Now Where The Heck Did I Put That?

I do like digital cameras and the changes that have been made to the way pictures are processed. I've as much nostalgia as the next old coot for the days of the 4 x 5 sheet film holder or the 120 roll of film, but I am realistic about the way the new processes allow me to create and communicate faster. I'd never have had a daily readership in the days when you needed to print broadsheets with a hand-press and do the woodcuts for the illustrations... But I also realise that the modern digital camera has some flaws. These are not connected with faulty sensors, oil on the shutter curtains, or DSLR mirrors falling off their mountings...that's minor stuff compared to the real menace; the programmable function button. Pick up any DSLR or mirror-less camera these days and you will find that whichever manufacturer has designed it, they have included a raft of extra buttons on the outside of the body. These can be grouped around the major controls or scattered over the front and back panels. If the LCD screens are articulated or unusually large, the buttons may be displaced into very strange positions. Strangeness continues with the ability that is built-in to change these buttons. Lots of makers let you shift what the button is going to do through any number of adjustments...supposedly to make it easier for you to do exactly what you want with the camera. But therein lies the hidden problem. You need to remember what exactly you programmed the darned things for. The whole thing hinges upon your own memory, rather than that of the camera. If you are of a certain age, and I am, you can lose change, car keys, books, papers, bags, and sunglasses anywhere and all the time. We are debarred from serving in the fire department because we are likely to forget where the fire engines are, let alone the fire plugs. We do remember things eventually, but it is generally at 2:00 AM...asking us to remember what Fn button No.7 is this week is like asking us to play Twenty Questions and only having fourteen answers. This was not a problem in the film era. There were less buttons and they never changed their function. Okay...on some of the East German cameras of the 50's and 60's they never functioned anyway, but at least we could get used to it and make allowances. As long as you could find the front of the camera you could point it at the subject and press something. I am encouraged a little by the Siri function in phones and tablets that you can talk to. If the camera could be induced to listen and respond when we say " Go to f:8. " we might be onto something. The trick will be to make it unresponsive to other voices - otherwise the art director or stage mother at a photo shoot will be continually barking out orders and we'll get no consistency in the raw images at all. I should also welcome one design feature from each maker - the deliberate decision to put the Playback button in the same place on each camera in their range. Even if it is not aesthetic or fashionable - we can cope with most other things changing about, but we need to find Playback every blessed time.