jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
anselwannab said:Maybe EVfs will get there. I think we're probably closer to having brain implants that feed us video.
Ever seen the great 1967 Theodore J. Flicker film The President's Analyst, starring James Coburn?
anselwannab said:Maybe EVfs will get there. I think we're probably closer to having brain implants that feed us video.
As a matter of fact, I would like to write a manifesto for film photography in general, RF film photography in particular. IMO, RFF should help film RF cameras more than digital. I think we'll be soon on the top of the curve when interest in digital will wane.
RichC said:Now, we come to the main reason I bought an R-D1 and sold my dSLR: simplicity. I find modern cameras, owing to their automation, intrude and impose on my image-making. Rather than walk to a better vantage point to improve the composition, it's easier to zoom in or out; rather than think about the light, I'd trust the matrix auto-exposure. After a couple of years with my 10D, I wanted a different type of camera: one with simple, and easily predictable, controls that I could dominate totally. Weegee said famously "I see the thing, I feel the thing, I make the thing." With a modern dSLR you'd have to add "And my camera interferes"!
You can of course turn off a lot of automation in a dSLR, use prime lenses instead of zooms, etc., but modern cameras don't make this easy: manual focusing, for example, is awkward, with no split prism and no depth-of-field markings.
😱jlw said:Film bad, booooo! Glass plates good, yay!
Nick R. said:So what advantage can the rf have in the digi world? Well, using Leica M lenses for one thing and that may be the only advantage there is.
Size advantage? High-end digi point and shoots will be as small as any drf you can think of. View finder issues? A dP&S can have an optical viewfinder which removes that advantage from the dRF. A Digital p&s with a zoom lens will cover the entire range of usable focal lengths you would need to produce for your drf. So what does that leave you with? A camera that can't compete with dslr's because of the long lens issue and, for compactness sake, is not a better choice, imo, than a high quality digi point and shoot. The only reason to own one I can think of is to use existing M lenses.
jlw said:I still think interest in this newfangled film stuff will wane. Film produces inferior flatness (critical to sharp, high-quality images) and it requires a huge, complex industrial infrastructure to produce. Glass plates coated with albumen emulsion are flatter, provide excellent tonal range, and can be produced in your own kitchen.
Film bad, booooo! Glass plates good, yay!
jlw said:I still think interest in this newfangled film stuff will wane. Film produces inferior flatness (critical to sharp, high-quality images) and it requires a huge, complex industrial infrastructure to produce. Glass plates coated with albumen emulsion are flatter, provide excellent tonal range, and can be produced in your own kitchen.
Film bad, booooo! Glass plates good, yay!
RichC said:Just want to emphasize that the EVF I want has to be as good as an optical viewfinder. Current EVFs are truly awful!
I was pretty sure that's what you meant, and I concur. I'm not sure how much the major manufacturers are interested in getting to that level.RichC said:Just want to emphasize that the EVF I want has to be as good as an optical viewfinder. Current EVFs are truly awful!
willie_901 said:With regard to 4/3 and APS sensors and a new RF mount standard. The problem with these sensors in not how many megapixels can be crammed on a chip. The problem is the high thermal noise levels found on crowded chips.
40oz said:d Film processing itself is only a couple bucks, but the memory cards for a digital camera easily would cover a year's supply of film for most casual users. Then there is the computer that becomes mandatory if you wish to store, manipulate, and share your pictures. The cost of the computer easily covers years of film processing and prints, even postage for sharing. In addition, almost all people will probably be buying a new camera every few years, regardless of their enthusiasm for photography, simply because they can't take advantage of new imaging technology without doing so. These same people in the past would merely stash their film camera in a drawer until the next family outing or holiday, keeping cameras for ten years or more, and giving them to their children or relatives when/if they upgraded.
The popular desire for digital P&S cameras is not because digital really has anything to offer other than convenience. And if you are going to willfully take the time to manually focus, manually meter, manually set the film speed, manually set the aperture, consider depth of field, development times, paper grades, etc., why the hell would the convenience of digital have any appeal? Once you take away the P&S aspects of a digital camera, there is no benefit at all. None. Nada. Just look at the images in the gallery to see the results of scanning. Having been down-sized for posting on the internet, there is no superiority to digital camera images at all, and most would say there is an inferior aspect to them. The actual scanning process might take a couple minutes per image, but no-one said you needed to scan every roll in entirety just to post a few shots.
The fact is, there is likely NEVER going to come a day when digital images downsized for the web will look superior to scanned film images downsized as well.
And since film printing has been under development for far longer than digital printing, it has a head start that will probably never be made up. You are talking about a technology that has been worked, refined, researched, and produced for over a century compared to one still in its infancy. Everybody loves children, but the attraction often fades as they mature.
Any improvement in film technology is inherently compatible with my current film bodies. Any improvement in digital imaging processing is inherently compatible with my film bodies. Any improvement in digital sensor technology is inherently useless with current digital bodies.
Unless companies start upgrading sensor units in existing bodies for a nominal fee, there is no reason to buy an interchangeable lens digital body. It'd be like buying a car because it has replaceable windows. You still have to replace the entire car to benefit from improvements in drivetrain and chassis technology, the two areas that actually drive purchasing choices in vehicles.
If I don't want to spend top dollar on a film camera body, I can still get the same image quality, but give up only features. If I don't want to spend top dollar on a digital body, I give up image quality. What a stinking bargain :/
Trius said:... As I have stated elsewhere, I view the whining/complaining about high ISO noise is largely nonsense.
Earl
40oz said:way to make a point :/
Look, you want something that doesn't exist for a reason. Don't get pissy when people point out that the shortcomings of digital are becoming increasingly obvious, along with the strengths of film.
Film isn't going anywhere. "Most people" want Brownies, Imstamatics, and now P&S cameras. Digital P&S cameras are nice, because at first, it seems great - cheap, handy, nothing extra to buy but batteries. But as the medium matures, it becomes obvious to all but the most recalcitrant that digital is hardly the panacea it at first seemed.
There is this myth that digital is cheap. Howver, it doesn't cost any less for digital prints than it costs for film prints. And from what I've seen, people take far more digital snapshots than they ever would with film, totally destroying any perceived savings. Film processing itself is only a couple bucks, but the memory cards for a digital camera easily would cover a year's supply of film for most casual users. Then there is the computer that becomes mandatory if you wish to store, manipulate, and share your pictures. The cost of the computer easily covers years of film processing and prints, even postage for sharing. In addition, almost all people will probably be buying a new camera every few years, regardless of their enthusiasm for photography, simply because they can't take advantage of new imaging technology without doing so. These same people in the past would merely stash their film camera in a drawer until the next family outing or holiday, keeping cameras for ten years or more, and giving them to their children or relatives when/if they upgraded.
Sure, for certain professions, digital photography is great. But unless you are a paid photographer, chances are that you really aren't seeing any cost savings from going digital. And you are losing years of family memories any time a hard drive fails, unless you had the foresight to implement a back-up system.
The popular desire for digital P&S cameras is not because digital really has anything to offer other than convenience. And if you are going to willfully take the time to manually focus, manually meter, manually set the film speed, manually set the aperture, consider depth of field, development times, paper grades, etc., why the hell would the convenience of digital have any appeal? Once you take away the P&S aspects of a digital camera, there is no benefit at all. None. Nada. Just look at the images in the gallery to see the results of scanning. Having been down-sized for posting on the internet, there is no superiority to digital camera images at all, and most would say there is an inferior aspect to them. The actual scanning process might take a couple minutes per image, but no-one said you needed to scan every roll in entirety just to post a few shots.
The fact is, there is likely NEVER going to come a day when digital images downsized for the web will look superior to scanned film images downsized as well. And since film printing has been under development for far longer than digital printing, it has a head start that will probably never be made up. You are talking about a technology that has been worked, refined, researched, and produced for over a century compared to one still in its infancy. Everybody loves children, but the attraction often fades as they mature.
I'm not falling into the trap of constantly upgrading bodies because they are inherently flawed from the start. There's plenty of room for improvement in film and lenses that don't negate the value of my film camera bodies, but virtually no room for improvement in digital imaging that doesn't negate the value of the equipment. Any improvements in lens technology will benefit film images. Any improvement in film technology is inherently compatible with my current film bodies. Any improvement in digital imaging processing is inherently compatible with my film bodies. Any improvement in digital sensor technology is inherently useless with current digital bodies. Unless companies start upgrading sensor units in existing bodies for a nominal fee, there is no reason to buy an interchangeable lens digital body. It'd be like buying a car because it has replaceable windows. You still have to replace the entire car to benefit from improvements in drivetrain and chassis technology, the two areas that actually drive purchasing choices in vehicles.
If I don't want to spend top dollar on a film camera body, I can still get the same image quality, but give up only features. If I don't want to spend top dollar on a digital body, I give up image quality. What a stinking bargain :/