Design
Why the H1 has no mode dial
Three dials, each with an A. The reasoning behind the top plate.
The most common question we got at the launch in September 2024 was where the mode dial had gone. There isn't one. The H1 has three dials on top, for shutter speed, ISO and exposure compensation, and the lenses with an aperture ring add a fourth. Each dial has an A position.
Modes are just combinations
Set the shutter dial to A and choose an aperture: that is aperture priority. Set an aperture ring to A and choose a shutter speed: shutter priority. Both on A: program. Nothing on A: manual. Auto ISO is simply the A on the ISO dial. Once you see it this way, a mode dial is a menu that has been moved onto the top plate.
What we tested
In 2023 we put early bodies in the hands of 40 photographers for two weeks each, half of them people who had never owned a camera with dials. We gave them no manual. By the end of the first day, 37 of the 40 were changing exposure without looking at the screen.
If a setting matters, you should be able to read it from across the table.
Fewer buttons, not none
The H1 has four customisable buttons, Fn1 to Fn4, and a menu with eight pages, not eighty. We kept the things that cannot sensibly be a dial, like focus mode and white balance, one press away. Everything else stays out of the way.
See every control on the H1 page.