Photographic Wish List

I don't suppose that anyone with any real power to change things is reading this, but just in case you know someone who knows someone, here's some things I'd like to see, and perhaps you would too.

In no particular order, because I'm a photographer, not an accountant here's my list.

Canon - I'd like you to increase the pixel count to 22meg or more in the next generation 1 series camera and I'd like enough pixels that you can offer it without a fuzzy filter in front of the sensor. I'd like you to add ultrasonic cleaning while you are at it. A painless way to adjust the custom features without going through menus would be wonderful - what about a programmable button or two. I'd like the exposure index visible in the view finder so I don't shoot 400 when I meant 100. I'd like live preview and a tiltable LCD screen. What about a series of really top performing fixed focal length lenses for landscape work - they don't need to be especially fast - just really sharp - to go with the new sensor. The number of people who shoot mostly landscapes and still subjects is pretty huge, canon could easily justify it. I'd like a better lock for the electronic cable release so that I don't have to press the plug in before every shot. On Canon's consumer cameras, it is really easy to be searching for the right setting and inadverantly reset the resolution to 640X480 thus rendering your images unprintable - I have now done this with two different canon cameras, S50 and now S3IS.

Lowepro - why is it that the only way your velcro attaching bag dividers work is if all the containers are full - my 1Ds2 is heavy enough to work it's way to the bottom of the bag unless all the lens pockets are full. Shooting 4X5 I have what I find the ideal camera bag - it was a backpack with wheels on the bottom and an extendable handle - neither of which I needed, but I was able to make a couple of wooden rails for the bottom so that it could sit upright and not tip over - what a concept. The main pocket held the camera on top and the lenses underneeth - after all what use are the lenses without the camera so the camera is always out when I'm reaching for a lens. The next pocket was also full size and holds my unexposed film, the one after that almost as large holds exposed film - reducing risk of reusing an exposed holder. Two more pockets contain various camera accessories and two side pockets hold the light meter and focussing aids. Mind you, it cost me $30 and the zip has already got a sticky spot (so I bought another one to keep spare). It sits on the rails so the pack itself stays clean and dry. It sits upright so things drop in and can't fall out - unlike the lowepro which if you pick it up thinking it's already zipped...

My Epson 2000 portable hard drive is just about perfect so no need to mess with it.

I wish my Arca Swiss ball head didn't add another 4 inches of height to the tripod and I wish it didn't stick when aiming severely down or up, friction adjustments notwithstanding. One of these days I might splurge and get the reallyrightstuff large ball head.

I wish my computer had more USB and Firewire ports - I always seem to be running out and having to unplug a printer to plug in a card reader or whatever. I see some computers are coming out with more ports - eg. the new Mac Pro.

I really wish backup wasn't such a hassle. I tried online backup but photographers have so much hard disk to back up, it isn't finished by the next morning (you did realize that with cable modems, the download speed is usually great, the upload speed is always terrible and on a par to a regular phone modem). And warnings that CD's and DVD's won't last isn't helping. We need a backup medium that is very archival while also very high density - at least 100 gig per removeable cartridge. Science fiction often refers to glass cubes - I really don't care, just give us something long term, ideally hundreds of years reliability. I'm not worried about backwards compatibility - there are still companies that will happily take your information off of your 8 inch floppy drive for you - and that technology is 30 years old!

Printers - well, thats a whole conversation in itself - I think I'll save that rant for another day.