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Beyond Megapixels - Part II
TheTechLounge writes "This is Part II of a series of three editorial articles examining current digital photography hardware, as well as my views of what is to come. In this segment I will be focusing on build, size, weight and ergonomics of camera bodies, as well as the size, weight, function and versatility of the glass strapped to the front of it. If you haven't already, you may want to read Part I first."
I'm not expecting a military spec strength durable camera, but these comtempory cam's seem to fragile.
I remember seeing this store clerk setting the display of new cam's; the clerk was handling them as if they were new born babies.
Then again one those cam's probably cost a months wage for the clerk.
The first article in this series was reasonably well laid out and the information quite good.
But this one? What is he trying to say? It almost seems as though the article is missing several pages...
And a DSLR with a whole new series of lenses, presumably on a different mount? Not likely! In such a scenario anyone who eventually upgrades from a 10D-level camera to a full professional DSLR would be stuck with replacing all lenses as well. From the user-standpoint that obviously sucks, and from the camera maker standpoint there is no "brand lock in". If you have to change all your lenses anyway, then you can easily jump brands at the same time.
What is going to happen is eventually 10D-level cameras will have full-frame 35mm sensors. Canon and Nikon might not like this idea very much, but someone else is going to do it if they don't. If Minolta/Pentax/Sigma etc move in this direction, Canon and Nikon will be forced to follow. As pixel counts increase sensor size will eventually have to follow.
When this happens, prosumer point-and-shoots will move to APS-sized sensors, and the standard point-and-shoot models will increase to something around what the prosumers have now.
Some people are like slinkies--basically useless but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
There are going to be three parts to this article on the tech lounge. But really.. is slashdot going to be able to have insightful commentary for all three parts? Or will it be a case of comment rehashing and karma whoring in all three threads..
Surely one slashdot article with links to all three techlounge articles would be more appropriate? But of course 3 separate articles on slashdot generates more advertising revenue than 1 doesnt it?
I have mod points at this current time, but I'm sure as hell not using them in this thread... I don't want to waste my time reading part 1 and part 2 checking that noone is karma whoring...
BAH...
groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
Back in October 2002 Slashdot asked Digital Camera Passing Quality of Film? which referenced a field report from Luminous Landscape. Now that was a great article, full of technical info. (The Canon 1DS 11-megapixel camera surpassed 35mm film.) Why is Slashdot calling attention to an informationally empty piece like Beyond Megapixels?
I don't think either of you are exactly right. Obviously the manufacturer wants you to buy more lenses, because that means more money for them. But they also don't want you to have to throw away all your old lenses, because that would require a huge initial investment on your part (new camera + all new lenses) which would certainly deter a lot of people.
The happy medium? Cameras with an APS sensor size, which allow the use of the old lenses, but with a different effective focal length than when used with 35mm. You don't have to throw out all your old lenses, but because of the different performance characteristics they'll have when used with D-SLRs, you'll probably want to upgrade them in the future. You're happy because you can still use all your old lenses, and the manufacturer is happy because you'll probably buy new ones in the not-so-distant future, not to mention the fact that you also bought the camera.
Do I think this is the primary reason for manufacturers using APS-size sensors vs. 35mm? No, but I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of it.
OK, I meant to say a full-frame sensor DSLR, like the Canon 1Ds.. With smaller sensor, apparently the image is cropped relative to 35mm.. Still, both 35mm and smaller sensors are both rectangular..
I wonder why they don't use a built-in lens to undo the ~ 1.5 'magnification'.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
But there's a huge benefit to this tech-race. More digital cameras. People with them, use them a lot more than they did with film. No cost to take, no cost to view, low cost to print or mail. I wrote an open-source project to make building galleries free-and-easy (primarily for my family initially, see it at Picture Pager on SourceForge) and that too is a benefit of digitals... they gain from the open source world.
So the only downside of 8MP cameras is that they're the Ferraris or Porsches of consumer-land. They push the technology, in a few years us mere mortals will benefit, but serious drivers and photographers benefit, at least slightly, now while bearing the hefty early-adopter price.
You're right, and he also didn't even talk about the quality of the lenses. The aberrations in a 3 element, tiny zoom lens system will be much greater than in a 5+ element good sized SLR lens. This means that the geometrical spot size (which ideally would be a point, but with finite lenses would be the point spread function) will be samller on the SLR lenses. Since the 'pixel size' on the SLR will also be bigger, its much more likely there that spots will not overlap pixels. The next issue is the MTF (modulation transfer function) of the optical system. Having less aberrations, the 35 mm lens will be able to resolve higher spatial frequencies (closer together objects). While the author of this article is making a good point that megapixels are not all there is to a camera's quality, he doesn't seem fully qualified to explain why.
Reading this one over I found it rather hard to keep track of what was being said in a logical manner..the guy is all over the place without a logical structure to the paragraphs... Part one is better written I think, or better edited maybe...any thoughts?
- Full 35mm sensor. Let me have a shallow depth of field, please! Smaller sensors give such a huge depth of field, it's difficult to blur the background.
- No built in flash. Face it, if you need a flash, you're going to need a REAL flash, not some cheapo flashlight built into the camera.
- Analog metering. By this I mean a little needle I can see thru the viewfinder for metering. I can look thru the FM-3a and instantly see how many stops I need to adjust the exposure.
- Traditional SLR feel. I need the shutter time on the top right of the camera on a dedicated knob. No multi-purpose jog wheel, a traditional knob with full stops. 60, 125, 250, no fraction-of-a-stop BS.
- No LCD display. Yep, you heard me right. Take this thing off and it'll lower the price & form factor. I don't need to review the shots I took, if I'm concerned about the exposure I'll bracket the shots +/- a stop. And I'm not worried about deleting a picture to save disk space when I've got a 1 gig compact flash card.
- No bells and whistles. I can pick up any old SLR and know how to use it in 10 seconds. Try this with any modern digital.
ok, those are my main gripes. I've got more minor ones, like screw USB and firewire, I'll just plug the CF card directly into my laptop. Wireless connection? Definetly axe that, what a waste of real estate on a camera.A dedicated knob for shutter time, one for ISO setting, another for white balance, and a Nikon lens mount (ok, I don't care if it's Nikon, I'll buy a new system if the camera is as above).