This is the digital camera I would buy

[eskorpid]

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?

 

[Sparrow]

I could manage without the meter

 

[dreilly]

Technically I think it is, or will be possible. And it would be nice...I agree. But I think it won't happen, because too many photographers have gone over, not just to digital, but to the whole package of digital, with screens and menus and wheels and arrows, and in general I think most people are fine with digital interface. I'm fine with it, but I like analog on my cameras...

In other words, I think the market demand isn't there, and so neither will the technology show up.

Also, why make a digital film back for existing cameras when you can sell a whole camera package? Reuse is not a value of the market system, at least until environmental scarcity makes it cost-effective to consider. The great SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson imagined a corporation called "junk mines" that simply mined garbage dumps for valuable metals, etc. And in part corporations are getting wise to all the gold their customers throw away when the new Pentium Amphetamine chip comes out and everyone tosses the ancient 2-year old computers. So reuse is gaining ground as an idea. But fast enough?

 

[Socke]

With digital you can do so much more and, if you know how to use it, it helps you in getting a shot right.

But as far as I understood from people complaining about automatic cameras generaly and digital cameras specialy it may not be so easy for most to turn automation off.
On most digital SLRs I know it is possible to put it into manual exposure and switch off the automatic review, I do this all the time and it seems obvious to me.

 

[Socke]

Also, why make a digital film back for existing cameras when you can sell a whole camera package?

First of all it is not possible to interface a digtial back to a mechanical camera, the only parameter you can transmit to the back is that the shutter has been opened via the flash terminal.

That's ok on leaf shuttered lenses as used in some medium and most large format cameras but a PITA with focal plane shutters.

The sensor is not on all the time and the support electronics have to know how long it should be exposed before capture is stopped and the results are to be processed and stored somewhere.

 

[vicmortelmans]

The sensor is not on all the time and the support electronics have to know how long it should be exposed before capture is stopped and the results are to be processed and stored somewhere.

The sensor senses light, right? So can't it be used to 'see' if the shutter's open or closed in the first place?

Triviale groeten,

Vic

 

[dreilly]

First of all it is not possible to interface a digtial back to a mechanical camera, the only parameter you can transmit to the back is that the shutter has been opened via the flash terminal.

This might be true. I suspect at some point this could be overcome, however. Why not make the chip partially light sensitive, so that it starts recording when the shutter opens and stops when the light is shut out. How quickly could that happen electronically and would it effect the image?

 

[clintock]

Just put read and write buttons on the camera back. Push read, fire the shutter, push write to flush the buffer to the memory. The read function to tell the sensor to turn on would be simple enough to add to the mechanical camera via a switch either crudely placed on the shutter release button like a soft release button, with a wire draped to the back, or something more internal like a switch that is activated by the shutter release rod. The write function can be triggered by a sensor to detect the film advance lever has been wound.

Just think how big cell phones used to be, bag phones even! I do believe someday soon a full-frame M back that may or may not have some under-camera pack looking like a motor winder with it for batteries and support electronics could be possible.

 

[vicmortelmans]

Why not make the chip partially light sensitive, so that it starts recording when the shutter opens and stops when the light is shut out. How quickly could that happen electronically and would it effect the image?

right, and then it could even measure how long the shutter has been open and store that value in the metadata to the image. So you have a continuous check of your shutter speeds as well!

Groeten,

Vic

 

[anselwannab]

I'm not a big fan of chimping, but it is nice to be able to see histograms, especially for long night exposures. Socke is right, you can turn most of that stuff off if you want on dSLRs.

The main problem with the "minimalistic" or kluge digital RFs is that the market would be so small it would be hard to figure out how to get a company to make it.

 

[VinceC]

In the mid-1990s, I sometimes had to use an NC-2000 early digital camera for assignments. It was a 1.3 MP Kodak outfit grafted onto a Nikon N90. I shot my film assignments with Nikon Fs and SPs, so the N90 interface was very difficult for me to use. I switched it over to manual mode and just shot sunny-16 or used an incident meter. The camera had no preview screen. You knew you had the shot if you trusted your technical skills. It even had a thick frame in the N90 viewfinder showing the crop-factor of the digital sensor, so it was very much like shooting a (huge, heavy )rangefinder camera.

All that said, I don't think there's a market for a digital camera without a preview window. Those who don't want it can keep it turned off, and many also fold away.

I agree that using the X-sync terminal probably is an efficient way to let the sensor to know when the shutter is opened. The shutter would control amount of light hitting sensor, at it does on all other digital SLRs and RFs ... For a digital back on a film camera, you could probably develop an interface that uses the film spool advance to let the digital back know that a new frame is being made ... this is part of the shutter winding motion anyway. I

 

[Socke]

The sensor senses light, right? So can't it be used to 'see' if the shutter's open or closed in the first place?

Triviale groeten,

Vic

The sensor senses light when it is turned on, it is usualy turned on very short before the shutter opens and turned off very short after it closes.
The sensor needs a lot of power and gets quite hot. Having the sensor on all the time would deplete the battery fast and the hot sensor would show much more noise.


Edit, VinceC mentioning the early Kodak dSLRs reminds me, they only used electronicaly controlled cameras with interfaces for a databack with their digital contraption. The only exception I know off are digital backs for cameras like the Hasselblad 500 series which interface with the X-Sync only, but I don't know how those work.

 

[eskorpid]

My initial thinking started when I considered how well-machined cameras Leica has offerred us through time. My M2 works excellent after 50+ years and will probably do so for another 50 if used properly.
This is quite unlikely to happen with any of today's digital cameras. Today you spend 5k for an M8 and after 6-7 years it shall be obsolete. Also electronic systems are quite sensitive and prone to environmental factors.
Imagine if someone had offered a digital back for the M6/M7 at 1,5k-2k top.

You could just have a new camera system every time a new improved sensor comes up. And I do not need jpeg,tiff . . . just raw file format . . . to keep things simple.

 

[wolves3012]

The sensor senses light when it is turned on, it is usualy turned on very short before the shutter opens and turned off very short after it closes.
The sensor needs a lot of power and gets quite hot. Having the sensor on all the time would deplete the battery fast and the hot sensor would show much more noise.

So how come the sensor is on ALL of the time for preview on non-slr cameras? They're smaller sensors with more tightly-packed transistors, yet they don't overheat. Nor do they consume excessive power, although you don't want them on the whole time of course. Power and heat are not a barrier.

If manufacturers wanted to, they could make digital backs without too much hassle. Truth is the market is prpbably too small and they make better profits selling you a whole new body and the new lenses you "need" to go with it.

 

[VinceC]

>>So how come the sensor is on ALL of the time for preview on non-slr cameras?<<

The fact that it's so tiny is the main reason. Less surface area, less heat, less power consumption.

A digital back for classic cameras is technically feasible, but not economically feasible. First of all, which camera? A Leica M doesn't even have a back, just a bottom that removes. So you're already taking about a major overhaul of the chassis. The old Nikon RFs and Contax/Kiev RFs have a removable back and -- in the case if Nikons -- a basic motordrive-capable interface that could probably be adapted to digital back. But, really, what's the market for that? Many of the classic SLRs are adaptible, but SLR users can just buy a modern digital camera anyway.

 

[jaapv]

Hey Vince- it is real easy to remove the rear door of an M camera!

 

[wolves3012]

>>So how come the sensor is on ALL of the time for preview on non-slr cameras?<<

The fact that it's so tiny is the main reason. Less surface area, less heat, less power consumption.

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.

 

[VinceC]

>>Hey Vince- it is real easy to remove the rear door of an M camera!<<

Do you really want something that sticks onto the bottom of the camera and then sticks through the rear door? That doesn't sound especially elegant, nor would it be very small.

EDIT: Also, sticking a sensor through the backdoor, seems like it would be hard to align it and keep it accurately aligned.

 

[VinceC]

>>Larger sensors will run cooler not hotter, for a given pixel count.<<

The preview screens themselves also get very hot. I confess I'm well outside my area of knowledge when talking camera electronics.

 

[dreilly]

The technology could be made to work, as several people already have come up with good ideas. The economic infeasibility hasn't been challenged by anyone, however. I think that's what shuts the book on this idea, sadly.

I am not so positive about the longevity (or short-evity) of the digital cameras of today. The electronic shutter on the Oly XA is really quite old but often still found in working condition. The obsolete idea isn't a reality in real terms, just in the marketplace. Nothing will happen in that time that will mean you can't take good, usable, publishable photos with a digital camera just like you can now. It's only the companies tell you need a 400 megapixel camera that's the size of your fingernail and can make billboard size prints. But that's not real need...and that won't make digital cameras of today obsolete.