Legalities on using a camera during take off and landing

[TightSlot]

...is it just crew throwing their weight around? I know where my money is.

As a general rule, most CC have quite a lot of stuff to do pre-departure. I suppose it is conceivable that some crew member, somewhere, could be sufficiently bored that they choose to start an argument with a passenger, knowing the premise to be incorrect, for no apparent reason, but... I know where my money is.

There are two points that always fascinate me when reading these periodic discussions about the use on board of mobiles/cameras/ipods/Kindles/whatever.

Firstly - While you may be (or consider yourself to be) an expert on the functionality and capabilities of your piece of kit, there is no way that the CC can be expected to understand and be familiar with, every aspect of every product. Clearly, under these circumstances, some form of blanket restriction is necessary unless we are to take the passengers word for it: Although there can be no doubt that all of you here would tell the truth, the possibility exists that some misguided soul might tell a porky, or even, heaven forbid, not fully understand the technicalities of their own device or appreciate the possible danger of non-compliance.

Secondly - I'm always amazed that the whole electronics thing is such a big deal to some folk - it's 15 minutes out of your life without the toys. As impositions go, it seems (to me at least) fairly minor, if occasionally mildly irritating? Commercial Aviation is mass transport, and just like society, has rules: Some of those rules may be inconvenient, but most of us recognise that we cannot have a system where we obey only those rules that please us - we start to discover this from about the age of two onwards. It seems to me that arguing with the crew over such a trivial matter can only result in something of a Pyrrhic victory - neither party can possibly feel happier, and that's if you win. I'm savoring a mental picture of Agaricus bisporus being carried down the aircraft steps in restraints, kicking and struggling as he loudly debates the semantics of "Commanders authority with doors open" and "Legal vs Illegal Commands" with a brace of burly coppers. I'm sure that later on, in Court, he will be proved right in a landmark judgement from the ECHR - but for now, he's missing his flight and making life that bit less pleasant for everybody else he has come in contact with - because of a camera