Camera Size Equilibrium

The drive in all electronic devices always seems to be, “smaller is better” and cameras are no exception. However, there is also a little saying that goes like this…

“form follows function”.

It’s all well and good to make something as small and light as it can possibly be, but at some point a limit must be reached. And as much as I am a proponent of viewfinders as opposed to LCD displays, I have to admit that the latter will be instrumental in preventing cameras from becoming unmanageably small.

The 3" LCD on my D90 was fine. But the LCD on its successors just had to be larger; 3.2" to be exact. The most important part of the camera is the sensor, but that doesn’t seem to grow frequently enough. Sure, it gets more dense, but that has its own set of issues.

At some point they won’t be able to make the camera any smaller without also making the LCD smaller. The LCD already takes up the majority of the rear of the camera, and some take up all of it, replacing dedicated controls with virtual ones on the screen. A very bad idea in my opinion when the screen itself is part of the optics. With the Sony a7R, I think I can safely say we’ve reached the point of equilibrium.

Rear panel of the Sony Alpha a7R

A full-frame sensor; you just can’t get any bigger than that without delving into the medium format realm. Minimal but adequate dedicated controls. An area for a thumb grip. A top-mounted finder keeps the body height low. The only way to increase the LCD size would be to make it borderless (only a matter of time), remove the articulation (a selling point for some), or increase the body size (what they’re worked hard to decrease.) So, this is pretty much going to be the state of the art for some time.