good idea or a flop?

[JIP]

Rob said "I believe it's simply an interface issue rather than a control issue"
but that's not what was stated in the original post

A fully manual dslr:greenpbl:
Just a light meter, aperture, shutter speed, ISO (and maybe an LCD) with manual focus lenses
Aimed towards creative/artistic enthusiasts who want total control and no auto nonsense.
Why pay for setting and modes you never use?

also whats so hard about where the controls are now aperture control is actually in a more convenient place I think now and personally I thought I was the last convert to digital. Also OSO control hasn't been on a dial since probably the Canon AE-1. It sems to me if you want to pay more for a better camera why pay for more control rather than less.

 

[Don Simon]

I would probably welcome some features from old manual film cameras - like a dial to set ISO instead of having to go into menus - but I would definitely miss aperture priority. Although I've always said I prefer separate controls for shutter speed etc, in practice I've found modern fully-automated SLRs and DSLRs very easy to use after a few minutes working out where the controls are. My Pentax K100d has a whole bunch of scene modes which I have never used and never will do, but it doesn't really bother me that they're there; I simply set it to aperture priority or fully manual, and then assuming I'm using an autofocus lens I can do pretty much everything else - set shutter speed and aperture, ISO, WB, DOF preview, AE lock, bracketing, - one handed. The only thing that really bothers me is that switching between multi-segment, centre-weighted and spot metering has to be done via the menu on the left instead of the function button. But that doesn't mean I need an old-style SLR layout; it just means that modern fully-automated SLRs still need some refinement.

You suggest this hypothetical camera would be better for creative/artistic control. Modern cameras let you have pretty much all the control you need, it's just that some do it better than others. From the creative/artistic point of view, I don't think styling dSLRs after old manual film SLRs would help that much; personally I'd prefer features like significantly larger & brighter viewfinders, preferably with interchangeable screens.

 

[W.Smith]

A fully manual dslr :greenpbl:
Just a light meter, aperture, shutter speed, ISO (and maybe an LCD) with manual focus lenses
Aimed towards creative/artistic enthusiasts who want total control and no auto nonsense.
Why pay for setting and modes you never use?

Advantages of manual dslr:
-Less electronics = longer battery life + less chance of things to go wrong
-cheaper - less electronic components needed
-Smaller, lighter
-Money saved in production could be used to design a decent metal casing, no more plastic crap

If you could save some $$$ would you buy a dslr with only manual settings?
(I know it will never be made, just want to hear your opinions)

Nice pipedream, imo: there'll be so few sold that it will become prohibitively expensive, so that there'll be so few sold that it will become even more expensive . . .
So on, so forth.
To be sure: I like automation! I use Av and Tv all the time.

 

[LWW]

I'm shocked someone hasn't made a digicam in the form of a 35mm film roll that would snap into a manual SLR and replace the film.

LWW

 

[Alex_B]

fully manual works in digital, shoot raw and then do the tweaking in a decent raw converter.
however, as some said, the price would not go down considerably, since all the automatic programs and whatever you have on some digicams are 90% software, and don't contribute to production costs, only to development costs. And even there compared to sensor development and the whole capture electronics this is fairly negligible. When you buy a DSLR you mainly pay for the sensor, the shutter, the electronics to work with the sensor and for the display in some cases and for the frame. Those extra switches like the infamous direct print button at the canon DSLR don't add much extra costs.

With one exception I was told, the jog wheel on some Canon models, that does at least cost much more in production than it looks like

 

[W.Smith]

I'm shocked someone hasn't made a digicam in the form of a 35mm film roll that would snap into a manual SLR and replace the film.

Someone DID.
Well, at least 'they' claimed they did:
"E-film" sent out press releases for at least 5 years, starting round about 2000, that they had done exactly that. They even had a website with photos of a film SLR that supposedly had an "E-film" cartridge inside. Those photos were clearly (to some anyway, like me) fake 'CGI', Computer Generated Imaging. Or 'Photoshopped', if you like.
They distributed those press releases every 6 months or there-abouts as if it were a brandnew launch. And each time there were enough brandnew (on-line) photo magazine editors that thought they had a scoop and published it. Unaware that the same thing had been happening not half a year ago. (Shows you how fast the editor turn-around is at those places).
It was a merry-go-round.
Obviously the con man's ('cause that was what the "E-Film company" really was of course) goal was to get interested parties to contact him and "invest" in getting this revolutionary product to market . . .
It was a simple 'get rich quick' scheme.
Apparently this scam worked well ( = it cost a number of people a loooot of money they'd rather not talk about now!), because it was repeated over and over again, during at least 5 years.

I'm betting "Mr. E-Film" now either resides on a nice and warm Caribean island, or in a State penitentiary . . .

 

[maxbennett]

Isn't the new Panasonic Lumix camera a fully manual DSLR? I haven't looked at it too closely, but from what I remember it had no automatic functions at all. Too bad the design of it was awful, it's super short.

Edit:

The price is rediculous too... it's something like $2500 CAD for a body/lens.

 

[spiky_simon]

To be sure: I like automation! I use Av and Tv all the time.

Yup me too. I can't see the point in an all manual DSLR.