Like any product, cameras receive a sizable dose of marketing, and like any marketing, that can be... misleading.
Yesterday I covered a video by Matti Haapoja on the EOS R being the most underrated camera of 2019 (I still don't think it is). In a similar vein, today we're looking at the top five underrated camera features.
Photographer and YouTuber Mattias Burling runs through his five most underrated features of cameras. What he means by "features" in this case is essentially any attribute of a given camera, rather than functionality. For example, he raises the issue of color science which is a heavily contentious area. There are a lot of misunderstandings about colors when shooting raw, but that's a topic for another article.
My gut reaction to this question surprised me a little, and I can't tell if it's underrated or not. I know a lot of people are indifferent about it, that's for sure. So what is my answer? Electronic Viewfinder (EVF). I remember the first time I used one while at a Leica event in London and I couldn't quite believe how dismissive I was of its worth. I always knew it would be useful and I'd like it if I had it, but I didn't think for a second that it was needed. Well after shooting with EVF for over a year now, I would hate to go back. It's true it isn't imperative, but for almost every assignment I work on, every project, every shot I take for fun, the EVF improves my quality of life.
What do you think is the most underrated camera feature?
Auto Iso: yes use it all the time, Dual card slot: yes, I always have a main card which is used for 95% of shooting and a second card which is almost never used and never removed from the camera, so on the odd occasion when I have rushed out and forgot my card there is one still in the camera :-) the rest im not fussed about..
i wholeheartedly agree on the convenience of the EVF. i shot with a Nikon D200, and then D300, when i migrated to from film to digital before abandoning the hobby altogether in 2011. when i returned to photography in 2017, i picked up a Fujifilm X-T2 and quickly became attached to the benefits an EVF provides; like you, i don't mind using a dSLR but i prefer EVF because of the benefits. it's not perfect yet, but for me the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. having a WYSIWYG viewfinder is a revelation after decades of shooting through a traditional optical viewfinder.
for an original opinion, i feel ISO invariance is highly underrated. at this point, all sensors for enthusiast and pro bodies should have copper interconnects, stacked chips, backside illumination, dual gain and ISO invariance. at this point, these features should be ubiquitous and starting to show up in mid-level consumer bodies instead of being the unicorns they currently are. okay, maybe copper IC and stacked chips aren't yet at commodity prices, but the other features certainly are.