This is the digital camera I would buy

[VinceC]

I don't buy the "digital equals obsolete" line of reasoning. Digital shooters are saying that 10 Megapixels is indistringuishable from film, and the best films have reached the effective resolution of lens optics, which starts to get into the physics of light waves, where resolution is finite.

I have trouble imagining someone 10 years from now thinking that a well-made 10 MP camera is worthless. Especially here on this forum where a great many of us own, have used, or admired 30 year old ex-Soviet cameras and lenses based on 65 year old designs that have been surpassed in sharpness and contrast for decades.

 

[planetjoe]

Introducing the Digalog Camera.

Introducing the Digalog Camera.

I'm really enjoying this thread. I've often thought about the real economics behind the fact that a "true" interchangeable digital back doesn't exist for analog cameras. Not that I'm cynical, or anything - wait, yes I am - but there's a better, vertical market in creating entirely new camera systems around digital imaging technologies. It is some interest to us that this market is centered almost exclusively (until recently) around SLR systems. For many reasons, not all of which are draconian.

That said, I think the time will come - very shortly, if not vanishingly quick - when materials engineering and related technologies will mature in order to build the "film sensor"...it's been described before, and elsewhere: a digital drop-in device shaped like a 35mm canister with a dangling film leader. Pop it in your analog body, and presto...instant digital camera. No screen or info feedback, but there you go.

I think with OLED technolgies, field-effect optical arrays, nanostructures, and whatnot, we're already pretty close. Now, the cynical question is: why would anyone in their bloody right mind make one?


Cheers,
--joe.

ps. doug reilly's mention of the work of author kim stanley robinson leads me to once again recommend him to a group of relative strangers. excellent stuff, check it out.

 

[Socke]

I can't agree on that one. The power consumption is determined by the number of transistors, all other things being equal. A given number of transistors (i.e. pixel count) on a smaller chip area gives higher temperatures because there's less area available for cooling. This is why cooling microprocessors in PCs is an ever-growing problem, more and more transistors in a similar-size package. Larger sensors will run cooler not hotter, for a given pixel count.

And Leaf builds a Peltiere element in their backs to keep the sensor from freezing?

 

[Socke]

That said, I think the time will come - very shortly, if not vanishingly quick - when materials engineering and related technologies will mature in order to build the "film sensor"...it's been described before, and elsewhere: a digital drop-in device shaped like a 35mm canister with a dangling film leader. Pop it in your analog body, and presto...instant digital camera. No screen or info feedback, but there you go.

I forgot the name of the company which may have had a working prototype and collected venture capital to produce it. IMHO it must have been some 5 or 6 years ago.

This contraption would have been unusable with a Leica, too thick to insert it into the film gate. The, probably photoshoped, prototypes shown came with a back door for the cameras where they should be used and then the lesser known SLRs, like Contax and Leica R, weren't on their list of supported bodies.

I think the Leica DMR is as small as a digital back for an analoge camera can get at the moment and they probably know why they didn't try to make something like that for the M.
As far as I know the DMR is the cheapest digital back on the market but far out of my financial reach.

 

[VinceC]

The people working on the digital film project six years ago got off on the wrong tangent and started looking for a way to intergrate it into a removable back to fit a few popular cameras, housing batteries and the invitable preview screen ... they thought they'd make a bridge system back when good digital SLRs were so expensive. They got overcome by events.

There is a tiny market among classic users for a decent resolution device that is truly the size of a film cannister and leader, with no preview abilities (or wireless preview to a separate box). But it's a tiny market, and the product will only be made when a capable camera enthusiast introduces it as a way to keep using classic cameras.

 

[RichC]

Wouldn't it be nice to have, say an m2 body, without a back-display (just like a film camera), a 10mp sensor and finally a hard-switch for setting the ISO sensitivity of the sensor (and a button for centre-weighted metering perhaps)?

Sounds like my Epson R-D1 used with the LCD swivelled closed - apart from the 10 MP sensor! 😉

 

[wolves3012]

And Leaf builds a Peltiere element in their backs to keep the sensor from freezing?

Flippant, as we both know that a peltier pump is generally used for cooling. I did say "all other things being equal" - in other words for a given transistor count at a given power-per-transistor, a smaller chip will be harder to cool. That's simple schoolboy physics, the power density will be higher. Why is a 10W resistor bigger than a 1/4W? Your logic suggest we could just make it smaller. Why does a power transitor have a larger die than a small-signal one? Same reason, to make cooling possible.

Microprocessor manufacturers have resorted to lower voltages and such like things to keep the power down as transistor-count rises, they didn't do that if they could just have made the chip smaller! Peltier pumps could be used to improve thermal noise but I'm not familiar with Leaf sensors so I don't know why they did it. Possibly because the component density was too high and they couldn't get rid of the heat any other way.

 

[Terao]

Sounds like my Epson R-D1 used with the LCD swivelled closed - apart from the 10 MP sensor! 😉

I was about to post that as well 🙄

 

[jaapv]

Looking closely at my M2 the other day I started thinking under what conditions I would switch to digital, and what would be an ideal digital rangefinder for me.
Wouldn't it be nice to have, say an m2 body, without a back-display (just like a film camera), a 10mp sensor and finally a hard-switch for setting the ISO sensitivity of the sensor (and a button for centre-weighted metering perhaps)?

I would call this a non-distracting digital camera with an analog feel but digital advantages of processing and printing.

And my last thought (or should I call it wish) was : why can't this be made as an interchangable backs for existing M-cameras? So that in a few years time you could just switch backs and not the whole camera.

A replacement of film ONLY. Perhaps too mad to be realised?

Well- we would have to put the battery and memory card somewhere, not to mention the electronics, so it would be a bit like the DMR in size as well as price, and considering that the M8 costs about the same and comes in one neat package, I doubt that there would be many units sold.