less comfortable to hold, at least for me.

jwcdds wrote in post #12800334
I prefer a camera that I can hold/grip comfortably any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Rangefinder-style cameras just aren't terribly comfortable to hold, especially if you try and mate heavier telephoto lenses on them. And rangefinders really aren't small enough to pocket anyway.

Of course, the AE-1 is an SLR, not a rangegfinder. However, I own an AE-1, and you are corect, it is nowhere as easy to grip as a modern DSLR. Also, there was practically nothing to an AE-1 other than an in-camera meter and enough circuitry to set the aperture. There is no way that you could put the functionality of a FF DSLR into the form factor of an AE-1.

EDIT: Oh, you were talking about the Leica. Sorry.

Why are you guys "Gripping" the camera? You should be cradling the lens/camera with your left hand and merely resting the camera in your right hand.

tkbslc wrote in post #12800439
The big plastic chunky cameras started in the late 80s, so it isn't like it is a digital thing.

That's a valid observation. The first rebels weren't digital at all.

But they were made with cheaper materials.

I guess I'm just ahead (or behind) the times.

Most of you seem happy with bigger. The people have spoken?

LOL. I just trashed my AE-1 after it sat on the shelf for the past 15 years. My 7D is larger but it contains many times more features including 2 processors. I would never go back although the AE-1 was a good camera for its time.

MikeFairbanks wrote in post #12800664
Most of you seem happy with bigger. The people have spoken?

I merely tolerate it. I would have bought an Olympus E420 if they weren't 2x crop sensors and they had more primes.

Although I will say that I had an older RIcoh metal m42 body for a while and it was not a small camera.

Don't forget what's under the hood of many of our plastic cameras today. It's a magnesium alloy body which probably contains more metal than in those old dinosaurs posted in the beginning of the thread.

LOL!

Magnus3D wrote in post #12800712
Don't forget what's under the hood of many of our plastic cameras today. It's a magnesium alloy body which probably contains more metal than in those old dinosaurs posted in the beginning of the thread.

/ Magnus

Is that really what they look like? Holy smokes. I like that.

Yeap, many of them do look like that under the plastic and faked leathery skin. Except for the cheaper lowend cameras such as 550D which have a plastic skeleton instead of a magnesium alloy one. That pic above shows a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV "skeleton". Pretty sweet! and it reminds me a bit of The Terminator hehe.

/ Magnus

That's what's under the hood of the 1-series, yes...

MikeFairbanks wrote in post #12800664
That's a valid observation. The first rebels weren't digital at all.

But they were made with cheaper materials.

I guess I'm just ahead (or behind) the times.

Most of you seem happy with bigger. The people have spoken?

It's not simply about bigger. It's about accommodating the technology combined with the ergonomics. My 1DIV is quite large, but it also is much easier to use with a heavy lens attached, both in portrait & landscape mode, with controls that are easy to access for lightening fast changes as I shoot, a high resolution LCD screen to view the results, a buffer that will let me shoot 100 17MP raw images without slowing down to write to a high speed media card the size of a nickle that will hold 1000+ images, with the ability to switch to HD video & back to pics at the touch of a button, with a battery that will let me fill up that memory card twice before I have to switch to the backup, etc. etc. etc. Combine all that with the fact that it's actually a modern, lighter, stronger metal alloy, & you realize rather quickly that you're comparing apples to oranges.

The change came through before digital, look at the top end nikons or say the canon 1 series. The ergonomic change already was coming through.

Didn't the change really start for Canon with the T90? IIRC the EOS650, the first of the EOS line, start the smoothed almost organic style that now seems to be found in all the modern SLR cameras?
Personally back then I shot with a Pentax ME Super, Chrome over Brass just like all the old style cameras.

Alan

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