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Sony Announced Hybrid Digital Camera
Anna Merikin writes to tell us that Sony has begun shipping a new digital camera, the R1. With the R1 Sony has married the big digital SLRs' sensor with the live preview display of the compact cams. But to do so, it is not an SLR although it is about the same size as one. The new architecture also allows wider-angle optics to be used, but it does not have interchangeable lenses.
The author also laments that there's no macro mode, which is kind of redeundant when you've already said you can't get any closer than 13 inches. And all for $1000!
Personally, I'd go with the Nikon D-series or a Canon Digital Rebel for a lot less with a few lenses and be able to actually get near some of my subjects.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0512/05120603sonydscr 1review.asp
Summary -- fantastic lens, but despite the large sensor inferior noise performance to entry level DSLRs.
I have discovered a wonderful
Good review can be found here.
Zeiss has been a name that's rested on its laurels for many a year now. Anyone buying or promoting them over most other glass out there is the equivalent of a ricer who sticks "Type R" stickers on their car, no matter whether it's a Nissan, Chev, Ford or Hyundai.
http://www.consumersearch.com/www/photo_and_video/ digital-slr-reviews/fullstory.html
I'm not fat, just big boned...
To Quote dpreview of the R1:
"I'll start as I shall no doubt finish this little piece of editorial, the lens is worth the price of the DSC-R1 alone. That fact is not to be underestimated, it's a great lens which provides you with a very useful 24 - 120 mm zoom range (which will be sufficient for the majority of users). Doing the math it's pretty clear that you have to spend a fairly considerable sum on lenses for a D-SLR to get close to this range and the quality of the DSC-R1's lens. "
The cameeras problem is not its lens, its in its image processing:
"The second issue is image processing, take a RAW out of the DSC-R1 and run it through Adobe Camera RAW and you can see just what that lens / sensor combination is capable of, however you really need to be pretty dedicated to shoot RAW all the time, 20 MB per RAW file and around 9 seconds to write; I did note that some of our forums users are converting the Sony RAW files to Adobe DNG to save space. That's not to say JPEG's aren't good, they are very good, but you get a whole new appreciation for just how much crisper images could look converting in ACR."
And the fact that your still better off buying a dSLR.
great hardware.... right..... have you bought Sony consumer gear made recently? it is worse than their major brand competitors and about comparable to the decent generic hardware.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
They most likely use compact flash because you can get 4 gb hard drives for them. And that kind of storage is more in demand when your pics are of a higher resolution. Also, being that less expensive cameras tend to be on the smaller side, having a compact flash slot can take quite a bit of room let alone both a CF slot and a Memory stick slot.
I have a Minolta A2 - probably the best Electronic view finder on the market.
Its dreadfull(for image quality) when compared with the through the lens viewfinder of an SLR, there so much clearer and brighter.
its usefull for having grid patterns, histograms etc, but given the choice, I'd rather have the dSLR.
Also up until recently (with this sony aparently) running hte sensor, a LARGE sensor all the time suckd the battery power.
My friends canon 300d can take as many pictures with one battery (similar 'size') as my A2 does two - and I'm working in power saving mode (no LCD, eye sensor EVF etc.
Sony took their camera sensor normally meant for expensive professional DSLRs with interchangable lenses and stuck it in a less expensive fixed lensed system. Think of Chevy putting a Nascar engine in a minivan.
This article appears more of marketing propaganda than actual truth. Take for example "he R1 offers something that's never before been possible on a large-sensor camera: a wide-angle (24-mm) equivalent on the basic lens" What about the (10-12mm)-(20-22mm) lenses that are available for current D-SLR's - that gives 16mm wide lens vs 24mm wide! Oooo ...
Yes, it does seem stupid if you don't know how digital sensors work.
Without the "SLR mechanism", a lot of technical compromises have to be made. The biggest thing you'd be able to relate to is probably response time -- it takes non-trivial amounts of time to clear the sensor and switch the sensor into picture taking mode.
If you've ever wondered why every single point and shoot camera has a bit of "lag" between hitting the shutter button and the camera actually taking a picture, this is why. (on some point and shoots, the lag time is greatly reduced if you disable the live preview)
Buy an Olympus or Pentax. They are relatively cheap compared with Canons and the Nikons and their optics aren't too horrible. But then again all of your photographer friends will snicker at you. Sigma's are relatively affordable as well. But their lenses aren't known to be the greatest. There are a lot of affordable choices.
You can find a much better review <a href="http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews<nobr>/<wbr></wbr></nobr> r1.html">here</a>. It gives a much more detailed look at the features, but will be more useful still when they have completed the conclusions portion (awaiting production camera, as opposed to pre-production sample).
I've never understood why Canon compact cameras are popular. They do tend to have decent lens quality. But: they have the slowest autofocus of any compact camera manufacturer. Enormous shutter lag. Lots of people who bought Canon digicams think they need to get a DSLR if they want 1 sec shutter lag. In truth, they just need to try a different brand.
TFA is confused about sensor sizes. First, it says this:
But like an SLR, it has a huge sensor inside, 21.5 by 14.4 millimeters.
And then it says this:
Yet without switching lenses, the R1 also zooms in 5x (a 120-mm equivalent). Unlike the focal-length measurements of other digitals, these are true 35-mm camera equivalents that don't have to be multiplied by, say, 1.5.
The 35mm frame size is 36 by 24 mm, for a diagonal of 43mm, which is 1.67 times the diagonal of the sensor in the camera. So you have to multiply by 1.67 to get your "35mm equivalents". If you look at the front of the camera (pictured here) you can see that the actual focal length range of the lens is 14.3mm to 71.5mm, and when you multiply by 1.67, you get the quoted 24mm to 120mm. It is hardly new, or in any way a "feature" for a digital camera manufacturer to quote the "35mm equivalent" when talking about focal lengths. It is, however, totally bogus, IMO, because it tells you nothing about depth of field, which depends on the actual physical focal length and the distance to the subject. Given that the maximum apeture at the longer end of the range is f/4.8, your subject will have to be pretty close to get the claimed ability to use "that professionals' trick of blurring the background".
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Sigh. Not that I want to be a Sony apologist, and not that I think too highly of Sony Electronics, but...
No, they haven't. Sony Music did. Sony, as a large corporation, has various divisions that don't communicate and operate very well together.
The Playstation division is even further removed from the others.
"Obviously, it works great to impress the guys at DPReview who take pictures of a uniform gray chart. "
1 .asp
That's not true. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos20d/page2
I've found dpreview to be a great review site. I haven't seen anybody else as thorough, but steves-digicams.com isn't too bad. I just don't like the site layout.
The Canon A620 is a great little camera, but it doesn't come close to the R1 in high ISO settings. It also doesn't go anywhere near as wide.
Having just come back from Safari in South Africa with a couple of DSLRs which spent a week in the back of an open truck bouncing down a dusty near-desert road. I can safely say that the sensor dirt issue really isn't one.
1) Don't get the sensor dirty. Change lenses infrequently and in closed environments. I took 2 bodies, one with a long telephoto and one with a mid range. In the field swap cameras, not lenses. This doesn't just help with DSLRs, with film cameras there are plenty of problems to be had if crap gets into the body. Plus of couse changing lenses is slow, animals aren't.
2) If you do get it dirty, don't clean it yourself. You'll screw it up.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Variable aperture, f/2.8-f/4.8, so... no.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Sony has done nothing worth a headline here. This is pure PR - one of those planted "news" stories where some reporters got fed a story on a slow news day... maybe got sent a free camera with some marketing hype.
Geez... You really have no clue when it comes to digital cameras, right?
So, let me explain. This is a _significant_ new development in the field of consumer digital cameras, in no way an typical incremental evolution.
Its significance comes from a new type of CCD, a new development by Sony. Until now, you basically had two types of digital cameras, compact consumer cameras with tiny CCDs, and digital SLRs with huge CCDs. This is a first consumer camera with a huge CCD. They managed to marry the best of both worlds - excellent picture quality and light sensitivity (if that means anything to you, it goes up to ISO1600!) and a live preview on the cameras LCD screen. Truly a first. Expect all the other manufacturers to frantically scramble to catch up to Sony. This kind of cameras will rule the market in a few years. And, like it or not, Sony was there first.
Then again, if you read the FA you'd probably know as much. But, hey, let's not allow the facts to take the edge off of a fine groupthink induced rant.