I've personally had a lot of cambered skis (I'm old), a few different reverse camber skis and some in-betweeners. Here are
my thoughts:
Camber: When it gets hard and especially icy full camber is unmatched, duh. But I personally believe a cambered ski with the right flex and width can be just as or arguably more versatile than a lot of dual cambered skis. Unfortunately rocker is very easy to market so I think the era of the cambered mid-fat ski (ARV, Made'n AK, Scratch BC) is over.
Early Rise: This label gets thrown around a lot, but to me it refers to that minimal bit of rise you see in the tip and tail of the Line Chronic and Scott TW Pro. Back in the day I put a bit of early rise in my Salomon Thrusters and noticed a significant difference in chopped up spring slush. It made it a lot easier plow over shitty snow and didn't noticeably detract from being able to hold an edge. For park I think early rise is the way to go for most people unless you ride a ton of pipe or just hard snow.
Dual Camber, a.k.a Rocker/Camber: I've tried a few different skis with this design and they can all be summed up with one statement; jack of all trades, master of none. They all have too little camber to really be fun on a groomer, which makes a patch of camber underfoot basically redundant to my needs. I've always felt that these skis in the 120mm waist range would be so much better without the camber all-together as flat skis with rocker or straight up reverse camber
Rocker: Rockered skis (flat underfoot) are silly fun, I like them best for buttering around the mountain and finding hits and tranny finds on the days between storms when there is pow but you're going to see a lot of tracked out snow. I like this design when I'm feeling lazy, loose, and jibby.
Reverse Camber: I'm a big believer in reverse camber over and other profile when it comes to skiing +80% untracked snow. You can slarve and surf a bit better than rockered skis and you're just on a whole other level compared to dual-camber designs. Also, everyone seems to thing that reverse camber equates a scary lack of control on groomers, which simply isn't the case; brands like 4frnt and Volkl have been shaping there reverse camber and sidecut profiles together so you still have the edge grip when you need it. In fact the very manageable Rossignol Scimitar uses a very mellow reverse camber profile and plenty of people rave about it in the park and on groomers.
