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| Oystercatcher: Canon SX60 at full zoom |
Yesterday this blog recorded a million page views.
I started the blog in February 2012 thinking that maybe 5000 people in the world might have some slight interest in reading about the rather arcane topic of camera ergonomics.
As it happened, readership has slowly grown to the present level of about 1200 page views per day.
This of course is a tiny figure compared to the more popular photography blogs and websites, but is quite gratifying to me given the heavy going presented by some of the posts, the more challenging of which read like extracts from a textbook.
The blog would have attracted much less traffic had I concentrated entirely on ergonomic issues.
In fact the all time most popular post has been ‘Micro Four Thirds Shutter Shock Revisited’ .
The behaviour of the various camera manufacturers with regard to the shutter shock issue has in my view been counter productive. They know shutter shock is an issue and most now have some kind of strategy in place to prevent it but I have never seen acknowledgement by any camera maker that the issue exists.
That can only alienate actual and prospective customers.
They would earn many friends by openly acknowledging the issue, publishing guidelines for its management with various camera/lens combinations and posting regular bulletins with updates about the problem as new technologies become available.
They do not do these things. In fact they make very little effort to reach out to their customers in any way whatsoever.
They do not invite feedback about their products from customers either.
Then they wonder why camera sales are falling precipitously.
But, back to the blog…..
The next most popular posts are camera reviews and comparisons.
Posts about setting up various cameras have also proven enduringly popular, even years after a camera’s release.
Posts about ergonomics are less popular in numbers but generate responses from readers many of whom think carefully about the issues involved. Their feedback has been very helpful to me in my quest for better understanding of camera ergonomics.
Most readers of the blog are in the USA, followed by UK, Germany, Australia, Canada then most of the Euro Zone countries (East and West), Russia and a long list of ‘others’ including Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan (occasionally) and a few more in small numbers.
The main current project of the blog is to advertise and promulgate my scoring system for camera ergonomics. I have now applied this to 10 cameras and am starting to gain confidence that it is sufficiently robust to be useful across the spectrum of camera types.
My ongoing campaign to promote better understanding of camera ergonomics continues.
Camera makers and reviewers continue to disappoint me with their lack of understanding about ergonomic issues in camera design.
Lastly I want to thank all the readers who point out typos, correct my silly mistakes and challenge my ideas. Please keep up the good work.
Andrew.
