A Digital Xpan? Would you buy it?

anaanda

anaanda

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Just curious..It seems that anyone who shoots an Xpan, also loves it very much and I imagine its the panoramic format that is so seductive....so If a digital Xpan came out would you go for it? Or do all us Xpanners just love our film....??
 
Yeah..I wouldn't buy it either because I am sure the price would be astronomical...Anyway I only shoot BW so I think film has a better look although on the computer screen it's hard to tell some time if its film or digital. I think you'll be able to tell if you look at a print though...
 
I guess it would have to feature two APS-C sensors ganged side-by-side to get the equivalent configuration and the pano proportions. That would certainly keep the price up there where XPan users expect it... :) The camera might be made a little smaller, would need shorter focal length lenses. And, hey, thought triggered by the Horseman stereo XPan, this dual-sensor setup might be just the ticket for the first digital stereo camera!
 
Not a very useful camera for the price it would command, I suspect. Panoramic stitching is so easy in the digital world.
Hey you APUG members up there;) Did you ever realise that the only truly digital medium is film? A silver crystal is either black or absent, no in-between, but a pixel is an analog device, as the output varies with the light intensity....:D

Hey Doug, what happened to your account? you suddenly turned into a newbie :confused:
 
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Looks like I'm a minority here. For street shooting, makes no difference digital or film. Nevertheless I do enjoy shooting digital with monoblocs. For tweaking the light setup, it saves time compared to using Polaroids.

It also allows me to further refine a shot that works. Tiny bits of changes like moving chin up a bit or twisting shoulder a bit makes a difference for me. It's between "Yeah! I like the shot!" or "Hmm I like this one but if only ...."

Now if only digital response to light is logarithmic so highlights do not look strangely white...
 
No, I don't think you're a minority here :) I'd guess over sixty percent of posters on this forum use both film and digital, and some RD-1's exclusively digital. Imho the best way, the image counts and it seems to be a bit biased to blame the result on the method used.Anyway for panoramic single shots you are still stuck with film, which makes the digital X-pan probably not a bad idea after all.
 
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jaapv said:
Hey Doug, what happened to your account? you suddenly turned into a newbie :confused:
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And here I was trying to be incognito! Actually, the change was an egalitarian move in reaction to the flashy rotating diamond icon, and continued to avoid the triple gold stars. ;)
 
Dougg said:
And here I was trying to be incognito! Actually, the change was an egalitarian move in reaction to the flashy rotating diamond icon, and continued to avoid the triple gold stars. ;)
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And there I was thinking we in Europe were the real socialists..... *sigh*
 
I think the special aspect of the Xpan is looking through the viewfinder and seeing the framlines, then composing..I believe taking two pictures and stitching can be nice but a different experience...
 
Hopefully I won't be too badly flamed, but the Dlux 2 has a "semi-panoramic" 16:9 mode, that some panoramaphiles have found attractive, at least in my local club. It, of course, is not a true rangefinder, but it is a neat little camera although noisy at the higher ISO's.
 

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Actually, I would probably buy one as long as the cost wasn't stratospheric. Even if it didn't have interchangeable lenses, I think a panoramic digital camera would be fun to shoot. I hate messing with stitching multiple photos/scans together even though it's not that difficult and I'd love to be able to see the panorama at the time I shoot it.
 
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I'd buy one. Digital or film - it's just a means to an end. The photo on the wall is what matters, not how you made it.
 
dermo said:
Digital or film - it's just a means to an end. The photo on the wall is what matters, not how you made it.
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No doubt, but different tools *are* different, though they may be used to the same end. And I know that for me, I am much more interested in working with certain tools rather than others. Though I haven't shot extensively with digital cameras, I have used them enough to know that I do not enjoy taking pictures with them and thus tend to shoot less, in which case there may not be a photo on the wall at all. Basically, I don't like the plasticky feel of those I've tried out (and I'm certainly not interested in spending $3,000. or more to get a "substantial feeling" one, which would only last a couple of years anyway), I don't care for the digital interface I have to navigate through just to be able to set exposure manually, nor the fact that, in the end, I wind up with an image file that I have to access on a computer in order to have a print. I haven't yet been able to check out really high end digital prints, and therefore can't say how I feel about them or how they stack up against silver prints, but given my feelings about those digital cameras I've worked with, well, as long as there is an analogue tool, I'll stick with that.
 
I would prefer to avoid stitching not just for convenience but to better handle moving objects in the scene. I have done it for static scenes a couple of times, and it's fun... But I just ordered a mask & adaptor kit for pano 35mm in one of my medium format cameras, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out.

Hard to believe the panorama proportions won't be well-addressed by some digicam maker to fill this niche. Jeff, with the DLux 16:9, does that result in fewer pixels in the captured image? The Pano option on APS cameras effectively reduces resolution by instructing the printer to crop off the top and bottom of each frame... That approach would be a bit hard to take with an Epson R-D1, for instance, as it would turn the 6mp rig into about a 3mp one.
 
It would be very expensive to make a new panoramic format CCD. Then there is the added problem of the cosine 4th law with CCDs which can be a greater challenge than with film (but some compensation can be made with the firmware). I doubt the demand considering the much higher price would be finacially feasible. But they would be able to save a bit on the rangefinder mechanism - simply frame and shoot from the newly developed and very expensive panoramic format LCD monitor.
 
anaanda said:
Just curious..It seems that anyone who shoots an Xpan, also loves it very much and I imagine its the panoramic format that is so seductive....so If a digital Xpan came out would you go for it? Or do all us Xpanners just love our film....??
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I unfortunately doubt this camera will ever be produced. And as said previously mentioned, price would be astronomical for such a speciality digital camera.
 
Well I primarily use a digital SLR in my job and have been working with pro digital cameras for the last 4 years now. Having just bought an xpan i find it a delight using film again, and the xpan really is a format i enjoy using. However, being used to the "convenience" of using digital I would certainly snap up a digi xpan or equivalent if I could afford it. I have taken stitched pano's on my Nikon D2x and providing its done using a tripod, I have had good results, although it can be a pain stitching them together. now i have my xpan, i will shoot my pano's on that.
 
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