We all know that any DSLR or mirrorless camera can offer both manual exposure and manual focus. What I’m actually asking is how many cameras offer these as external controls like old-fashioned film cameras? The answer, depressingly, is almost none.
These days, camera makers prefer context sensitive control dials to direct exposure controls, fly-by-wire focus rather than mechanical focus rings. As a result, you don’t know the camera settings until you switch it on, and even then only when you check the screen or viewfinder.
Film camera design was so much simpler. To be specific, it made manual control simpler:
- You can see the shutter speed on a dial on the top
- The lens aperture is set via a ring on the lens
- The lens has a focus distance scale and, with prime lenses, depth of field markings too
These three things made it possible to choose your settings before putting the camera to your eye or even turning it on. How many modern cameras let you do something so basic?
Only Leica M rangefinders. That’s all I can find. And there aren’t many of us that can afford those.
But hold on, is there one more option?
Most Fujifilm cameras have a shutter speed dial, so that’s one box ticked. Most Fujinon lenses have an aperture ring – that’s another box. But where they fall down is a distance scale on the lens, dammit.
HOWEVER, I notice that a small number of first-generation Fujinon primes have a pull-back manual focus clutch that also reveals a distance scale. The scale lacks the ‘throw’ of old mechanical lenses so it’s not as accurate, but it can still be used for rough and ready ‘zone’ focussing as used by landscape and street photographers.
The bad news is that these are being phased out in favor of improved and faster-focusing second-generation primes with better optics but no focus distance scale. The only other alternative is to hope Laowa, 7artisans or some other independent lens maker steps up production of Fujifilm X-mount primes, as most Laowas are ‘dumb’ lenses with manual aperture and manual focus and just what’s needed for all-manual photography.
So in fact, finding an all-manual digital camera with proper physical dials has become very difficult indeed. No wonder modern consumers think photography is technical, when all it is really is shutter speed, aperture and focus.