What's the digital equivalent of the T4?

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Wondering what you guys think is the digital equivalent of a Yashica T4- small, durable, great lens, minimal controls. Goes everywhere, comes back with great photos. It would be nice to have a little more control, like it remembering you like the flash off. Also around 28-35 on the wide end and shoots fast with minimal lag. RAW not required but good JPEGs with some character not the usual over saturated, plasticy digital images.
 
Any of the GRD's for sure. III is the best of a good bunch. You've got:
- Amazing interface and controls
- Tiny - much smaller than a t4
- Fantastic 28 lens, sharp wide open without any optical flaws, and on the III it's an speedy f1.9
- Great magnesium build
 
Right now there aren't a lot of digital options in the range between a DSLR and a P&S, especially if size is a consideration. Leica X1, Sigma DP-1 or DP-2 (depending on your lens preference), or perhaps a D-Lux 5. The m4/3 offerings are in a different category in my view, A Leica Digilux 2 is an awesome camera for controllability and image quality but it's certainly not compact...
 
jmarcus said:
Sigma DP2s or (new) x. Auto focus is slow but the sensor is great
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I wanted to suggest the same but didn't, because the OP seems to want JPEGs. I find the out-of-camera JPEGs on the Sigma DP series to be pretty much on the mushy side. You can get around that by shooting RAW and postprocessing, but the RAW write times are really slow, on the order of 6-7 seconds. There are situations when that was a killer (I had one last Saturday where I had the choice between walking out with no pictures or with mushy JPEGs.)

The same about RAW write times applies to the original GR-D, the later versions seem to be a little better in this regard. But at least the GR-D seems to deliver better out-of-camera JPEGs. The GR series also has a built-in lens cover to enhance the durability. In the position of the original poster and as a (currently) Sigma user I'd go with a Ricoh.
 
The GRD is super fast with the snap focus feature.

My friend had a T4, that was the last camera she loved. I had her try the Sigma, the GRD, and surprisingly she settled on a Panasonic DMC-GF1 with the 20mm 1.7, which isn't a bad camera, but the quality of the Sigma sensor was sooo much better. How much do you want to spend?
 
fdigital said:
Any of the GRD's for sure. III is the best of a good bunch. You've got:
- Amazing interface and controls
- Tiny - much smaller than a t4
- Fantastic 28 lens, sharp wide open without any optical flaws, and on the III it's an speedy f1.9
- Great magnesium build
Click to expand...

Yes, this is quite true
 
I had the original GRD and found the files really noisy. It worked OK for black and white where the noise could kinda/sorta pass for grain but the color files were pretty crap. Have the GRDIII files improved. Also pretty steeply priced for a small sensor camera.

All I've ever heard about the Sigmas were that they were SLOW.

I'd like to keep it under $500. Used is fine. Biggest camera I'd consider is maybe a Pen. I've seen some nice looking color out of those. Maybe one of the Leica/Panasonics. Seen some images out of those, actually the C-Lux 2, which had great color over in the Point and Shoot image thread which actually got me thinking about this.
 
Despite all the claims of a digital equivalent, there is in fact no digital camera that is as flexible, capable and durable as an old rangefinder or SLR film machine. Many companies try to imitate but all that they end up with is a box that does not require winding and rewinding.

Nothing compares to the satisfaction of pulling out a camera and saying hmmm... it is getting dark, let me try f8 1/60 and then framing and shooting.

Of course digitals are as convenient as bigM's burgers. That's it.

-Arun
 
The Yashica T4 is a true P&S with no manual modes and a relatively slow f/3.5 lens that takes great photos due to its good lens. There really is no true digital equivalent. All of the cameras mentioned above (while good) are too versatile to be real T4 replacements. 😉
 
The only "real" Tessar lenses available on any digital camera today are the ones on Nokia cameraphones. (And by real I mean fixed focal length tessar type lens.) I really liked the pics I got from my old Nokia N85 5MP cameraphone when the light was good. veryvsharp. But the images had too much compression applied, a pity it couldn't be set by the user. Tossed the N85, still have my Yashica T5...
 
I'd check the deals on the Panasonic DMC LX3 or DMC LX5.. both have a nice Leica lens and perform fairly well. Shoot RAW and JPEG. Here's a sample of "JPEG" images, BW, daylight, interior, night, all handheld. The specs are up to 10MB files the ones you see below are at 200kb...



Lake of the Woods, ON by jannx - in hibernation, on Flickr


texting man, two mailboxes and a plywood wall by jannx - in hibernation, on Flickr


"Pick up Zone" by jannx - in hibernation, on Flickr


pie by jannx - in hibernation, on Flickr
 
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I've been looking the LX5 although I feel like I really like the colors that I've seen coming out of the D Lux 5 (unfortunately for me). They look more like film to me, sort of a more steely Kodachrome-ish look. Not sure I can justify double the price for the red dot even with the addition of Lightroom (which I don't have) but I guess the time I save in post processing adds up.
 
None of the above choice will do it. The Yashica is "full frame". No such animal exists in a point-n-shoot form factor in digital...
 
NickTrop said:
None of the above choice will do it. The Yashica is "full frame". No such animal exists in a point-n-shoot form factor in digital...
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None of the above are full frame sensors, but they do match up in comparisons. An m4/3 body like a GF1/2 or an E-pl2 with the panasonic 20mm f1.7 will be really similar in terms of focal length, depth of field and IQ to the t4.

Lets compare - t4 has a 35mm f3.5 lens, m4/3 has 20mm (40mm equiv) f1.7. That should give almost exactly the same DOF wide open for each, but the m4/3 will be able to have way higher shutter speeds/lower iso - 2 stops worth in fact. The m4/3 cameras are now pretty equivalent to film in noise performance, but the panasonic 20mm will allow iso 400 whilst the t4 will need asa1600 film, or lower shutter speeds.

The size difference is negligible, the m4/3 camera has better controls (t4 basically has none) but can still be used in full auto/PnS if needed.

If you're wiling to go to the interchangeable lenses/slightly larger thing for better IQ, I retract my GRD recommendation and would go for an e-pl1/2 or gf1/2 with the panasonic 20mm. A big plus with the olympus m4/3 is that they have the best jpeg files in the business.
 
The EP-2 but with the Oly 17mm is another option. I know the Panasonic 20 is a better lens and of course faster but I don't get along with the 40mm focal length.

Really what I like about the T4 is it's color rendition so the Oly jpgs might work. My prior Ricoh GRD and GX100 experience was not very positive with color files.
 
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