Kuwait Bans DSLR Cameras Use For Non-Journalists

DaveNJ1987 writes "Kuwait has banned the use of Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras in public places for anyone who is not a journalist. The ban, which was passed by the unanimous agreement of the country's Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Finance, prevents the public from using DSLR devices on the streets of the Middle Eastern State. Tourists are to be affected by the new laws and must be aware of this before travelling to Kuwait. Smaller digital cameras and camera phones are exempt from the ban."

Comments

funny and ironic

[yagu]

An ironic twist I think... I know many people whose DSLR pictures totally suck because the camera is beyond their ability to master even simple photographs. Also, ironically, anyone who would want useful information from digital pictures can readily shoot quality pictures with non-DSLR digital cameras. Is this for real?

Re:funny and ironic

[Monkeedude1212]

An ironic twist I think... I know many people whose DSLR pictures totally suck because the camera is beyond their ability to master even simple photographs. Also, ironically, anyone who would want useful information from digital pictures can readily shoot quality pictures with non-DSLR digital cameras. Is this for real?

I think the idea is to cut back on some form of spying. Lets face it, if you are a journalist, you want REALLY good pictures for your articles, like national Geographic quality if possible. Thats why they're allowed DSLR's.

But if I'm a spy, and I see a hand off going on between some military personel and some 'civilian' - I'll be all dressed up as a tourist with my nice HUUUUUGE Telephoto lens, snap a few quick shots. If someone gets suspicious you either delete the pictures if you don't have much time or if you think you can without noticing, switch out the memory card.

Asta Lasaugna, don't get any onya.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Kuwait and YES!

I think they claim people aren't comfortable being pictured by others with these pro cameras!

Lame I know

Re:funny and ironic

[Monkeedude1212]

Forgot to mention: the point being that you can't get that kind of zoom level with a regular digital camera, in case I didn't make that point obvious.

Re:funny and ironic

[binarylarry]

Yeah, that's the ticket... spying.

Spying on all that "born on top of a huge oilfield" technology that kuwait is working on.

Re:funny and ironic

[mysidia]

Hm... I wonder if a technology ANALOG SLRs that don't use film would be effected by this?

For example, using a CMOS analog sensor instead of a digital image sensor.

And instead of storing bits, store voltages on some kind of media.

I suppose the Kuwaiti photography market might not be large enough to support such a device being created [if it does not exist already], however

Re:funny and ironic

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It sounds like classic security theatre to me. It has, somehow, become an article of faith in jackboot circles(the world over, apparently; our Limey friends on Airstrip One seem to be the most enthusiastic; but the notion is international in its appeal) that 'terrorists' simply cannot function without extremely high quality photographs, taken personally with professional grade equipment, even if their target is some tourist trap with 10+ million publicly available images on the web... It has further, somehow, become an article of faith(among both jackboots and photo-n00bs) that DLSRs are the magic ticket to being the next Ansel Adams, while anything without interchangeable lenses might as well be a webcam from 1993.

How exactly these beliefs persist, I'm not quite sure, when any moron who spends ten minutes in the camera aisle at Best Buy can see that contemporary happy-snapper gear is pretty competent(particularly when paired with contemporary flash memory that will give said happy-snapper 10,000 chances to get it right for under $40...) and trivially available stuff like Photosynth demonstrates the power of huge numbers of shoddy images combined with some algorithmic cleverness...

Re:funny and ironic

[tverbeek]

Non-SLR digital cameras have gotten very good in recent years. As an old-school 35mm SLR user, there are times I'd love to have a DSLR, but a 10MP non-reflex camera with a 10X optical zoom lens (such as the one I have) can take pretty much the exact same photos, albeit with marginally lower image quality due to the optics. So they're accomplishing nothing except to require amateur photographers to use smaller and less expensive cameras.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no clue what you're talking about. How do you think an image sensor works anyways? They're all pretty much analog, and some interesting electronics exist to get all that data digitized.

Re:funny and ironic

[omnichad]

Or for digital cameras with huge interchangeable lenses that AREN'T single-lens-reflex. These days, sensors are fast enough to show full motion video on the screen on the back and don't really need a viewfinder if you trust auto-focus.

Re:funny and ironic

[jmottram08]

neither true nor obvious. lenses are not limited by sensors. you can build a 500x zoom on a point and shoot with no problem. DSLRs are traditionally more capable of better pictures, not better lenses. a better ban might have been a lens over 5x, with a cap on resolution at 8mp.

Re:funny and ironic

[erroneus]

It has been discussed many, many times. Belief beats fact. Fear beats belief and fact. This seems to apply to everyone across the board. It's like the anti-gun groups who conveniently ignore the reduction in crime in the US states where CHLs are issued and continue to cry "blood in the streets." It simply doesn't matter how much fact you shovel out. They won't see anything but what they want to see... and by "they" I mean pretty much everyone including you and me.

Re:funny and ironic

[Cwix]

Its not the camera that takes great photos, its the photographer. Ive seen great pics taken with a crappy disposable film camera. Ive seen shitty photos taken with a DSLR.

Re:funny and ironic

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I loaded the newegg homepage a few minutes ago and(by pure happenstance) they were offering a 35x optical zoom Canon point-and-shoot for a hair under $400. I'm guessing that a real lens snob who can afford something that gets its own tripod and looks like an anti-tank weapon would be driven to tears by the optical artefacts(particularly around the edge of the frame); but with a tiny tripod and some adequate image stabilization wizardry(yours standard on the nicer point-and-shoots) I suspect that you can get pretty adequate results from something that neither is, nor even looks like, a DSLR...

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you just need fake journalist's credentials to continue your spy operation in Kuwait. Don't dress as a tourist anymore though.

I wonder if they are really trying to suppress information (the high-res image) or if they think people are going to be using the size and shape of that camera body and lens to make guns and "surreptitiously" shoot people?

Re:funny and ironic

[Achra]

Hm... I wonder if a technology ANALOG SLRs that don't use film would be effected by this? For example, using a CMOS analog sensor instead of a digital image sensor. And instead of storing bits, store voltages on some kind of media. I suppose the Kuwaiti photography market might not be large enough to support such a device being created [if it does not exist already], however

If only there were some kind of pre-existing analog SLR format that could be readily used... Some method, perhaps, wherein photons interact with molecules of silver hadride to form a latent image on some kind of plastic based substrate.. One could envision a method for retrieving the so-called "latent image" via chemical means.

Re:funny and ironic

[wygit]

My old Canon S1IS had a 380mm equivalent lens on it http://goo.gl/jxdxu
and my present Panasonic ZS5 has a 300mm equivalent in a pretty small pocket camera.

Re:funny and ironic

[Hodapp]

One of the biggest determining factors of quality still is the physical size of the sensor. I think you'll find the images will differ in quality quite a bit if you compare side-by-side.

Re:funny and ironic

[Guspaz]

There are plenty of non-DSLR cameras that support a variety of lense mounting standards. For example, micro four-thirds cameras (non-DSLR) can use four-thirds lenses (DSLR) via adapters, at which point you can get those same HUUUUUGE Telephoto lens on a non-DSLR camera like the Lumix GF2, which has a body very similar to most point-and-shoots.

Re:funny and ironic

[mysidia]

One could envision a method for retrieving the so-called "latent image" via chemical means.

It has a problem that if you capture an image of something tyrants don't want you to capture, they tend to quietly push a little button on your camera, and open it up, fully illuminating the plastic, causing all the silver hadride to react, and destroying the latent image.

At least with electronic storage, your image is not so volatile, and you can easily and subtly swap the flash card, hiding the important one, so the tyrants don't destroy your image of their treachery..

Re:funny and ironic

[jimicus]

You're absolutely right. I've got a Canon EOS 400D but I don't have the time to get familiar enough to get the best out of it - TBH, the last SLR I seriously used was a 35mm film camera some years ago. I'm seriously out of practise.

My wife has a Panasonic compact with a 10x optical zoom. You can't specify the aperture or shutter speed - the most you've got is about 20 auto scenery modes. She neither know nor cares about aperture sizes, shutter speeds, depth of field or ISO speed.

Guess who consistently gets the better photos.

Re:funny and ironic

[Totenglocke]

Well they can easily do the same thing if you buy a macro lens attachment for a cell phone camera (I have an Evo and yes, the camera is pretty "meh", but I've seen some amazingly high quality stuff from people using the macro lens attachment on an Evo).

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll never get comparable low-light performance with a tiny sensor.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The amount of glass required to focus really narrow field of view (ie, long zoom) is much easier in a camera with a small sensor.

I have a 400mm lens that when mounted on my DSLR, gives me an effective 640mm focal length, or just under 13x "normal vision". It's large, bulky, and weighs 3 lbs. By contrast, a Canon SX 30 IS has an 840mm 35mm equivalent lens, so it's about 17x normal fov. Older models have less range, but look less "DSLR"-ish.

Re:funny and ironic

[EvanED]

Its not the camera that takes great photos, its the photographer. Ive seen great pics taken with a crappy disposable film camera. Ive seen shitty photos taken with a DSLR.

While this is absolutely true, having a good camera definitely makes it much easier to take good photos. The easiest place to see this IMO is in low-light situations. Even the Canon G12 and Nikon P7000, both high-end point & shoots, hit their highest ISO setting at half the speed of the highest (non-boosted) setting on the respective entry-level DSLRs. The flagship DSLRs increase that even more. Put a reasonably fast lens on, and you'll get pictures that are half as blurry. And the larger sensor means that the noise level is likely comparable at the high end, so it's not like the DSLRs present a tradeoff in that dept.

The way I describe camera choice is this. It is demonstratively possible to take great, interesting photos with even "crappy" cameras. But, if you have a specific image that you want to capture, it can easily be the case that if I give you a crappy camera you won't be able to take that shot and have it come out the way you envision.

Re:funny and ironic

[Achra]

you can easily and subtly swap the flash card, hiding the important one

I think that you might have actually hit on the real reason that they are concerned about digital cameras. MicroSD cards are easily hidden inside hollow coins. Rolls of film (even micro-film, like minox) are not nearly so easy to conceal.

Re:funny and ironic

[interval1066]

If I'm a spy and my target is something in Kuwait I think the last thing I want is a bulkier SLR, I'll take a digital. In fact, I'll buy one there in Kuwait, snap off pix of my target(s), and send them over the internet. No need to go through customs anything that might be connected with spying. Seriously, the people who run governments need to step up their games.

Re:funny and ironic

[TheGratefulNet]

superzooms are even more effective (and smaller) than slrs. the ban does not include those (like the pany fz zoom series with more than 18x optical zoom).

slrs are not needed for 'spy photos'. everyone has a cameraphone now. gonna ban them too?

cant wait until the beheadings start for the flower macro shooters and their slr's "in public".

Re:funny and ironic

[Brett Buck]

So I guess my Leica M9 is still A-OK, eh? Geniuses.

Re:funny and ironic

[wiredlogic]

The funny thing is that the concept behind an SLR is outmoded in the digital era anyway. Not many professional photographers compose shots with the optical viewfinder anymore. There are professional grade non-SLR cameras that have large enough optics or interchangeable lenses to permit higher quality photography.

Re:funny and ironic

[nasalicio]

Pretty much, and partly the reason I am shooting with a 5D now. I absolutely have no choice but to shoot at 3200 at some dog show events, and those images need to be clean and the action properly frozen. The XSi I used as my stepping stone into SLR's maxed out at 1600 and was noisy as hell. The 50D I had after that, when expanded, topped at 6400 IIRC but 1600 was pretty much tops for usable photos. There was some nasty banding I could not cleanup at 3200. So, in support of your argument, yes...there are times when the camera you shoot with will matter, but at the same time I tend to lean on the "It's the photographer, not the equipment" side of the camp more or less.

Re:funny and ironic

[tirerim]

Indeed. But a bad camera can still hinder a good photographer. If your camera takes half a second between pressing the button and taking the exposure, it's much harder to take action shots (unless they're very predictable action shots). If your lens can't focus at close distances, it's much harder to take photographs of small things. If your camera doesn't offer control of aperture and exposure length, it's harder to take pictures of contrasty scenes.

Re:funny and ironic

[jabuzz]

Or you fit your camera with an Eye-Fi SD card, and load your 3G mobile phone with WiFi hotspot software tunneled over an encrypted VPN link back to your own server. Then moments after you take the photo is is no longer in the camera or even the country :-)

Re:funny and ironic

[Achra]

That kind of thinking is going to get you in trouble, Citizen.

Re:funny and ironic

[fyngyrz]

I have a 400mm lens that when mounted on my DSLR, gives me an effective 640mm focal length, or just under 13x "normal vision"

No, it doesn't. It gives you 400mm, period. On your crop camera, it just loses the edges. FOV is not the same as zoom.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

And can you please tell what Kuwait should do about people who has compact cameras what has 24-800mm zoom?

To get a some context for the size of the D-SLR with 800mm objective and the size of the compact camera you can notice it from here:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/sigma-300-800.shtml

And here is the 28-840mm equilevant version for compact camera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1LH23k45vg&NR=1

Here you can see how it really zooms out while not recording sound (why you would record sound from 100 meter away?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2Hy2-Szras

The DSLR cameras only have few bonuses when compared the compact cameras.

1) Image quality (you can pump up the ISO and more megapixels)
2) Optical quality (you really can get sharper image with those megapixels and possibility to have f:1.8-2.8 with tele)
3) Being more heavier (does not shake so much

But if I would be a spy, I would use a compact camera as you can just hide it to pocket almost anytime and still you have over 800mm lense on it. Even with ISO turned up, you get nice "spy photos" in shaded environments. But if I would be at somekind permanent spotting location where I could have a tripod and some room. I would definitely take DSLR with good lenses.

But just think situations where you are moving around, following people or trying to be unnoticeable. You would not like to carry few kg's weight and about 1m lenses with you.

Re:funny and ironic

[rwa2]

You think that's embarrassing? My kids typically get better shots with their little VGA fisher-price camera than I do with mine.

Probably has something to do with seeing the world with a child's eye and making very simple compositions.

Re:funny and ironic

[MichaelSmith]

Time to put my Nikon F40 on ebay.

Re:funny and ironic

[Abcd1234]

It has been discussed many, many times. Belief beats fact. Fear beats belief and fact.

Case in point: the use of dowsing rods for bomb detection in Iraq.

Re:funny and ironic

[bigrockpeltr]

actually they do have better lenses but not necessarily more zoom...
anyways what if i carried something like the canon sx30? with up to 800mm (35mm equiv.) focul length? technically its not an slr becuase the lens isnt removable. but it has more zoom that 99% of SLR's

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the idea is to cut back on some form of spying. Lets face it, if you are a journalist, you want REALLY good pictures for your articles, like national Geographic quality if possible.

So why didn't they ban slide film?

Thats why they're allowed DSLR's.

But if I'm a spy, and I see a hand off going on between some military personel and some 'civilian' - I'll be all dressed up as a tourist with my nice HUUUUUGE Telephoto lens.

Then they should ban Canon L-series lenses, because most tele zooms give poor image quality. Or they should ban tripods, because vibration blur is bad when your lens has a FOV of a few degrees or less. Or they should ban pocket digitals, because smaller sensors give better depth-of-field at the same lens speed as do cameras with larger sensors.

The ban will only effect deep-pocketed tourists that couldn't take a decent picture if their lives depended on it.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest difference, sparky, is that the big cameras have big lenses and big sensors. Big lenses let more photons (thats light for you, Sparker), to hit that big sensor. More photons means better resolution. (period). If you start yapping about conversion lenses and ultra small, ultra sensative CCDs, I will start talking about lenses absorbing photons (thicker means more) and conversion lenses being awful. If you want crisp beautiful colorful images, use a big (large diameter) lens, captured by a large (full frame) sensor. More photons means better pictures. A 1/4 inch diameter lens with a 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch sensor which spits out a 20 megapixel image, means 17 or 18 out of those 20 million pixels are exactly the same as their blurry neighbours. Zoom in, and it looks like you zoomed in from a kiddy camera, or a webcam from 1993. Zoom in by a factor of 10 from a DSLR, and the portion of the image you are looking at only now starts looking like the full frame of a point and click, but every pixel is sharp and different from its neighbour (in a good way).

Re:funny and ironic

[blair1q]

That's what you believe. The fact is that gun control prevents gun crime:

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/gunaus.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms

Re:funny and ironic

[Ced_Ex]

Why even hide the card? Just have a tethered notebook in your bag and use a wifi memory card in your camera. Take a picture, have the image instantly uploaded to your notebook which will then email it somewhere on to the internet.

Smuggling of images complete.

Re:funny and ironic

[drooling-dog]

LOL... You manage to work the gun issue into every topic, don't you? Is this on your own behalf, or do you work in PR?

Re:funny and ironic

[hedwards]

I used to work in security at a terrorist target, and I have to say that this is completely counterproductive. Sure theoretically somebody might be up to no good with a dSLR or SLR for that matter, but it's less likely. The main reason being that every security camera you go by is going to catch you on film. And the people there are unlikely to miss you.

OTOH, those small P&S cameras like the digital Elph line that Canon sells is small enough that it can be used discretely, you can slip it into just about any pocket and easily hand it off to somebody else.

Consequently this is almost certainly going to have the opposite effect of what they would like.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like the anti-gun groups who conveniently ignore the reduction in crime in the US states where CHLs are issued and continue to cry "blood in the streets."

Or the "pro-gun" groups who conveniently ignore the numerous reports that argue that there is no definitive causal relationship between the implementation of CHLs and the reduction in crime in those States.

They won't see anything but what they want to see... and by "they" I mean pretty much everyone including you and me.

Exactly.

Re:funny and ironic

[hedwards]

If they're threatened by larger cameras, perhaps they should ban medium and large format as well. I mean if the Kuwaiti security forces have such a time finding large objects, perhaps folks looking to break the law will start carrying aroung a Hasselblad large format camera.

Re:funny and ironic

[AK Marc]

Taking the popular DSLR cameras and setting them to full auto seems to get a better result than the pocket cameras on full auto. The only functional difference between them I can see is that the button actually works on a DSLR camera (in that when you press it, whatever you see is captured almost instantly, where many of the pocket cameras will pause a second or longer before taking the photo).

Sure, someone that thinks they know what they are doing and takes it off the auto settings can really screw it up, but on full auto, I'd expect that there is no practical difference between the two, or if anything, it still favors the DSLR cameras.

Re:funny and ironic

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Your brilliant rendering of the requisite condescending tone aside, the point here isn't camera snobbery; but the question of what is good enough for whatever intelligence gathering the world's collective supply of jackboots is ostensibly trying to control.

Obviously, big sensors and huge lenses collect more light. Full frame DSLRs with gigantic lenses spit on point and shoots, which spit on camera phones. So what? Digital medium format backs spit on the DLSR crowd, and the Large Format guys spit on them(and start at only $50,000!). If we really want to ascend to the top of the dick-waving ladder, we might as well include the LN2-cooled astrophotography crowd, who measures their lenses in meters and whatever officially-nonexistent toys the spy birds are launched with.

None of that is the point. Point is, if you are just casing the joint, 95% of your needs can be met on Flickr, or Google Image search. Most of the remainder can likely be done either with a tourist-standard point and shoot or a pervert-special hidden camera from dealextreme. Obviously, your results aren't going to be deathless masterpieces of the photographer's art; but if you just want to make sure that the shaped charge propels the shrapnel packing into the densest part of the crowd and/or the minister of the interior, who gives a fuck?

Re:funny and ironic

[KingArthur10]

Annnnnnd.....you know nothing about photography. A 5x lens can be a 8-40mm (35mm equiv), or a 100-500mm lens. The "X" is nothing more than a ratio of the focal length at the widest to telephoto end of the lens. Also, with smaller sensors, aperture is the limiting factor for lens/sensor resolving power due to diffraction issues. Most lenses on compact cameras cannot resolve beyond 8-10MP anyway. And no, you cannot build a 500x zoom on a P&S nor a dSLR. It's impractical and extremely expensive. There's a reason you rarely see beyond 10x zooms on dSLR cameras and 16x on super-zooms. Like those politicians, you should not ever be put in a position to make policy.

Re:funny and ironic

[swillden]

Its not the camera that takes great photos, its the photographer. Ive seen great pics taken with a crappy disposable film camera. Ive seen shitty photos taken with a DSLR.

This is why top photographers prefer disposable film cameras over DSLRs.

Oh, wait...

A good photographer can take good pictures with any camera -- but only because he factors the capabilities of the camera into the decision of which shots to take. Many images which could be captured with the flexibility provided by a high-end DSLR with the right lens cannot be captured effectively with a cheap point & shoot. Good equipment provides options. A poor photographer won't know how to use those options, but that doesn't mean a good photographer doesn't need them.

Re:funny and ironic

[jonbryce]

If you are a spy, just get a pocket camera with a high resolution sensor and crop the unwanted bits. The quality won't be amazing, but it will tell you what's there.

Re:funny and ironic

[pclminion]

By what mechanism of cause-and-effect does concealed carry reduce crime? I don't mean what's your argument for it, I mean in reality, when a concealed carry prevents a crime from occurring, what was the chain of events? Describe it for me. How does it happen.

Re:funny and ironic

[Yvan256]

No it really wasn't obvious. You need to focus more.

Re:funny and ironic

[lwsimon]

It's also apparent that the overall homicide rate is consistent with the trend prior to the enactment of the gun bans of '94-'96.

I'm not sure why Aussies seem to think it better to be stabbed or beaten to death than to be shot, but more power to you, I guess. Myself, I prefer to be able to adequately defend myself.

Re:funny and ironic

[lwsimon]

Whoa - we could get paid for promoting gun rights? Where do I sign up?

Re:funny and ironic

[Citizen of Earth]

My compact camera has 14 megapixels and a 14x zoom. This ought to get decent photos of sensitive installations.

Re:funny and ironic

[LambdaWolf]

It has a problem that if you capture an image of something tyrants don't want you to capture, they tend to quietly push a little button on your camera, and open it up, fully illuminating the plastic, causing all the silver hadride to react, and destroying the latent image.

That sounds more like a feature than a bug to me. If you get busted by a tyrannical authority on suspicion of spying, your concern will tend to have more to do with labor camps than lost photographs. If anything, you would want to "accidentally" overexpose your "innocent tourist photos" before any authority figures confiscate them. (Of course, even then you can only hope that they decide you're not worth the trouble of punishing without evidence, but that goes with the territory.)

Re:funny and ironic

[nasalicio]

Its not the camera that takes great photos, its the photographer. Ive seen great pics taken with a crappy disposable film camera. Ive seen shitty photos taken with a DSLR.

This is why top photographers prefer disposable film cameras over DSLRs.

Oh, wait...

A good photographer can take good pictures with any camera -- but only because he factors the capabilities of the camera into the decision of which shots to take. Many images which could be captured with the flexibility provided by a high-end DSLR with the right lens cannot be captured effectively with a cheap point & shoot. Good equipment provides options. A poor photographer won't know how to use those options, but that doesn't mean a good photographer doesn't need them.

I've seen this argument before, and frankly, the cameras we have today (even the point and shoots) are MILES above the top of the line film cameras from even a couple decades ago. Yet, somehow, the photographers from that era (and earlier) managed to get these shots that people think are impossible on lower end models of today. All it takes is a little understanding of your in most cases.

And no...a good photographer doesn't need all these options on the flagship models. A good photographer will know how to get the shot regardless. All these options do is make it easier to get the shots, but its not impossible otherwise.

That said, however, I'm going to negate what I just wrote by referencing what I said in an earlier reply... I shoot dog shows which are sometimes held indoors. The indoor shows have lighting which is absolutely horrible. I refuse to use flash even when permitted as I want to be as invisible as possible for the dogs sake. What this means is that I'm shooting at ISO3200 at f/2.8 and still only managing 1/60th at some venues. Not even close to being fast enough to properly freeze the action, but I fake it by letting the angles work for me or just taking pictures with them standing still (I shoot confirmation, not agility...so standing still is mostly what they do anyways). I've found that at worst 1/160th is what will freeze the action, with 1/200th being the slowest ideal...but I can't always get that.

With that said, you need a body that can shoot *clean* images at that high of an ISO, and that means shooting with a relatively top of the line body. In my case I'm shooting with the 5D Classic which has a nice large full frame sensor to give me insanely clean images and light gathering ability. The also means, that a lesser body (like even my old 50D) simply wont do. The banding on the 50D at 3200 just didn't work for me, and Rebels top out at 1600 (although I may be wrong as I haven't checked the newer Rebels like the T1i/T2i). So yes, in some areas gear will matter...to an extent. However, a good photographer can, will, and should be able to get the shot regardless of the gear they are using. That's why they are called professionals after all.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

An ironic twist I think... I know many people whose DSLR pictures totally suck because the camera is beyond their ability to master even simple photographs. Also, ironically, anyone who would want useful information from digital pictures can readily shoot quality pictures with non-DSLR digital cameras. Is this for real?

I don't understand the reasoning for this and it's not mentioned in the f-ing article. Is it "terrorists", is it pesky tourists taking pictures of "copyrighted" images, or did some government official get caught in a compromising situation?

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Annnddddd being an ass is fun eh?

It certainly makes me think less of your opinions AND makes me have to check on your "facts" before I'll be willing to believe them.

Good job mooting your own post.

Re:funny and ironic

[blair1q]

I'm not sure why you think the overall homicide rate wouldn't have gone up even more if there were guns in more hands.

Re:funny and ironic

[misexistentialist]

Your links don't show a 100% reduction--i.e. "prevention"--of gun crime (well, maybe in Iceland). Obviously they do demonstrate a totally successful prevention of legal gun use. They don't address the issue of the total crime rate at all. Guns aren't usually preferred for the most violent butchery (too fast), and the criminals aren't exactly going give up when the population is defenseless.

Re:funny and ironic

[Paracelcus]

In the USofA you're a "terrorist" if you take pictures that the whores in Washington don't want you to http://cpj.org/2010/11/journalists-arrested-at-school-of-the-americas-pro.php .

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I see your links from 1999 data and post later data refuting your links :)

About your first link: here is the Snopes link showing that data is not as clear as you present:

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/ausguns.asp

Your second link is the usual correlation != causation fallacy and is not worth addressing. Heck - it even shows absolute numbers of homicides instead of relative rates. If you have some claim about the numbers you care to make then I'll address them.

Here is a good read with tons of data: http://www.gunfacts.info/pdfs/gun-facts/5.1/gun-facts-5.1-screen.pdf. From the source it is likely biased, but it provides a good starting point to debunk your "fact".

The truth of the matter is that in many places gun control prevents crime, and in other places it increases it.

Re:funny and ironic

[KingArthur10]

Annnnd..... you missed the point entirely. You CAN build a 500x zoom for a p&s. period.

Oh so wrong. A 500mm lens is easy to build (well, 500mm in 35mm equivalence. A 500X lens would be an incredible feat. Lets say it's 10mm on the wide end (VERY close to fisheye). That would be a 10mm-5000mm lens. Hell, you find me a 5000mm lens on any system and I commend you. Technical knowledge, you know not.

Lenses are not special on dslrs in any technical sense of the word. I specifically said that dslrs are more capable of producing better pictures. My recommendations on limiting quality are also more effective than the uninformed "ban all dslr" policy that is in place.

Lenses on dSLRs are not special in any sense of the word. The issue is that your caps on pixel count is absurd on small format lenses. Diffraction, the scattering of light passing through an eyelit, as modified by smaller absolute apertures (although equivalent relative apertures), limits the camera's ability to resolve beyond 8-10MP. Even the significantly larger 4/3rd sensor on the Olympus and Panasonic system is diffraction limited to f/6ish. So, your arbitrary limitations would be useless and simply limit a company's ability to market their new 50bajillion megapixel camera to the public. It's as arbitrary as banning dSLR cameras.

Yes, i know that you really can only subjectively measure quality, and sensor size matters when calculating relative zoom, but that isnt practical as a policy. What would be practical would be banning higher powered lenses, and limiting quality of sensor.

"Higher powered lenses" are an arbitrary assignment. Are you saying banning telephoto lenses beyond a certain throw is a good idea? 'cause that MIGHT be more worthwhile. I can find you a 1x lens that can spy a rivet on a bridge across town easily. Again, the multiplier has no bearing.

Issue is, how does anyone enforce that? Smaller sensor cameras use smaller lenses. There are some amazing 300mm+ lenses on P&S cameras that fold up into the body. Do we have all police become considerably more technically sound than yourself?

It all reeks of political stupidity. Are they also banning EVIL cameras (no reflex mirror)? Interchangeable lens systems? Does that include adapters screwed onto the front of fixed lens systems?

Point is, what you propose is nothing more than what they propose. It's all stupidity by those with no technical knowledge on the subject area.

So you can act like a smug dick all day, but to imply that the slr aspect of a camera is what defines its capacities is wrong. Just. Wrong.

Awwwwww.....did you not comprehend my previous post? Exactly my point. You, and those like you, are sadly the ones making these arbitrary rules.

Re:funny and ironic

[SplashMyBandit]

Funniest thing is, one motivation for the ban may be to to preserve the "modesty" of their women - in a country where 38% of women under 25 are obese or overweight (easy to hide under that chador). This figure is unlikely to get better with age either (pun intended).

Re:funny and ironic

[theapeman]

OK, '640mm effective' or '640mm equivalent' are bad nomenclature.
The problem is that in the past there was only 35mm, so focal lengths were usually used instead of angle of view.
And the tradition has gone on of quoting an equivalent focal length for small sensor lenses, because it is easier for people to compare different cameras by using the 'equivalent' focal length - People have a good feel of what to expect from a 200mm lens compared to a 28mm lens.

Its too late to change it. Just get used to it - a 840mm lens no longer means a lens with a focal length of 840mm. It means a lens with the same angle of view that an 840mm lens would have with a 35mm image frame. This makes things especially confusing when the same lens might be used with a full-frame or APS-C size sensor. You can blame the journalists (so tedious to always say 'equivalent') or the camera manufacturers (what would sell better 5-100mm or 25-500mm?), but it isn't going to change things.

It is rather like using equivalent MHz as a CPU speed measurement unit.

But the point is that these smaller cameras can have amazingly small angle of view. Smaller than almost any DSLR lens. You can get a camera which has the same angle of view as an 840mm lens on a 35mm camera, and it will resolve more detail than than many older full-frame DSLRs (in the right conditions).
In good lighting conditions these can take excellent pictures. A DSLR will take better pictures in less well lit conditions, may focus more quickly and more accurately, and may take more pictures in quick succession. And a picture taken in good conditions with a long DSLR lens might resolve more detail than a good small camera. But there is not very much in it - and a small camera is certainly easier to carry around and handle. (And in Kuwait in daylight I expect the lighting conditions are quite bright).

With a small sensor you get a greater depth of field (for the same angle of view and aperture). But you get greater problems with diffraction - some cameras reach the diffraction limit at f5.6, so stopping down does not improve the image.

p.s.
I am aware of medium and large format in addition to 35mm. But they were (are) always relatively specialised, and people who used them know what they are talking about and dont buy things based on meaningless paper specs, unlike many of the people who talk about 35mm equivalent focal length.

Re:funny and ironic

[LordLucless]

Why do we care if gun control prevents gun crime?
What we really want to know is if gun control prevents crime. If "gun crime" goes down by a thousand instances, and "knife crime" rises by the same amount, what's the difference?

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Not many professional photographers compose shots with the optical viewfinder anymore.

What universe are you in? Maybe it's just the circles I run in, but most professionals I interact with (press photogs, art photogs, wedding photogs) do most of their professional work with SLRs. Pretty much all of them shun liveview, preferring to use the optical viewfinder. Just about the only exception is that some press photogs use liveview to compose a shot with their camera above their head so they can get better crowd shots.

I mean, I'm sure some pros use electronic viewfinders instead of optical ones. But they certainly aren't the majority in the United States.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

time to strike one country off the list of places I wanna visit... oh wait...

Re:funny and ironic

[EvanED]

...Rebels top out at 1600 (although I may be wrong as I haven't checked the newer Rebels like the T1i/T2i)

Just for the sake of information and not because this is an important correction, the T1i goes to 3200 "natively" and offers 6,400 and 12,800 in boost mode*; the T2i goes to 6,400 natively (but still "only" to 12,800 in boost).

* For anyone who doesn't know, the "boost" means that the work is being done in software. My impression of "boost" ISO modes is that they are roughly equivalent to underexposing the image a corresponding amount then correcting that in postprocessing, except done in-camera. So on a T2i, setting the ISO to 12800 will do the same about thing as setting it to 6400, setting the exposure compensation down one stop, opening the photo in Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture/whatever, and setting the exposure correction to +1. This could be totally off though.

Re:funny and ironic

[cmr-denver]

Probably because gun crime tends to be more fatal than knife crime, due in part to the increased range.

Re:funny and ironic

[EvanED]

The other thing I'll say is that my impression is that the high end of at least the T2i is probably more noisy "natively" than it was on the XT (which maxed out at 1600), so effectively I'd say that the T2i is between one and two stops better than the XT on that count. However, it's a little hard to say; they've put more effort into noise reduction too, so I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.

That said, for amateur shots especially, many shots taken with ISO 6400 and with Lightroom 3's noise reduction (which pretty much rocks) still come out quite well. I'd say you can't quite rely on it, and you do lose some detail, but you could almost certainly shoot at 1600 with the T2i and have consistently good photos.

(I did see an article talking about camera manufacturers turning ISO into "the new megapixels" and cranking it up just because it sounds good, but they are slowly getting better. Personally, I'd love to see the T3i or whatever shed some megapixels and decrease noise.)

Re:funny and ironic

[fotoguzzi]

Quick! To the Patent Office!

Re:funny and ironic

[blair1q]

Why do we care if gun control prevents gun crime?

Ask someone who's been shot.

What we really want to know is if gun control prevents crime. If "gun crime" goes down by a thousand instances, and "knife crime" rises by the same amount, what's the difference?

The difference is we then only have to reduce crimes with knives to reduce crimes.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedantic, and a fucking dick. YOU are definitely right for politics.

Re:funny and ironic

[mysidia]

That sounds more like a feature than a bug to me. If you get busted by a tyrannical authority on suspicion of spying, your concern will tend to have more to do with labor camps than lost photographs

I'm referring to tyrants whose primary object is to harass photographers with no legal basis. In other words, you did nothing wrong, but these officers are illegally harassing you anyways.

In other words, they would ruin your film, because they can get away with it, even though they have no legal right to do so.

I'm not suggesting they would accuse you of spying. If you actually are breaking the law in a way legally punishable with labor camp, then yeah, easily destructible media benefits you, and you can probably easily just drop the piece of flash on the ground and smash it, if you want.

But there will be more evidence you did that

Re:funny and ironic

[Belial6]

Joe and Mike are hanging out in the subway. They see a little old lady, and no one else around. They smoked their last rock 6 or 7 hours ago, and could use some more dope. So, they decide that mugging the little old lady would be an easy way to get enough money for another rock. They approach the little old lady, and demand her wallet. She reaches into her purse, only instead of a wallet, she pulls out a gun and shoots Joe in the face. Mike looks in horror as he sees his pal bleeding to death on the subway station floor. He runs away, hearing the little old lady's taunts... daring him to come back and take her wallet.

Jump ahead 6 months. Mike is hanging out in a multistory parking garage with his new girlfriend Ann. They are getting high, and having a good time. Ann notices a little old lady unlocking her car door. She nudges Mike with her elbow, and nods over at the lady. She leans over to Mike and suggests... "Hey, lets 'borrow' her car." Mike, remembering the bloody subway floor, and the bits of brain he had to wash out of his hair 6 month earlier, looks at Ann and tells her "Don't be such a bitch. It's just a little old lady."

That is how a concealed carry reduces crime. The little old lady in the parking garage doesn't even need to own a gun to be protected by it. The mere fact that she can and SOMEONE does provides just as much protection as actually having it. One of the big 'statistic' lies that anti-gun folks use is that they only count times that the gun is fired when counting how often the gun protects a person. Generally, a gun used for protection doesn't need to be fired. Frequently it doesn't even need to exist. The only thing necessary is that the gun MIGHT exist, and this MIGHT be the person that will pull the trigger. Concealed carrying makes the practice of skipping the person with a gun and targeting the unarmed impossible.

Re:funny and ironic

[nasalicio]

The other thing I'll say is that my impression is that the high end of at least the T2i is probably more noisy "natively" than it was on the XT (which maxed out at 1600), so effectively I'd say that the T2i is between one and two stops better than the XT on that count. However, it's a little hard to say; they've put more effort into noise reduction too, so I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.

That said, for amateur shots especially, many shots taken with ISO 6400 and with Lightroom 3's noise reduction (which pretty much rocks) still come out quite well. I'd say you can't quite rely on it, and you do lose some detail, but you could almost certainly shoot at 1600 with the T2i and have consistently good photos.

(I did see an article talking about camera manufacturers turning ISO into "the new megapixels" and cranking it up just because it sounds good, but they are slowly getting better. Personally, I'd love to see the T3i or whatever shed some megapixels and decrease noise.)

Thanks for the correction on the Rebel line. :)

I hadn't seen it personally because I picked up the 50D when I was upgrading at the time, but everyone was saying that the 40D handled noise much better than the 50D even though the 50D was newer, and Canon had put more effort into the noise reduction. This was due to the cramming of many more megapixels in the same effective area. So yea, the XT is 8mp versus 18mp of the T2i, but the physical sensor size is the same. But at the same time, I'm quite sure the T2i at 1600 is relatively clean even given that fact (which is counter to the 40D/50D debate) because of advances in noise reduction software, and even as you say...Lightroom 3 for post processing.

I agree with you about ISO being the new MP war, and seeing new bodies with less MP. I know we (the Canon community) were hoping prior to the 7D release and even specs were known, that they'd drop the MP back down to like 10 or 12mp. There was a huge debate about 18mp being too much for a crop body camera, but I think the 7D has turned out quite well. I just don't think there's anymore room left on that size of a sensor though, and this is where the ISO war is going to come into play.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that there are non-DSLR cameras now that can zoom a darn lot, are small and the quality of the pictures is not bad either.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually look at those statistics instead of taking at face value what the people presenting them are saying, you'll find that the overall homicide rates are essentially unchanged.

In fact, the only difference is that homicide with firearms has decreased.

Crime didn't go away, gun control didn't prevent any crimes. All it did was stuff it under a rug so you can continue to ignore the problem. "Gun Control" is a complete farce, a non-issue. You can't solve violent crime by trying to remove every weapon an assailant might own. People will kill each other with sharp sticks and rocks, and good luck banning those!

Yet the benefits of firearms far outweighs the drawbacks. You never hear of the millions of times a firearm has been used in the US to safely end a run-in with a criminal - with no blood on either side. The mere brandishing of a firearm is enough to send most criminals running. [Nor do you hear that the vast majority of gun-related homicides in the US are from gang-on-gang violence or criminals killing other criminals]

Guns are an equalizer. They take the monopoly on violence away from the young and the strong, and give it to everyone. People like you seem to think that the second you put a gun in a normal person's hands, they suddenly become vicious criminals who want to kill someone else with every argument, and who will go rob a convenience store at the first chance.

Well, lets get back to reality. That doesn't happen, the simple fact is, a weapon doesn't magically make people violent. You don't suddenly become bloodlusted when you hold a sword, why do you think it happens when you hold a gun? These people who commit crimes are already violent, and even without access to a firearm they will still find a way to take their violence upon others. At best all you've managed to do with a firearms ban is prevent the innocent from defending themselves from their aggressors.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone should build a P&S that takes interchangeable lenses and then offer a kit with a 500mm mirror lens and a few 2X teleconverters, just to piss off the Kuwaiti heads of Ministries of this and that and the other thing.

Re:funny and ironic

[Achra]

I'm referring to tyrants whose primary object is to harass photographers with no legal basis. In other words, you did nothing wrong, but these officers are illegally harassing you anyways.

In other words, they would ruin your film, because they can get away with it, even though they have no legal right to do so.

I'm not suggesting they would accuse you of spying. If you actually are breaking the law in a way legally punishable with labor camp, then yeah, easily destructible media benefits you, and you can probably easily just drop the piece of flash on the ground and smash it, if you want.

But there will be more evidence you did that

I'm not really sure where to start with this.. Your primary concern is that police officers will open the back of your camera to ruin your film just to harass you? How about rewinding the film cartridge? I think that this is no significant change from digital, where in both cases the harassing authority can just confiscate the entire camera or data medium. Secondly, this is the middle east. Legal right to do so? Are you serious? If any authorities were telling me that they thought I was a spy, I would be hoping to be able to destroy every bit of anything that might even be considered spying (including any pictures I might have taken of the area). The ability to open the back of the camera and destroy the pictures is actually not bad, much easier than trying to figure out how to break a flash card (drop on the ground and smash it? maybe with a hammer, but not your foot). If you need any reminders that the middle east is not the USA, remember the hikers that are still hanging out in Iranian prison for being spies with no proof or evidence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932010_detention_of_American_hikers_by_Iran

Re:funny and ironic

[EvanED]

I agree with you about ISO being the new MP war, and seeing new bodies with less MP. I know we (the Canon community) were hoping prior to the 7D release and even specs were known, that they'd drop the MP back down to like 10 or 12mp. There was a huge debate about 18mp being too much for a crop body camera, but I think the 7D has turned out quite well.

Yeah... I'm less committed to that viewpoint than I was before upgrading. The extra MP can be very nice in a few circumstances (e.g. you're taking a picture you intend to crop substantially because you don't have a long enough lens), and does tend to give rather more detail.

Though the near-30-megabyte photos you get from the T2i on RAW can be a bit annoying too... I had to get new flash cards with the CF to SD switch, doubled the size of my main card, and still have like 2/3 the number of available shots that I used to. And of course you need fast cards too, which increases the price more. Ah well. Certainly you can't claim photography tends to be a cheap hobby. ;-)

Re:funny and ironic

[not flu]

That is why he said "effective" - in this context it means 35mm equivalent.

Re:funny and ironic

[Dare nMc]

But making gun ownership mandatory reduces crime "When the law was passed in 1982 there was a substantial drop in crime ... and we have maintained a really low crime rate since then," said police Lt. Craig Graydon. "We are sure it is one of the lowest (crime) towns in the metro area.

Realistically, neither case is a proof of what would happen anywhere else. I don't think either method (banned or required) will work everywhere. For example Mexico has the toughest gun laws in the world, yet gun violence is a huge problem, hasn't prevented gun violence for them. While Switzerland has the highest gun ownership rate in the World, yet is also one of the safest places to be in the world. Basically the Statistics seam to support that gun laws have little affect on violence and crime either way. A little effect on gun specific violence (but does not "prevent" anything.)

Re:funny and ironic

[pclminion]

If the little old lady had had the gun visible in the open instead of concealed, she could have avoided the initial approach altogether. They'd see the gun and just go somewhere else.

What if she hadn't drawn fast enough and took a bat to the side of the head instead? I guess I just don't understand this "make my day" kind of attitude where people seem to be itching to pull a gun on someone. Why conceal the thing? Wear it on your hip.

Re:funny and ironic

[Daniel Dvorkin]

the cameras we have today (even the point and shoots) are MILES above the top of the line film cameras from even a couple decades ago

Then that explains why my fiancee, who is a photographer, is holding on to her 1967 Pentax SLR for dear life?

There are a lot more widgets on modern cameras, to be sure, and they're very helpful to people who take shots kind of at random. And of course not having to worry about burning through rolls of film -- so you can, for instance, take ten shots of the same thing and hope one of them turns out well -- is great. But the quality of the optics is no better than it used to be.

Also, until very recently, the resolution on the types of CCDs that get put into cameras wasn't as good as that of film. They've just about caught up now, but quality control on dense CCDs isn't that great -- you're a lot more likely to get dead pixels than you are dead spots on high-quality film. It will probably be several years before this is really resolved.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Its easy to throw around phrases like 'consistent with the trend' to obfuscate matters. Lets quote from the linked, researched and sourced article however, shall we:

"The overall rate of homicide in Australia has also dropped to its lowest point since 1989 (National Homicide Monitoring Program, 1997-98 data). It remains one-fourth the homicide rate in the USA.

The Institute of Criminology report Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999 includes 1998 homicide data showing "a 9% decrease from the rate in 1997." This is the period in which most of the country's new gun laws came into force. "

Re:funny and ironic

[nasalicio]

Haha...no, but I love it. However, I hate the fact I always seem to choose the expensive hobbies (cars, computers, and now photography). I can't win. lol :)

Re:funny and ironic

[AtomicOrange]

I was out hiking with my DSLR (I'm not a professional but consider myself a seasoned photographer) and here is the exchange that went down:

Random guy with a DSLR: I wish I hadn't spent the money on mine when my little handheld takes much better pictures for cheaper...

Me: ... Uh yeah, sure.

Random guy with DSLR: ::walks off::

Wife: Some people really shouldn't be allowed to touch an SLR.

People need to realize that they really don't need an SLR when all they are doing is turning it into a giant automatic snapshot camera. Woo, I'm a pro because my lenses can detach and I can set it on the mountain mode or portrait mode. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge gadget guy, but at least people need to have some perspective on what they're buying and learn how to use it.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the "pro-gun" groups who conveniently ignore the numerous reports that argue that there is no definitive causal relationship between the implementation of CHLs and the reduction in crime in those States.

Or the anti-self defense groups who suddenly, for the first time in their existence, became interested in causal relationships when the reports they're trying to refute came out.

Re:funny and ironic

[tombeard]

I don't have a problem with open carry. But it does lack the spillover benefit that concealed carry brings. As a gun owner either is fine with me, but any non owner should prefer CC.

Re:funny and ironic

[swillden]

I've seen this argument before, and frankly, the cameras we have today (even the point and shoots) are MILES above the top of the line film cameras from even a couple decades ago. Yet, somehow, the photographers from that era (and earlier) managed to get these shots that people think are impossible on lower end models of today.

Nonsense.

I would much rather have a 70s-era SLR with a full set of Zeiss glass and a variety of films than a modern point & shoot camera. Not to mention a Hasselblad...

Beyond your valid point about light sensitivity, there are a lot of other issues, most of which have more to do with optics than with "features". And there's simply no way that, for example, a teeny P&S camera can compete with a 35mm SLR with a set of good lenses. And no way that 35mm can compete with a medium or large format camera.

And that's just looking at issues of sharpness and resolution. Other crucial aspects like the ability to control aperture to manage DOF, and to trade it off against shutter speed and noise/grain can also make the difference between a shot that's worth keeping and one that isn't. Old, purely-manual film cameras provided an ability to do those things that modern P&S cameras often do not, as do DSLRs.

Of course, the biggest difference between a P&S and an SLR (or DSLR) is the obvious one -- interchangeable lenses. And there are many shots you can get with, say, a 10 mm fisheye or a 600 mm telephoto that you simply cannot get with a P&S. And that's not even getting into the more oddball stuff like tilt/shift lenses.

However, a good photographer can, will, and should be able to get the shot regardless of the gear they are using. That's why they are called professionals after all.

Yeah, right. So give a sports photographer a little P&S camera and tell him to go photograph magazine cover shots of fast-moving action with tight DOF and nice bokeh in an indoor arena. He'll just tell you that you can't get those shots with that camera. Now, he might get some nice photos of the game, but they'll be more wide-angle, more static, with greater DOF, etc. Forced to shoot with that equipment, he'll modify the sorts of shots he takes to fit the capability of the equipment.

I have a bunch of digital cameras, ranging from the one on my cellphone, to various sizes of P&S cameras, to a couple of Canon DSLRs (a 350D and a 50D). I use all of them, and (I think) take nice pictures with all of them. I know my cellphone camera doesn't really have the resolution it's rated at, and it adds an odd sort of distortion that gives the images a surreal effect -- so I use it when I like, or at least don't mind, a photo with those limitations.

I carry my small P&S cameras when it's not convenient or feasible to carry a DSLR, but I recognize that low-light shots will not be good without a tripod, that if I want a pleasantly-blurred background I'm going to have to fake it in post, that I don't have filters, that I can't carefully manage the exposure for high dynamic range shots, etc.

Likewise, when choosing between the 350D and 50D for a session, I trade off size against resolution, ISO and frame rate. Sometimes I pick the 350D over the 50D even when size doesn't matter, because at low ISOs the 350D images are cleaner.

But I guess the only reason I can't capture the same images in the same circumstances with my cellphone as I can with my Canon 50D and L-series lenses is because I'm not a professional, right?

Re:funny and ironic

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

* For anyone who doesn't know, the "boost" means that the work is being done in software. My impression of "boost" ISO modes is that they are roughly equivalent to underexposing the image a corresponding amount then correcting that in postprocessing, except done in-camera. So on a T2i, setting the ISO to 12800 will do the same about thing as setting it to 6400, setting the exposure compensation down one stop, opening the photo in Photoshop/Lightroom/Aperture/whatever, and setting the exposure correction to +1. This could be totally off though.

It's been shown that many cameras implement various non-"boost" ISO settings in software. I.e., the actual exposure level used to take the shot is a function of both sensor gain and output processing curve, so ISO settings are implemented by some combination of these two controls.

I really suspect that these separate "boost" modes are just arbitrarily segregated by the UI from the regular ones, because the camera maker wants to lower people's expectations of their image quality.

Re:funny and ironic

[swillden]

But the quality of the optics is no better than it used to be.

Actually, that's not true. The field of optical engineering is seeing very rapid advancement, in part due to new lens coatings and in part due to the ability to model complex series of lenses in computers, rather than having to build and test them experimentally.

The result is that today's top-quality lenses are sharper and have less distortion (chromatic abberation, barrel and pincushion distortion, etc.) than older lenses. And the new technology is making some things possible that simply weren't before, like the new crop of superzooms that actually have reasonable performance across very wide zoom ranges.

For many kinds of shooting, image stabilization is huge, too.

However, none of that enables a tiny P&S lens to match a lens that is four or five times its size. When it comes to optics, size matters. A lot. Bigger glass can gather more light and focus and manage it better across the visible spectrum.

So while your statement isn't true -- optics ARE better, much better, and improving rapidly -- that still doesn't support the GPs claim that a modern P&S is superior to your wife's Pentax in terms of achievable image quality.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I call Bullshit, crackheads star fiending in a matter of about an hour or two. 6 or 7 hours? they would have already stolen something by then.....

Re:funny and ironic

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

The other thing I'll say is that my impression is that the high end of at least the T2i is probably more noisy "natively" than it was on the XT (which maxed out at 1600), so effectively I'd say that the T2i is between one and two stops better than the XT on that count. However, it's a little hard to say; they've put more effort into noise reduction too, so I don't think it's quite a fair comparison.

That said, for amateur shots especially, many shots taken with ISO 6400 and with Lightroom 3's noise reduction (which pretty much rocks) still come out quite well. I'd say you can't quite rely on it, and you do lose some detail, but you could almost certainly shoot at 1600 with the T2i and have consistently good photos.

(I did see an article talking about camera manufacturers turning ISO into "the new megapixels" and cranking it up just because it sounds good, but they are slowly getting better. Personally, I'd love to see the T3i or whatever shed some megapixels and decrease noise.)

The relationship between pixel count and noise is something that the amateur common wisdom has managed to completely misconceive over the past few years. This "fewer megapixels" comment of yours is, frankly, one example.

The misconception is based around one thing that is a fact: smaller pixels are more prone to noise than larger pixels. However, it ignores the fact that, at a given sensor size, smaller pixels means more pixels, which compensates for the increased noise of the individual pixels. Since noise is random, downscaling an image reduces per-pixel noise.

As a general rule, more, smaller pixels are better as long as the individual pixels are not disproportionately worse than fewer, larger ones. Rule of thumb: if you have twice as many pixels, and those pixels capture half as much information as larger ones would, you've broken even on the noise angle, and you've also increased spatial resolution, so you're ahead.

This means that if you take two cameras with the same sensor size, shoot the same photo with each, and display them at the same physical size (which is critical), one of the following will hold (assuming other factors don't mess it up):

• At smaller display sizes, where the image with more pixels needs to be downscaled, neither image will be noisier than the other. The image from the higher-pixels camera might have more fine detail, especially in strongly colored areas.
• At larger display sizes, where the image with fewer pixels needs to be upscaled, the image from the higher-pixels camera will be noisier, but it will have more detail. Unless you apply some form of noise reduction (e.g. by downscaling and then upscaling), in which case you can get the same image from both.

The reason people keep convincing themselves that cameras with more pixels are "worse" is because they view the images from both cameras at 1:1 pixel ratio, which means that the image with more pixels is enlarged more, and will therefore look noisier.

Re:funny and ironic

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

But the quality of the optics is no better than it used to be.

Actually, that's not true. The field of optical engineering is seeing very rapid advancement, in part due to new lens coatings and in part due to the ability to model complex series of lenses in computers, rather than having to build and test them experimentally.

Strictly speaking, that's been the case since the 80s.

The result is that today's top-quality lenses are sharper and have less distortion (chromatic abberation, barrel and pincushion distortion, etc.) than older lenses. And the new technology is making some things possible that simply weren't before, like the new crop of superzooms that actually have reasonable performance across very wide zoom ranges.

And actually, one of the newest techs is the use of software instead of optics to correct chromatic aberration and curvilinear distortion. I.e., if your camera's viewing and capture systems are all-electronic, your lens design can be relaxed when it comes to those, as long as you can profile it accurately and correct it in software with a reasonable loss in quality.

This is actually one of the reasons those superzoom cameras work as well as they do.

Re:funny and ironic

[Khyber]

"And no, you cannot build a 500x zoom on a P&S nor a dSLR."

Yea, umm, I can easily take a couple of TINY silver-coated lenses (to deal with optical diffraction,) and take pictures of roots with a P&S.

Here, have a 200x crop from a P&S (Kodak C643) with a specialized lens rig that took maybe two minutes to set up, just for you - http://imgur.com/Rqi9r.jpg And that was taken without a tripod, with my shaky hands.

These lenses have been around for quite some time, FYI, and they're not that expensive. Methinks your knowledge of optical physics is lacking.

Re:funny and ironic

[DaleSwanson]

It may reduce gun crime, but it has virtually no effect on crime as a whole. This is pretty easy to see if you correlate the Brady per state rating with various per capita crime stats. I did this and the correlation between states with more lax gun laws and the overall murder rate is 0.029. As in 3%, which is statistically insignificant. Conversely, the correlation between more strict gun laws and overall violent crime is 0.020. Again, insignificant. Feel free to do the numbers for yourself. I wrote a bit more about it all here if you want more details:
http://daleswanson.blogspot.com/2010/03/correlation-between-gun-laws-and-deaths.html

Re:funny and ironic

[Entropius]

You're condescending and wrong, actually.

More photons do NOT mean better resolution. More photons landing on each pixel means a better per-pixel signal-to-noise ratio. But in daylight, it turns out that even the relatively tiny pixels of a compact camera sensor deliver a perfectly acceptable signal to noise ratio for many purposes, so nobody cares.

There are no "ultra small, ultra sensitive" CCD's. If it's small it's not that sensitive; the efficiency per size of the best compact camera sensors (like the one in the Panasonic LX3) are about the same as the best digital SLR sensors, and in the end the only thing that matters for sensitivity is the size.

Optical glass doesn't absorb many photons. Glass-air interfaces reflect them, which is why we have coatings, which are pretty damn good these days. There are SLR lenses with upwards of 20 elements that spit out good crisp beautiful images. (One of the best tele zooms ever made, the Olympus 35-100 f/2, has 21 elements.) They have all those elements to correct for aberrations, which are what really craps on your image quality. The reason pictures taken with conversion lenses often suck is because either the conversion lens introduces aberrations or magnifies aberrations already present in the main lens, but using a good conversion lens on a good lens can produce good pictures -- it has nothing at all to do with lenses absorbing light.

More photons doesn't necessarily mean better pictures. If you collect too few photons your picture will suck (because of noise, not a lack of resolution), but in daylight you can collect a lot of photons with even a small sensor. ISO 100 on a point-and-shoot is about as good as ISO 600-800 on a Four Thirds digital SLR, which is perfectly capable of making beautiful poster prints. (I have 16x20's from both in my apartment.) The key is that the point and shoot has a very good lens, which is the *real* limiter on image quality in good light for pretty much every camera on the market.

Learn to physics before posting.

Re:funny and ironic

[Entropius]

No, you won't. But you can get pretty good resolution in good light, which is what matters if they're worried about spies taking pictures in a desert.

Re:funny and ironic

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

I find your posts informative and salute you.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I'm confused, but isn't there a pretty big difference between zooming in on distant objects and magnifying small things that are close to you? Or are microscopes and telescopes interchangeable?

Re:funny and ironic

[the_womble]

If you fancy explaining the difference between a digital and analog to a Kuwaiti cop, go right ahead.

Re:funny and ironic

[X0563511]

I'm pretty sure that this is because of the shape, not the capabilities.

I saw some political artwork recently that made the statement that a DSLR camera was not an RPG launcher.

I'm assuming this is because someone made a particularly stupid mistake of that kind, and this is a reaction to that.

(note the artists comments in the description indicated it was not some play on words (ie pen is mightier etc) but was literal)

Re:funny and ironic

[swillden]

This is actually one of the reasons those superzoom cameras work as well as they do.

Interesting. I was actually speaking of superzoom lenses for SLRs, not cameras with integral superzooms. In the latter case I can see that they could just correct it in software. In the former case, the camera you put the lens on may well have been made before the lens was designed, so they can't rely on software.

Re:funny and ironic

[KingArthur10]

Methinks your understanding of photographic terms is lacking. You're thinking microscopic rather than telescopic: Magnification versus zoom. In macro/micro photography, terms are used like 1:1, 2:1, 4:1, 1:4, 1:200 etc. Those are ratios of the physical size of the object to the physical size it takes up on a sensor (as in, magnifying an object that takes up .35mm to take up 35mm on a lens would be a 100x MAGNIFICATION). That is entirely different from the term 2x Zoom lens, which is a ratio of the longest and shortest focal lengths of a lens.

Re:funny and ironic

[syousef]

Its not the camera that takes great photos, its the photographer. Ive seen great pics taken with a crappy disposable film camera. Ive seen shitty photos taken with a DSLR.

It's both. The photographer needs to have the right tool. Now a crappy disposable film camera may be a sufficient tool to get a good photo for some purposes, but as soon as you have more demanding requirements - like fast action, low light, or large print, even the best photographer isn't going to be able to get past the limitations of the unsuited camera.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Camera detectors will not work when the mirror is down in a DSLR. It blocks the sensor chip. Maybe this is the reason.
http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/sf-103.html

Re:funny and ironic

[the gnat]

If you need any reminders that the middle east is not the USA, remember the hikers that are still hanging out in Iranian prison for being spies with no proof or evidence.

Uh, I'm no fan of the Iranian rulers, and I can think of many other reasons why the American system of government is vastly better to Iran's, but we've held a lot more foreign nationals indefinitely without evidence in the last decade. And although lots of Iranians have died under "questioning" in their prisons, so far there's no indication that any of the hikers have been tortured, let alone killed - and our record there isn't too great either. I hope the remaining two get out soon, and I hope our government presses for their release, but this is one case where we have no basis for a smug feeling of moral superiority.

Re:funny and ironic

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

This is actually one of the reasons those superzoom cameras work as well as they do.

Interesting. I was actually speaking of superzoom lenses for SLRs, not cameras with integral superzooms. In the latter case I can see that they could just correct it in software. In the former case, the camera you put the lens on may well have been made before the lens was designed, so they can't rely on software.

The gating factors here are: (a) if you have an optical viewfinder, you can't perform software corrections that would change the framing; (b) if the lens is supposed to also work on film cameras, you have to deliver a decent quality image to the film. So what you see is that, e.g., Nikon DSLRs do automatic correction of chromatic aberration but not distortion, while Micro Four Thirds cameras can do both since they have a 100% electronic viewing system, can do both.

That, plus the smaller sensor (2x crop) and the shorter mount-to-sensor distance in the mirrorless camera, is why Panasonic's ultra wide angle 7-14mm f/4 lens is smaller than Nikon's basic 18-55mm kit lenses, and gives you photos with very little distortion.

Re:funny and ironic

[EvanED]

That's interesting, and I never really thought about it that way, and didn't really know about the misconception. (I do think it'd be interesting to see concrete tests on how much the assumptions hold, but they probably aren't too out there.) So thanks for clearing that up.

(Though part of my wish still applies, though I didn't really say the whole thing. Because of what you say, I guess backing off on the resolution wouldn't help. However, putting R&D into improving noise performance instead of resolution still would. In the past, I've usually said it differently, something more along the lines of "I wish Canon would stop boosting megapixels and spend a couple generations working on noise instead." That part doesn't suffer from your objection much. However, I didn't realize that those two statements are actually a lot more different than what I thought.)

Re:funny and ironic

[Nursie]

I always find this line of reasoning funny.

If easy access to guns isn't related to murder rate then what the fuck is wrong with the USA?
Because if it's not the guns then you yanks must just love murder or something.

Re:funny and ironic

[cgum]

I wonder how many little pieces of formerly analog SLR camera the Kuwaiti authorities could produce into while you tried (in English, probably) desperately to explain the difference between compact flash and photon interaction with silver hadride crystals.

Re:funny and ironic

[dgatwood]

I've seen this argument before, and frankly, the cameras we have today (even the point and shoots) are MILES above the top of the line film cameras from even a couple decades ago. Yet, somehow, the photographers from that era (and earlier) managed to get these shots that people think are impossible on lower end models of today. All it takes is a little understanding of your in most cases.

No, they're really not. A good film SLR from a couple of decades ago would likely have metering and probably even auto-exposure, and probably even automatic focus. That camera, coupled with modern film, will take pictures that are roughly on par with as a modern DSLR, and the lenses from that era still generally spank the lenses built into point-and-shoot cameras in every way---the light gathering of the lens, the amount of chromatic aberration, the amount of barrel and/or pincushion distortion, the number of blades on the shutter, etc. All of these have a very real effect on the quality of photos, and there's really no way around it. Sure, you can take photos with great composition with any camera, but it will still be of noticeably lesser quality than an otherwise identical shot taken with a DSLR or even a thirty-year-old film SLR, assuming a good photographer who is familiar with the equipment.

And no...a good photographer doesn't need all these options on the flagship models.

It's not that good photographers need all the features of the high-end cameras, but rather, that they need the ability to disable all those features. A good photographer dealing with tricky lighting conditions will find him/herself wanting to throw a point-and-shoot within about a minute. Most of the point-and-shoot models I've used over the years were designed for people who only care about point-and-shoot photography. As soon as you need to put one of them into anything approaching full manual, it's an absolute pain in the backside. There's rarely a manual focus at all, and even the other manual controls---aperture, exposure, gain (ISO), etc.---are usually very clumsy to use when compared with a DSLR. It may sometimes be possible to get some of the same shots with lower end cameras, but it's as much fun as a root canal without anesthesia. Just about any film SLR ever made is easier to use as soon as you need to set up a shot manually.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Well there is certainly a correlation between gun control and murders with firearms, in the U.S. it's easy to obtain a firearm and rates per capita are high, while in germany it's probably a bit more difficult and the rates per capita are a good bit lower, but I am not so sure there is that much of a causal relationship. For instance, in germany we don't have people on television presenting their guns and saying how they would use it to keep their family safe, we have much lower incarceration rates (which you might translate to lower levels of notable crime overall), we don't ask people running for office how they feel about gun control, there are no ads about your rights on carrying a gun, it's just not an issue that you find people to care about. Reducing gun control might not make more people care a lot more about guns, having them and using them, so there may be substantial other factors at work here.

Re:funny and ironic

[Rick17JJ]

The Olympus E-P1 is another example of a non-SLR digital camera with interchangeable lenses. I do not know much about cameras or photography, but near the bottom of the page below, it shows a huge lens attached with the help of an adapter. If I am not mistaken, I believe that camera supports the Micro 4/3 standard that you mentioned.

Lenses for Olympus E-P1

I have been looking for a digital camera to replace my old beat up pocket sized 35mm Olympus Stylus Epic compact point-and-shoot camera. I bought my old pocket sized 35mm camera about 10 or 15 years ago, for $70. It has always taken amazingly good photos which look much better than the photos from many other 35mm or digital cameras. The lack of a zoom or telephoto lens, might be one reason that it has survived a decades worth of exposure to sand and dirt, while hiking and backpacking in Arizona. It survived much better than my previous 35mm camera which had to be repaired twice, due to sand making the zoom lens jam.

Despite knowing almost nothing about photography, and not having fancy lenses or a tripod, several photos from my old pocket sized 35mm camera ended up being used in a small calendar. They look just as good as the photos that a professional photographer took with his superior skills and fancier equipment.

My old pocket sized 35mm camera still works, but I would like try using a digital camera instead. I want something that would take photos that are at least as good, but perhaps with interchangeable lenses and the option of using manual settings. Most of my photos are taken while hiking, so being compact would be an advantage (although not absolutely essential). I wonder if the above camera would be rugged enough or not? The Olympus E-P1 was one of about 14 cameras recently mentioned in an Audubon magazine article.

Another alternative, would be possibly buying a DSLR camera instead. Perhaps I might get something like the Canon EOS Rebel T1i or a Pentax K-x instead. I saw both mentioned in this month's Consumer Reports review of digital cameras. But again, I do not know how either does around dirt and sand when hiking. I do not plan on ever traveling to Kuwait, so I do not care about their DSLR camera ban.

Before I go shopping, I plan to read "The Compete Idiot's Guide to Photography Essentials." That way, I hope to know enough about the basics of photography, to shop intelligently.

Re:funny and ironic

[dgatwood]

The reason people keep convincing themselves that cameras with more pixels are "worse" is because they view the images from both cameras at 1:1 pixel ratio, which means that the image with more pixels is enlarged more, and will therefore look noisier.

I'd expect that, all things being equal, they should be noisier (even if you use the exact same exposure and gain settings). The amount of light gathered by a pixel is proportional to its area. Yes, in theory, if you have 2x the number of pixels in each direction, each one is half the area, and it comes out equal. In practice, however, a pixel cannot have zero border. Therefore, every time you double the number of pixels, you're also shaving off a small percentage of the total light gathering, so your SNR is reduced.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because it's very very hard to stab or beat someone to death in a split second decision that you can't take back. I don't think anyone does statistics on how often someone (yes, even criminals) pulls the trigger on a gun and then immediately wishes they hadn't.

Re:funny and ironic

[dubsnipe]

Not to mention Canon models with the CHDK software. Not as good as a DLSR, but it's worth the trouble if you need to spy as an art-lover secret agent would. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK

Re:funny and ironic

[Jon Abbott]

Hell, you find me a 5000mm lens on any system and I commend you.

Here is the Canon 5200mm f/14 EF FD lens. It's not exactly 5000mm as requested, but you get the point.

Re:funny and ironic

[DerekLyons]

Non-SLR digital cameras have gotten very good in recent years. As an old-school 35mm SLR user, there are times I'd love to have a DSLR, but a 10MP non-reflex camera with a 10X optical zoom lens (such as the one I have) can take pretty much the exact same photos, albeit with marginally lower image quality due to the optics.

That's like saying a Honda Accord is pretty much exactly like a Formula One racer except for marginally lower performance due to the engine.
 
You're correct that within the range of pictures a decent point-and-shoot can take, the difference between them and a DSLR (with a single basic lens) is marginal. The problem is, that range is a pretty small subset of what a DSLR can really do. In low light, my consumer/prosumer crop-frame blows pretty much any point-and-shoot out of the water. Slap on my cheap-ass 55-250mm zoom, ditto. Etc.. etc... Compare that point-and-shoot to a full frame professional grade body and lens, and the differences become even more stark. (There's a reason why the pros carry $2000+ bodies and several grand worth of lenses rather than a $600-$1000 point and shoot.)

Re:funny and ironic

[dbIII]

An angry guy on the other side of the room has got to be powerfully angry to smash a bottle, run across the room and stab you with the bits of glass thirty times to kill you. A guy that just has to draw a gun and shoot has it a lot easier and is more likely to do it, and has probably even practised shooting at human shaped targets every second week. The connection between a higher number of homocides and easy access to guns is that obvious.
Also get out of fucking Dodge City and you won't need to pull out a handgun to "defend yourself". I really think you have another reason, but it's a very dangerous tool to carry about just to make you feel more in control of your life. Guns and ammo should be stored in different places until needed and armed civilians wandering about just make life difficult for law enforcement.

Re:funny and ironic

[Logic Worshipper]

I think $20 would do the trick, or a larger bribe...

Re:funny and ironic

[thegarbz]

Son, have you been stabbed? I have, and I'm here to tell about it.

Turns out my ex was seeing two people at once. Her boyfriend seemed to think that I was the one she was cheating with (my opinion differed naturally). A few days later he walked up to me outside a shopping centre and pulled out of knife and lunged. I ended up with a cut to my hand. He ended up with a broken nose, eye socket, laying on the floor finding it very hard to breath, as it turns out later a knee brace for 3 months, and thanks to our useless legal system pretty much nothing else.

The human mind is capable of incredible feats when it's under time pressure and is given half a second to weigh up options. Defend? Fight? Run? All a valid options (unless the attacker is a great knife thrower). If the attacker pulls out a gun, your options suddenly become severely limited, especially the Run option.

Sure people will try to tell you it takes skill to kill someone. That's just a load of crap. A 15 year old with an IQ of 10 can use a gun to kill Bruce Lee, and poor old Bruce wouldn't stand a fighting chance. And sure if someone really wanted to kill you they will, they could sneak up behind you and cut your throat, but people generally don't do that in the heat of an argument, or in a passionate attack. Turning someone's rage from a point and click adventure into a contact sport may not decrease a pre-meditated murder rate, but it sure as hell gives us a fighting chance.

Have you been shot? I haven't. I'm thankful for that every day. I don't blame the douche-bag for what he did, everyone's dumb when they're 18. But I am glad that he pulled a knife instead of a gun because something must have gone wrong in his head to say I am going to try and kill/seriously injure a guy in front of 100 random witnesses. You may think that you don't have a fighting chance anyway, however you live in a country where 65% of homicides involve firearms, vs our 16%. You also live in a country where people have a tendency to walk into a school and kill 13 people. Don't get me wrong, we have that tendency too, but the last time someone actually managed to successfully massacre people for whatever reason was prior to the introduction of the gun laws vs once every two years prior to the ban.

I don't miss the guns. In fact most of the people here don't miss their guns because the fact of the matter is that even prior to the gun bans they were still far more tightly controlled then they are in the US, and the ban isn't total either, just the licences are harder to get. Ultimately though when we look at the homicide rate in America, we just laugh at you regardless of the reasons.

Re:funny and ironic

[RMH101]

Maybe it's just a way of easily identifying journalists. Anyone carrying a DSLR - probably a journalist. Moderate behaviour around them accordingly...

Re:funny and ironic

[badran]

You mean something like this:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/SonyNex5Nex3/

Re:funny and ironic

[deimtee]

Check out the panasonic TZ series. They have somewhat resisted the megapixel race, and gone for amazingly good lenses instead.
Latest models have optical zoom from a 24 mm equiv (panoramic aspect ratio) to 300 mm equiv telephoto, and have built in GPS that tags the photo location.

Re:funny and ironic

[Builder]

Not many professional photographers compose shots with the optical viewfinder anymore

Really? Citation desperately needed because all of the pros and semi pros that I know use the optical view finder for 99% of their work. There is _some_ macro work where using Liveview or your brand equivalent is useful, but especially for sports and people photography, the viewfinder is still king.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

And now look at the price and availability.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

There's compact cameras with 35x zoom lenses at the very least (e.g. the Canon SX30 IS).

Re:funny and ironic

[drsmithy]

More common scenario: Little old lady is messing around in her purse at a family gathering and accidentally shoots one of her grandchildren.

Re:funny and ironic

[KingArthur10]

Absolutely love it! If I had $45,000, I'd sadly spend it on something else, but if I had a few million, I'd grab that lens in a heartbeat.....well, not correct. I'd have that money invested, and anything on top of that investment would go into an account to buy that lens :-D.

Props on finding a mirror lens designed for a camera, not an eyepiece!

Now, if we could just use that to get 10mm on the wide end, we'd have that "easy" 500x zoom lens ;-). Good thing we've got regulations from the above poster that would limit this lens to a 1000-5000mm Zoom....otherwise, we might just have a problem! :-D

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The differences:
* a poor photographer will produce poor pictures (will the occasional fluke decent one) no matter how good the camera
* a good photographer can produce good pictures on whatever camera he/she has, as long as it's up to the task
* an excellent photographer (not me) will produce great results no matter what they're given because they'll know the limitations of their equipment and work around them. But there aren't too many of these.

Personally, as somebody who still shoots & develops 35mm B&W film, I'd like to know what would happen if I took my old Canon film camera there. Would I get confused looks when they ask to look at my memory card? Would it just get confiscated?

Also, it seems strange that they stop 'normal' people taking DSLRs (where you'd need a lens weighing a few kilos to get to about 500mm), but they could take an Olympus SP-590UZ bridge camera, which goes all the way to 676mm!

Re:funny and ironic

[Phoghat]

All I have to say is WTF. If I were a journalist I'd already have my DSLR hanging around my neck. If I was interested in spying I'd buy a really good point and shoot and not draw attention to myself. Isn't it in a spies interest to NOT draw attention?

Re:funny and ironic

[lwsimon]

It's supposed to be dangerous, that's why you carry it. If it were safe, it wouldn't be effective, now would it?

There is a drill in handgunning called the "Tueller Drill". The premise is that in the time to takes a person to draw a handgun from a holster, present it, and fire it, a motivated attacker can cover 21 feet. A guy "across the room" with a knife will most likely be on top of a guy stabbing him in the throat before he's able to draw and fire from concealment. "Just has to draw and shoot" is your own preconception.

Also, the "obvious" connection between homicide rate and access to firearms is not borne out by statistics. So, while apparent, it is not statistically verifiable.

Finally, I'm not interested in making life easy for law enforcement. I'm interested in maintaining the individualist civil society that was wrestled from the grasp of a totalitarian government 200 years ago, where life for law enforcement was "easy".

Oh, and law enforcement *are* civilians.

Re:funny and ironic

[BlackBloq]

The most basic formula... the Same size lens gets MORE zoom the smaller the sensor. So these guys are just dipshits.
          100mm on a 1.0(full frame) =100mm
          100mm on APS C (1.6 crop)= 160 mm
          100mm on 4/3 System = 200 mm
1.0=full frame (same as 35 mm film)
1.6 Same as Canon Rebel (Kiss/D) series
4/3 Same as Olympus/ Panasonic 4/3 system
<URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SensorSizes.svg/>

Re:funny and ironic

[Magic5Ball]

It's possible and often profitable to be both correct about the technical and social aspects of a topic of discussion. jmottram08 has used substantially the same wetware as available to yourself to come to an understanding of the world that differs from your own. Yet by participating in this discussion he has demonstrated at least a willingness to have his views challenged on the topic.

Even though you may be entirely correct in your technical understanding and analysis, your effectiveness at convincing others of your position depends on successfully socializing your knowledge. A good representative legislative body should include individuals with technical competencies distributed normally. jmottram08 would appear to be more knowledgeable than most, but less knowledgeable than experts, on the subject of digital photography. If you cannot civilly convince jmottram08 of the merits of your technical argument, good luck convincing the majority with whom you have an even larger knowledge gap.

By including social disdain along with your technical arguments, you not only undercut your own technical argument by begging the person whom you attack to ignore it, but you also lose the social backing of those who know your argument is correct.

For the record, I've just friended jmottram08 and defended him in this longish offtopic post because even though he's technically incorrect on some points, he has shown a greater willingness and ability to consider plausible alternatives that include social dimensions than your posts demonstrate.

Re:funny and ironic

[Khyber]

"Magnification versus zoom. "

I think your English is rusty, as the same principles apply whether or not you're looking millions of light-years away or just a few millimeters away. You are still magnifying that which is not possible to see unaided. Zoom or Magnification, they both get identified by a number and that number represents the exact same thing, the level of enlargement of what you're trying to view.

You are still taking an object that is very small according to your vision, and enhancing its size to see what you normally cannot see.

Zoom: To cause text or other graphics in a window or frame to appear larger on the screen.

Magnification: the act of expanding something in apparent size

You may feel free to try again when you're actually designing the raw optics, like I do as part of my job. Until then, bye-bye, sir, thanks for the fish, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Re:funny and ironic

[KingArthur10]

Being a learned scholar in the English language, I'm sure you, as an learned scholar, would agree that a word's meaning can only be gaged with context.

For example: I have five bucks.....am I a hunter? What about an American with a little cash in my pocket? Maybe, five of my children have attended OSU.

In the context of "zoom" when relating to photographic arts, Zoom Lens, the accepted meaning is, "a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed focal length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). They are commonly used with still, video, motion picture cameras, projectors, some binoculars, microscopes, telescopes, telescopic sights, and other optical instruments."

"magnification: the ratio of the size of an image to the size of the object"

These are two very different uses. Magnification and zoom are very different in photography. They refer to entirely different concepts and are not equatable.

I'm sure you are an excellent optical designer, but your expertise is in the optical (and from what I read of you, microscopic) arts, not photographic arts. Please, like the previous posters before you, stick with your expertise area, advise on it, but do not speak as an expert in a subject in which you have minimal qualifications. It's dangerous for people like yourself to make policy.

So long, and I'm glad you liked the fish :-).

Re:funny and ironic

[Meski]

So if you're a spy in Kuwait, get a 'front' job as a journalist.

Re:funny and ironic

[beezly]

Or, instead of thinking better of mugging little old ladies, Mike now carries a gun himself. Because he's a drug-addict, he doesn't adopt the same decent moral stance that you do on the use of guns. He's quite happy to shoot, because he's a used to an environment where little old ladies are legally able to pull out a gun and shoot him in the face.

It's my belief that by permitting guns as part of normal everyday society, an arms-race is started. The "bad guys" aren't worried about the legal use or ownership of guns (they're the bad guys remember, what's the problem with breaking just one more law!), so they're nearly always 1 step ahead.

Re:funny and ironic

[Belial6]

You have obviously never met many 'bad guys'. Most of them want nothing to do with guns. They want to get in and get out without any conflict. The ones that are looking to shoot someone are not going to be slowed down my the "good guys" being unarmed. In fact, instead of the "bad guys" being able to shoot "good guy" after "good guy", unhindered, they will very quickly have their "bad guy" career ended if "good guys" are armed.

Honestly, I don't even know what you are talking about with an "arms-race". Do you think that the guy that robs little old ladies are going to start carrying missile launchers or something?

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that macro magnification is usually achieved by giving the lens a very close minimum focus and putting it as close to the subject as possible, whereas telescopic magnification is brute focal length. If you have some text which is micrometers wide, and some text metres wide but miles away, they might both appear to be the same size. And you'd be able to image the tiny text with a short focal length but extremely close focusing lens placed very close to the text, and you'd be able to image the distant text with a very long telescopic lens. But you would absolutely not be able to image the distant text with the macro lens, and you probably wouldn't be able to image the tiny text with the telescopic lens. That's why we draw this distinction. You ought to know this, since you design raw optics. Maybe your bizarre and irrelevant definition of zoom is an indication that you have a little less authority than you might like us to think.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you're talking about the FZ38? 18x zoom. Wow. Let's see what that actually means, shall we? Turns out it's 27-486mm equivalent, at 2.8-4.4. That's actually not bad! The thing's certainly going to be more compact than a 7d with an EF 500mm f/4L. But I'd venture a guess that the real camera is going to have more usable information in a 50% crop than the superzoom will come up with across its whole sensor, even in absolutely ideal conditions. If your subject starts moving or being in low light or doing things that make a tripod inconvenient, the FZ is going to lose its utility very quickly. Superzooms are compromises. And they're massively compromised. The FZ38 has a sensor area of approximately 25 mm^2. A 7d rocks 329 mm^2. Something like ten times lower pixel density. The sensor can capture more light without noise at twilight than the superzoom can at midday. There's no replacement for size in photography.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what you believe. The fact is that gun control prevents gun crime:

Certainly not in the USA (or Switzerland):

Vermont: loose gun laws, low gun crime.
New Hampshire: loose gun laws, low gun crime.
Florida: loose gun laws, high gun crime.
Washington DC: strict gun laws, high gun crime.
Chicago: strict gun laws, high gun crime.

Re:funny and ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

Just use the GXR or 4/3 system....case close.

what about non-digital SLRs?

[mschaffer]

What about regular SLR cameras? Why ban D(igital)SLR cameras?

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[soupforare]

Film is dead, Netcraft confirmed it!

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Anonymous Coward]

And also, what about Micro Four-Thirds? It has interchangeable lenses (which most people consider synonymous with SLRs), but it's not an SLR - you see the image in an electronic display, not through an optical viewfinder (which is the main point of SLRs).

As a keen amateur photographer, this ban would make me take my travel (and hence my spending money) to another country. Absolute stupidity on the part of the Kuwaitis. I mean, look at it - you ban SLRs, but not compact cameras. Would the police look at, say, a Canon G series camera, and claim it to be an SLR? What shots can I get with a DSLR that I can't get with a compact camera? (Hint: not many, not in the contexts they're talking about.)

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[MoonBuggy]

Similar to my initial line of thinking, which was along the lines of "what the hell can banning DSLRs achieve when point-and-shoots (or micro four thirds) are still legal", but the opinion of the author is that they're going for a chilling effect:

In my opinion, the only reason the Kuwaiti authorities didn’t issue a full scale ban on all digital photography apparatus is because every self-respecting smart-phone these days comes with a couple megapixels strong built-in camera that would basically make the ban useless.

The ban will not affect small ‘standard’ digital cameras, in theory. But in all honesty, who would be willing to go in public taking shots with a digital camera and risk having to explain the differences between DSLR and non-DSLR cameras to angry Kuwaiti authorities? I for one certainly would not.

The author and I are thinking of non-SLR digital devices, you're thinking of non-digital SLRs, but the argument is the same - do you want to take the risk?

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what about DSLT, like the new Sony a55 and a33?
Is having a mobile mirror and a digital sensor the offensive part?

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[fahrbot-bot]

I'm guessing digital SLRs are banned because the photos can be easily copied/uploaded whereas those on actual film cannot. Control the flow of information.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[lazlo]

Or what about interchangeable lens cameras with an LED-based "viewfinder" that do not actually use a reflex mirror? I think they're called by some "bridge cameras", and I'm not entirely sure I understand what the advantage of the reflex mechanism is for a digital camera. (for a film camera, yeah, I completely understand. But those reasons mostly don't translate to digial *at all*.)

In reality, I suspect that the term DSLR is being abused similarly to "assault weapons" is in the US. The law really means any camera that looks too scary to be permitted to civilians, and the real definition will be defined ex post facto.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[SuricouRaven]

Do you want to explain the distinction between an optical and electronic viewfinder to the local police?

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality, I suspect that the term DSLR is being abused similarly to "assault weapons" is in the US. The law really means any camera that looks too scary to be permitted to civilians, and the real definition will be defined ex post facto.

Which makes for an interesting loophole, depending on how rigorous they are about verifying that someone is a "journalist", for someone to set up a business model around short-term contracts as a journalist for a publication that exists for the purpose of credentialing journalists.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Chyeld]

Kuwait does not need your tourism dollars, they have oil.
They do need your help to keep their neighbors from ripping them a new a-hole now and then, but we pretty much took care of that problem recently enough they don't care much about that any more either.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nietzsche called it first.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[rainmayun]

Do you want to explain the distinction between an optical and electronic viewfinder to the local police?

Mod point worthy. The vast majority of this discussion has been about trying to find technical means of skirting the edges of the rule, as if that would have any bearing on how the rule gets enforced. If the Kuwaiti police don't like the looks of your camera, they'll take it, and you insisting that there's no "reflex mirror" in it won't mean jack.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[fyngyrz]

No problem. My next car -- and every car after that -- will be electric. Kuwait - really the entire region - had better get after some diversification, because that whole buckets of oil thing is going to come to a screeching halt in the next decade or three. Thorium reactors, PV, wind, etc... I see the Kuwaiti palace garage being fitted out for camels again eventually. One hump or two?

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[boojum.cat]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what the advantage of the reflex mechanism is for a digital camera. (for a film camera, yeah, I completely understand. But those reasons mostly don't translate to digial *at all*.)

It's much easier to focus on exactly what you want with an SLR, even a digital one.

-- Steve

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[hedwards]

But with modern camera phones it's actually easier to copy and distribute those than it is from a dSLR. I'm guessing that's not it, or at least not all of it. No ISP or cell provider out there has the storage capacity to know every file that's ever been sent through it, even if restricted to a file type. Plus, it's relatively easy with a lot of them to take photos while you look like you're talking on the phone.

Sure the photos are all tilty and mostly of the wrong subjects, but if you're really needing to spy on somebody it's likely to be acceptable.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[hedwards]

There isn't a term for that. Even SLR cameras with a permanently attached lens don't really have a proper name, folks generally just refer to them as Zoom Lens Reflex, and that's more of a nickname, they didn't really catch on particularly well.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[lazlo]

That makes sense. So basically if you've got a narrow depth of field, the pixelation in the viewfinder display makes it harder to determine if you're really focused or not. Of course, most digitals that I've seen have a reasonably functional autofocus (though I haven't played around with how good they are given really tight depth of field.) Though I imagine it would be really incredibly difficult to make a DSL camera take a shot that was deliberately just slightly out of focus.

Thanks for the info!

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[boojum.cat]

Of course, most digitals that I've seen have a reasonably functional autofocus

Every one that I've used has been a real pain if you want to focus on something other than what the camera wants you to focus on. I've got lots of nice clear pictures of rocks when I wanted a picture of the person standing behind them.

Though I imagine it would be really incredibly difficult to make a DSL camera take a shot that was deliberately just slightly out of focus.

My DSLR lens has a very easy manual focus override. It even works when the autofocus is turned on. I've never seen a non SLR digitial with a manual focus that was at all convenient.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[fahrbot-bot]

The post was asking about digital (DSLR) vs. film (SLR) cameras, not DSLR vs. other types of digital cameras. Of course, in the latter context, the ban doesn't makes sense except that DSLR cameras probably offer higher resolution, more lens options and better picture quality than point-and-shoot cameras - as do (film) SLR cameras.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[lazlo]

Well, in the case of the zoom lens reflex (or whatever you want to call it), it technically *is* an SLR... It has a single lens and a reflex mechanism.

You know, I'm used to the letter of the law being somewhat confusing, that's why lawyers get the big bucks... but in this case, even the spirit of the law is baffling to me. What is it that they're trying to accomplish? They don't like cameras that you have to hold up to your face? They only want ones that are easier to take surreptitious photos with? Really? Although I'm not so sure about that either, as the one SLR that I've owned, the viewfinder was a large "screen" on the top, which I thought at the time was kind of neat as I could take pictures with it hanging around my neck while it looked like I was just futzing around with the dials.

So really the only thing that's left that distinguishes a DSLR is that it has a mechanical component, that it absolutely *has* to "click" when you take a picture. So they're putting in a law that restricts the general populace to using cameras that can be used surreptitiously while reserving the big scary cameras to the paparazzi (or whatever the Kuwati equivalent is) I can't really make heads or tails of this.
   

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[ross.w]

With a regular SLR camera, if they don't like the fact that you've been taking pictrures, they can demand your film and expose it, destroying the images.

A digital camera can store hundreds of pictures on a card you can easily conceal, or send the pictures to another device before the authorities can demand your pictures.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[lazlo]

Every one that I've used has been a real pain if you want to focus on something other than what the camera wants you to focus on. I've got lots of nice clear pictures of rocks when I wanted a picture of the person standing behind them.

I know on mine it has a two-stage trigger, the first stage focuses on what's under the central crosshairs, the second stage takes the picture, so it's a matter of aiming at your focus point, half-clicking, moving to the shot you want to take, and fully clicking. Probably not optimal, but mostly functional. Then again, I'm not a professional. I'm not even really an amateur (from the Latin amo, to love... I just like photography, if I really loved it I'd have a better camera)

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Or what about interchangeable lens cameras with an LED-based "viewfinder" that do not actually use a reflex mirror? I think they're called by some "bridge cameras."

A bridge camera is something different: a non-interchangeable small-sensor camera with a larger body style and a very large zoom range, often with RAW output.

What you are talking about are the newer crop of all-digital large-sensor interchangeable lenses cameras by Panasonic/Olympus (Micro Four Thirds), Samsung (NX system) and Sony (NEX system). There still isn't a consensus name for this type of camera, but here's the common names you hear:

• EVIL: Electronic Viefinder Interchangeable Lens
• Mirrorless
• MILC: Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera
• DSL: Digital Single Lens (term really only used by Panasonic, but it's my fave)

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Tacvek]

DSL is a perfectly good name, DLSR - reflex=DSL.

One problem is that DSL already has two common tech expansions (Digital Subscriber Line, Domain Specific Language).

The other downside is that DSL does not imply interchangeable lenses and would technically be an accurate name for some smaller form cameras.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

The other downside is that DSL does not imply interchangeable lenses and would technically be an accurate name for some smaller form cameras.

"SLR" doesn't imply that either. No difference there. In fact, the traditional camera design names don't say whether the camera has interchangeable names. View camera, rangefinder, TLR (Twin Lens Reflex), SLR (single lens reflex): all of those have existed in fixed-lens versions.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Entropius]

This was true once, but the new non-SLR digitals actually do manual focus better than the SLR's. They have an electronic viewfinder that will magnify the bit of the image you select when you twist the focus ring, so you can get higher precision for manual focus than you can get from a ground glass viewfinder.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what the advantage of the reflex mechanism is for a digital camera. (for a film camera, yeah, I completely understand. But those reasons mostly don't translate to digial *at all*.)

I have a bridge camera, the Fuji S9000. The biggest constraint is that my view-finder has a 235000 pixel screen (about 2/3 of VGA). On a SLR, you have a direct light path, so you can resolve to the maximum your eye can. I think the screen is only 15/16bit colour too.

Other issues are the slight time-delay between an event happening and it appearing on screen (admittedly, it's about 1/30 of a second, but noticeable), and there's a lot of noise when shooting in low-light. Plus, the viewfinder uses battery power, but you can see through the viewfinder on a SLR that's turned off.

There are some advantages to an electronic viewfinder though. I can have histogram and other info superimposed over the scene, and see a more accurate estimate of the effect of my selected exposure settings.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[syousef]

What about regular SLR cameras? Why ban D(igital)SLR cameras?

Clearly someone in power wasn't happy with their latest Nikon or Canon camera and decided to take it out on the whole country.

Re:what about non-digital SLRs?

[luncheon]

You get an OPTICAL viewfinder with a SLR, be it film or digital. This means you have no LCD lag when you do the framing so it's more suited to action than LCD viewfinders. The SLR system is the only way to have a viewfinder of the exact framing the picture will have without any lag at all. Also the AF sensors and the photometer are of a better quality and generally a lot faster than the ones on a point-and-shoot. Actually most pocket cameras don't even have optical AF sensors and just focus using the LCD image as a reference. This is much much slower and less accurate. So again, this is more suited for action than a pocket camera. When you actually USE a DSLR for a few days, even a low-end one, you begin to see all the advantages. I finally switched to a DSLR about 6 months ago (after years of pocket digitals and a couple of film SLRs), and besides the bulk I wouldn't trade it for any pocket camera ever again.

I agree

[michelcolman]

Using a DSLR camera while standing in the middle of the street, is just unsafe.

Re:I agree

[bema]

You should have told me that earlier :(. I guess I will be fine if I use an ordinary camera next time, thanks for the advice though.

What what?

[EllisDees]

Why? Is there any reason at all for this ban? Help me out here.

Re:What what?

[rwven]

It seems like it must be some nonsensical knee jerk response for the sake of security or some crap. Seems like a typical blind bureaucratic action or something...

If you spend a few more bucks on your point and shoot, you can get pretty close to the same quality as a DSLR.

Re:What what?

[Lumpy]

Oppressive government that hates society and is trying to hide something.

It makes it easy to target people that are "journalists" and require fees or kickbacks.

It also eliminates people from having 300+mm telephotos to take photos of "secrets" from a distance.

Re:What what?

[Jugalator]

Why? Is there any reason at all for this ban? Help me out here.

I guess they don't want HQ telephotography of abuse of power from safe locations etc, where they won't even know who's photographing them so they can't see who they should arrest. :-p

However... Smaller digital cameras OK? Uh, what about the Canon SX30 IS with 35x zoom? That's better than my Nikon D90 with my 200mm lens. While perhaps not the same optical quality, this doesn't matter at all unless they're trying to ban photographs with a nice bokeh, or low noise levels, haha. :p

Re:What what?

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit the nail on the head here. Oppressive regimes hate cameras in general, and probably the most "dangerous" would be the ones that can sport the ultra zoom lens that can take pictures of stuff happening well away from where the action is going on. This way, it is harder for the goons to crack heads of everyone in range.

The availability of inexpensive, high resolution cameras is a tyrannical regime's worst fear. This is why we are seeing bans of cameras popping up left and right.

Re:What what?

[Entropius]

And that's the problem with their law. They need to be far more afraid of the gal with a Canon SX10 hidden under her hijab than the DSLR user carrying around a 400mm lens.

Re:What what?

[Voulnet]

The government of Kuwait doesn't hate people, just because it's in the Middle East doesn't mean you can blindly apply your Fox News ideals to it. Also: This ban news is a hoax. The cameras aren't banned. I am from Kuwait and I can confirm that.

What about 35mm?

[DdJ]

Back when digital photography was in its infancy, what I did was shoot pictures with 35mm film, and then mount the negatives as slides, and fed them into a slide scanner.

As far as I can tell, none of the technology involved in that workflow would come under this ban. So...?

Re:What about 35mm?

[jandrese]

I was wondering if there's already a 35mm SLR ban in place and this is just extending it to DSLRs or something. They would be about a decade late in enacting the ban, but that's politics for you.

Re:What about 35mm?

[rwven]

Not only that, but with high quality 35MM film, you can get a MUCH higher resolution scan out of a negative than your typical DSLR can produce. High end 35MM film will capture the equivalent of 30MP+ images.

Re:What about 35mm?

[Surt]

You want to bet your life on that when the security forces whisk you away to a Saudi Arabian prison? You want to bet you can resist admitting that's really a DSLR under torture?

Re:What about 35mm?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

the Canon 5D is 21MP - if you can actually get 30 MP out of 35mm film, it's a 50% advantage, and that pales next to digital's advantages - the immediacy and raw capacity is compelling.

Re:What about 35mm?

[toQDuj]

For that to work, though, you should use ISO 100 (Tmax or somesuch) or ISO 50 film, with very fine grain, and then develop it in the right way. The way I go about it is to shoot medium format (6x7 cm) film, which allows for much faster film and much sloppier developing and still get incredible resolution. I still have to take my 9x12 cm large format camera out one of these days and blow the MP bar sky-high.

B.

Re:What about 35mm?

[belmolis]

The Kuwaiti security forces whisk people away to Saudi Arabian prisons? Who knew?

Re:What about 35mm?

[Surt]

Sorry, bad slip of the fingers there, but I don't think it really changes the content of the message. I don't expect anyone thinks better of Kuwaiti justice or prisons.

I have to ask...

[hipp5]

Why? Seriously, what benefit is there banning DSLRs over other cameras? It can't be the existence of telephoto lenses, because there are lots of compacts that have large zooms. Maybe it's a war on artful, quality photos?

Re:I have to ask...

[rwven]

Actually your typical point and shoot has a much deeper optical zoom than most DSLR lenses. a 10x telephoto lens for a DSLR is hundred or even thousands of dollars. Most point and shoots do 10x optical or better. Heck, my cheap digital camcorder does 30x optical, 40x digital.

Re:I have to ask...

[argmanah]

Why? Seriously, what benefit is there banning DSLRs over other cameras? It can't be the existence of telephoto lenses, because there are lots of compacts that have large zooms. Maybe it's a war on artful, quality photos?

Ok, seriously, people need to stop talking like a DSLR and a compact one is essentially the same. You have clearly not tried to shoot photos at extreme distances in low light. The difference between a quality DSLR in the hands of an expert versus a compact ones can be very extreme depending on environmental factors. Here in the states, the place I've seen it come up on the most is at concerts, where a DSLR with a good lens will make the pictures appear like you've got front row seats when you're really up in the balcony, and the auto-focusing compact cameras simply cannot keep up with that, as their smaller lenses have to compensate via slower shutter speeds making the images blurry. We need to at least admit that there is a theoretical point to banning DSLR's if you're trying to prevent espionage.

Don't get me wrong. Realistically speaking, the Kuwait ban is worthless, since anyone willing to risk their lives for espionage probably is willing to chance it with a DSLR and a fake media badge, but I'm sure to them it looked good on paper.

Re:I have to ask...

[mysidia]

Why? Seriously, what benefit is there banning DSLRs over other cameras? It can't be the existence of telephoto lenses, because there are lots of compacts that have large zooms. Maybe it's a war on artful, quality photos?

Not only that... but there are non-SLRs that have Telephoto lenses you can attach, I am pretty sure. Some of the compacts with Zoom capabilities are probably SLRs, technically

There are some "SLR-LIKE" cameras that are not SLRs, because they have a separate viewfinder which does not look through the main lens though.

By definition a SLR is a camera that has a single lens, and a mirror, the viewfinder looks through the LENS a Prism is used to restore the orientation of the image, in a manner, that when you look through the viewfinder, you see the photo will be taken. Any camera that has a single lens and uses this method reflection, so that the viewfinder and the image sensor both utilize the same lens is called SLR.

A DSLR just refers to digital technology.

So this should be easily circumvented by using any camera that is not a SLR, I guess, i.e. any Camera that has a viewfinder which that its own lens on the front of the camera and does not look through a single lens, OR uses a mechanism other than reflection to duplicate the image in the LENS to the viewfinder.

For example, a camera that electronically displays a rendition of the image hitting the image sensor using an electronic backlit display, without any reflection, instead of passing the image straight to the person viewing.

I suppose viewfinders that incorporate an electronic display, will, however, be more expensive than the reflection technique, and the image appearing on the display will be less true in quality than the actual picture.

Re:I have to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most point and shoots do not do 10x or better. Go check newegg.com if you doubt me.

I pretty much wrote off your entire post when you mentioned digital zoom, BTW. Mentioning digital zoom when the question is about quality and clarity of an image is a sign of utter ignorance.

Re:I have to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

It all depends on which cameras you are comparing. Sure, even a mediocre DSLR is better than a crappy digital point and shoot, but there are many cameras that are not DSLRs that will match (or exceed) the quality of a DSLR. Leica, one of the best camera manufacturers in the world does not make a DSLR. All of their cameras are rangefinder models. They also sell telephoto lenses for their digital models. This law will do nothing to deter a determined professional with espionage in mind. I wonder what its real purpose is?

Re:I have to ask...

[Algan]

Talking about 10x or 20x is irrelevant. Ten times what? A 200-400mm lens is technically only 2x, but it goes further than any point and shoot camera. Most point and shoot cameras start at around 20-30mm and go to about 100-200mm focal distance, since that's the range most people want.

Re:I have to ask...

[nasalicio]

Not to mention no one says 10x zoom and the like in reference to SLR's. Sensor size and the lens itself determines the "zoom" capability. A 100-400mm lens is only a 4x zoom for instance, but 400mm will get you a pretty good distance. Also, those ranges are provided for 35mm equivalent (ie: full frame bodies). On a crop body such as a Rebel series, 10D, 20D, 30D, 40D, 50D, 60D, and 7D the figures for the same lens end up as the equivalent to 160-640mm (1.6x crop factor).

This also leaves out the very important prime lenses like the 300mm, 600mm, and 800mm and even the 1.4x and 2x teleconverters which will modify the ranges or any of these lenses while retaining their zoom factor.

With a 2x teleconverter your 100-400 becomes a 200-800mm, but its still a 4x zoom. I'm not 100% on the math, but a common all around lens is something like an 18-270mm which works out to a 15x zoom (or thereabouts). It's zoom factor is obviously much greater than your 100-400, but falls well short (by 130mm) in terms of distance.

The zoom factor means very little in regards how much of the frame you can fill with your subject, however, its much harder with an SLR because you're going to be loaded down with lenses which cost as much as a decent used car, and at least with Canon's L series you're going to be the center of attention with your massive white painted lens. I think with as impossible as it is to conceal what you're shooting with these lenses, unless I guess from inside of a car like in the cool spy movies, this ban is quite pointless from a spy/surveillance standpoint.

Re:I have to ask...

[rwven]

are you freaking serious? I said my camcorder did 30x optical and 40x digital. There's a CLEAR line there. Read: THIRTY TIMES OPTICAL. Don't be a shill.

Re:I have to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Ten times what?

Ten times the the image size perceived by the human eye.

Have you ever actually used a superzoom compact? I am a DSLR fan ( 5D ) but my compact-wielding colleagues can get much "closer" images than I can with a 200mm and 2x teleconvertor.

Tyrants don't need a reason...

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

They did it because they can, and because nobody will punish them for their temerity with a bullet in the head.

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[AnonymousClown]

They did it because they can, and because nobody will punish them for their temerity with a bullet in the head.

They can't be tyrants because we, the US of A, liberated the Kuwaiti Royal Family and this monarchy from the evils of Saddam Hussein; which we then invaded Iraq to free its people from the oppressive tyranny of that tyrant in order to install a democracy.

Don't you just love US foreign policy?

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Don't you just love US foreign policy?

I love it so much that whenever I pay attention to US foreign or domestic policy, I find myself asking, "What would Hugo Stiglitz do?"

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[couchslug]

"Don't you just love US foreign policy?"

If we restricted ourselves to "good guys" we'd have no allies. The world is a bad place, water is wet, the sun rose in the East, and other cultures don't give a fuck about our values. :)

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[hedwards]

While it's not a particularly democratic move, it's a long ways from genuine tyrannical dictatorship. It is a definite step in that direction, but a lot more would have to happen before that became the case.

You do have to keep in mind where Kuwait is located and take a look at the other nations in the region to understand why we buddy up with them. It's not just a matter of oil, it's that we need a few allies in the region for times when we need a favor. Although Iraq and Afghanistan have pretty much tapped out all the favors we hadn't already used.

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

They still usually have reasons, though, even if they're stupid reasons. They didn't ban the practice of looking up and saying, "looks like no rain today," did they? The reason they didn't ban that, is because they don't see any advantage in doing it. So the question applies: what do they get out of this camera ban?

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't be tyrants because we, the US of A, liberated the Kuwaiti Royal Family and this monarchy from the evils of Saddam Hussein;

Are you aware that the chicken-shit Kuwaiti royal family waited the war out living it up on the Riviera?

As someone once pointed out, when the family returned, the US should have told them, "We're going to have an experiment in democracy here. You boys get to go first."

Re:Tyrants don't need a reason...

[dbIII]

While it's not a particularly democratic move, it's a long ways from genuine tyrannical dictatorship. It is a definite step in that direction

Kuwait has been that for a long time. This is just another symptom. The earlier gulf war was really about Saudi Arabia being at risk and not anything about the ideology of any of the nations there.

illegal in USA too?

[index0]

Are these cameras legal on the streets of USA? From this past decade of news, it seems like it is illegal in USA too.

Re:illegal in USA too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is illegal in USA. Everyone is a criminal. And Criminals don't deserve rights.

Re:illegal in USA too?

[Anonymous Coward]

No ( although people see the 'fancy' camera and get out of your way, assuming you are a journalist I guess [ maybe carrying a camera bag helps that, or wearing it around your neck? I have no idea ] ), but they are generally more expensive than people want to spend on a camera. Could also be related to their size - a decent point and shoot digital camera comes across as more portable and user friendly than the bulkier DSLR cameras.

Re:illegal in USA too?

[jmottram08]

Right, compare the US to a country that bans cameras. Everything is about you.

The current police filming incidents are headed to the supreme court, where they will be overturned.

Re:illegal in USA too?

[NeutronCowboy]

I thought seizing private property through eminent domain to turn it over to a private developer was going to be overturned by the Supreme Court as well. Common sense has little to do with the law.

Re:illegal in USA too?

[jmottram08]

State vs. Federal. Dont live in Cali. News at 11?

Micro Four Thirds?

[circlingthesun]

Micro Four Third cameras are very similar to DSLR's but lack the flip up mirror or optical viewfinder. Are these exempt too?

Re:Micro Four Thirds?

[jmottram08]

Only if by "very similar" you mean "entirely lacking the single defining characteristic".

Re:Micro Four Thirds?

[jeffmeden]

Only if by "very similar" you mean "entirely lacking the single defining characteristic".

Kuwaiti military guy with automatic rifle: I see you have a large camera, surely you know those are prohibited unless you have a journalist badge issued by the state

Amateur photographer: No sir, you see this isn't a DSLR this is a micro four thirds camera! The ban said D-S-L-R and this camera lacks a reflexive mirror! I am free to go, right?

Kuwaiti military guy: right this way sir...

Re:Micro Four Thirds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try it out, and let us know how much your camera technology hairsplitting impresses the corrupt policemen who maintain order in a despotic Arab monarchy.

Re:Micro Four Thirds?

[jmottram08]

Then the OP should have read "are big lenses allowed?" not dragging some irrelevant consumer product into it, and misrepresenting that product.

My post stands. I am not debating whether you would go to jail, I am just pointing out that some retard both misrepresented the m4/3 system, dslrs, AND the law all in the same sentence.

Re:Micro Four Thirds?

[Voulnet]

Kuwait is not like whatever country you're from or whatever country Fox News wants you to think. In Kuwait if a cop saw you with such camera they'd pose for you, not confiscate it.
Stop spreading FUD about countries you know nothing about... It just shows why the rest of the world thinks you people are dumb.

This makes journalists easy to identify.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

If you can identify a journalist by his camera, it's easier to target journalists when you want to keep "bad news" from leaving the country.

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[erroneus]

Also, large DSLR cameras are seemingly indistinguishable from weapons when viewed from helicopter. I seem to recall the murder/slaughter of civilians video showing a photographer carrying equipment being slaughtered while someone in the audio was saying "he's got a weapon!"

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[Anonymous Coward]

And the reverse is also useful: get out of here, this is for journalists only. Of course, all the independent, critical journalists have been kicked out of that category. Arab media is frequently very clubby with government.

Example: "It is widely known that many members of the National Council wield considerable influence over the regional press. They resort to protecting themselves from any press criticism by appointing parliamentary correspondents as their own private secretaries. They grant services to the journalists and their families. Sometimes they might even put pressure on government institutions to allocate funds for the journalists' jobs, allowing them to claim salaries, yearly bonuses and legal perks without ever having to visit their supposed workplace! Their colleagues are unaware of the situation because these "journalists" merely show up as names on the payroll of the ministerial budget."

http://report.globalintegrity.org/Kuwait/2008/notebook

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[_Sprocket_]

That's any camera. I've shot at people on a paintball field before because the photographer was in an aiming stance pointing at my teammates in a location I was expecting to find opposing players.

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[syousef]

If you can identify a journalist by his camera, it's easier to target journalists when you want to keep "bad news" from leaving the country.

It's not just that. It's also a lot easier to dismiss blurry evidence from a dinky little camera not suited to capturing fast action. I wonder how hybrids and high end interchangable lens non-DSLR cameras are classified. I was actually wondering how long it would take before some country banned (or licensed, with onerous requirements) cameras altogether. I guess Kuwait is leading the way...

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[DigiShaman]

That's why photographers call it "shooting" pictures. With a telescopic lens, the stance of concentration can look like that of a rifleman from a distance. Or in the case of the video, someone holding what appears to be an RPG. So ya, I'm not surprised you fired back in the heat of the moment.

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[sznupi]

In other words - not merely looks of the photographer, also scenario fulfillment (and any hypothetical contagious shooting wouldn't help) - carrying out, under pressure, an ingrained scenario as if it was reality; despite some sensory information contradicting it.

Good thing small digicams are getting ever more decent... (but when they will be next, in Kuwait / etc.?)

Re:This makes journalists easy to identify.

[_Sprocket_]

It's also an example of confirmation bias. I'm expecting opposition to be in a certain location. I'm expecting that opposition to be positioned in a certain way. I'm expecting the opposition to be aiming something. I'm under pressure to act on those expectations so I open fire. It's not until a few seconds later that I can start accepting additional information; the shooter is dressed differently (with a day-glow orange vest!), the camera doesn't look like a paintgun, etc.

Re:Good job!

[rwven]

Are you standing up to it in your own country? Yeah, didn't think so.

Photography is Not a Crime!

[dcollins]

Oops, I guess it is.

http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/248

Re:Photography is Not a Crime!

[wiredog]

That depends on where you live. The article is about Kuwait.

For even more lulz, try it in the PRC or Cuba.

why not ban the rain?

[valugi]

and other concepts they dont like or agree as monkeys, snow, toilet paper, bronthosaurus, eliptic galaxies, Newton and so on...

Re:why not ban the rain?

[jolyonr]

Um. It's Kuwait, they don't need to ban the rain.

Agree with you about eliptic galaxies. Ban them for sure.

Re:why not ban the rain?

[maxwell demon]

In Kuwait, it is forbidden to snow. And as I hear, the weather respects that law. :-)

Re:why not ban the rain?

[Lt.Hawkins]

I lived there for 2 and a half years... it never snowed, rained on occasion during the winter... and hailed a few times in spring (Both times, around mid-April.)

darn

[bhcompy]

Guess I'll just use my old fashioned SLR and scan the developed photos. SLR is superior anyways, but that's another story

Re:darn

[gstoddart]

Guess I'll just use my old fashioned SLR and scan the developed photos. SLR is superior anyways, but that's another story

I've barely used my film SLR since I bought my digital SLR. As far as I know, my DSLR does far more than my film SLR (Nikon D80 vs Nikon F75). In fact, I will likely trade it in soon to get myself a new lens for my DSLR.

I can take hundreds of photos for little cost, and keep them all or strip out the few that came out blurry because I was in a rush. I can do auto-exposure bracketing to be sure to actually get the picture I need when I won't have a chance to take it again -- let's face it, grandma isn't going to re-cut the cake because your shot didn't work out..

I suspect that it is only in very limited ways that a film-SLR is "better" than a DSLR. If most pros have changed to digital, then I doubt it even more.

At this point, I think a DSLR is as good as a film SLR, and for many people, probably even "better" when you factor in the niceties. My use of film has dropped to essentially zero.

Re:darn

[jeffmeden]

Guess I'll just use my old fashioned SLR and scan the developed photos. SLR is superior anyways, but that's another story

Good luck with that. You know it's a totalitarian state rivaling anything else you have heard of like Iran, cuba, north korea, etc. The difference is they have the money to take care of problems created by totalitarianism...

Kuwaiti police: I see you have a large professional camera, surely you know that those are prohibited unless you have a clearly displayed journalist ID badge

Photographer: Ah ha, but this is a regular film SLR camera and not a digital one like the ban said!

Kuwaiti police: (points automatic rifle) Hand over your camera and get in the back of the van

Re:darn

[Anonymous Coward]

If most pros have changed to digital, then I doubt it even more.

Pros have different priorities. The pro's employer will be heavily influenced by the cost savings of digital over film, In addition, especially with the speed of today's news cycle, you can't wait for film processing; with digital, your company across the world can have access (given proper communications capability) to images only a few seconds old.

Re:darn

[Voulnet]

Stop spreading FUD about a country you've never been to, you asshole. Kuwait's govt is not a totalitarian regime like yours. Police Officers in Kuwait aren't even allowed to use their weapons unless their life is in danger. Just because it's in the Middle East doesn't mean you can apply Fox News impressions of a ME country to it.

Also, this ban is a hoax. I am in Kuwait and I can tell you that it didn't happen.

Tourists?

[gstoddart]

Tourists are to be affected by the new laws

Does Kuwait have a booming tourism industry or something? I don't understand why they'd do this.

Seriously, between idiots saying I can't take photos on or near their property, and police believing they have the right to seize or delete my photos, a lot of countries seem increasingly hostile to the notion of photography.

WTF?

Re:Tourists?

[fishbowl]

>Does Kuwait have a booming tourism industry or something?

Some, but it's ancillary to the people who travel there for economic reasons. When the men go there for business, their wives are the tourists. It's not the other way around, this is the Middle East, remember?

If I found myself in Kuwait, or any country that borders Kuwait, or any country that borders any country that borders Kuwait, I wouldn't be taking snapshots -- I'd be devoting every resource to getting the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Creepiness.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not a member of the press, or an otherwise legit photographer, you just look like a creeper carrying a camera like that. I know the feeling because I own two of the big fuckers. Maybe that's why there is local support for the ban.
Also, if you're a journalist, you are "in the system," which is good for someone else who isn't you, so you can freely carry on.

Re:Creepiness.

[clone52431]

If you're not a member of the press, or an otherwise legit photographer, you just look like a creeper carrying a camera like that.

Or a tourist.

Re:Creepiness.

[maxwell demon]

Well, maybe just found your own newspaper "Tourist's News" and give every tourist to Kuwait journalist status on request.

Re:Creepiness.

[kd5zex]

Or a terrorist.

FTFY

So digital is now "haram"

[Vinegar Joe]

Along with porkchops and chitlins.

Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls...

[Tangential]

We've all seen or heard about such things. Primitive, uneducated, unsophisticated peoples often fear that cameras will steal their souls.

Maybe DSLRs are considered big enough to steal souls while camera phones and point-and-shoots just aren't big enough to hold a soul.

video cameras are next...

[sofar]

my flip video recorder is laughing very loudly.

They didn't quite think this one through...

[wandazulu]

I have a compact camera that fits in my pocket that takes *better* pictures than my big DSLR did; I have a (sadly, no longer working) Nikon D1X that is exactly what a professional camera looks like; big body, takes all Nikon lenses, but only shoots 5mp. Compact cameras can shoot up to 14mp, last time I looked. Say what you will about the lens, compact cameras can produce spy-agency-worthy images of ... uh ... whatever is spy-agency-worthy in Kuwait.

Re:They didn't quite think this one through...

[gstoddart]

I have a (sadly, no longer working) Nikon D1X that is exactly what a professional camera looks like; big body, takes all Nikon lenses, but only shoots 5mp. Compact cameras can shoot up to 14mp, last time I looked.

Well, you can easily buy DSLRs up into the 16 megapixel range. The fact that you bought one when they didn't have anywhere near the resolution of film doesn't indicate a problem with DSLRs, it makes you an early adopter who got stung.

Re:They didn't quite think this one through...

[Anonymous Coward]

16 MP? Try 21 MP in the Canon range, or 24 MP in the Nikon range. (GP has a D1X; it's not unreasonable to bring the 1Ds III or the D3X into the discussion given that point.)

Re:They didn't quite think this one through...

[EastCoastSurfer]

Megapixels is a horrible way to determine picture quality. Sensor quality and size is much more important over MPs. With that said sensor tech has advanced quite a lot from the D1X times. Try out a D300 sometime and even though it's only a 12.3 MP camera it will blow away your 14MP P&S. If you really want to see what sensor size can do try out a full frame D700 that is only 12.1MP.

I have a great P&S and my old D60 (10.2MP) with a fixed 50mm kills it in every way with picture sharpness and a host of other quality metrics.

Re:They didn't quite think this one through...

[Anonymous Coward]

How the hell do you own a D1X but not know that the 14 mp compacts you mention are usually diffraction limited and might even have a lower effective resolution than even a mediocre digital SLR?

Re:Good job!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

You'd better include a major slice of American rentacops and nebulous security agencies, along with a fair percentage of the citizens they so zealously 'protect'; along with Kuwait...

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Dominic]

Really? Not noticed this, and I'd have thought that I would, what with living there and everything.

terrorist device

[Anonymous Coward]

DSLR are big and can be stuffed with a lot more explosives than point and shoot.

Re:terrorist device

[Arimus]

Arguably an SLR is point and shoot. Literally.

What about the Sony NEX-5 or 4/3s

[Liquidretro]

The Sony NEX-5 and NEX-3 and also 4/3s frame digital cameras are technically not DSLR's because they do not have mirrors but are larger than a point and shoot and have detachable lenses. Where do they fit in this silly ban? Also remember this is the country that wanted to ban the Blackberry and then backed down.

Re:What about the Sony NEX-5 or 4/3s

[Surt]

This is a law of opportunity. If those in power don't like what you're photographing, they will arrest you and send you to a dark hole from which you will not return the same person. I doubt they will care if your camera is a 4/3rds.

Re:What about the Sony NEX-5 or 4/3s

[Entropius]

The 4/3 digital cameras are ordinary SLR's, with the the flippy mirror and the pentaprism. You're thinking of Micro 4/3, which is the different no-mirror system.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[UdoKeir]

Really? I just Googled it and couldn't find anything to that effect.

Digital Self Loading Rifles

[bugs2squash]

are clearly a danger to the public and should be banned. Thanks to the Kuwaiti government for finally standing up to the kuwaiti second amendment bullies.

No News

[DreamArcher]

Can we just go back to not hearing news from backwards countries? Thank you in advance.

Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[acomj]

The tiny thumbnail size sensor makes those 14x and up supper zooms possible. My 400mm on my SLR is huge in comparison. On my full frame sensor is 400 on my crop sensor SLR its about 600mm.
here are the class of camera I'm talking about.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/q110superzoomgroup/

Of course these don't work well in low light....

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[osoroco]

what if you're a birdwatcher/scientist snapping pics of urban birds?

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[Goaway]

What?

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[steveg]

Why not?

Pictures delete pretty easily from my Canon S20.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[Monkeedude1212]

And how much zoom do you get with that?

The only thing close to not being a DSLR and having the kind of zoom aspect we're talking about is something in the superzoom SX series from Canon (or similar models from other vendors) and those might just look close enough to a DSLR to get confiscated.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[fyngyrz]

On my full frame sensor is 400 on my crop sensor SLR its about 600mm.

No. It's 400mm in both cases, You've conflated field of view with magnification. The lens puts the same image at the focal plane; the crop sensor doesn't capture the edges (because the sensor is smaller) and this gives you the same field of view as a 640mm lens, but the information in the crop isn't any larger.

There are only two factors that affect captured magnification: One is the lens; the other is the sensel density on the sensor. For instance, if there are twice as many sensels across a specific linear measure of a sensor as compared to another, it will give you twice the detail, exactly the same effect as doubling the mm of the attached lens.

If, however, you have a crop sensor and a FF sensor of the same sensel density, moving a 400mm lens between the cameras will give the same magnification, but not capture the edges on the crop sensor.

Practical example: Canon 20D, a crop sensor camera, and a Canon 5DmkII, a FF camera, both have sensel densities of 6.4m. Consequently, if you put your 400mm lens on one, then the other, given that the scene hasn't changed and the cameras are placed on the same tripod, they'll capture exactly the same image in terms of magnification. But the 20D will not capture the image at the edges, because the sensor is smaller, which effectively "crops" off the edges.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[MichaelSmith]

All the birds in Kuwait are covered up and not worth photographing.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[steveg]

20x, I think.

And, you're right, it looks a lot like a DSLR, so I agree that you'd risk getting in trouble in Kuwait.

On the other hand, *all* the cameras in the article linked by G*P look very much like mine and would potentially get you in trouble.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[jmottram08]

. . . no.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[MichaelSmith]

Pressing the delete button does not necessarily go anything. I could write a script on my android phone to snaffle all new photos so the delete function only gets the original file. This might also be possible on newer, hackable cameras. Then there is FS level undelete.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[hedwards]

The GP was referring to the GGP talking about his SLR which implies film, and he's right you can't easily delete a picture. You can however take the back off and completely obliterate it in a way which is a challenge for digital images.

On a side note, despite what some security officers or law enforcement might say, they can't force you to delete the photos under any circumstance. Either it is not illegal for you to take the photo or it is and you'd be destroying evidence. Which they can't order you to do.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[brain159]

An alternative would be an Eye-Fi card and a MiFi 3g-to-wifi pocket router.

I have that pairing, they work very well - although you might want to cut back on image resolution or JPG quality to get a smaller file so it uploads faster.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[pantherace]

For the second part: Remember we aren't talking about the US, UK, or most of Europe. We are talking about Kuwait, where there are different traditions.

Laws are different, because theoretically, we have a bunch of different sovereign nations.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[Entropius]

Why does SLR imply film?

I have a perfectly good SLR sitting in the other room that has a CCD in it. It is a bog-standard SLR in all other respects -- flippy mirror, optical viewfinder, lens mount.

Re:Actually Point and shoots zoom better than SLRs

[Entropius]

The issue is that the sensel density on something like a Panasonic FZ50 or Canon SX series is astronomically high, such that you can count the eyelashes on a tweetybird at twenty paces with a 100mm lens. Many of these lens/sensor combinations have so many pixels that they are diffraction limited wide open. They just plain don't make full frame sensors with that many pixels, or (many) full frame lenses with that much resolution (in lp/mm).

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[olsmeister]

So they think it's OK if journalists steal souls?

Much easier...

[thechemic]

This is going to make it much easier to identify terro... I mean, ugh, journalists from the air.

God Bless Kuwait

[RocketRabbit]

Isn't everybody glad that Americans fought and died to liberate Kuwait in the early '90s? They are praising George Washington as they revel in freedom!

I say we just withdraw from the entire Middle East. With the money we spend over there we could be on a hydrogen economy pretty quick.

Re:God Bless Kuwait

[Anonymous Coward]

The money you spent? The US's sole incentive to free Kuwait was to have special loot from its excellent oil, and indirectly, to protect Saudi's oil from Saddam's march.

Re:God Bless Kuwait

[RocketRabbit]

Yep, and we paid out the ass too.

The only people who profited are the oil execs.

Re:God Bless Kuwait

[Issarlk]

Absolutely not. It was to protect the freedom loving, democratic, enlightened Kuwait from the evil that was Iraq.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Alioth]

[citation needed]

While the occasional harrassment of some unfortunate tourist taking a photo of the Gherkin has been reported, it's going to be news to a *lot* of people that you need a license to take "professional" phots.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Dynedain]

Funny, I was there just last year and shot around 1000 pictures a day using my DSLR with a nice big obvious telephoto lens. Not one of those $3K lenses, but clearly not the stock one either.

I didn't experience a single altercation, let alone was even noticed by anyone. Even when shooting within the underground system and at Westminster Palace. Hell, I even shot inside the Tate modern and the National Gallery without garnering a second look.

The most interference I saw was a few signs saying that photography was not permitted in certain galleries (copyright and all) or that flash photography was not permitted. Photography was not permitted INSIDE of active churches like St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, or INSIDE Westminster Palace. None of the hundreds of other people I noticed with nice DSLRs were hassled either except if they ignored those obvious signs.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[slick_rick]

I was in London last year and took quite a few photos with an DSLR. Hell, I even got a bobby to pose for me.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[jmottram08]

calling bs on this. Provide citations of ANY of the above happening.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[ThatMegathronDude]

"intents and purposes"

One problem though

[bema]

There isn't any hydrogen lobby, ist it?

Re:London (City) does this too...

[kegon]

What licence is this ? http://www.bipp.com/Default.aspx?tabid=203&search=licence produces zero hits.

I regularly take high resolution photos, HD video, etc in London and I have never been stopped by anyone.

Every time I am in London I see tourists carrying DSLRs but I have never seen anyone being harrassed by the police.

This makes so much sense...

[19061969]

...because as we all *know*, terrorists only ever use DSLRs. Me, armed with a 14.6 megapixel Sony NEX and a small kit zoom lens can only produce crappy quality pictures which are easily outmatched by even my n-year old 6 megapixel Pentax SLR with the same zoom.

Unless of course they want to crack down on journalists - but then journos are exempt.

Okay, so maybe they're having a go at the camera manufacturers who wouldn't pay a bribe - but then the same manufacturers also make small cameras too.

Ok, I'm stumped for answers unless the kuwaiti govt are a bunch of total f**wits whose distended pieces of fetid rectum they call their brains can't function for more than a millisecond unless there's a brown paper bag stuffed with someone elses cash at the end of it.

Geotagging?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't some DSLR cameras have a GPS in them? The ability for photos to be geo-tagged could be something the government is trying to restrict or otherwise control.

Re:Geotagging?

[ross.w]

Doesn't matter. My phone camera has a GPS and the ability to geotag photos.

"DSLR" is meaningless

[PJ6]

SLR-design was useful when you had cameras that made chemical exposures - the concept is simple: the light you see through the viewfinder will be the light that hits the film. For digital cameras, the very idea of flipping light between a viewfinder and the sensor is ridiculous: a digital preview going to an LCD screen shows you exactly what the sensor "sees", so it's more accurate than any direct viewfinding. You can get high-end digital cameras that don't have single-lens reflex. I'm an experienced (but not professional) photographer, and I've always thought that putting SLR on a digital camera (that can do live preview) to be totally unnecessary.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[b0bby]

The point of DSLRs is that if you have sensors that are designed to only capture when the mirror flips up, they can be much more sensitive/less noisy than sensors which have to run all the time and produce a video stream. Now, some of the newer DSLRs which can record 1080p, obviously they can handle it and maybe they don't need the mirror, but theoretically at least you could still design a better sensor for a still-only camera.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[roc97007]

It depends on the quality of the LCD screen and what kind of adjustments you're making. You're right, the display is showing what the sensor is seeing. Problem is, the display is showing much reduced detail and color accuracy than the sensor is capable of.

On my Nikon D700, the image quality difference between live view and looking through the viewfinder is significant. If all you're doing is composing, the LCD screen is fine. Anything that requires fine resolution, like dept-of-field preview or adjusting a circular polarizer, you'll want to look through the lens with your own eyeball.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[radish]

There are a number of advantages to an optical viewfinder - the main one being the image in the finder is MUCH higher quality and much brighter. Most of the LCD viewfinders I've have been horribly low resolution to the point where I could barely see if the subject was properly lit - never mind judge focus.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[OzPeter]

SLR-design was useful when you had cameras that made chemical exposures - the concept is simple: the light you see through the viewfinder will be the light that hits the film. For digital cameras, the very idea of flipping light between a viewfinder and the sensor is ridiculous: a digital preview going to an LCD screen shows you exactly what the sensor "sees"

Early on (and I can't be bothered to look up current technologies), there was two basic layouts of sensors 1) High quality or 2) ones that could do live preview. Guess which type went into DSLRs and which type went into consumer cameras?

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[EnsilZah]

Well, personally I prefer looking through the viewfinder, I suppose it's just a preference of how to hold a camera and not having to be limited to a certain amount of pixels for the display.

With that said, the new Canon 60D is I believe the first EOS camera with a flip-out display which I would definitely find useful in certain situations and I imagine you'll see that on later generations of EOS cameras.

Also the Fujifilm Finepix X100 looks like a pretty cute little camera and seems to have some sort of hybrid display/rangefinder viewfinder.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[implowry]

There can be several advantages to using an SLR vs live preview.

First, live preview will drain your battery a LOT more than passively looking through the lens.

Second, staring at an lcd in a dark environment will mess up your night vision. It'll also put a nice glow on your face which may not be what you want when you are taking pictures of your kid's school play.

Using live preview is really difficult in very bright conditions unless you have a blanket over your head like the old school photographers.

Tracking fast moving things is more difficult for me using live preview.

I'm sure there are other reasons that people find utility in using a DSLR over live preview.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[TheTrueScotsman]

It's not ridiculous for this reason: the LCD screen has a much lower resolution than the either the sensor or your eye looking through an optical path. You can't focus accurately with current preview screens, yet this is trivial with any SLR viewfinder (since you're experienced, of course I'm talking matte screens here rather than split image).

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[Brett Buck]

You are wrong. Live viewfinders are great for things that don't move. But their inherent lag makes them impossible to use for anything that moves significantly.

       

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[fyngyrz]

Lag? What lag? My LVF is... live. There's no lag.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[BetterSense]

I agree and I have always thought DSLRs were a sort of hideous digi-kludge technology. They offend me as a bastardization of design.

The offense is compounded by the fact that if you want a high-end digital camera, you have no other choice...for some reason, DSLRs are the ONLY high-end digital camera design that is offered (other than the Leica and some of the new EVIL cams). If you want to shoot film, you have an infinite variety of cameras, all of which are vastly different, and cause you to approach your subject completely differently, to choose from. If you want to shoot digital, guess what, I hope you like SLR cameras, because that's basically all there is.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[Brett Buck]

The OP was talking about live views from the sensort. Almost all of the live viewfinders are monitors, with pretty significant lag. That's the source of the "shutter lag" that people report. It's not the shutter that has the lag, it's the finder.

        If you have a direct view finder (Leica, or any sort of optical "hole"), it doesn't have any lag - but it also doesn't really show you what the sensor sees, which is what the parent post was about.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Phase detection autofocus is much more practical with an SLR approach (I don't know of any phase detection autofocus system that work with non-SLR cameras, but I haven't kept up). For most shooting it's a vastly superior focusing method than contrast detection.

This is why your $129.95 Walmart Blue Light Special digicam grinds the lens in and out for several seconds while your kid is doing something impossibly cute, before finally deciding to focus (albeit incorrectly) shortly after your child stops being cute and the moment is lost forever.

Reliably good pictures of fast action or in low light, especially through telephoto magnification, require an SLR.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[Iskender]

You can't focus accurately with current preview screens, yet this is trivial with any SLR viewfinder (since you're experienced, of course I'm talking matte screens here rather than split image).

Since I'm tired I'll comment in list form, apologies for any terseness.
1) Current LCDs are great for manual focus if they have magnified view, which they have on cameras with manual focus.

2) While manual focus SLRs are good at manual focus since they're made for it, DSLRs aren't. Top of the line DSLRs are kind of bad too (at least with the default focusing screen), but the affordable ones are horrible. The viewfinder view is much worse than probably any 35mm SLR and certainly won't have any focusing aids. To add insult to injury, I hear they never really show a thinner depth of field than f/2.8 due to the autofocus design.

3) LCDs give bad shooting posture and are suspectible so sunlight. Luckily there are now excellent electronic viewfinders: these are much larger and brighter than the optical viewfinders of most DSLRs sold today. I hear manual focus is easy by default, and if it isn't enough you get a further boost by magnifying a chosen image area.

In the last years electronic viewfinders have become much, much better. Try one of them sometime: they're available from Panasonic, Olympus and Samsung (although watch out for the budget versions.) With one million dots right in front of your eye there will be no problem with manual focus.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[fyngyrz]

I know what he was talking about. There's no lag in my live viewfinder. It runs at video rates (30 hz), which is about as fast as my eye runs. No lag. It'll shoot without further ado from there, no particular shutter delay, either. I shoot live action this way (martial arts); no problems - I get the right moment using the live viewfinder. And I'm *not* shooting ahead at all.

The source of "shutter lag" is an old or crummy camera. Buy a decent DSLR - for example Canon 550, 60D, 7D, 5DmkII - no lag. Buy one of these point-and-shoot wonders... well, you get what you pay for.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[macshit]

Another attribute that currently differentiates most DSLRs from non-DSLRs is that DSLRs can use "phase-detection" autofocusing, by redirecting some of the light to the phase-detection sensors in the mirror-down state. Phase-detection autofocusing is typically much faster than the "contrast-detection" autofocusing used by most cameras without a mirror, and fast autofocusing is hugely important to many professional photographers.

[The reason that it's faster is pretty simple: with phase-detection, the camera can tell which direction to adjust the focus in, with some indication of how much, whereas with contrast-detection systems, it can't tell those things, and in fact, doesn't even know whether the picture is in focus or not without adjusting the focus and seeing what the effect is. So contrast-based systems have to "hunt" for proper focus, and even with clever algorithms, hunting involves mechanically adjusting the focus, which is slow, especially as it typically needs to constantly change direction.

I'm not entirely sure why a camera without a mirror can't use phase-detection focusing, except that it involves having something in the optical path (the beam-splitter that redirects light to the phase-detection sensors), and maybe that unacceptably degrades photo quality. [I suppose maybe you could have a camera without a mirror, but with a PD beam-splitter that flips out of the way like mirrors do in DSLRs...]

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[toddestan]

On the other hand, the electronic viewfinder on my camera blows away the the optical viewfinders on the lower end DSLRs I've played with. The optical viewfinders on those cameras, due to a cheaper penta-mirror design, low magnification, and the smaller mirror resulted in a tiny, dim viewfinder where judging focus was basically impossible. Admittedly, the slow zoom lenses didn't help either. But it felt like using a 35mm P&S camera. However, the gold standard is still the 0.97X magnification (with 50mm lens) pentaprism on my 1970's Pentax.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Then do it.

Re:"DSLR" is meaningless

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha ha!

you dirty bastard

[Thud457]

Photosynth

You'll be installing Microsoft Silverlight. It's small and fast.

Anybody got some pointers for FOSS photogrammetry systems?
goddamnit, can slashdot misinterpret allegedly valid html worse?

Re:you dirty bastard

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Sorry about that. I know almost nothing about clever computer vision tricks, I was just trying to make a point with the first one that rolled off the tip of my tongue.

Re:Good job!

[EllisDees]

Standing up to what? I own a dslr and have never had a problem taking pictures with it anywhere. Well, not a problem with any sort of 'authority' anyway. As for the actual quality of the shots...

Two major points

[strayant]

First, let's assume that you have a film SLR... I've seen a few arguments stating the ease of deleting photos on a DSLR... okay... want to delete an image quickly on a normal SLR? Open it and expose the film to light. Second, if you're going to try to split hairs in a legal case in Kuwait, be prepared to lose.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[gstoddart]

calling bs on this. Provide citations of ANY of the above happening.

Well, they issued new guidelines, relaxed restrictions on "registered photographers", stopped using section 43 and 44 of the Terrorism act, had a 'snitch campaign', hassle people with commercial permits, and even push people down stairs.

If you aren't aware of the myriad ways in which the London Police have gone completely batshit crazy with photographers .... well, you haven't been paying attention to the news. Do a google search for "london photography police", and read.

There are loads of documented cases of some cop or another deciding they have a law on their side which allows them to do almost anything to photographers. And, in fairness to London, I'm sure this isn't the only place this happens.

The citation for what the GP suggests is bloody easy to find.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[DigiShaman]

And that's why the Paparazzi are not true journalists, because they go after people who have no souls to capture to start with.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[grcumb]

So they think it's OK if journalists steal souls?

Well, it's only fair. After all, they've already sold their own.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the soul of any politician is small enough to be stolen with even the dinkiest camera phone.

Is it because DSLR technology is actually

[Phizzle]

capable of stealing peoples souls?

Obvious question...

[Pandrake]

How will one be recognized as an official journalist? I've heard of a license to kill being properly vetted, but a license just to shoot? Ya, I work for a newspaper...

Tourists?!

[Copley]

"Tourists are to be affected by the new laws..."

What tourists?! I live and work in Kuwait... As a country, it's really not a tourist hotspot! Any tourist coming here, even if they took snaps of the the most interesting features, would leave with only images of scrubby desert, busy highways, shopping malls, a few skyscrapers, and the Kuwait Towers.

But, yes, it's a daft rule, and it may well affect the local amateur photography enthusiasts. However, Kuwaiti law is not consistently applied: If you're a Kuwaiti citizen, you'll often get away with something that a non-Kuwaiti would not - especially if you have a bit of 'wasta' (i.e. your father knows the second-cousin of the minister's uncle!)

Re:Tourists?!

[cvraman]

Agree. Its another example of the Kuwaitis proving that they have more money than sense!

Re:Tourists?!

[Anonymous Coward]

especially if you have a bit of 'wasta' (i.e. your father knows the second-cousin of the minister's uncle!)

Aha, now I know exactly where you come from.
And man, are you 100% right? in the whole ME this "Wasta" works like magic.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[maxwell demon]

No, but they think that journalists steal souls anyway, even without a DSLR, so for them the DSLR doesn't make a difference.

DSLR doesn't mean superior

[waldonova]

"Banned" Nikon D40 DSLR
6.1megapixel
Standard 18-55mm zoom lens

"Legal" Nikon P7000 digital camera
10.1 megapixel
28-200mm zoom lens

Both cameras feature an "automatic" setting that allows the camera to take great pictures. The legal one looks much less conspicuous and doesn't have to be held at your eye to take a photo.

Re:DSLR doesn't mean superior

[PhxBlue]

The difference is that you have to hold the P7000 steady for a couple of seconds in order to take the photo. A DSLR's shutter speed is adjustable so that you can set up your shot, take it and move on.

The DSLR also gives you much finer control over aperture and shutter speed. Want to freeze the motion of a hummingbird's wings? You can do that with a D40 -- just crank the shutter speed up to about 1/1,250 of a second ... with a P7000, not so much.

Re:DSLR doesn't mean superior

[Iskender]

The DSLR also gives you much finer control over aperture and shutter speed. Want to freeze the motion of a hummingbird's wings? You can do that with a D40 -- just crank the shutter speed up to about 1/1,250 of a second ... with a P7000, not so much.

According to dpreview.com's database the P7000 offers shutter speeds between 60 seconds and 1/4000 second.

Re:DSLR doesn't mean superior

[AC-x]

I think you'll find you get a lot better pictures from the D40 due to the larger sensor having a lot less noise, more dynamic range and sharper lenses (tho it won't be quite as noticeable with the kit lens)

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Anonymous Coward]

"intense and purposes"? Are you a fucking dimwit? It's INTENTS and purposes.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[Chemisor]

Clearly, these people greatly overestimate the size and value of their souls...

What a spy would use... or a voyeur...

[applesnail]

If it really is about spying, I would ban small cameras, not the big and obvious ones. And besides that, new camera models with large sensors (APC en 3/4th) that do not have a mirror, so no 'reflex' are available and thus can give you the same image quality. So in that sense its not effective.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[Surt]

Journalists sign a contract to return all captured souls to their rightful possessors.

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[maxwell demon]

I'm sure the soul of any politician is small enough to be stolen with even the dinkiest camera phone.

Nothing to steal here, move along.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[gstoddart]

Really? Not noticed this, and I'd have thought that I would, what with living there and everything.

But, surely you're aware of many of the high-profile things that have happened in London with police and photographers? They certainly talked about a permit system for "registered" photographers. (Now, that appears to be within a narrow area, but ...)

After registration, which can take up to 28 days, photographers wanting to photograph on the street will have to again attend either Charing Cross police station to be issued with a thin fluorescent waistcoat fitted with an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tag which is to be worn over other clothing.

Seriously, you may live there, and maybe this goes under-reported for you ... but google for "london photography police".

There have been several Slashdot stories over the last few years covering this kind of stuff. He's hardly pulling claims out of his backside. London police have been well documented telling people they can't photograph in public spaces when that is patently false.

this law is PERFECT for the US

[acedotcom]

last time i was in Chicago, i was trying to take a picture of a seagull with my Canon 50D, i was told that i could not despite the fact that i was on public property along the Chicago river. the officer told me it was for "security". and i had no idea why until i got home, I was on the same block as the Boeing world headquarters and i GUESS that i COULD have been taking a picture of the Boeing building SO it was just easier to tell me know. i didn't really bother with arguing, i didnt want to spend another vacation getting patted down by the FBI, even though i should have.

Thankfully, we dont have LAWS like the one in Kuwait!

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[fishbowl]

>i didnt want to spend another vacation getting patted down by the FBI, even though i should have.

If it's not the fight you'd choose, then no.

Some people would actually welcome being arrested for doing something that is not only completely legal, but is also clearly an activity protected by the First Amendment. If you aren't among them, then you really should just walk away and find another seagull. For some, the experience you had is like winning the lottery.

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[Kittenman]

i didn't really bother with arguing, i didnt want to spend another vacation getting patted down by the FBI, even though i should have.

Another? My mind is boggling about the first one.

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[fyngyrz]

i was told that i could not despite the fact that i was on public property along the Chicago river. the officer told me it was for "security".

The officer was wrong. You could have fought that one, and won.

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[acedotcom]

having been arrested and detained on two occasions for fighting for what i believe in, i can honestly say FUCK YOU. sorry you didnt like my attitude that ONE TIME, but im honest about it. and when i am one a FAMILY VACATION with my kids, I'm skip the civil disobedience for once. Could i have done more...fuck yes, do i feel bad about it...not at all. pick your battle, dont be a fucking retard just because the law says you can. Unlike you im not going to talk big on the internet and judge other people about their decisions. oh yeah, here is a video of me getting arrested . now kindly, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[acedotcom]

i got hassled for saying "bomb" on a train...really. i was going to an airshow at Scott Airforce Base near St Louis, Mo and i was told i couldnt enter with a BOOKBAG...SPECIFICALLY a book bag...i could have a small canvas sack, a purse, a fanny pack, and, the one that pushed me to the edge...a camera bag. i was told BY THE AIRMEN that i could put my bag in the field T the parking lot by the gate i was at (not on the airbase) but i couldnt bring it with me. i found the logic behind what i was told mindbogglingly retarded. i was taking a public train there so i just hoped back on and dropped my bag at another stop, well hidden and safe. while i was on the train, i called my mother and listed the absolutely retardedness of what i was told, explaining how my have a camera bag that is TWICE the size of my book bag, that it had tons of tiny hiding spots for whatever they are so scared of and that if i was truly determined that i could fill a lens with "whatever" because they only had peole looking through bags and no real detection equipment.

I didnt care who heard what i was talking about, because it was the truth, what they were asking for was unrealistic. but i complied anyway. turns out there was an airman a few seats forward of me, and he had called the base because i guess i posed a threat to freedom....or something.

so when i got back to the airshow, the gate security pulled me aside, then the county cops detained me, but didnt handcuff me or put me in the car...they just asked for ID and asked me all the usual questions (warrants, have you been arrested, you know what county jail is like), but i wasnt "arrested" they kept me there for 20 minutes before i said, "i dont know where i am, but im not staying any longer, so i am going to find out when i either get chased down by the airforce or by the county cops." 1 minute later i was pulled into the airforce base where searched in the same manner they do at airports now and i was interviewed by a couple of FBI agents about what i knew about everything i said, then told that talking about it publicly was irresponsible (i reminded then that this base was pretty much a tribute to my right to say what i wanted, and that its here to protect those rights). i was in with them for about ten minutes before some guys came along and told them that they couldnt hold me. 30 seconds later i was out the door and told i couldnt come back "that day"(dont come back ever).

all in all it was a great day for me, but i really wanted to go to the air show :(

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[repetty]

Fuck. Fuck, fuck. Fuck.

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[Anonymous Coward]

As excellent it is for you to put it to the man like that, please: s/then/than/sig

Yours in Kilgore Trout,
Anonymous Coward

Re:this law is PERFECT for the US

[dbIII]

More like a chance of winning the old trifecta that is so easy to get past a Judge of obscene language, resisting arrest and assault of a policeman who then had to injure you badly in self defence. It's only worth playing such a game with unfair law enforcement if you are somebody the media cares about, there are a lot of witnesses and you have little to lose by getting turned into a pariah.
Playing with law enforcement to prove a point is just like playing in traffic to prove a point about speeding - if you don't do it in a large group you get run over.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[painandgreed]

London for all intense and purposes does exactly the same thing. You cannot take "professional" pictures without a licence (which costs money) and if you have a DSLR you are presumed to be a professional - thus if you're lucky harassed by the police, and worst given a summons to turn up at court (or VERY unlucky arrested under vague anti-terrorism laws).

I heard this before I went to London, but could never find anything official. I went and spent two weeks taking photos with my DSLR kit without any problems including pictures of a girl wearing a gasmask outside of parliament in the middle of a weekday afternoon and me laying down on the sidewalk, obstructing traffic, to get Big Ben in the shot. What costs money in most places is usually the right to drag out lights and a tripod. Once you start using a tripod, let alone lights, bounce cards, helpers etc (which pretty much a hobbiest can end up doing without much work), that's when you start getting attention from the police, usually because you really are obstructing traffic at that point for a significant amount of time.

Well...we should be thankful!

[snemiro]

So this guys want to keep the sand out of our expensive equipment... It's a pitty I've sold my old 35mm....the film roll /developing/copying market should kick up!

Re:London (City) does this too...

[horza]

Not very observant then. Pass Trafalgar Square often?

Phillip.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Philomage]

I was so used to seeing it misquoted as "intensive purposes", I was too shocked to reply myself... I think "intense and purposes" is a new one for me.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Dominic]

Oh yes, I'm aware that some police (and security guards) sometimes try to tell people that they can't take photos, but there's a big difference between that and an actual law, which the parent suggested was the case.

I'm not defending overzealous police, but let's not suggest that there is some sort of licencing legislation on the cards.

Nikon should use this in their ads

[melted]

Our cameras are so good, they're banned in Kuwait!

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Dominic]

This is nothing to do with the supposed licencing I responded to originally. Not saying it isn't a problem, but it's not the same thing at all.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[jmottram08]

I am sure if i search for "london police photographers" i will find tons of stories about the police and photographers. This doesn't mean that that is reality in London. I am sure i could google up some statistically irrelevant cases in NYC as well, but that doesn't mean that carrying a DSLR in the city will lead to my arrest, as it presumably will in kuwait. This is why the OP was flagged flamebait.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[gstoddart]

I'm not defending overzealous police, but let's not suggest that there is some sort of licencing legislation on the cards.

Well, in fairness, the link I put in my previous post lists a "voluntary" scheme of "registered photographers" wearing bright safety vests with an RFID which is to be scanned by the CCTVs.

You can excuse someone for believing that is a legally mandated license requirement. Hell, it basically says so:

Most amateur photographers will need a £95/year PSICO-BASIC tag. This will permit casual photography in locations where security allows.

And

Tourists will be issued with a special time-limited form of tag embedded in a ‘Welcome to London’ badge, that allows photography at popular venues such as Madame Tussaud’s and the House of Commons.

sure as hell sounds like you're moving to a full permit system.

The tone of the article more or less says that only people with these badges wouldn't get harassed. Now, this was in April of 2008, but I'd would basically say there is enough confusing information out there that someone would believe that you truly did need a permit.

Leica M9 OK, then

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital rangefinder cameras will still be allowed, right?

Architecture

[fishbowl]

How am I supposed to do my architecture photography if I can't use my Tilt/Shift lens?

Re:London (City) does this too...

[lgw]

I thought there was also a ban on intensive porpoises.

They've got a deal with Canon

[Anonymous Coward]

to sell more of the new Powershot G12 high-end compacts....

Nice cameras, but if you already have a G11, there's not enough difference to take the upgrade path!

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[Anonymous Coward]

The size just matters.... not how you use them...

A Kuwaiti's Rant

[MBHkewl]

I'd like to note that those government officials keep pulling up crap like that every once in a while. It's kind of entertaining and frustrating at the same time.

Last year, one idiot in the Ministry of Communications issued an order to all ISPs to ban youtube. Needless to say, the ban was lifted the next day.

As for this DSLR thing, it's probably one dude who was taking a picture of scenery and some idiotic women shouted that he was taking pictures of them. It could be, but who'd do that with a huge DSLR?!

This is not some sort of media control. It's a fling & hopefully will be gone soon. I wish those morons get fired, but I know they'd just rotate to another ministry :/

Re:A Kuwaiti's Rant

[Voulnet]

The band didn't even take place, to add to your points.

It makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

The world is full of idiots who think their DSLRs will take great photos for them. Just read the comments here. This has to stop! The Kuwaiti Government, in a valiant step, is the first to keep these bozos out of their beautiful country, and if they MUST take photographs, make them use a point-and-shoot camera. I applaud this! Thank you Kuwaiti Rulers!

Re:Maybe they believe DSLRs will steal their souls

[blair1q]

Actually they're apprised of their right of publicity and they figure if you're too dumb to respect it it's not worth explaining to you, so they tell you the thing about the souls hoping it will frighten you away.

That does it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm canceling my family trip to Kuwait. Maybe North Korea will let me bring my big honkin Canon.

When troubled, unsafe 3rd world countries compete for your travel dollar, you win!

Re:London (City) does this too...

[kd5zex]

Occasionally, I prefer "intensive purposes" myself.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[blair1q]

If you aren't aware of the myriad ways in which the London Police have gone completely batshit crazy with photographers .... well, you haven't been paying attention to the news

Well, they may still be a little sensitive.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[fishbowl]

I look for situations where it's correct and appropriate to say "intensive purposes" deliberately. I'm surprised there's not an xkcd on this.

Re:Good job!

[dreampod]

Go to your local airport and start taking pictures of planes and see how long it takes for your camera to be confiscated and you are arrested or threatened with arrest. Or any number of local completely legal things to photograph like government buildings, rail yards, police officers arresting someone, or a metro station.

You will rapidly discover that the US has defacto criminalized public photography under the guise of 'protecting us from the terrorists'.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, still call bullshit.

Section 44 allowed search and seizure in certain areas at certain times which had to be predefined (I think they were called "notified" areas).

The assertion that "professional" pictures requires a license is blatantly repudiated by your own 3rd link from the cops themselves:

  "Members of the public and the media do not need a permit to film or photograph in public places and police have no power to stop them filming or photographing incidents or police personnel."

Some police did think they had the authority to confiscate equipment without the reasonable suspicion of terrorist intent outside the areas described by section 44, but these were very regretable failures by idiots and does not represent any policy at all.

Don't most journalists use P&S cameras?

[Anonymous Coward]

Easier to carry, deeper DOF, silent... I thought it was standard for journalistic photographers to use point & shoot cameras.

SD and miniSD

[phorm]

It's (generally) easier to hide an SD card (or better yet, a MicroSD card inside an SD adaptor) than it is a full roll of film. So if you wanted to snap something and then hide the evidence, a digital would be the way to go...

Take pictures, pull card and hide it somewhere, swap in a used card with less interesting pictures.
"what sensitive pictures? All I've got here are pictures of puppies and my grandma's birthday"

A completely blank roll of film might be more suspicious (and it's hard to re-use an existing roll in comparison to an SD card), and film in a light-enclosed canister might also be harder to hide. Mind you it could possibly be hidden unrolled in a pocket etc if it's a few pics.

Will Micro Four Thirds finally take off?

[Anonymous Coward]

How much did Olympus and Panasonic pay to get normal DSLRs outlawed?

Re:funny and ironic - and wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really? What about this?

http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0210e.asp

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=206&issue=007

http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?id=432&issue=007

(Carry permit holder and NRA member)

Yeah sure.

[jotaeleemeese]

USians simply don't grasp the fact that, bar war zones, they live in some of the places with the highest homicide rates in the world.

The mental blockage to link phallic enthusiasm for guns and homicide rates eludes other wise reasonable pople (oh wait, half of you would vote for Sarah Palin if given a chance. Forget what I said)....

Re:Yeah sure.

[the_womble]

Except most of the murders are not committed using guns, and even if you excluded gun murders the US would still have a very high murder rate by developed country standards. On the ohter hand lots of places have high gun ownership and low murder rates.

When the UK strengthened enforcement of its guns laws (i.e. making for effort to find and seize illegal guns) the result was an increase in knife murders.

I have always lived in countries where civilian use of guns is tightly restricted, and my instinct is to sympathise with the ban, but I think the "guns don't kill people. people kill people" lot have the facts on their side.

Re:Yeah sure.

[modecx]

You mean countries/territories like:

El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Guatemala, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, South Africa, Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Mexico, Russia, Swaziland, Panama, Paraguay, Madagascar, Nicaragua, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Costa Rica, Suriname, Papua New Guinea, Kyrgyzstan, Zimbabwe, Lithuania, Thailand, Zambia, Belarus, Barbados, Seychelles, Uganda, Georgia, Estonia, Ukraine, Turkey, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Namibia, Kenya, Argentina?... In that order of homicides per capita?

All of whom lead the US in homicides, and all of whom have strict gun control laws? Admittedly, a lot of these places are shithole and third world countries, but there are many which aren't.

Maybe, just maybe it's about their culture? No... Then you would next recognize that a few of the US's larger cities are responsible for the vast majority of our so-called "gun crime", not because they have more guns, but because they are more prone to a culture of violence and lawlessness in general. You would also then learn that not only do they have vastly more firearm related homicides, they also have more non-gun related homicides per capita than any of the rest of our fine country.

You'd also find that many "USians" live in places with virtually no homicide, firearm related or otherwise, and it's a really big fucking deal when someone is killed--usually when some tramp comes to town, or in the passion of a domestic squabble. These are also the places which tend to have higher concentrations of gun owners. Imagine that.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Comparisons about guns between the US and places like Australia and New Zealand are complete nonsense.

The U.S. has a number of cultures within it that do not necessarily get along, often resorting to violence. This carries down from a history of things like slavery, forced relocation, etc. Australia and New Zealand pretty much have one dominating white culture, and the native cultures were better handled in recent history.

The U.S. has a large border with Mexico that basically leaks drugs and illegal guns (hint: the two are related) like a sieve. Most gun crime in the U.S. is committed using an illegally-possessed weapon. It's pretty naive to think that banning guns will do anything about that.

If you want a more comparable situation, look at Ireland/Northern Ireland in recent history.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Dachannien]

USians simply don't grasp the fact that, bar war zones, they live in some of the places with the highest homicide rates in the world.

The irony being, of course, that these particular areas have some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.

Re:Yeah sure.

[DerekLyons]

Maybe, just maybe it's about their culture? No... Then you would next recognize that a few of the US's larger cities are responsible for the vast majority of our so-called "gun crime", not because they have more guns, but because they are more prone to a culture of violence and lawlessness in general.

Worse yet for the OP's thesis - the vast majority of those crimes occur among a very limited demographic - whose sex, age, and race coincides with neither the stereotypical gun owner nor with the vast majority of legal gun owners. One of the huge roadblocks in fixing the problem lies in the fact that it's politically incorrect to point this out, particularly with regards to race.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Philippines have extremely lax gun laws. Anyone can acquire fully automatic firearms and other military hardware.

And the Swiss are required to own a gun.

How do you explain that?

Pointing at something and saying, "ITS EVIL! BAN IT!" is astoundingly ignorant.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

USians simply don't grasp the fact that, bar war zones, they live in some of the places with the highest homicide rates in the world.

yes, sure, *if* you count "some of" as the same as: "not even in the top 40"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

But seriously, the really annoying thing is that silly nonsense "USian" term that a few folks here are trying to push.
If you really hate the (typically accepted) term American, than at least use one of the major alternate names instead of making up yet another one. A pretty good list of alternates and who started them is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_U.S._citizens

Re:Yeah sure.

[dbIII]

It gets compared because various nutters in the USA use the Australian gun buyback as an example where the lack of guns created a Mad Max/Road Warrior post-apocalyptic situation.
It didn't affect many people since not many people had semi-automatic weapons anyway. It was a reaction to an event where a guy with a semi-automatic rifle killed 35 people and wounded 21 others. The answer to all the "they could have defended themselves with a handgun" idiots is to think about reality and not movies where the hero can hit a fly testicle at a mile with his magnum. If the victims had handguns they would still be dead.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Eivind]

Just out of curiosity, which of these countries are at a development-level comparable to USA ? Does even a single one of them have a GDP/person that's atleast 1/3rd of that in usa ?

Can you find me a country where wealth/person is atleast half of USA, and where homicide-rates are comparable ?

If you're happy to beat Kenya, then yeah, fine, more power to you.

Re:Yeah sure.

[thegarbz]

Call me crazy but I greatly prefer someone lunging at me with a knife in their hand. Fuck give them two knives. I also know that if I am running away from an attacker I greatly prefer they have something in their hand which requires close contact to be effective, and not a projectile weapon. Pre-meditated murders will still happen, but it's the jealous ex boyfriend, or cool dude you insulted infront of gang that will give you a fighting chance (or a running chance), even if they are armed with a fucking sword.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

The philippinos are so laid back you can go up and punch them in the face and be thanked for it.
Also the Swiss ARMY is required to own a gun, and the guns are carefully controlled. These are bunch of well trained people not gangland teenagers, and god forbid you lose your gun because you'll be in a world of hurt.

Pointing at some laws and saying they were crap based on a statistics that weren't related to the reason the law was passed is astoundingly stupid.
Massacres in the 20 years prior to the gun restrictions? 13, Massacres since? 0. Percentage of population which own a gun? 6%.

It's amazing what you get when you ban semi/fully automatic weapons, yet still allow people to own a registered firearm. Sure we can't wave them around like a big dick, but fuck our homicide rates are about 1/4 of yours so enjoy shooting each other.

Re:Yeah sure.

[metrix007]

Americans. Not USians. Americans. Retard.

Re:Yeah sure.

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

I have always lived in countries where civilian use of guns is tightly restricted, and my instinct is to sympathise with the ban, but I think the "guns don't kill people. people kill people" lot have the facts on their side.

Ah, but that's clearly not reading the statistics right. The correct formulation would be, "Guns don't kill people. Americans kill people." If you contrast the prevalence of guns in e.g. Norway (tons of guns, more than the US) the adage becomes "Americans with handguns kill people."

Re:Yeah sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, compare the US to a load of third world countries and ex-communist bloc failed states great.

Try a comparison to civilized countries. You know all those will far lower murder rates...

Re:Yeah sure.

[lwsimon]

Correct. Murder rates are a function of the culture, not of the availability of a specific weapon.

Re:Yeah sure.

[lwsimon]

He's making a point - trying to dilute the term "American" to include everyone from the Northwest Territories to Terra del Fuego.

If you want a more precise term, I'm an Arkansas. Calling me a "USian" is like calling a German a "EUian".

Re:Yeah sure.

[modecx]

Sure, at least few of these countries fit your arbitrary 1/3d of USA's GDP benchmark:

Russia ~$15k USD
Seychelles ~$23k
Trinidad & Tobago ~$19k
Barbados ~$22k
Puerto Rico: ~$17k
vs. USA's ~$45,000

There's surely more. The problem with many of these places is that the very wealthy skew the curve--isn't it? You have a clutch of multi-millionaires, maybe a billionaire or two, a mob of people who live in squalor and very few people in between... But the average GDP doesn't look so terrible.

Kind of like how certain US cities skew the curve for the rest of the country. Consider this: our national homicide rate is 5 out of 100,000. Cities like New Orleans (52), Detroit (46), Baltimore (37)--and that's just a handful... They really fudge it up for the rest of the country.

Getting back to my original point: even if I am comparing the US to third world countries, failed communist states... These are places which functionally have *complete bans on civilian ownership of firearms*, as are places in Europe which have half, or even a quarter of our national homicide rate.

The grand point is, if someone really wants to kill, they'll get it done regardless of the tools they have available. Furthermore, millions upon millions of Americans certianly have some of the best tools created by man to accomplish that particular end--and yet they overwhelmingly don't use them for that purpose!

Re:Yeah sure.

[modecx]

I would not go around pointing out inconvenient facts like that--someone might color you racist.

Re:Yeah sure.

[DerekLyons]

The truth is color blind. Political correctness is not. :(

Re:Yeah sure.

[metrix007]

American already only refers to people from the US. North American would refer to people from the continent, so USian is just redundant and retarded.

Re:Yeah sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat Americans don't run...

Re:Yeah sure.

[Eivind]

The wealthy skews the curve in USA too, so I'm not sure it's so huge a problem for this comparison. I wasn't able to find Barbados or the Seychelles in the statistics, they're tiny places afterall, so comparing them to USA as a whole, has problems.

But if you look at, to take one of your examples, Russia, then the GINI-index for Russia and USA is pretty much identical, that is, the income-inequality is as high in USA as it is in Russia.

Infact that, I think, is one of the main reasons why USA score so poorly in stuff like homicide-rates or teenage-pregnancies compared to other countries of similar wealth. You've got a HUGE income-inequality, the super-rich on the top get a larger and larger fraction of the sum total. Thus much of USA is significantly poorer than the GDP/person average would seem to indicate.

How well does this map correspond with homicide-rates ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_Coefficient_World_CIA_Report_2009.svg

I do think gun-ownership plays some role in homicide-rates, but I agree with you that it's not the primary reason. There's very high gun-ownership in Norway, for example, but extremely low homicide-rates. The main reason, I think, is that there's very very few poor people here.

If you looked at GPD, you'd say Norway has $78K/year and USA has $45K/year, so the difference in income is less than a factor of 2.

But for homicide-rates, it's more interesting to compare how many are poor.

In short, while the average Norwegian ain't even twice as rich as the average American, the average bottom-quartile Norwegian is probably 4 times as rich as the average bottom-quartile American. This, (not gun-ownership) I think, is the main explanation for scoring poorly on many social indicators, despite a fairly high GDP/person.

Re:Yeah sure.

[modecx]

If I tried to find a country which is truly comparable to the US to make such a comparison, I would fail from the start. Our place pretty unique amongst the world's countries-one for being a relatively young nation, and two for being more diverse than most.

Besides the GDP and other social issues you bring up--and I agree with those points you've made....There's also the 'melting pot' factor of the US, it's certianly had it's positives and negatives, but I believe the former outweigh the latter. Outside of the recent immigration of millions of African/Turk/Arab (etc.) followers of Islam, I don't think many Europeans can truly appreciate how diverse our metropolitan cities are. If you point randomly on a globe, it's a guarantee we have people from that place!

At first, most all US immigrants formed ghettos around their cultural ties, and more or less left everyone else alone. The next generation saw more intermingling and more strife. And eventually it started to level off and finally reach a state of assimilation... However, the two cultures in the US which are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violence and crime are fractured from the culture-at-large and show no little need or want to assimilate--much like Europe's new Muslim contingent.

While there are surely different cultures and ethnicity in European life, you've mostly lived with each-other for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I think Russia shares similar problems thanks to the expansionist philosophy of the Russian Empire, which was going strong until the 19th century, and then it really picked up with the advent of the Soviet Union.

The USSR tried to force assimilation en masse--we see how well that worked out! I don't say these things to be racist, I'm fine with other peoples and cultures--but it's the way I see how all of these things came to be. It's a big complicated issue at any rate.

Re:Good job!

[Cederic]

I used to take photos of military aircraft on military airfields. The usual response from the military to me (a civilian) was to pose for me.

I have a nice photo somewhere of some Wermacht soldiers pointing anti-tank weaponry at me in a mock menacing manner - they had rifles, pistols and assorted other firearms with them too but you lose the comedy value with those.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's all got a bit stupid of late :(

Dear Kuwait.

[jotaeleemeese]

We are laughing our socks in disbelief.

You can not be serious.

Re:Dear Kuwait.

[AC-x]

... says countries who get to take naked photos of you whenever you fly

Hell no.

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

It's much easier to focus on exactly what you want with an SLR, even a digital one.

Hell no, not in general. My all-electronic Panasonic G1 is far easier to focus than my old Nikon D70. The Panasonic's contrast-based autofocus is more accurate than the Nikon's phase-detection system. If I want to focus manually, the G1 can magnify the live view to pixel level. The electronic viewfinder on the G1 is larger and brighter than the D70's. Also, the EVF has a shimmering color motion artifact (moiré?) that often shows up on subject detail that's in sharp focus.

Already exists, basically...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

Someone should build a P&S that takes interchangeable lenses and then offer a kit with a 500mm mirror lens and a few 2X teleconverters, just to piss off the Kuwaiti heads of Ministries of this and that and the other thing.

You mean something like a Panasonic G2 with a 100-300mm lens?

Re:Already exists, basically...

[fbjon]

Or even better, the GF2 or Olympus PEN, which both look exactly like a P&S but can take that same 100-300mm lens (600mm equiv).

The real reason

[Stoutlimb]

The real reason is media control. Now the police just have to aim for the guys holding the DSLR's.

new EVIL cameras

[metalmonkey]

There is a new (in last year) category of cameras out with the same size sensor (APS-c) as many SLR's.
The sensors being the same size have similar sensitivity etc as DSLR, and without the mirror/viewfinder are much smaller.

Laws lagging behind technology again...

EVIL = Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens

Does removing the hotmirror get past the burka?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they finally figured out that removing the hotmirror and adding the right band IR filter allows certain noble and upright men to see straight through synthetic burkas. Sure they look black in the visible spectrum but under IR?

Good news for some

[hwyhobo]

It looks like Janet Napolitano has found a country that can use her talents after she vacates her current post in two years.

Focal length is not a function of crop.

[fyngyrz]

in this context it means 35mm equivalent.

That's what I'm telling you. It doesn't. The focal length of the lens has one constant result: Image scaling at the focal plane. The sensor intercept with the focal plane has one constant result: crop as a function of the lens FOV. The latter changes (both in aspect and area) from medium format to 35mm/ff, to 1.6 and 1.3 crops, to the various tiny also-ran sensors in the point and shoots. Image scaling doesn't change -- and when someone calls a 400mm lens a 640mm lens, they're not generally talking about FOV, they're talking about scaling - how "close" they can get to the subject. In fact, speaking as a pro photographer of several decades, I'd go so far to say that lenses over 100mm are almost never selected with FOV in mind at all (other than as an irritation), but rather as a means to get closer to the subject. When you call that 400mm lens a 640mm lens, you're just fooling yourself. You're no closer than you would have been on a FF camera - unless your cropped camera is sporting a higher sensel density. If we're talking about wide-angle lenses, it's even less appropriate, because they tend to be distorted and even the FOV isn't as linear a derivative of the intercept as we'd like to think with our constant crop factors. The extreme example is the fisheye; you can "1.6x" one of those and you sure as heck won't get 1.6 the FF/35mm FOV, and you will *still* get exactly the same magnification.

The idea of making the focal length some kind of magical constant that tracks the sensor size is incorrect and misleading. A 400mm lens is a 400mm lens, period. FOV is something else entirely. And as I said, I think you'll find most thinking is about magnification anyway.

Bottom line, you move a lens from a FF camera to a crop camera, the only difference in actual magnification is from the sensel density.

Re:Focal length is not a function of crop.

[honkycat]

Perhaps your several decades of pro photography are making you overthink the thought process that casual photographers use. Forget sensor resolution, the output is a 4x6 print from the drugstore with no post-processing. Put your 400mm lens on your 35mm film (or full-frame D) SLR and take a picture of someone so that their face just fills that 4x6 print. Now repeat with a crop sensor SLR and you have to stand farther back to fit their whole face on the frame. That is what is important to most casual photographers; sure, the perspective has changed, but they don't care. It really is the effective FOV that drives most people. Why else would digital "zoom" have been such a selling point on cameras all this time?

Like it or not, technically correct or not, the general public uses focal length as a measure of magnification.

Re:Focal length is not a function of crop.

[fyngyrz]

This is slashdot. These people are pretty smart. I don't think it's expecting to much for this audience to actually understand the issues. If you want to argue that people in general don't understand cameras and that's ok, I disagree - understanding means smarter purchasing, which has all manner of positive consequences. If you want to argue that people don't understand cameras and you give up, that's fine. I don't.

Re:Focal length is not a function of crop.

[fyngyrz]

"too" much. FFS.

No. Focal length is not a shorthand for FOV.

[fyngyrz]

You're suffering from a number of misconceptions. First of all, focal length is not a shorthand for FOV. FOV is a function of the lens FOV (which may be, and often is, nonlinear) and the intercept made by the sensor or exposed film region. It can vary in both aspect and area, given the relatively constant circle of light delivered by the lens to the focal plane. In other words, it varies enormously, and it does so independent of the focal length, so it is *silly* to use focal length as a shorthand for FOV.

Second, nothing about what a specific lens presents to the sensor - FOV or Magnification - varies from camera to camera. You get a varied intercept with the crop formed by the sensor (or film) boundaries, and you get varied magnification by sensel density of the sensor (and this is not without consequence, as the various lens artifacts - chromatic aberration, diffraction, coma and so on - all are magnified as well by a tighter sensel pitch.)

Neither one, however, "changes" the lens.

The entire concept underneath a statement like "I put the 400mm lens on my crop camera, so now it is like a 640mm lens" is invalid. It isn't like one as you would instantly find out if you simply put a 640 lens on the FF camera, shot an image, and the compared the results. They won't even be remotely the same result -- every pixel will be different, the sample rates will be different, the image won't even compress in a similar fashion, and the only way you can *make* them even remotely similar is to scale one of the images, thereby no longer working with anything even close to the actual camera result -- and that's why this misconception should be educated out of the photographic community. It's a false equivalence, and for that matter, one that gets further and further from any kind of sensible description as lenses get wider. For example, a 1.6 crop of a fisheye won't even *slightly* resemble what the fisheye delivers in FOV on a FF. What it will do, however, is deliver a constant magnification that is simply cropped off.

People look at lenses like this: If I buy a 100mm lens, I'll be pretty close. If I buy a 200mm lens, I'll be twice as close (1D thinking.) This is true. When they start talking about crop factors, and they say, "I'll put this 400mm lens on my crop camera and I'll be 1.6x as close (640mm)", they're flat-out wrong. They'll be exactly as close as they were with the FF camera, with the caveat that there will be a perceptible difference due to the sensel pitch, but this difference can even go the other way.

For instance, Canon's FF 5DmkII camera has a sensel pitch of 6.4m, but its 10D 1.6 crop camera has a sensel pitch of 7.4m, so the image will actually be less magnified on the crop camera given the same 400mm prime, rather than the 1.6x magnification that the erroneous thinking leads one to anticipate.

Stupid crippled slashcode

[fyngyrz]

I wrote micrometer - italicized u, followed by m, but the broken Perl engine stripped the micro out. Sorry. Slashdot: broken for technical typography by design. Perfect for a tech site, eh?

DSLR is bling

[dominique_cimafranca]

It seems to me that a DSLR nowadays functions mainly as bling. Photography is a distant secondary function.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[toQDuj]

You do know that the EPUK.org article was an april fool's joke, right? Still, so close to reality...

I. Don't. Get. It.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why DSLRs and not smaller cameras? Did Mohammed speak out against the dangers of having a single lense in a digital camera or something? Did they give any reason for this ban? Do they have some weird monsters in the street that they want to keep quiet from outsiders? It doesn't even make sense when you take into account religious despotism as a perspective. Thos DSLRs will send you to hell! Cell phone cameras and smaller digital cams are okay, though.

And thought control prevents thought crime!

[Rsriram]

Gun control prevents gun crime
DSLR Camera control prevents terrorism
Thought control prevents thought crime.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength

It's about keeping track of journalists

[dbIII]

It's about keeping track of journalists by limiting an easily identified tool for journalists and a way of throwing "unregistered" journalists out of the country. They see that journalists carry DSLRs so that's what they limit for all of those situations where a journalist has to put a different profession on the visa to be allowed into the country. The technical details of the cameras are not important since it is a tool of social control, which we will find when a journalist with a point and shoot camera is charged.
Kuwait is a very corrupt country but depends on having a good reputation so they don't like journalists poking their cameras into unexpected places.

You guys don't get it!

[hashp]

All you guys arguing about the difference between types of cameras which are banned, you just don't get it!

From the FA:

The ban will not affect small ‘standard’ digital cameras, in theory. But in all honesty, who would be willing to go in public taking shots with a digital camera and risk having to explain the differences between DSLR and non-DSLR cameras to angry Kuwaiti authorities? I for one certainly would not.

In my opinion, the only reason the Kuwaiti authorities didn’t issue a full scale ban on all digital photography apparatus is because every self-respecting smart-phone these days comes with a couple megapixels strong built-in camera that would basically make the ban useless.

In other words, they don't want you taking pictures in public places, period! It's just that they big kids don't want to give up their camera phones, or else they would ban them too!

Jeez, how many of the people on here have even been to the Middle East ever?

woohoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been looking for a reason to buy NEX and now I have one. Now I need a reason to go to Kuwait

Seems legit

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom is all well and good, but it's no use burying your head in the sand and pretending there isn't a problem with photographers in London.

I think a PSICO system like this is long overdue.

nb, you may wish to review the source again; some crucial details could be easy to miss.

Re:London (City) does this too...

[gstoddart]

You do know that the EPUK.org article was an april fool's joke, right? Still, so close to reality...

*laugh* OK, no I hadn't realized that. Thanks for showing me to be an idiot ... mostly it was the first several links which resulted from the google search for "london photography police" and I hadn't realized that one was a joke.

God knows there were enough other appalling stories that it was easy to miss that one.

That's probably where people got the notion that you may require a permit in London. :-P

Re:London (City) does this too...

[Geeky]

They certainly talked about a permit system for "registered" photographers. (Now, that appears to be within a narrow area, but ...)

I read most of that and the sad thing is that even though it was an April Fool's joke it was just a little too plausible.

Don't take it so personally

[dbIII]

The problem here is that you are seeing yourself as the guy with a gun defending against hordes of comic book crooks and are not thinking of the context of things like an ordinary guy with road rage/marriage breakup/psychotic episode putting a dangerous tool to tragic use, the many accidents and the huge amount of crime carried out using handguns.

Finally, I'm not interested in making life easy for law enforcement. I'm interested in maintaining the individualist civil society that was wrestled from the grasp of a totalitarian government 200 years ago, where life for law enforcement was "easy".

This again? I wish people would show their patriotism with a fucking flag on a t-shirt instead of carrying a dangerous tool around all the time. Let's just talk about guns alone please instead of pretending it's part of some ritual of cultural heritage or part of some black helicopter fantasy, because others have certainly taken that argument in that direction.

Oh, and law enforcement *are* civilians.

I'm using English as in from England, Canada, Australia etc, so I'm sorry if I've confused you and local usage is different. I've seen it used that way by US law enforcement so I know that it's part of US English as well at least for technical use if not daily use.
There was a guy here on an earlier discussion that insisted anyone from outside the USA was naive to expect to discuss anything involving any sort of gun control without it bringing up Libertarian vs Republican vs Democrat vs Batshit Insane Anarchy politics and getting waaaay off topic (such as the "let's have guns to be ready for another revolution" stuff brought up above). You can prove him wrong and also remove things like my immediate assumption of the level of your education with things like your "correction" above (I know it's a regional difference not a failure of education, but that's how it came across at first).

Re:Don't take it so personally

[lwsimon]

I see myself as a guy with a gun and a family, who doesn't ever want to be in a position where I need to protect them without the means to do so. I am not a comic book hero, nor am I a gangbanger, or an amateur - I have spent much time and money making sure that I am proficient and safe with firearms, so that I can carry and use them effectively.

The *last* thing I want is to have to resort to violence. I recognize, however, that there are situations where violence is the proper and moral response - such as, again, when my life or the lives of my family are in imminent danger. If a person is unstable enough to fire a gun at you because you cut him off, then he's unstable enough to run your car off the road with his. You appear to be advocating attempting to regulate actions by regulating objects.

In real life, no one around me knows that I carry a firearm. It is not a status symbol, I don't take it out and fingerfuck it in the bathroom, and I sure as hell don't whip it out like a big metal dick to show it off. My carrying of a firearm is a well-thought-out, conscious decision made by a rational human being.

Gun rights are a very large part of the individualist/libertarian political segments of American politics. Discussing the basis for my position on the issue is not off-topic. Further, I feel a very strong connection with the ideas that formed the philosophical basis for founding America. That doesn't mean that I have blind patriotism for the country, but that I have great respect for the philosophy that resulted in the US Constitution, and by extension, the US federal government. Looking to history as a means of evaluating future decisions seems perfectly reasonable to me.

As for the definition of "civilian", your prior usage was imprecise at best. The term is well-defined in international law, and while it is colloquially used by fraternally-structured organizations (the police, firefighters, EMS, etc), that is not its common usage. There was a reason I included it last in my post - it isn't really germane to our discussion, and is merely a pet peeve of mine.

Re:Don't take it so personally

[dbIII]

I see myself as a guy with a gun and a family

You see you are still taking it personally and not thinking about what the imperfect other guy with a gun is going to do. There is no way this can be discussed rationally unless you consider people other than yourself. To avoid later confusion, I learnt to shoot a gun at 7 years old and I'm not opposed to responsible gun use.

Gun rights ... individualist/libertarian ... philosophical basis for founding America ... US Constitution

It looks like the earlier poster was right and it's not possible to discuss this issue in isolation in an adult manner and the it's all going to come down to choices of party and following party lines.

As for the definition of "civilian"

The first link for googling "police civilian staff" is http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2194/is_n11_v63/ai_16473802/
Notice that is the FBI using it. I don't really care about your pet peeve about how you think the word should be used because I cannot see inside your head so only have common usage and the dictionary to go by. You knew what I meant anyway so the entire exercise of attempting to "correct" me was pointless unless it was some silly attempt of trying to make my points appear worthless by making me appear to be poorly educated. In return I've just assumed you are in a place with a lot of local military so local usage overcomes the dictionary meaning. Please stop attempting to "correct" me on this since it is incredibly obvious that I am correct in the part of the world where I sit - it's a big world, live with it.

This isn't just to-ma-to, to-mott-o

[fyngyrz]

ok, granted... now, how does that change anything I said?

Assuming a prime lens (or a zoom at any one fixed zoom setting):

First: The lens focal length sets what the lens presents at the focal plane. The ultimate sharpness of the lens and the focus determines the detail prior to diffraction. The f-stop of the lens sets the absolute diffraction by affecting the Airy disc radius. The linearity of the presented light will vary with the lens design (and settings in the case of a zoom) from highly linear to highly non-linear (fisheyes, etc.)

Second: The sensor takes some portion of the light from 0 to 100% in some handy aspect ratio at the focal plane; this results in the hardware-limited FOV for the camera+lens combo.

Third: The sensel density sets the (always linear) sample rate across the (often nonlinear) light the lens presents at the focal plane; this sets the hardware-limited resolution, and, in combination with the f-stop of the lens, also determines if the samples will be diffraction limited (basically, if one sensel impinges significantly upon an Airy disc centered upon a neighboring sensel.)

Bayer or other (Foveon, et al) weirdness ensues, the camera applies various curves, sharpening, etc., etc., and we get RGB samples of some useful bit depth in some useful image format, which we may or may not post-process further.

The lens focal length remains constant in all of this, providing same lens-based FOV and magnification.

My point was, and remains, that suggesting a lens focal length change in mm due to a change in crop is misleading and inappropriate. So is suggesting a linear lens FOV change based on a change in crop. That's not what is going on, and that's not even what *looks* like is going on.

As soon as I hear (or see the result of) "multiply by 1.x" I know the speaker doesn't understand what is going on (or can't be bothered to explain it) and consequently is making even more of a mess out of a subject that isn't all that simple in the first place.

What is the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not like they banned pencils in schools.

Idiots

[Voulnet]

You're all fools who scoop in anything people give you. This ban is a hoax, it was never put into place or even suggested. Please stop spreading FUD about countries you know nothing about.

Things people have but can't use

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for Kuwait to ban putting an apostrophe in "its" when the word is used as a possessive pronoun. See, I know lots of these people who write news stories (or comments on Slashdot) who have apostrophes but don't know how to use them, and end up making ugly-looking sentences.