Focus

Every so often I try to take a look through the manual for the new camera: just out of interest, to see if I can learn anything useful: pick up some tips. There is quite a lot of it, the manual; and, like manuals tend to be nowadays, it is in pdf format, which is not so conducive for idly thumbing through. But were I ever interested enough to print it off (unlikely, given the chronically inert state of my printer), it would come to quite a hefty tome; the sort of thing that would be far too big to prop up the leg of a table unless the table were missing an entire leg.

I don't know if cameras were ever particularly simple devices: I suppose there has always been a certain degree of fiddling around with them to get a half decent picture out. But these newfangled digital contraptions seem to go to town with buttons and dials and menus: everything you could wish to adjust can be adjusted. And even dozens of features you have never dreamed of adjusting, mainly because you have not the faintest idea what they do, or why you should want to interfere with them, are laid bare before you. Clearly, there is always the fully automatic mode available to you: but you bought the camera thinking how nice it would be to get away from mindless automation, and how you would relish the opportunity to get to grips with the inner workings of this seemingly logical device in order to express your artistic cravings. But then you discover the buttons, and dials, and menus. And suddenly mindless automation seems an attractive option.