by Apollo » Mon Aug 08, 2005 4:17 pm
Ah, think you picked up the wrong intent of my 'point and click' reference.
Although my digital compact is a fully manual multimode, it lives in auto because the functions are all reached through on-screen menus (mode/select/shuffle/select, oh don't bother!). I own what was probably the first proper multi-mode SLR (Canon A1), and can switch modes from auto to any priority or fully manual in a fraction of a second because the selector is poperly designed.
I don't think most of the folk are learning photography now, they're to busy with the megapixel race to get one up on their mates, and with all the tech-in -the-box are coming to believe it's the camera that takes the picture, and the more bells and whistles, the better the picture will be, and they're being disapponted.
I was makng a difference between shooting a large number of desired shots around the ideal you're after, and selecting the pick of crop, and just blindly firing of shot after shot randomly, without any aim, in the hope that one will be right and maybe capture the subject.
I stood beside a chap taking pictures of ferries on the Clyde a few weeks ago, he was using a top-end bridge camera with 8 MP, and was moaining about the pictures not going to be very good, because he'd learned that Minolta had just brought out a revised and upgraded model.
As you say though, it's really down to the manaufacturers trying to force things, and get people to keep upgrading their cameras, and win back the 'lost' 35 mm business.