I couldn’t get my head around the touch pad on the original ‘R’ I did try but soon stopped using it all together. I was looking forward to the joystick return when I got my R6 knowing how much I used it in my 1D days, but to be honest about this, I don’t really use that anymore either.
Cameras are used for many difference types of photography so some may still prefer a touchpad or joystick.
When shooting people which is what I mostly do, the eye auto focus is so good on the R6 and RF 24 – 70 f/2.8 combo, focus is nailed 99.9% of the time. Very occasionally help is needed to find an eye in tricky conditions but then I simply zoom in to the face the camera then locks on the eye, so I zoom out, recompose and bingo!
Last week I put over 5k impressions through the above combination on a fashion shoot for a small clothing company, many of the shots were taken using the back of the screen to save my aging knees. My only complaint was my thumb that wraps around the back on the camera was starting to rub and become sore towards the end.
That was soon forgotten about when viewing the tac-shape images, I couldn’t have achieved this as easily using older equipment. I’ve used heavier combinations in the past, but I think the way we grip the camera and shooting style when using the back of the screen rather than a viewfinder is different and makes the camera and lens somehow feel heavier.
The RF 35 f1.8 attached to an R body feels so nice in the hand, well balanced and lightweight, but the difference of speed, quietness, and accuracy of focusing using ‘L’ glass means I just keep going back to bigger glass, even though it feels so heavy on a long shoot.
Anyway, back on subject we need to be open minded I guess, more people than ever are taking photos these days, but on their smart phones. If we asked them if they would prefer a mechanical shutter button on their phones, I’m sure most would say “no thanks” A voice activated shutter might work in certain circumstances and would help avoid camera shake.
Anyway, for the moment what we have right now works for me!