For a while now, I’ve been thinking something: mirrorless cameras are doing too much of the work for us. I thought this about cameras when the Sony a9 III was announced and even when the A1 was announced. On the phone with a Fujifilm rep speaking about it, he stated that the camera was doing all the work for us and that, technically, we didn’t even need a photographer at that point. And because photographers are essentially just pointing, clicking and shooting; he’s right. Aperture priority, which I often joke and call amateur priority, is something that does the decision making for us. Sometimes we need that. But these days, it’s done simply for convenience. This is only one of the ways that the cameras are doing all the thinking for us.
So what else am I talking about?
Eye detection. Who said that cameras always have to focus on someone’s eyes when many of the world’s most powerful portraits instead worked to have the entire body in focus? Not every portrait requires you to focus on the eye instead of the entire face.
The real-time rendering. Sometimes you’ll stay there thinking about the white balance more than anything else, and sometimes saying that you’ll fix it in post-production instead. The camera made that decision for you. Years ago, I tried teaching our former staffers to stop doing this and to instead shoot with intentionality instead of shooting like the camera is making the decision for you.
Scene detection. It was decided for you while you weren’t really deciding on what the composition would be. Scary enough, it can often detect a bird’s body instead of a person’s face. If you’ve read this site for a while, you know what I’m talking about.
You see, the cameras made the decisions for us. Combine that with social media algorithms and constantly being inspired by visual media, and we’re all making the same images with devices, algorithms, and others making the decisions for us.
So what’s the solution? Take some time away from mirrorless cameras. If someone who’s hyper deep into the tech calls you a Luddite, then know that maximum cynicism is totally the appropriate thing to call the situation.