The Most Important Feature in a New Camera

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Are you reading? Good! Such is the effectiveness of clickbait titles.

What is the most important feature in a new camera?

Is it sensor size?

Is it megapixel count?

Is it how many frames it can shoot in burst mode?

Is it the number of lens options?

Is it the number of flash options?

Is it the camera’s video capabilities?

Is it the number of card slots?

Is it the internal bandwidth of the camera?

Is it the file format of the still RAW files?

Is it the file formats available for video recording?

Is it battery life?

Is it the volume of available accessories?

Is it whether or not it has web spinners? (a check to see if you are still reading)

While these are all questions that many buyers look to and pore over spec sheets for, the answer to which of these is most important is:

NONE OF THE ABOVE

Yup, that’s the real truth.

The most important feature in a new camera (meaning a camera that is new to YOU) is how it fits in your hands and to your muscle and skeletal structure.

Can you hold the camera comfortably to your eye for multiple minutes without fatigue? Does gripping the camera create any kind of hand, wrist, arm or shoulder pain? When you bring the camera to eye, whether the viewfinder or LCD panel, is it comfortable in all ways? Can you hold the camera using a proper stable grip without awkwardness? Do the buttons that you will use most fall readily to hand? Is the camera cluttered with buttons and dials that you personally have no use for? Are the buttons too small for YOUR fingers? Can you navigate the menu system without a manual? Are the menus laid out logically or is every menu choice an exercise in frustration? Can you program the buttons to do what YOU want, and not just what the engineer thought made the most sense as a generalism?

Let’s be real. The photographic industry is in such a deep dive that crap cameras are for the greatest part already dead and gone. Certainly makers still deliver some questionable products and some are more focused on short term margins than customer joy. Fundamentally, you have to work very hard to buy a camera that is from a technical perspective “bad”.

However that “good” camera that is too heavy, or too awkward or whose layout requires your fingers to be less about a bony skeleton and more like a cephalopod’s tentacles is one that will be used less and when used, with less enthusiasm than a camera that “fits” you. One can always work to use a tool that is difficult or uncomfortable, but this is a voluntary pursuit, so why choose to volunteer to make your fun hard?

Here’s what the data tells us. Cameras that fit the user better get used more often. This means that the right camera for you may not be the most loved by a reviewer this week, or at least until the next most loved comes along.

Photography uses technical tools to create art. Art is completely subjective and if you are enjoying the process, odds are good that you will be more successful as an artist. If you think that you are a better artist through pain, feel free to hammer that railroad spike into your body, but I don’t recommend that as pain and blood loss are contraindicative to free and open thought.

Read reviews and spec sheets if that sort of thing makes you happy, but know up front, that whatever is there is going to matter a lot less than whether you find the camera easy and comfortable to use. That’s the fact neighbour. Whether you accept it, is entirely up to you.

Do you have an idea for an article, tutorial, video or podcast? Do you have an imaging question unrelated to this article? Send me an email directly at ross@thephotovideoguy.ca or post in the comments.  When you email your questions on any imaging topic, I will try to respond within a day.

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I'm Ross Chevalier, thanks for reading, watching and listening and until next time, peace.