Railfan Technology > Too Technical

I recently sold my Nikon D750, and an assortment of lenses.
The gear was becoming too heavy to carry.
And having had continuing major health issues of late felt it was time to downsize.
Purchased a "bridge" camera with a different brand name, thinking
it would be easier from the carry and use aspect.
The carry aspect is good, the use not so.
Suspect the sales person saw a gullible sale and grabbed it.

The camera is very different, and the frustrating part for me
who normally can understand most technical items am stymied by
the various options and controls.

I could return the camera at a considerable financial loss which
may well happen, however has anybody else on list encountered a
similar situation?

It's probably not as bad a situation as you think. A change to a different manufacturer can often seem confusing at first because of different menu structures etc.

Can I ask what you bought?

Purchased SONY RX10 II (C$1695.00+ 13 % sales tax).

Ironically my iPhone 4 died two weeks prior; and the new iPhone 7
is also confusing to understand!

I think you've chosen a very nice camera! I haven't used a Sony personally but I'd be very surprised if, as you start to use it more, you don't get used to its specific operational details. I'm a Canon man and as i've upgraded over the years i find they're now so complex/capable that I just need to ignore a lot of what the camera can do and get used to the specifics i tend to use.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/17 13:49 by exhaustED.

My Canon 5D Mk IV came with a 600+ page manual !

Just set up you Sony using the quick start guide. ISO about 200,f8,auto white balance, AF Servo, let the shutter speed fall where it may. Start simple. Change one parameter and see what happens. then another till you get the look you want.

You could likely get some help on the Sony Forum at www.dpreview.com.

NormSchultze Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My Canon 5D Mk IV came with a 600+ page manual !
>
>
> Just set up you Sony using the quick start guide.
> ISO about 200,f8,auto white balance, AF Servo, let
> the shutter speed fall where it may. Start
> simple. Change one parameter and see what happens.
> then another till you get the look you want.
>
> You could likely get some help on the Sony Forum
> at www.dpreview.com.

Wise words/good advice....but for photographing trains i'd set the shutter speed first so you don't get blurred photos, then put the ISO about 200-400, then let the aperture setting fall where it falls. But then we all have our preferences based on what we like to photograph.

Correct! That's another way to set the camera up. BTW if you go to the dpreview site and click on reviews and the order by brand you can find the very detailed review of your camera. Should be some useful information there.

For starters, you can set the camera up as a very nice and sophisticated point n shoot ! Right now, for video especially, Sony is where it's at...this from a Canon Guy.

It seems to be happening in just about any field. Technology is advancing at a pace that us old fossils are having trouble keeping up. I'm a ham radio operator. Years ago you could pick up a friends radio and have no trouble operating it. Today you have to have the manual to know how to change frequencies.

Same thing with Cameras. When I was using film, starting 58 years ago, you could pick up just about anyone's camera and after finding the focus ring and light meter switch, you were ready to go. Today, as long as you let the camera do all the work, all you have to really do is "point and shoot." If you want to do anything else (format a memory card, set white balance, etc...) you better have the manual.

Even going from one model to another within the same brand can be challenging at times. The newer model will have strange, new options.

As another person said. Start with the most automatic options and eventually start playing with the other options. You don't need to learn them all, just the ones you feel are important to you.

John

wa4umr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems to be happening in just about any field.
> Technology is advancing at a pace that us old
> fossils are having trouble keeping up. I'm a ham
> radio operator. Years ago you could pick up a
> friends radio and have no trouble operating it.
> Today you have to have the manual to know how to
> change frequencies.
>
> Same thing with cameras. When I was using film,
> starting 58 years ago, you could pick up just
> about anyone's camera and after finding the focus
> ring and light meter switch, you were ready to go.>

And as with your self I too did my first photography 60 odd
yours ago using a late relative's Rollei. Ditto amateur radio,
the Collins and Hammerlund radios of the past were
intuitive and they all required the same skill set.

And our radios of old, were easily repaired,
unlike these newer devices which
are difficult to diagnose and yes repair.
Happy to hear I am not alone in my plight!

73

I have noticed the same thing. I set my camera at 1/250 and ISO 400 for just about everything. I also use a monopod a lot more with age.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

Key items, IMHO, are servo and shutter speed;
then use exposure compensation, and trial exposures.
I let the rest take care of themselves, given
good light conditions.

wa4umr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems to be happening in just about any field.
> Technology is advancing at a pace that us old
> fossils are having trouble keeping up.

"Advancing" is the wrong word. I'm not going to stop "us old fossils" from blaming themselves for not understanding youthful stupidity, either. You get the idea.

Taking advantage of knowledge vacuum to change how we do things is one of the biggest waste of time in technology. When we were young, we were eager to learn, because we had no wisdom and didn't know any better. The industry is taking advantage of that by changing the user interface constantly, as if designers have no idea what the best way to accomplish a task is. Let's ignore the "old fossils" who've been there and done that, and have enough wisdom to know the better way to do things. This thread is a clear example that devices like cameras have only a limited number of functions that are useful to an average user. There shouldn't be countless possibilities to use those well-defined functions. "Fancy" features should be buried in a menu somewhere, where "experts" are going to use them anyway.

Yup, "too technical" is absolutely correct. People who think they are smart are really stupid, and people who feel stupid are actually smart.

The posts in this thread precipitated my urge to pay homage to my Argus C3 loaded with a thirty-year-old roll of 36 exposure Kodak Plus-X. But, alas, I don't remember where I stored the C3, if indeed I still have it.

cchan006 ---
You said it!!

Change is made only for the sake of change.
And because the young people who are employed '
at very high wages designing these devices do
not know any better than to be overly-impressed
by the high-tech skill-sets they have learned
from been soaked i a culture that is so stupid
that it values only that very limited type of
intellectual ability that is required to design
and program these ridiculously and unnecessarily
complex high-tech devices. And those young tech
workers are being worked half to death doing all
this unneeded work. I have seen this in my own
neighborhood, which is in the heart of Silicon
Valley. It is not at all unusual for guys not
to get home until 10 or 11 at night -- and these
folks have families (Y'know -spouses and children).

And all this huge effort and time is wasted doing
things that are almost entirely unneeded -- all so
the top bosses can greedily rake in the dough we all
have no choice but to spend on these almost unusable
devices -- very few of which will last very long.

I myself can certainly be considered "an old fossil" --
hey, I can even remember WW2!! <G> -- but I have learned
a few things along the way, and some things I and other
"old fossils" have learned are:
= "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
= "Computers are great servants, but horrible masters."
= "Simplicity is a virtue."
= "The customer pays everyone's wages."

Things are so bad here in SillyCon* Valley that the
elementary school district in Menlo Park is teaching
3rd-graders to write code! Whatever happened to teaching
kids how to read and write excellent English, to understand
how our government is supposed to work, to learn how the
physcal world works (science), to learn about the arts
(for themselves as soul food, and not just because they can
boost IQ -- etc.?

*"SillyCon" m,means what it values is silly and we are all
being conned by it. My own coining.

And charlie said ti in a much shorter post. But I wanted
to expand on his theme and share what I have learned, because'
I, too, an very frustrated by how needlessly complex every
one of the electronic devices I use are. And I am not stupid.
The culture and cosciety that pushes this garbnage on us is
stupid.

No wonder knowledgeable people say it is extremely hard for
people who lvie here in Silly Con Valley to make friends.
there is an epidemic of loneliness, created by the 1% who
force every worker to do at least 2 people's jobs, and to
be on-call 24.7. This destroys both family life and communities.

This state of affairs needs to change, so we all can have time
to be human again, and can again enjoy using devices that are
easy and intuitive to use and last a long time.

[Off my soapbox! <G>]

Polite comments cheerfully accepted.

Margaret_SP_fan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
Ever since Lincoln freed the slaves we are free to choose.

> cchan006 ---
> You said it!!
>
> Change is made only for the sake of change.
> And because the young people who are employed '
> at very high wages designing these devices do
> not know any better than to be overly-impressed
> by the high-tech skill-sets they have learned
> from been soaked i a culture that is so stupid
> that it values only that very limited type of
> intellectual ability that is required to design
> and program these ridiculously and unnecessarily
> complex high-tech devices. And those young tech
> workers are being worked half to death doing all
> this unneeded work. I have seen this in my own
> neighborhood, which is in the heart of Silicon
> Valley. It is not at all unusual for guys not
> to get home until 10 or 11 at night -- and these
> folks have families (Y'know -spouses and
> children).
>
> And all this huge effort and time is wasted doing
> things that are almost entirely unneeded -- all
> so
> the top bosses can greedily rake in the dough we
> all
> have no choice but to spend on these almost
> unusable
> devices -- very few of which will last very long.
>
> I myself can certainly be considered "an old
> fossil" --
> hey, I can even remember WW2!! -- but I have
> learned
> a few things along the way, and some things I and
> other
> "old fossils" have learned are:
> = "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
> = "Computers are great servants, but horrible
> masters."
> = "Simplicity is a virtue."
> = "The customer pays everyone's wages."
>
> Things are so bad here in SillyCon* Valley that
> the
> elementary school district in Menlo Park is
> teaching
> 3rd-graders to write code! Whatever happened to
> teaching
> kids how to read and write excellent English, to
> understand
> how our government is supposed to work, to learn
> how the
> physcal world works (science), to learn about the
> arts
> (for themselves as soul food, and not just because
> they can
> boost IQ -- etc.?
>
> *"SillyCon" m,means what it values is silly and we
> are all
> being conned by it. My own coining.
>
> And charlie said ti in a much shorter post. But I
> wanted
> to expand on his theme and share what I have
> learned, because'
> I, too, an very frustrated by how needlessly
> complex every
> one of the electronic devices I use are. And I am
> not stupid.
> The culture and cosciety that pushes this garbnage
> on us is
> stupid.
>
> No wonder knowledgeable people say it is extremely
> hard for
> people who lvie here in Silly Con Valley to make
> friends.
> there is an epidemic of loneliness, created by the
> 1% who
> force every worker to do at least 2 people's jobs,
> and to
> be on-call 24.7. This destroys both family life
> and communities.
>
> This state of affairs needs to change, so we all
> can have time
> to be human again, and can again enjoy using
> devices that are
> easy and intuitive to use and last a long time.
>
>
>
> Polite comments cheerfully accepted.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

Bob, sir, I never said:
"Ever since Lincoln freed the slaves we are free to choose."
You placed your comment on my post below "> Margaret_SP_fan Wrote:",
which makes it look as though I said that, when I did not. Just getting
that cleared up, to try to avoid misleading others who might read this post.

My comment on your statement:
As a matter of fact, we are most emphatically *not*
"free to choose". What definition of "free" means a
"choice" between being employed (while being worked half
to death and having almost no free time) and being homeless?
What definition of "freedom to choose" means all "choices" are
between various degrees of unpleasant and awful? We all need
and deserve "a choice, not an echo". And we all deserve to be
treated as worthwhile human beings, not as slaves to high-tech
machines while being required to think and perform like those
machines.

And you did not choose to comment on anything else I said.
your prerogative. (Probably quite understandably did not
want to write a long essay, and wanted to keep your reply
short and simple.)

bobwilcox Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Margaret_SP_fan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> Ever since Lincoln freed the slaves we are free to
> choose.
>
> > cchan006 ---
> > You said it!!
> >
> > Change is made only for the sake of change.

SNIP ------------



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/17 10:46 by Margaret_SP_fan.

As someone in my mid fifties who works in tech, I can sympathize. What I see is far to often, sales/marketing over rides good engineering in order to sell something "new" as opposed to better.

Kind of reminds me of the advances in two way radio communications.
Analog sounded great, even with a weak signal conditions.
Then they started saying 'digital is better and the wave of the future'.
No to me digital sound like a mouth full of mush and when the signal gets weak, it just goes away.
Better??

Pat
WA5VRO
South Austin, TX

Margaret_SP_fan Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
>
> My comment on your statement:
> As a matter of fact, we are most emphatically
> *not*
> "free to choose". What definition of "free" means
> a
> "choice" between being employed (while being
> worked half
> to death and having almost no free time) and being
> homeless?
> What definition of "freedom to choose" means all
> "choices" are
> between various degrees of unpleasant and awful?

I have to respectfully disagree -- we are free to choose.
Years back, when I (in a career I was very happy with)
was told to take a two year overseas assignment "or else,"
I chose (as in free to choose) to move on.

The result was an even better career, in a much better
work environment, for the same pay, and with better
benefits.

Life is what you make of it, and work for.

NKP715 Wrote:
>
> The result was an even better career, in a much
> better
> work environment, for the same pay, and with
> better
> benefits.
>
> Life is what you make of it, and work for.

True, as the original poster made a decision.
To return the device to the place of purchase. I'll lose
some money yes, however the frustration of
the operation of said device is far greater
than the enjoyment i "should" have received from said purchase.