The End is Near? Smaller is Better?

dave lackey

dave lackey

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Good evening Dave,

I'd been out one night recently shooting a billboard with my D700 and 24-105 f4G zoom ... in the bag I'd also stashed my OMD and 14-42 ... the Oly had only been in my hands a day or so and I thought it might get lonely at home without me! :D

When I got home I took the D700 and lens out of the bag and put it on my desk then took the Oly out and put it beside the Nikon while I put the bag and tripod etc away. When I turned around and looked at the two of them sitting there I was stunned ... the Nikon looked HUGE!

It was actually the first time I'd ever had this perception and I was shocked!
 
I have a 5D, but I shoot it now more like I would shoot a medium or large format camera - tripods, slow shooting, tilt-shift lenses, occasionally all the way to tethered shooting with a tablet PC and so on. Since image quality is in medium format territory, this is not much of a problem; earlier I would have carried a Kiev like that, now it's a 5D.

It's more that the notion of what one does with a SLR has shifted. It used to be an all-round camera for me, now it's a dedicated camera for slow shooting at high image quality, and for the rest there are compacts.
 
Keith said:
Good evening Dave,

I'd been out one night recently shooting a billboard with my D700 and 24-105 f4G zoom ... in the bag I'd also stashed my OMD and 14-42 ... the Oly had only been in my hands a day or so and I thought it might get lonely at home without me! :D

When I got home I took the D700 and lens out of the bag and put it on my desk then took the Oly out and put it beside the Nikon while I put the bag and tripod etc away. When I turned around and looked at the two of them sitting there I was stunned ... the Nikon looked HUGE!

It was actually the first time I'd ever had this perception and I was shocked!
Click to expand...

Yes, it is what we get accustomed to, isn't it?:)

The M3 has been languishing in the bag for awhile now as I haven't had the opportunity to spend cash on film processing and it is piling up while I am still looking for inspiration. Found an A&A strap on the classifieds, put it on the M3 and it felt both huge and heavy compared to the IIIF that I have been carrying around.:eek: Can only imagine going back to the D2H and D2X that used to occupy my backpack simultaneously....

For sports, action and so many other things, I can't see a small digi cam replacing the huge cameras as the extra size and weight are actually beneficial...but, we'll see one day.

Lots to think about with cameras these days and it makes my head hurt, so, I try to to think too much.:p
 
While I do like cameras the size of the Fuji X-Pro1 and the Leica M9, I cannot go bigger than that and feel good. The barnacks and Leica X1/X2 are magical because they are so minimal and small / light. I can't explain why I am drawn to smaller objects, but some just are not. There will always be the type who think bigger is better.
 
And I'll keep lugging about my D700 until a micro-format camera produces equivalent image quality at ISO 6400 (I shoot indoor basketball).
 
Too small doesn't work for me. I got a Nex-3 and I can't use it: too small. Just no way to hold it well, it shakes all over the place when you want to press a button (and you have to press a few buttons whatever you want to change), no balance at all between lens and body.

It is nice if it is lighter and smaller up to a point. But the SLRs of the 80's were the best compromise. You could shave a bit of weight with other materials but my fingers don't get smaller.

I'd love to have my Mamiya 645 kit loose half of its weight but it doesn't need to get smaller.
 
Spanik said:
Too small doesn't work for me. I got a Nex-3 and I can't use it: too small. Just no way to hold it well, it shakes all over the place when you want to press a button (and you have to press a few buttons whatever you want to change), no balance at all between lens and body.

It is nice if it is lighter and smaller up to a point. But the SLRs of the 80's were the best compromise. You could shave a bit of weight with other materials but my fingers don't get smaller.

I'd love to have my Mamiya 645 kit loose half of its weight but it doesn't need to get smaller.
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I have the Mamiya 645e and it's not that heavy, comparable to a D700 but with less massive lenses! With the grip it is quite maneuverable and I use it for handheld shooting, though only with the 80mm lens.

My go-to DSLR is a Pentax K-x with a DA 40mm lens. it has about 20% more volume and close to the same mass as my Canon QL17 III (I have a comparative photo which I will post later). It takes 4 AA batteries, focuses lightning quick, has terrific high-ISO, and integrated grip (which I love.). Even the other pancake primes in the Pentax line-up make for a very small kit.

It is very comparable to my 1980's-90's SLR's, such as the relatively tiny MZ-S which I also have.

Sadly, neither are RF's :(

There are products out there which can meet many checklist needs posted here.
 
dave lackey said:
Interesting discussion on the future of large, sophisticated cameras:

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.co...5/while-dslr-die-will-small-cameras-rule.html

There is a good argument these days for smaller, simpler cameras like, well, like they USED to be when Barnacks were first produced. It seems to me that there is a lot of fertile ground to be plowed whether or not DSLRs are facing their demise.
Click to expand...

if the x2 was sligtly taller and had a viewfinder builtin, don't care for flash. and it was a full frame camera , i would have bought it in a heartbeat

but i think getting one of those sony 4/3rds with same sensor and a slightly better leica lens on it with an adapter is a better buy for a travelling companion
 
From my recent research, it would seem that the optimal size for a camera averages out to be anything that starts with: OM-
 
I always seem to come back to a rangefinder or a small SLR film camera. I would like to handle the OM-D whatever, some day.
 
Anytime there's a trend, "the end" is oft-understood for its counterpart.

The end of jobs for men came when women started working. The end of cars came when motorcycles were invented. The end of white bread came when bran bread showed up. The end of dressing in suits came when people started wearing Speedos...

They all had good arguments for their arrival. Surely it means the same arguments spell doom for what it isn't.
 
Spanik said:
Too small doesn't work for me. I got a Nex-3 and I can't use it: too small. Just no way to hold it well, it shakes all over the place when you want to press a button (and you have to press a few buttons whatever you want to change), no balance at all between lens and body.
Click to expand...

I have found that it's not about size as much as implementation. The Nex 5n was very hard to hold steady because of size, yes, but mostly because of a decent grip which is partially a size and partially a shape issue. And the lack of in-body stabilization made it very difficult to shoot with longer shutter speeds, which compounded the size/shape problem.

I have no such issues with my OM-D. The stabilization makes hand-holding it possible and though the grip isn't as deep as on the 5N, it's taller so my pinky doesn't curl up without any place to go. It's just worlds more comfortable to me. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is that smaller cameras can be made more comfortable to a point by good design, and some are simply not well designed. When I had the 5N I thought that it was just too small, but now with some experience with the OM-D I realize that it's small and poorly designed.
 
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