jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Buy a used Sony Mavica. Floppy disk and all.

mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey

Ah. The wonderful Pentax K1000. My wife has an earlier one when they were still manufactured in Japan. It was, and is, a terrific basic film camera.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Rehess, remember that you are responding to my comment "most modern digital cameras can do basic stuff, you just have to ignore the rest of the options.". The salient words are 1) 'Most' and 2) 'Modern'. If you remember Scott McNealy - founder and longtime CEO of Sun Microsystems - one of his pithy insights was that "Technology has the shelf life of a banana."

You are right about the S400 (2003, so not modern), was designed as a very compact point and shoot, but did not have explicit shutter speed or aperture control. On the other hand the A710 (2006, so not modern either) does have full manual control of shutter speed and aperture, and with CHDK can deliver DNG format raw files. As does the A540 (also 2006, so also not modern). For 2003 the Digital Elph was a pretty good camera, by 2006 digital stuff had become much more sophisticated if you bought the right models.

Not that any of this really matters, but the Stones nailed it a long time ago in 1969: "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes well you might find
you get what you need."

We have more options now than we have ever had historically, and relatively speaking for much less money in comparison to average income. This is an interesting discussion, but I fail to see why people are not satisfied with the choices in front of them.

Marionsho Loc: Kansas

charles tabb Loc: Richmond VA.

x

PhotosBySteve

Get any DSLR that allows for manual mode. Than, superglue the mode selector in the manual mode. There you have it. Otherwise you could have one built for several thousand dollars.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

5-pages of people telling you to waste money on changing systems or buying a different body. But a few have identified you just need to learn and use your current camera. It currently can be operated in full manual including the selection of the ISO and the WB and manual focus of the lens with just the flip of a switch. There's really no other option ....

Kuzano

Film cam and
B/W film

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I'll sell you my Nikon D40!!!!!!

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I never had one, but when I worked for a yearbook and school portrait company, we recommended them to students because they were solid, cheap, high quality, and very functional. Many bought Canon AE-1 Program cameras, however, and got pretty awfully exposed images due to not knowing how to use the automation.

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

I keep seeing sales prices of $699 for the Sony a6000 and two lenses: 16-55 mm & 50-210 mm.

DanCulleton

I suggest a Canon 6D.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Here's one I found at Walgreens for $10.00. It's as bare bones as you can get.
--Bob

(Download)

John_F Loc: Minneapolis, MN

When it is realized how much intelligence can be placed on even the smallest solid state chip, it is no wonder that most cameras have so much 'stuff.' Blame it all on those solid state engineers and physicists laboring in micro-miniaturization.
And not to forget those camera engineers laboring to fill-up those chips. Somewhere a few years ago I read that miniaturization was only about 1/10th the way to the quantum limit, so I would guess over the next 5-10 years cameras will have grow in size just so there will be enough room for all new buttons to make all that functionality usable. Think 500 page menu.

tdekany Loc: Oregon

Seems like no one is really listening, I guess people just have a need to "talk" photography. Which I like, but in this case the topic is way off, since the OP has a very capable camera already, which can be used as a bare bone body just like those cameras that are being recommended left and right.