[clra]

Yeah, I'd definitely concede that some people are making pretty frequent use of this stuff, but I meant to suggest that if you really started looking around, you might be in the minority. Optimizing for the majority of buyers would probably involve removing a few things that most people are probably never going to use.

> But then again, this all goes to personal preference, and most users will buy a camera that they like to use, with or without many controls. I haven't seen anyone with a 5D saying "I'm not happy with total control of my camera", but I heard more people say "Damn, I wish you could change this value much faster and not go to the touchscreen"

There might be a few other options for design around this type of thing. I really like Leica's approach here for example: keep the settings that are really often needed on the body, relegate the less-frequently used features to menus, but then provide accessible custom profiles that are totally user-configurable and which can be switched between easily. After doing a few test shoots with a Leica Q, it feels like a nearly perfect compromise to me.

[iamatworknow]

>Optimizing for the majority of buyers would probably involve removing a few things that most people are probably never going to use.

You think people aren't buying cameras on the level of the 5D because there are too many buttons and knobs, and not because the market for a $2.3k US camera is small to begin with? The thing could be completely smooth and still only dedicated camera aficionados or professionals would buy it at that price.