I’m using a Sony DSC-RX100
- “make it lighter” shift button to press while holding shutter release (or call it “expose for shadows”)
- “make it darker” shift button (or “expose for highlights”)
- flash wheel: auto, off, weak, strong
- single/continous capture (“motor drive” on/off)
- movie start/movie stop
- playback mode button
- traditional menu control for playback mode
? That’s a camera with just 5 still photography controls beyond the required shutter release and zoom, yet I think it would cover most photographic situations reasonably well.
I’ll be accumulating some example photos in this album on Google+ (Picasa/Google+ seems to be having a horrible time with syncing from a folder on my computer, actually. I copy the example photos into a folder on my hard drive and then ask Picasa to push them up to the Web. If the photos have previously been sync’d into a Web album they won’t sync again.)
[Aside from the One of the real problems that I have with the camera so far is that the fill flash blows out the subjects. One of the good things about point and shoot cameras was that they used the measured distance to the subject and the known flash output capability to set flash output and/or aperture and achieve correct flash exposure. The RX100 seems to be more like an SLR and puts out flash power until sensors in the camera see sufficient light. This results in massive overexposure if the subjects aren’t in the middle of the frame (as with some SLRs).]
I use point and shoots almost exclusively for landscapes. 99% of the time I want as much depth of field as possible.
If it was my camera, it would have a control for the highlights, and one for shadows. The camera would then set the aperture, shutter speed and contrast to capture the portion of dynamic range I needed. No more messing with curves in photoshop post fact.
I’ve really liked the Canon S90 controls: Dial for EV, lens ring for ISO, button (well, quadrant of the EV dial) for flash and macro. My only wish is a quicker way to set the white balance (currently requires a menu-fiddle, though I could assign it to the dial or ring). The “nighttime” flash mode seems more immune to blowing the image out, as long as you don’t mind a ghost here or there.
I got Burt this camera as an early birthday present before we headed to Burning Man. The pictures were amazing. Especially the night (3am) shots (multi-image capture) with no flash and only EL wire, blinkies and distant flames for light. Using a flash at Burning Man at night is pretty much always useless since the dust in the air messes up the shot.
We love this camera. We are photo simpletons…
You should check out the controls on the Ricoh GR Digital cameras–these are point-and-shoots made for photographers. What most people assume is a thumb-operated zoom control (the camera has a prime lens) is in fact a prominently-placed exposure compensation adjuster.
If you use this camera, use the “standard” (std.) Picture Mode, Contrast: -3 Saturation: -3, auto white balance (AWB) adjusted one step towards the red (A1) and use a low noise-reduction, then you get the most realistic picture. (because the default values are too high contrast image, details are lost in the dark areas, and cold shades, low returns in the colors green and yellow)
Scott: Thanks for the Ricoh tip, but I don’t think that I want the same 1/3-stop exposure compensation capability from an SLR translated down to a point-and-shoot such as the Sony. If I wanted to tweak exposure in tiny increments I would carry the SLR. A button, on the other hand, that tells the camera “shadow details are important to me”, would be a lot quicker and easier to use and probably result in a better exposure (since I actually don’t want a specific exposure but rather I want the camera to render a portion of the scene in mid-tones).