Dear Camera Manufacturers: Please Stop Taking Away Photo Features

If you’ve been a photographer long enough, then you’re probably aware of all the features that cameras had a long time ago but that were taken away. Why were they removed? Well, camera manufacturers created a detriment to their own cameras. In the quest to make the perfect hybrid devices, they leaned really hard into video features — more than with still features. But the truth is that these cameras were never meant to primarily make video. Instead, brands have been making video products for years. And honestly, I wish that all the content creators would just go there instead and leave the photo features for the photographers. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then to quote comedian Kevin Hart, “You gonna learn today.”

So what was taken away from us?

Let’s start with Canon. There’s Multiple Exposure RAW Mode. The brand also typically keeps certain features like the panoramic mode to more consumer-level cameras.

Then there’s Sony. Oh lord, I’m about to go down a rabbit hole. Back when E-mount launched, there was a whole app store for Sony. You had the ability to add time-lapse mode, the pre-cursor to the Olympus/Panasonic feature known as Live Composite, a super-imposed light painting mode, touchless shutter, multiple exposures, star trails composites, beauty retouching, and more.

Something else I really miss: cameras with a top LCD screen. Those are so insanely useful, you’ve got no idea until you use them.

Thankfully, I can’t think of much that Nikon took away from us — but I do wish that they’d add more features for photographers. How about content credentials being brought back and fixed, though?

Oh, and the Creative Flash system.

Panasonic LUMIX has a top LCD screen on the S1R and S1 original cameras. And really, I’d love for those to come back along with the threaded port for me to attach things like Pocket Wizards and stuff to do remote camera triggering.

And then there’s Fujifilm: I really do hope that the X Pro 4 keeps the e-Ink screen and that they bring back an interchangeable lens rangefinder-style medium format camera. Additionally, the brand took away the classic look from many of their lenses in pursuit of trying to cater to this hybrid video crowd.

Fuji: please, everyone loved the 35mm f1.4 R for a good reason. All you had to do was give it weather sealing and everyone would’ve bought it again. The ergonomics of many of those lenses also felt nice and classic in exchange for the newer lenses, which don’t feel as classic anymore.

Notoriously, we can also remember Olympus/OM System and them taking away the pen series from us. People loved them — not everyone wants an SLR-style camera and the Pen series could’ve evolved into something else beyond just a reiteration of the higher end EM-series camera.

Folks: it’s time for cameras to become a tool for photographers again. If someone wants to shoot video, let them go use a dedicated video device. One camera doesn’t have to do everything. I can’t go ask someone using an ARRI Alexa why their cameras don’t have a hot shoe so that I can do high speed sync with them. In fact, when I did that with Black Magic, it was faced with confusion.