The useful and the beautiful are never far apart.

Periander

There is a condition known as the aesthetic-usability effect, whereby users perceive objects with more aesthetically pleasing designs to be easier to use than less aesthetically pleasing designs. Humans tend to be drawn towards nicer looking things. Take for example the aesthetic appealing atomic coffee maker. The design is attributed to Italian Giordano Robbiati, and was born in the 1940s. It ozzed aesthetic appeal, and was very popular (and still is). People likely presumed that something that looks nice probably works well. Its curved form likely melded well with the fluidity of coffee.

People of course use aesthetics to judge appeal and perceived usability. Something that looks will likely work well. It is no different with cameras. There are cameras that are very aesthetically pleasing, and work extremely well, from the perspective of the layout of controls, or even how easy it is to add/remove a lens.

One of the ugliest cameras around appears to be the Konica Aiborg, more often referred to as Darth Vader camera. A 35mm camera which appeared in 1991, its name a blend of AI and cyBORG. It was bulky, had poor ergonomics, and just seemed an odd design from an aesthetic point-of-view. It’s quite possible that curved surfaces just don’t translate well to cameras, the same as they do to espresso makers. In fact all the curved surfaces do is detract from the aesthetic appeal of the camera, and may ultimately affect its usability.

What is the most aesthetically pleasing 35mm camera? Well that likely is in the eye of the beholder… and whereas many people might agree about an ugly camera, beautiful cameras are harder to pin down. With film cameras, I am certainly partial to cameras that have clean lines, but that may result from the fact that the pictures themselves are rectangular in form. I do like the Canon 7s, the Olympus Pen F and just about any Ihagee Exakta Varex camera. With digital cameras I inherently lean towards those that mimic the lines of previous film cameras.

In my opinion, one of the nicest 35mm cameras is the Olympus Pen-F half-frame camera. It has beautifully clean lines, lacking the “triangular hat” of a regular 35mm SLR (because it uses a Porro prism), and placing the shutter speed dial on the front of the camera. The camera is small, and compact, ergonomic to use, and almost minimalist.