Just before I converted to digital, around five years ago, I considered a change from the already obsolete Olympus OM to an autofocus camera. I ended up with two candidates that both looked perfect, from an aesthetic as well as an ergonomic point of view. A difficult choice, so here are both:
PAWolff wrote:
I can see where you are coming from. As I wrote in the original post, a camera is just a box attached to a lens box. It is hard to make a box pretty, though it can be done.
It is true that beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder, but there are certain stylistic designs which can make a camera look nice, if not downright attractive. The rounded off corners of the Leica M8s shown above are a simple, yet elegant solution. Yes, the M8 is still a box, but it is also elegant at the same time.
While I can see where you guys are coming from - I instantly think of the geeky tourist/wannabe photographer with a large 35mm camera around their neck and a gadget bag over their shoulder - walk around with a twin lens Rolleiflex, a chrome 500C Hasselblad with waist level finder, and yes, even certain Leica's for a while and you will have plenty of complete strangers inquiring about what kiind of camera it is, commenting how cool it looks, recalling that their so and so owned one, etc. Nostalgia goes much deeper then any objectivity ever could towards the beauty of certain cameras worn.
Boxes with buttons and big ol' bumps ain't pretty. IMHO, saying a camera is beautiful or elegant is a bit like saying a hammer or electric drill can be beautiful.
That said, I see a little more aesthetic appeal in cameras that don't try to hide the fact that they're purely functional lumps of metal and plastic. For example, I've always preferred the more brutalist design of Nikon professional cams over the melted-in-microwave look of their Canon counterparts.
The Leica look just annoys the pants off me, as does most German "design". Of course, using a Leica is another story.
pipspeak wrote:
Boxes with buttons and big ol' bumps ain't pretty. IMHO, saying a camera is beautiful or elegant is a bit like saying a hammer or electric drill can be beautiful.
That's funny as I know so many fine woodworkers/artist craftsmen that would definitely find their tools beautiful - mostly classic hand tools.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
That's funny as I know so many fine woodworkers/artist craftsmen that would definitely find their tools beautiful - mostly classic hand tools.
sebboh wrote:
i have to say that i think pretty much every camera i've ever seen looks objectively ugly.
Nah there's very little objectivity about this statement, it is a bit like saying that "all houses are objectively ugly". Because other than scale there is very little difference between architecture and industrial design, they are both the applied science of combining ergonomics and usability with aesthetics. And contrary to popular belief, aesthetics and art do have objective criteria
