Panasonic "shocked, shocked" at idea of m4/3 rangefinder

Low end dslr viewfindrs

Low end dslr viewfindrs

Benjamin Marks said:
Bill, my hat's off to you. I like the picture. I did own a digi-Rebel for a little bit and while I did occasionally get an image in focus with my Nikon primes plus adapter, it was the unpredictability of it that drove me bananas (the "challenging but not impossible" part of your post). I can use a Pentax screw-mount 50/1.4 wide open on a Nikon D3 and nail focus every time (no infinity focus, but that's another story). For my part, I just couldn't hack it with the smaller focusing screens. My point was that you can have a focusing "hump" and still have a product that not everyone will want.

Ben
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Basically are all awfull for focusing and pretty poor for composing in my view. Yes, I;ve been spoiled, but when I tried some out for my brotehr I couldn't any of the 'entry level' dslrs. The 'mid-range' (50D etc) were a bit better, but it's not until you get to full 35mm frame that they become acceptable.

I can focus my distagon 35 f2 reliably on a 1Ds3 and mostly reliably on a 5D. the Distagon 28 2.8 is a bit more difficult unless the light is good and I don't want to react quickly. The Canon 50 1.4 is fairly easy to focus, but the focus ring feels like it's full of sand.

Mike
 
Benjamin Marks said:
Pistach: I haven't made up my mind about this yet. Not sure I am shocked. I have a Panasonic LX-3, which performs this manipulation. But I think all cameras do to some extent, albeit with different parameters. My D3 or M8, for instance can use a custom WB and apply that to their RAW files. So a RAW file really isn't a sensor dump, regardless of what the camera co's have said. But suppose they could (and it seems that they can) "pre-correct" the barrel distortion that typically comes with cheap wide zooms. Why do you think that's a bad thing? It might put "lenses" of higher quality into the hands of more people. After all, no one "sees" with barrel distortion; and if your eyes did produce that sort of image "in camera" as it were, your brain would fix it up in a jiff as you "know" that straight edges don't bow as they recede in your field of vision. It isn't as shocking as a "slimming" feature or a camera that won't take a picture unless it "thinks" it sees smiles.

BTW, I didn't miss it. This news has been outraging photo-netizens for the past several weeks, so I didn't think it was new. What was new in the interview was the insight that Leica said "no thanks" to this sort of image manipulation (for reasons which have been the subject of intelligent speculation on another of today's RFF threads).

Quizzically,

Ben
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It's become apparent that raw files vary in their 'rawness'. It seems to be accepted that the Nikon D3 does quite a lot to it's raw files, including noise reduction and geometry/chromatic aberration correction with some Nikon wides (pretty impressive at 10+ frames a second). Chuck Westfall at Canon went on record as saying that Canon doesn't do this to CR2 (i.e. all recent) raw files, though I don't know if this changed with the 5D.

I'm not intrinsically opposed to using software correction alongside optial design. it sems that it could be used to allow higher performance systems than are achievable purely optically as well as improving the performance of chaeper systems. What you may lose thogh is some of the character of lenses that arise from specific aberrations - though of course someone would suggest that you put them back in🙂.

Ultimately it depends what you want. For some people that may be about the image and others about teh ethos/experience of shooting. It may even be a mixture.

Mike
 
sojournerphoto said:
Basically are all awfull for focusing and pretty poor for composing in my view. Yes, I;ve been spoiled, but when I tried some out for my brotehr I couldn't any of the 'entry level' dslrs. The 'mid-range' (50D etc) were a bit better, but it's not until you get to full 35mm frame that they become acceptable.
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I'm with you 100% on this. When I looked through a 5D for the first time, it was like coming home. All my manual SLRs have this >pop< when the image comes into focus (F3, SL2, F4 and so on). I just don't think that the major camera makers had extra money to "spend" on a viewfinder after tricking out the entry level machines with 54 point-super-duper auto focus. So yes: spoiled, but this used to be pretty standard on SLR equipment.

Ben
 
Bill, you may be "reality based", but how is that different from anyone else's self-assessment?
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The part where I'm actually correct about mine.

Implicit in your statement is that you consider anyone who differs with you to be living in some sort of fantasy world, disconnected from reality.
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Yeah, that's pretty much what I said. Don't worry, it's not just the rangefinder folk. You find it wherever like-minded people band together to discuss the object of their desire. Once they realize there are others like them, they move in fairly short order from astonishment to find they are actually not the only ones to a deep-seated belief that everyone thinks the way they do.

It is a relatively new phenomenon. People once had to live in their own neighborhoods, seldom discovering others who shared similar tastes or interests, and even when they did, they were acutely aware of the physical distances between them and all the 'ordinary' people in between. With the advent of the interwebs, the distance vanishes, some spend a big chunk of their lives online, and they build communities that they eventually decide are representative of the majority. I understand it, it's perfectly natural and even predicable. I just don't seem to have the ability to lose the perspective necessary to make that last leap.

That does not mean that I don't value you as a person and forum member.
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Yeah, you guys are OK too.

We all live in our own reality. Perhaps a bit different approach and choice of words can keep our worlds from colliding.
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Gee, I haven't called anyone a congenital moron or a blithering idiot in a long time. I thought I was being all warm and fuzzy already. Dial it down yet another notch, you're saying? Geez. How much fun that will be.
 
If we're talking about an actual rangefinder design then I don't think anyone should be surprised that one isn't forthcoming. I've noted before that if the electronic contacts communicate focus information, then an electronically-controlled rangefinder could be possible. With zooming viewfinder/LED framelines/something else? Not important because such a thing is a pure fantasy, even if it were possible.

If we're talking small, pocketable, hump-free camera, then it is no surprise to me that Panasonic is working on something. Olympus has only demonstrated something in that vein in terms of forthcoming m4/3 products. Given that one of the aims of the format is to make things smaller, this seems natural. And given the 20mm prime on their roadmap, I get the sense that Panasonic realizes this.

To me, the most promising thing about the new format (formats I suppose, adding in Samsung's short-flange "hybrid format") is that cameras can be small. The next most promising thing is that with such an open format (in the case of m4/3, specifying merely the image circle and flange depth, not even the aspect ratio) and without any hardware restrictions to speak of, like a need for a mirror, there's really no form factor that isn't available. Sure, the first cameras looklike DSLRs and have a prism hump where the EVF is. Another may be smaller and more rangefinder-like. Some may find a way to ditch the EVF altogether. One might look like a waistlevel 6x6 camera, with a top-viewing LCD tucked into a hood. A video-centric model may take ergonomic cues from an actual camcorder. Work lots of different ways? Buy one set of lenses and have a body for each methodology. It sounds pie-in-the-sky, and is, but it isn't impossible, and an enterprising company could do this with the format. For the record, sign me up for a waistlevel, 1:1 aspect camera that uses the primes that I hope olympus makes for their Pen F - inspired model.

As for the corrections applied, for some it is about the journey, and for some it is about the destination (and to be fair, for many it is a mix of the two). If results are all you care about, then these products might appeal to you. If you value the knowledge that your optics are first-rate, then you'll avoid these cameras. Personally, if the camera is easy to use, easy to carry with me at almost all times, and I like the results, I don't care what your digital voodoo is. I love what I get from my D700, but it isn't a camera I can keep with me at all times. I'm willing to compromise the journey if that's what it takes.

Finally, I'm with everyone that wonders what Panasonic's Leica-inclusive plans might be...
 
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You could be right

You could be right

The first example (I think he is saying he used C1) showing the uncorrected building is all I really need to know - and that is that the camera on a Motorola Razr has less distortion than the LX3 lens. Unbelievable.

bcostin said:
I'd be amazed if Panasonic has not considered an RF or RF-like design. Which isn't to say they'd actually make one, of course.



Isn't that already possible with some third-party RAW converters? See here for example. I usually use ACR now (which does apply correction) but I recall that RawTherapee did not. I used PTLens to do it after the fact.
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ampguy said:
The first example (I think he is saying he used C1) showing the uncorrected building is all I really need to know - and that is that the camera on a Motorola Razr has less distortion than the LX3 lens. Unbelievable.
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Panasonic gave up distortion correction in the lens in favour of speed and resolution. That's a trade-off I can live with for software correction. Or would you prefer the LX3 cost significantly more and be larger to incorporate the extra elements necessary to get optical distortion correction along with the otherwise excellent performance of the LX3's lens.
 
I understand

I understand

That the idea of correcting distortion in-camera is a cost savings measure, but even assuming the output is the same as an crop DSLR with FF lens and no correction, you're still paying hundreds more for the small form factor ($450 or so for Panasonic version, few hundred more for Dlux4 version), and giving up a lens option with less native distortion.

DOF wise, I don't see the f2 samples having any more DOF than my Fuji F30 which has about the same size sensor (1/1.6"), even though the F30 is 2.8+.

F2 DOF can be very semi-narrow on an RF up close, or DSLR with crop, and very narrow on a FF 35mm or FF DSLR which focuses closer.

But on a tiny sensor, like 4/3, 1/1.6" etc., F2 and F2.8, get pretty close, you basically have tons of DOF until in macro mode, just inches or cm from subject.

Check my photo blog for narrow focus, but up-close flower images with the F30. I haven't seen anything close with an LX3 yet.

mawz said:
Panasonic gave up distortion correction in the lens in favour of speed and resolution. That's a trade-off I can live with for software correction. Or would you prefer the LX3 cost significantly more and be larger to incorporate the extra elements necessary to get optical distortion correction along with the otherwise excellent performance of the LX3's lens.
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It's not the DoF I'm interested in with the LX3, it's the light. If I want to shoot shallow DoF stuff I'll use a larger format but the LX3's combination of a large (for a P&S) sensor and f2 lens makes low-light shooting surprisingly viable for a P&S.


ampguy said:
That the idea of correcting distortion in-camera is a cost savings measure, but even assuming the output is the same as an crop DSLR with FF lens and no correction, you're still paying hundreds more for the small form factor ($450 or so for Panasonic version, few hundred more for Dlux4 version), and giving up a lens option with less native distortion.

DOF wise, I don't see the f2 samples having any more DOF than my Fuji F30 which has about the same size sensor (1/1.6"), even though the F30 is 2.8+.

F2 DOF can be very semi-narrow on an RF up close, or DSLR with crop, and very narrow on a FF 35mm or FF DSLR which focuses closer.

But on a tiny sensor, like 4/3, 1/1.6" etc., F2 and F2.8, get pretty close, you basically have tons of DOF until in macro mode, just inches or cm from subject.

Check my photo blog for narrow focus, but up-close flower images with the F30. I haven't seen anything close with an LX3 yet.
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Bill, bless you. 😀

I still maintain that no one here --well, in this thread, at least-- has their head up their arse about the imminent release of a Panasonic or other m4/3 true RF. I think MOST on RFF are agreed we're a niche of a niche, or a niche at best. So I felt your initial comments were coming out of left field.

My personal, internal focus right now is on discourse that is "more civil", more inclusive rather than confrontational. That's me ... call me a budding Buddhist (I am) or detached from reality (I'M NOT, YOU BA$TARD, I'M NOT!!!), just as long as you call me for the wine tasting.

Earl
 
mawz said:
It's not the DoF I'm interested in with the LX3, it's the light. If I want to shoot shallow DoF stuff I'll use a larger format but the LX3's combination of a large (for a P&S) sensor and f2 lens makes low-light shooting surprisingly viable for a P&S.
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As much as I HATE the LX3's ergonomics, I agree with Adam here regarding DOF - ISO800 is excellent with the LX3
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(Full size here: On Flickr)

Dave
 
Panasonic will probably not be too interested as long as customers do not inquire through their corporate web site. It's no use debating at forums since they will only consider if requested directly.

I read the Olympus interview on DPReview.com as well and this is at least the way Olympus approached it.

So, if you wanna make a difference, get to your coutries Panasonic site and leave a question!
 
"Once they realize there are others like them, they move in fairly short order from astonishment to find they are actually not the only ones to a deep-seated belief that everyone thinks the way they do."

Bill, all the photographers I know personally are obsessive hobbyists, but we are under no delusions about having a collective viewpoint, especially when discussing what we want (desires). Hell, look at all the disagreements fomented on these forums. We might have other delusions, but I don't think possessing a herd mentality is one of them. There are exceptions that prove the rule.
 
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