Digital rangefinder cameras please?

[bmattock]

Check out this page: http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/press/2003/d-ila.html

Looks like the market for LCD projectors produces the kind of miniature LCD's that are ideal for EVF's. The search term to find these seems to be "micro display".

Yes, that technology has been around for awhile. And no reason to think that DLP might not be able to handle some kind of enlarging duties in time. Personally, I find it a solution in search of a problem - I don't want to print with an enlarger. But it may work well for those that do still want to do so.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[rvaubel]

I wish I had a chance to look thru the viewfinder of the Dimage. Technically there's no reason a EVF can't have the resolution required for accurate focusing, composition, and all the other factors required for a satisfactory artistic experience. Doing away with all the rangefinder issues of multiple framelines, parallex, fiddlely rangefinder components, would be something I would gladly be happy to see go by-by. I suppose some see a kind of "romance" in dealing with an optic viewfinder but I don't. They just work better, for now, than the alternative i.e. an SLR. That is on a small street camera. For telephto work, macro etc, I grab my trusty 20D. Sometimes I grab my 35mm film camera. Different horses for different courses.
But the attractions of a rangefinder form factor, mirrorless SLR, M mounted digital camera with a hi-res EVF would be very attractive to me. Pentaprisms and mirrors have to go.
Rex

 

[bmattock]

I wish I had a chance to look thru the viewfinder of the Dimage. Technically there's no reason a EVF can't have the resolution required for accurate focusing, composition, and all the other factors required for a satisfactory artistic experience. Doing away with all the rangefinder issues of multiple framelines, parallex, fiddlely rangefinder components, would be something I would gladly be happy to see go by-by. I suppose some see a kind of "romance" in dealing with an optic viewfinder but I don't. They just work better, for now, than the alternative i.e. an SLR. That is on a small street camera. For telephto work, macro etc, I grab my trusty 20D. Sometimes I grab my 35mm film camera. Different horses for different courses.
But the attractions of a rangefinder form factor, mirrorless SLR, M mounted digital camera with a hi-res EVF would be very attractive to me. Pentaprisms and mirrors have to go.
Rex

I agree - and OLED is a better solution than LCD for an EVF - when the technology is ready - it ain't soup yet. But one problem with looking through the taking lens - filters. Rangefinders don't have that problem, SLRs and anything that views through the taking lens do.

With a polarizer or a graduated filter , the problem is in reverse - but for everything else, rangefinder wins.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Kev T]

Hi res EVF

Hi res EVF

Check out this page: http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/press/2003/d-ila.html

Looks like the market for LCD projectors produces the kind of miniature LCD's that are ideal for EVF's. The search term to find these seems to be "micro display".

Hi Chan,

You're right, the JVC iDLA display device with 1365 x 1024 (1.4 Mp) would make a dandy EVF, almost good enough to focus with actually... Unfortunately unlike normal backlit LCD devices, this type of display device also generally known as LCOS displays are front lit and reflective, (like TI's DLP display chips) meaning there's no way to incorporate them into EVFs.

The standard TFT LCD used in HD capable projectors are also approaching the SXGA+ resolution levels now, but the recent ones I've been looking at suffers from noisy playback when compared to Lcos projectors, and they're generically manufactured in the 16:9 aspect ratio to suit that specific market, so if we use them for 4:3 or 3:2 aspect ratios for EVF duties, we'd loose resolution, coming back to square one.

Despite the above, I do concur with you that is the direction to head for in the field of EVF technical progress, as soon as production rates ramp up and prices come down enough for such display devices to be used economically in EVFs.

Regards,
Kev

 

[rvaubel]

Bill
It sure aint' soup yet. But there's hope for the future especially with
OLEDS. Although, this technology has been percolating for years without much commercial results. A harder cat to skin than some thought, but sooner or later....
With regards filters, why bother when you can post process whatever you want using 3 color Raw data. Only polarizering filters would present a problem and then, just turn up the gain on the EVF. Which of course lets you see in the dark with a 90mm f4.0 Elmer!
One more thing is autofocus with conventional "M" lenses. How about manually focusing to get close to optimal, then let the phase contrast dohickey take over to move the SENSOR the last few .001s?
I'm started to get overly excited. I'm 60 and only have another quarter century or so ... meanwhile back to the RD-1.
Rex

 

[bmattock]

Bill
It sure aint' soup yet. But there's hope for the future especially with
OLEDS. Although, this technology has been percolating for years without much commercial results. A harder cat to skin than some thought, but sooner or later....
With regards filters, why bother when you can post process whatever you want using 3 color Raw data.

Have to agree to disagree there. Not the same, not yet. Channel mixing is nice - I like it. But it is not the same as a Moose warming or a tobbaco or a red 25 even.

Only polarizering filters would present a problem and then, just turn up the gain on the EVF.

That's not going to help you with glare off of glass, for example. You really need polarizing filters for many things, and PS can't do that for you yet. However, I agree that PS has punched a big hole in graduated filters.

Which of course lets you see in the dark with a 90mm f4.0 Elmer!
One more thing is autofocus with conventional "M" lenses. How about manually focusing to get close to optimal, then let the phase contrast dohickey take over to move the SENSOR the last few .001s?

Because the contrast dohickey doesn't work well in low light, even if the sensor is ultra-high sensitivity. Contrast seems not to be the end-all be-all of focus acquisition. There is no fooling math, however. If you have enough EV to SEE, you have enough EV to focus a RF in most cases. Sorry, the steam drill has not beat John Henry just yet. Maybe in time, but I think we need a different algorithm than AF confirmation by contrast increase. Works well in some situations, but it is well-known to have drawbacks by designers. They use it because it is fast and cheap - when it works. And with ultra-small sensors, DOF covers a lot of sins.

I'm started to get overly excited. I'm 60 and only have another quarter century or so ... meanwhile back to the RD-1.
Rex

I'm 45. More party time. These kids, though - they really get to have the fun. How I hate them.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Kev T]

Further to my reply on the use of hi-res micro LCDs for EVF usage, there are other concerns as well... Mainly video playback performance.

The K-M A2's EVF had a flicker prone video playback... from my memory of playing around with it, and nowhere close to the performance of a good LCD/DLP video projector.

Motion artifacts compensation requires further expensive back-end video signal processing. Such as the Faroudja SAGE DSP made by Genesis Chips... And that further means extra cost and higher power consumption, etc.

In thinking about the reflective Lcos micro displays, I think I spoke too quickly... They can be front lit with a 5500k LED light source. Boy! that would be a nice EVF!

Regards,
Kev

 

[bmattock]

Further to my reply on the use of hi-res micro LCDs for EVF usage, there are other concerns as well... Mainly video playback performance.

The K-M A2's EVF had a flicker prone video playback... from my memory of playing around with it, and nowhere close to the performance of a good LCD/DLP video projector.

Motion artifacts compensation requires further expensive back-end video signal processing. Such as the Faroudja SAGE DSP made by Genesis Chips... And that further means extra cost and higher power consumption, etc.

In thinking about the reflective Lcos micro displays, I think I spoke too quickly... They can be front lit with a 5500k LED light source. Boy! that would be a nice EVF!

Regards,
Kev

OLED looks better.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Kev T]

Hi Bill,

The basic display device is nearly identical, but the OLED is backlit and my idea front lit due to the LCOS reflctive type technology.

But a 5500k LED light source has a life-span of up to 100k hours.

Kev

 

[bmattock]

Hi Bill,

The basic display device is nearly identical, but the OLED is backlit and my idea front lit due to the LCOS reflctive type technology.

But a 5500k LED light source has a life-span of up to 100k hours.

Kev

OLED is not backlit. It is a light source itself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED

And the life-span was a problem when it was 10,000 hours, I agree. That seems to be the major sticking point. But, they are solving that problem. They're pretty tight-lipped about it at the moment, but they're shipping product - that looks good.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[Kev T]

Agreed Bill, I've looked at OLED displays, but if you take a look at the JVC iDLA projectors producing HD images 6' - 7' across, they're wonderful too.

NEC has a 21" OLED UXGA screen priced at about $2k or more I think.

Kev

 

[rvaubel]

Bill
On your comment about autofocus, I'll have to agree that the best thing about a coincedent image rangefinder is its accuracey and ability to work in low light. Not the fastest horse out of the gate, but for my rather sedate style of low light "street " stuff, it beats the stuffings out of my 20D, except for very fast, medium to long lens. I shoot alot of stuff with a 40mm f1.4 and the DOF is razor thin(the way I like it) and the % of keepers I get much better with the R-D1 than with any of my autofocus. Of course I had to go thru 3 bodies to find one that was spot on. I drove the staff at Calumet nuts for a month as I reiected body after body that they had to get from their Chicago warehoiuse.

 

[RML]

But why would anyone want an EVF? More battery dependence and more electronics that can break down.

 

[nemjo]

I find the idea of an M mount camera with EVF to be wrong, indepentantly of the quality of the EVF.
The only reason to build an M mont cam is to use the M mount lenses on it.
It'd be very disturbing to adjust the aperture shot by shot for exapmple on an Elmar...and the others are not easier neither. I think that the concept of the RD1 is correct. Perhaps a longer EBL...

Regards,

nemjo

 

[sychan]

nemjo,
You're right about the aperture issue with M-mount lenses. I'm kind of fried from end of semester and end of grad school wackiness, otherwise I would have remembered that!

With respect to the EVF issue, personally don't care if it is OLED, LED or something else. My point is that I think those live view type EVFs are where things are going for larger sensor digital cameras - the mirror box is going to be unnecessary. Of course, with the legacy investment in existing lens mounts, those mirror boxes may hang around for a while longer. When using AF lenses on my SLR/DSLRs, I'm generally quite satisfied with their accuracy. Learning how to use them properly (when they have trouble by getting fooled) is just part of learning to use any tool, in the same way that I'm willing to learn how to use the meter in my camera when the lighting conditions may fool it.

Its all kind of moot for M mount lenses though, since they don't have a way to stop down the aperture at exposure time, so the whole contrast based AF approach is down the tubes.

Just as a thought experiment though, you could have the RF cam in the body also setup to read the focus distance on the lens, and then compare that to the value that an IR (or other other) rangefinder returns. So bizarrely overengineered, I could only imagine a german company actually implementing it 🙂

 

[Kev T]

I find the idea of an M mount camera with EVF to be wrong, indepentantly of the quality of the EVF.
The only reason to build an M mont cam is to use the M mount lenses on it.
It'd be very disturbing to adjust the aperture shot by shot for exapmple on an Elmar...and the others are not easier neither. I think that the concept of the RD1 is correct. Perhaps a longer EBL...

Hi Nemjo,

From a M series legacy view point, EVFs are certainly not politically correct. However putting that aside, a LCD review or even 'Live preview' panel is part & parcel of the digital camera nomenclature...

I suppose it is a matter of how a RF camera manufacturer put together this paradoxical polarities in making a digital RF camera, so that users of film RF cameras will be comfortable, and still attract new customers who are new to the RF shooting ex[erience.

Kev

 

[jaapv]

Live preview will not be part of the digital M. It will be a camera with a shutter....

 

[jaapv]

However, I agree that PS has punched a big hole in graduated filters.


Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

So did I, until I read Pölking's latest book. He argues - correctly I think- that one loses too much dynamic range overall by using gradient layers and that the best way to correct is the old-fashioned way: when taking the shot.

 

[nemjo]

I'm affraid I have to make a small change in my own oppinion.

The only reason to build a digital RF body is to build a digital M mount body. (However the CV lens lineup makes sense of LS mount also, but...)
Anyway, this type of camera can only be a narrow sideway on digital route.

The Digilux2/LC1 showed another way. If the development of sensor technology could allow larger sensor AND smaller lens (or at least not larger) in a future model, I could live even with that EVF. Ofcourse it is not a RF - but who cares if good enough.

nemjo

 

[jaapv]

So that leaves us with the Panasonic DMC-L1 - which is a SLR-kinda