[B]Not everyone agrees on camera size, so why haven't camera manufacturers come up with a camera that you can customise for size?[/B]

Having reached that stage in life when I'd rather not count the years too frequently any more, I do have a prodigious recollection of camera fashions going back several decades - back to the early 70s, to be honest. One thing that photographers don't seem to agree on in all that time is the ideal size (and weight) of a camera. We've had big and small and even today there is a schism between those who reject one or the other.

When I started serious photography I had the use of a Canon FTb, an FD-mount SLR. This was built like a tank and you could probably use it for carpentry - as a hammer! No doubt it felt solid and reassuring in use, but even with a simple standard lens it was heavy and bulky. All SLRs were of a similar size although some were lighter than others; cheaper Eastern European Prakticas were rather lightweight, for example.

Then along came the Olympus OM-1. It was so tiny and even by today's compact system camera standards it's respectably small. Olympus set a trend that was like a runaway train. Pentax brought out the MX and ME-Super models that were even tinier than the OM-1. Nikon introduced the diminutive EM range. Tiny was cool and this fashion lasted until the introduction of autofocus SLRs in the early 90s.

Suddenly, SLRs were big and beefy again. Photographers lapped up the changed in fashion and this style endured into the DSLR era. Now of course we have compact system cameras that have done away with mirrors and pentaprisms and both camera bodies and lenses are smaller than ever - just look at what Pentax did with the Q.

Now Canon, perhaps with an eye on stemming the tide of CSCs, has shrunk the DSLR perhaps as far as it will go with the new EOS-100D. Both Nikon and Canon have made attempts to make their full frame DSLR models more luggable, too.

Maybe it's a generation thing but I often hear from older photographers that small cameras are too difficult to use because the controls, especially buttons, are too small. With the aim of keeping size to a minimum many CSCs don't have eye-level viewfinders any more, although some have optional add-on electronic viewfinders.

'Add-on' - could this be the answer? I have long held a view that cameras, particularly digital cameras, could be more more modular. I say 'more' because many cameras are already modular - you might be able to attach a battery grip, external viewfinder, flash unit - and of course your choice of lens. But I think camera designers can go further. Sony, for example, has demonstrated with some of its NEX compact system camera models that you can shrink the camera body to remarkably small dimensions.

So why not build a system camera that has a tiny central form factor - not being much larger than a typical LCD screen at the back and accommodating the lens mount at the front. This could then be 'clothed' in your personal choice of added-on body modules to suite your preference in handling and even functionality. Without any module options you would have the smallest cameras if that is what you wanted. But by choosing from a range of modules you could add size for handling comfort as well as external control functionality as well as additional battery capacity - the possibilities are endless.

So how about it camera designers? Maybe it's time for a new fashion trend in system camera design!