Are Touchscreen Digital Cameras A Good Idea?

A touchscreen was something only limited to high-end electronics at one point, but now they’re available on just about anything mobile, such as Nintendo DS, all automotive GPS devices, smartphones and so on.

Something that has been very slow to adopt the touchscreen are digital cameras. Canon in particular seemingly refused to do it, however that’s no longer the case as six new PowerShot line cameras will have touchscreens in them; you’ll see these on store shelves very soon.

Part of the reason why touchscreens have been slow to show up on digital cameras is for the fact they wash out easily in bright sunlight. And if your primary menu system can’t be seen while adjusting a camera to take photos, that’s no good to the user.

Camcorders with a touchscreen (Sony has had them for years) get around this by having a screen that flips out and tilts. The tilt eliminates glare instantly so you can get down to business and see what you need to see to make adjustments. This is more or less the exact same thing that will happen on digital cameras. Being that more and more of them have HD video recording capability, this is seen as a natural progression that they act more like camcorders do.

However the question remains as to whether this is actually a good idea or not. The answer is actually yes.

Canon in particular has not always had the friendliest of menu systems in their digital camera line.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but when compared to other makes you can see the differences. Certain features require the pressing of more buttons to get to depending on model, the icon legend is a bit confusing at times, and so on.

If the touchscreen menu Canon uses is on par with how other camera/camcorders are (which is a tabbed/paged layout), this will make for a far easier camera to use overall. You will be able to get to functions faster, easier, and moreover understand your camera better as to what it can actually do.

For those wondering if the PowerShot G11 will have an optical viewfinder in addition to the touchscreen, don’t worry, it does. For many this is an absolute must-have requirement. A camera of this caliber should have no less.