Modern cameras are little technical marvels packed to the brim with interesting and useful features — some more useful than others. Here are five of the most overrated camera features.
Photographers love to drool over the most impressive and innovative camera features, and no doubt, some of them can make a huge difference in image quality or the way we work. When selecting the right gear or wondering if you should upgrade, it is important not to be fooled into thinking these features will make a bigger difference than they will. And certainly, some of the features below are useful to certain photographers or in specific scenarios, but in my opinion, they get too much press for their overall value.
1. Super High ISO Capabilities
Can you remember the last time you took a photo at ISO 3,280,000 (the maximum advertised ISO of the Nikon D6)? I know I sure can't. To be clear, I am not saying improvements in ISO performance at normal ISOs are not worthwhile. I remember when my Canon 1D Mark II used to really struggle above even ISO 400, and that was a flagship camera in its day. Nowadays, I can comfortably push my Sony a7R III to ISO 6,400 or 12,800 and get perfectly usable images (granted, the 1D Mark II used a slightly smaller APS-H sensor.) Having those extra capabilities is a huge boon to photographers in a huge variety of genres and has enabled shots that simply would not have been possible a decade ago.
This image was shot at ISO 6,400 on a camera released in 2012, and I'm perfectly happy with how it came out.
That being said, it is rare that any photographer has to push past 12,800, even in an emergency. Seven-digit ISO capabilities look impressive on paper, sure, but you should care about how a camera performs at the ISOs you will use 99% of the time, not how arbitrarily high a manufacturer allows you to set it.
2. In-Body Image Stabilization
Certainly, in-body image stabilization is highly useful to a certain set of creatives. For videographers shooting handheld, it can be a lifesaver. For certain genres, it can be highly useful as well, especially if you do a lot of handheld photography of static subjects. But that last qualifier is key: static subjects. The entire idea of in-body image stabilization is that it allows you to handhold your camera at slower shutter speeds, but if you are shooting moving subjects, you have to keep your shutter speed fast anyway. And if you are shooting static subjects and looking to keep your shutter speed slower, you will probably use a tripod anyway.
Certainly, in-body image stabilization can be useful in a variety of specific scenarios. And for ultra-high-resolution cameras, it can be very useful at standard shutter speeds. However, I see a lot of photographers obsess over it when it likely would not make that big a difference in the type of work they do.
3. Resolution
You might be getting mad at me by now. Let me assuage your anger a bit. Resolution is absolutely a highly useful tool. If you are making huge prints, it is a needed feature. Furthermore, it is a tremendously useful compositional tool, as it allows you a ton of freedom to crop as needed. In fact, the resolution of some newer camera models is so high that you can easily create multiple unique compositions from a single image.
You might be surprised by how little resolution you actually need.
The problem is that a lot of photographers overestimate how much resolution they actually need, sometimes by quite a lot. If you are generally only posting your images online and making standard-size prints and not making huge prints or cropping a ton, you might be surprised by how little resolution you can actually get away with with no discernible difference. Remember that photographers worked at resolutions around 10 megapixels for a long time, and I bet you would have a hard time noticing the difference on a screen. Remember that 10 megapixels on a 3:2 sensor is approximately 3,872 by 2,592 pixels, plenty of resolution to fill most monitors and certainly enough for any phone. Fujifilm X Series cameras are a great example of this: they are wildly popular and used by a lot of professionals, but they only top out at 26 megapixels. Furthermore, remember that higher resolutions mean more storage and longer processing times.
4. Battery Life (Nowadays)
The vast majority of modern cameras have battery life well north of 500 shots (normally much more if you are shooting in burst model,) and spare batteries generally cost around $70, somewhere around two or three percent of the cost of the body itself. First, 500 shots is quite a lot of life for a variety of scenarios, and given the proportionately cheap price of a spare battery, it is not a huge deal to buy and carry a spare — at least not to the point that it should take precedence over other features, at least in my opinion.
That being said, there are certainly scenarios and genres where you need a long battery life because you can't afford to miss a shot due to a dead battery and the environment might preclude you from being able to change them. Wedding photographers, for example, come to mind, which is why they often use grips with capacity for two batteries. But for a lot of photographers, there are more important camera features to be concerned with than whether it lasts 500 or 1,000 shots on a charge.
5. Dual Card Slots
Whoa Nelly, I am prepared for the heat on this one. Let's be clear: there are absolutely scenarios and genres where dual card slots are absolutely necessary, namely those in which a reshoot is either costly or not possible. This is why people like wedding photographers stand so firm on it. And personally, I think pros should think long and hard before they purchase a camera without dual slots. However, it is important to think about how much data loss will cost you and how much it is offset by the probability of its occurrence and what you do to minimize its impact. In other words, if you just drop a generic 128 GB card in your camera and don't copy the images to your computer until you fill it up three months later, you are taking a big risk. On the other hand, if you are a hobbyist who mostly takes a daily photo walk and you can swap out smaller cards each day and download the images in a timely manner, then is it going to be the end of the world if one afternoon's shots go missing?
Yes, there are certainly times where dual card slots are a necessity.
And that is not even getting into how reliable modern systems are. Memory card failures are a pretty rare event nowadays. Yes, any professional on a paid shoot or hobbyist shooting high-value images should certainly do everything they can to ensure the safety of their images, which includes using dual card slots. But that being said, they are not always necessary to splurge on in a higher-level camera.
Conclusion
I am not saying that any of the features mentioned above aren't useful or even necessary in some scenarios. Rather, I think they sometimes get too much emphasis compared to other features or photographers spend money on higher-level bodies that they do not necessarily need.
How do you feel about these features? Are they crucial to you or can you do without them?
No IBIS no buy from me.
6. Video.
The English language has approximately 220,000 words of which we on average use about 5,000; similarly the modern camera has a vocabulary or perhaps more aptly a bewildering array of features available that perhaps the average photographer may only use 10-20% of, what 10-20% of the processes used to obtain that picture is of course personal to the user and will vary from person to person.
IBIS, resolution and dual card slot are essential to me. I don't shoot much over 6400 ISO and I always have a spare battery.
I can agree with everything, except for the High ISO. I shoot Live Action Roleplaying (LARP), on a regular basis. Or to be more precise I shot, the current situation makes ist a ab bit difficult......
LARP basically means sport photography (fighting) in the woods, during any weather between around 8 am (depending on the day it can be good light) and 9pm (which means it's more or less fighting in the last light of the day/the dark.
I had a D700 and was only comfortable to push it to 3200, 6400 in certain situations. The D700 was my trusted camera for years. But I recently updated to an Nikon D4s. I did a few tests and I know I can get usable files at 25.600. That's a huge jump and will make my life a lot easier.
But the X-million ISO are stupid! Maybe if you are in a war zone and document war crimes, but other than that I see no reason to ever use the very, very High ISO.
super high ISO, I agree... but I'd like to have dual native ISO like in cinema cameras.
The IBIS underrated? "you will probably use a tripod anyway"? But the whole point is not having to bother with bringing a tripod. I like a lot wandering through cities at night with my little Olympus EM-10 II, and not needing to bother with a tripod because it will allow me to shoot handheld at 1/2 second or more. Tripods need to be set up, and not super convenient if your viewing point is in the middle of the street :)
Noted. IBIS is very important for amateurs.
Not sure how this is meant, but I am an amateur, with no desire to become professional. After all, Noah's ark was lone amateur's work, while the Titanic was built by a large number of professionals ;)
Besides, professional status doesn't magically reduce tripods inconveniences, and I'm sure there are plenty of settings where pros are happy to get less shaken shots in situations where tripods are not practical.
I use my camera to take photographs of Flower shows for a specialist Florist society. The shows are held indoors, the curtains are drawn as you mustn't let the Sun spoil the blooms.
There are on average 200 exhibits to photograph in 20 minutes and you can't touch the plants. You walk to the exhibits they don't come to you.
Flash photography is both frowned upon and it will over expose part of the bloom as the blooms have white centres and dark velvety outer leaves. A massive contrast is desirable to stand a chance of winning.
The photographs are then published on a website and in a year book.
IBIS means a fast prime generates a lot of keepers with little or no post processing, no IBIS means no fast prime and fewer keepers, with lots of post processing.
The photographs need to be a complete record of the show, so more than one shot per exhibit has to be taken to make sure there are none missed.
I couldn't use a tripod for this and can't crank up the ISO as the society wants good noise free pictures. I tried a monpod and discarded it after about 3 shots.
I consider myself an amateur.
Yup. This is once again a feature which is useless under ideal conditions, but which gives you more margin when conditions aren't ideal. Consider the blue butterflies I mentioned in my earlier comment--by far the best area for them I have found is 6 miles and 3,000' above the parking lot. A tripod is more weight to up the mountain and they don't sit still anyway.
I am an amateur photographer but I think I,m right in saying all you really need is ISO ,shutter speed ,and aperture .....white balance ??.....everything else seems to be bells and whistles to sell you the camera....photographers have been taking fantastic images for years and years and Iso, shutter speed and aperture have been the constant throughout.....I am a musician by trade and manufactures are constantly plying their trade with the latest and greatest synthesizers with ever more fabulous sounds...great if you want to sit in your bedroom and with one finger listen to an ever evolving soundscape but in the real world they are completely unusable sounds 😁and it always comes back to the plain and simple piano emulation 😁😁😁😁...I think the analogy works ?? 😁😁
I would agree that some of these things may not be deal-breakers, but every little feature adds up to a better camera. If the technology exists and even if one feature comes in handy once every few shoots, all are worth it.
Obviously any feature being over/underrated is completely dependent on the user. Yes, many features get hyped into the main stream and people get hung up on them, but for every weird feature there is someone out there who relies on it. The real issue here isn't crazy features, it's people deciding what they need out of a camera before deciding what they want to use it for.
Super-high ISO - when I consider those ultra high ISOs I assume it's targeted at things like law enforcement, where the image quality likely needs to be sufficient to identify a subject but any better may be overkill. If all your image needs to do is make a person identifiable, then yes those crazy ISOs may be very useful.
IBIS - Certainly a lot of people get excited about having it or not having it, but of course there's a use.
A tripod isn't always a solution even with a static subject - I wish I had IBIS last time I was shooting landscapes from a small airplane. That vibration can be a killer for sharpness.
Resolution - Definitely hyped, but printing an ultra-high resolution image really big which can be inspected up close is so much fun. I think my largest print is ~6 feet long and in a hallway so the only way to view it is from pretty close.
Battery life - I occasionally have to go 8 or more days without access to charging options and usually carry 5 batteries as a result. I would absolutely love better battery efficiency and would trade features for it.
Dual card slots - Of course those who really need it know they need it. I could get away without it, so for me it would be over-rated, but I'll bet there are plenty of wedding photographers in here who feel differently.
Again, for every feature there is a user. I think we as consumers are just conditioned to place goods into "good, better, best" and as a rule, many people buy the "best they can afford". Since cameras are often more divided by use case than "good, better, best", new buyers (and sometimes seasoned buyers) are often unsure of what they need and just spend their budget. My $0.02 for what it's worth!
They are still overrated, even if they can be useful. That’s all that was said. Many pros worked with non of these „features“ just ten yearss ago. That’s the definition of overrated.
Your argument is little more than trolling - You're arguing against progress. In extremis you're saying that everything after the daguerreotype was overrated.
Tell me where I am arguing against progress and I’ll pull out the definition of “overrated” for you.
You’re welcome
My point was that the concept of being overrated or underrated is a product of people not knowing what they really need. Things get overrated when you try to find the "best" product despite your needs. What's overrated for one person is essential for others.
I think your definition of overrated is a bit misguided - just because something can be done without new technology does not mean the technology is overrated. As an example, I can drive across the country in my car, but a horse and buggy (or walking on foot) would do it too - is my car overrated? The same is true for working professionals. New technologies that help professional photographers be more productive help them make more money. If IS increased a working professional's saleable images by 10%, they have more opportunity to make more money.
The issue is people assuming everyone has the same needs and any features above or below are over or under-rated. Believe it or not, some working professionals are somewhat specialized in what they photograph, and their camera needs match those specializations. As an example, a professional large-format landscape photographer needs a very different kit than someone photographing a basketball game. If people stopped worrying about having the best camera and focus on buying whatever suits their need, then nothing is really overrated because every feature has the hand full of people that really rely on it.
What makes it overrated is that reviewers dismiss a camera because it doesn’t have a particular feature which may or may be completely irrelevant to your needs.
That’s overrated.
Progress will be progress. Individuals deciding for or against a feature because they know what they need is what I call wisdom.
Buying a camera because you read all these reviewers who use fear as a means to help sell gear is what I call overrated features. Or stupidity. Mostly both.
Dumb article - it all depends on how you use your camera. Some of these features are critically important and some totally unimportant - DEPENDING.
sensor size is more overrated than IBIS.
The author doesn't say "useless", just "overrated". And this is a big reason camera companies are declining.
So because camera companies implementing things like IBIS into there camera's they are declining? Can you elaborate more?
Just saying that right now they're lacking really compelling new technogies to drive sales.
We may be peaking in the technology. Similar to computers. At some point the effects of new features become negligible.
For example IBIS. I‘ll take it even for architecture photography where I always will be using a tripod no matter how good the IBIS is because I‘ll be shooting the same scene over the period of 10-30mins... or more. But I‘ll have IBIS for when I‘m standing on a bridge with cars driving over. The architecture photographer will know what I‘m talking about. Essential? Nope! Good? Probably. Will I buy a new camera for it? Hell no. I‘ll have it as a welcome upgrade if my current camera breaks.
It’s good because really the whole gear thing was just getting OTT and now that all gear is good we can talk photography again like I assume people did in the 80s
In the 80s photographers only wanted to talk about the unique characteristics of all the different kinds of film.
Not buying the IBIS argument. Not all lenses have IS. Tripods are a pain sometimes. You don't always have room to set them up. Some subjects are not static, but hold relatively still long enough for a handheld shot where IBIS helps. For instance candid photos of people. You are not going to get them with a tripod, because you are calling attention to the camera when you set up the tripod. Then for many people, natural behavior goes out the window.
On dual card slots: I'm not a pro, so card failure isn't the disastrous prospect it would be if my livelihood depended on it. But I am a camera-happy tourist, so I like being able to record in raw and jpeg at the same time. The raw files come home for me to sweeten up with a little hobbyist post work. But without bringing a computer along, I can dump the jpegs into a mobile device and share them socially while I'm still away.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious flaw of IBIS obsession. A good to have but not a key criteria for buying a camera.
Pretty key for my shooting... Street, travel, animals. Just a few weeks ago I shot a bird at ISO 12800 f/5.6 and 1/60th at 600mm. No way a tripod would work. A monopod would be too slow, too.
Only options are way too high ISO or too slow shutter and hope for the best. One could argue how much IBIS is adding to the equation at such a focal length and to be fair I've not disabled it to test, but every little bit helps.
In one of your other comments I see that you shoot architecture, so I can understand it being overrated for yourself.
Congratulations 🥳 because you shoot fast moving birds at 600mm you indeed need IBIS just as I, for my specialised needs think Shift lenses are indispensable.
There are plenty of generalists and amateurs who think IBIS is absolutely indispensable because some idiot reviewer thinks a camera is crap because it doesn’t have a “flippy screen” and IBIS.
That’s the definition of “hyped”
Just musing- Has anyone mentioned “brand?” Given the extraordinary tech and quality available across the range of choices, a good image is achievable with most all cameras.
But IMHO, there's still a difference. I switched fro Sony back to Nikon mainly because of ergonomics and, to be honest, "style".
Nikon, style? Please explain.
I was wondering why you put dual card slots as overrated. But you stated it well. Doing events professionally, it's definitely a must. And a life saver. I would say high ISO is also essential and isn't high enough yet. I want cameras to see better than bats! ;-P
In-body IS???
Your given argument is for IS in general, not IBIS. That was highly disingenuous, (unless you are going to argue that in-lens IS is NOT a CAMERA feature, in which case, it is an argument of IBIS vs NO STABILISATION, and not IBIS vs ILIS).
And breath! It's only an article after all.
The 46.7 MP on my FF Z7 is perfect. I can throw on a a cropped frame lens and still have about 24 MP.
and unnecessary, over-hyped feature number Zero: Video
Video is a plague that has overtaken photography.
Cameras today are bigger, heavier, hotter, and have more complicated UIs than necessary, because they're burdened with the need to do video.
Nobody wants to carry a camera for photography and a camera for video. They want all of it in one body. Sometimes that makes sense. However sometimes the convenience leads to laziness.
You could combine a circular saw with a router but few carpenters would prefer that combination over carrying both tools.
The problem is that most will never be using both at a shoot. They have one camera doing only stills, and another doing only video, so, having it all in one camera becomes pointless.
Some will argue that they can share the same lens system, but, if two are doing still and cinema at the same shoot, they cannot use the same lenses anyway, so so much for that.
Some will argue that sometimes they do a still shoot, and other times they do a cinema shoot, so one camera, two jobs, just not simultaneously. Fine, except I used to do that, (with a dedicated video camera), and at every video gig I got, they always asked, “Do you know a good photographer?” Likewise, at many photo gigs, “Do you know a good video guy?”
I could not simultaneously shoot both, (only two hands), which meant hiring a camera guy and using two cams anyway, so it became easier to outsource the video work.
Point being, I still ended up having both gigs, and surrendering one, thus, no need for one camera which does both.
Even Northrup admits that he almost always end up using his Panasonic to do cinema, since in his videos, he is almost always using the other cameras for stills. It seems that the only time he does video with the other cameras, is when he is doing a video comparison video, or a camera review where he demonstrates the video.
So, yes, everybody, including Tony, carries one camera for video, and another for stills. The only use case are snap-shooters, who may be at Autie Myrtle's Birthday party, and decides to do a quick video. Such a person does not need a pro DSC, much less pro cinema.
I think if the camera industry were enjoying good times - and not running in panic from the IPhone - they'd diversify their lines to include purpose-built still cameras.
Likely so, but you have to convince the public at large that there is a value in a device that is just a camera. Even if that camera is a compact, like my RX100iii, you can make photos with it that you can't make with a phone.
I don't see that happening. But if you could convince people that carrying a camera and a phone beats just a phone, then increased sales of compact cameras would allow companies to make a stills only camera. But some of that diversity you mentioned will be all-in-one cameras (jacks of all trades, masters of none).
For the most part, all of the Pentax line are purpose-built DSC, with what still camera critics, —for some god-forsaken reason— call barely adequate video. They constantly knock Pentax for not having 4k video in a DSC, —seemingly forgetting what the “S” is DSC stands for— despite that, at he time when the the last Pentax flagship came out, NONE of the other brands DSC flagships had 4k video either. (4k was only seen in the less expensive cameras, or with companies who specialised in video, such as Panasonic).
However, if the next Pentax flagship has 4k video, they will complain that it is 2020, and it does not have 8k video.
I personally do not care that my DSC does not do video, (or “adequate” video, whatever that means). Like I said, I have a dedicated video camera for that reason, (which has “inadequate” still image capabilities).