This is the age of feature-lust. Every forum I look on seems to be people bemoaning the absence (or in weird cases the inclusion) of various features which are apparently the Single Most Critical Feature in the World (at least until the next camera comes out with something new). And, if you ask me, the whole sensor noise debate and high ISO has started getting in the way of a lot of casual shooters getting out and getting shots they never would have gotten as little as ten years ago anyway. But, while composing over recording a picture is a post to itself (and one I’m likely to write sometime soon), what I’m trying to get to is instead a mini-summary of all the amazing little joys the digital age has given us which tend to get overlooked in the megapixel/sensor-size race.

1. Pentax’s Hyper-Program. Pentax is not exactly the first company to come to most people’s minds when talking cameras, but they certainly have some neat features the rest of the world is missing out on. Like Hyper-Program. It starts out like any other program mode, you select everything except aperture and shutter, the camera picks those. But, that’s where similarities end. Normal cameras have program shift, the Pentax can instead drop you out of P and into either aperture or shutter priority (so you get to decide how to shift the program line.) Push a button and you’re back in program, easy-peasy. And, it gets better: You can pick your program line. It can be normal old vanilla program, or you can pick a mode weighted towards hi-speed, high depth of field, or MTF (maximizing lens sharpness).

2. Olympus’ Super Control Panel. Yes yes, we all know by now I’m biased on this one, but in my defense this feature is why I bought an Olympus digital camera for my first DSLR, and not the Alpha 100, D40, or Rebel XSi. Most cameras will show you your settings on the back LCD. Fewer of them will let you just hit the “OK” button and edit them right there on the spot. (DCResource has a wonderful animation of how this works, go here and scroll about halfway down the page). Coming from the rather-dated Canon AE-1 Program I used in college, the variety of advances present in even entry-level DSLRs was a bit dizzying, and being able to see the setting and change it right there seemed more intuitive than diving through menus for it.

3. Nikon’s In-Camera Processing. Many new Nikon digital cameras, including the new Nikon Coolpix cameras and the D60 and D90, have a wealth of software-driven in-camera editing features. These range from the pedestrian enabling or disabling of their D-Lighting curves to such wild-and-crazy gimmicks as star filters (those of you familiar with the Cokin filter system will remember these). The big write-off for these is that you can do all of this stuff on your computer. Sure, true, but sometimes I don’t want to wait that long, or need to show someone how the picture can be tweaked right there in the field. It’s still definitely something we, collectively as digital shooters, should appreciate more.(I’ll point you towards DPReview this time, look here under “Playback retouching” to see these processing options)

Alright, I know I can write some rather long posts, so I’ll stop there for now. I’ve got another of my (in)famous bokeh posts coming up next, then we’ll talk about more digital goodies and why we should appreciate them more.