I feel like the words that left my mouth this morning were blasphemy, when I told a co-worker about the E-P2 viewfinder.
So we don't have flying cars, and warp-drive is no where near. No moon base. Make an easy upgrade to digital for my classic cameras, and we'll call it even on the promises of the 21st century.
So we don't have flying cars, and warp-drive is no where near. No moon base. Make an easy upgrade to digital for my classic cameras, and we'll call it even on the promises of the 21st century.
amateriat
We're all light!
Compare a Nikon FM-3a to a Nikon D90. I've handled both, and am in the process of showing a client of mine how to use her D90. She's owned and used an F100 for a number of years, so she's not quite a techno-Luddite, yet the D90 bewilders her. It doesn't bewilder me quite that much, but I hate the thing for its über-complexity that tries to pass for sophistication, and I'm not even that keen on the F100, even though its use of film makes it a light-year-or two less complex to use that a typical dSLR. Yes, lots of people use them, the same way lots of people drive: shift the control to "A" and let 'er rip. Which is fine, until you decide you want to do something a wee bit different, and that's where you run headlong into the learning curve. (To me, when the owner's manual for an entry-level dSLR is almost three times the size as the manual for, say, my old Minolta 9xi–not exactly a techno-antique as film-based cameras go–something's really out of whack.)
- Barrett
pvdhaar
Peter
I see I'm not alone in that..
The D90 is the most configurable camera that I've used, and it takes months and months of tweaking the settings to get the same picture quality that the D50 gives straight out of the box.
Softness, image noise in shadows, bad low light results.. yes, you can work the picture controls and exposure meter bias to overcome this, but why should that be necessary? The D50 didn't need that. And why should these picture controls be so completely devoid of any logic? I don't get it. And heaven forbid that I've ever have to do a custom setting reset, cause then I'll have to work for ages to tune the D90 again to my needs.
If it wasn't for the finder and the better AF, the D90 would be gone and replaced by a D50 again in a heartbeat..
Juan Valdenebro
Truth is beauty
Hi,
I never said D90 or common DSLR's were easier to use than classic mechanical SLR's.
I never said I didn't understand such desire.
I said it's not possible to place a full frame sensor into a mechanical SLR an leave the rest of it, including all it's controls, untouched because people like it or are used to it in its original way but now want to avoid film: precisely the sensor that camera was designed for...
I said for comfortable direct controls at least similar to those of a mechanical camera, there are small digital cameras already.
And one of the reasons for more menus and slower control or interface in digital, generally speaking, is that with digital -apart from SLRs' basic controls- you must set several visual characteristics of your capture picking them from a pool of options to combine depending on each scene, while with film that was done before and only once: when you went to buy your roll. That won't change easily... Digital is and will be like that, unless they make as many sensors for different D90's -to keep your example- as available films for different ISO, contrast, saturation, sharpness, grain, etc., we have...
Cheers,
Juan
Spyro
Well-known
Ι think that every single camera at the design stage has to decide if it's going to be optimised for manual focus or autofocus. It cant be optimised for both because they are working against eachother. One example is the focusing ring: for manual focusing you want it to have a long throw, for AF you want it as short as possible. You can have MF capability in an AF-optimised camera, but it will be a compromised MF system and a poor user experience. You can improve things by mounting old manual lenses on your DSLR with adapters and use matte screens etc but you are trying to make something into something that its not designed to be: an MF optimised camera. An OM or FM will always be better if nothing else just for the size and brightness of the VF.
Now, I'm not saying that manual focusing is best for everybody. But there are a few people who get more consistent or better resuts with MF. These people in the digital age are pretty much screwed, because with the exception of those 3-4 expensive DRFs there are no MF-optimised digital cameras in production today and there will probably be none in the future.
Now, I'm not saying that manual focusing is best for everybody. But there are a few people who get more consistent or better resuts with MF. These people in the digital age are pretty much screwed, because with the exception of those 3-4 expensive DRFs there are no MF-optimised digital cameras in production today and there will probably be none in the future.
reuno
Log out, go shoot.
Because all i want is a speed dial and an aperture ring. I'm 28, grown up with technology and working in it but i just can't stand those menus.
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Santtu Määttänen
Visual Poet
I'd add a iso dial, there's no need for menus in digital cameras if there's full manual control of exposure and iso dial. Just shoot raw and raw only (so no need for WB setting), flash control is made from flash units and so forth. I would love to get a digital camera that would be a real old school camera (pre full tech sweep, af, matrix, etc) with digital film inside with only raw exposure (like film, you need to develop it). No screen needed but viewfinder "quickview" with histogram would be good option to have (with some clever lever with some options (histogram, blown highlights, off) besides viewfinder). All manual controls.
It wouldn't be for everyone, heck it wouldn't be for everything either, but for day to day use it's all I need. When I need something else, I just pick up the right tool for it.
But I fear that this is not going to happen, mainly since there woulnd't be enough market for it. But I can dream...
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rxmd
May contain traces of nut
Which is in the lens, not in the camera. Build MF focusing rings into MF lenses, AF-optimized focusing rings into AF lenses, and that problem is taken care of.
You have a point about focusing screens, but those can be made changeable, as they are in professional cameras. Want MF lenses? Use an MF-optimized screen.
I used to think the same way as you do until I got a T90. There you have an MF-optimized camera with a brilliant user interface that breaks down all the complexity of the camera into a dial controlled by a few buttons, where you normally use just two or three, and after two days of using the camera you have it in your reflexes where everything is and your fingers will find the right place automatically. It would translate 1:1 into an autofocus camera (and in fact it has). Try one for a few days.
I think the main problem in this kind of thread is that people look at low-end digital cameras in their comparisons. In a professional camera suddenly you get dials again instead of menus, and you can control the camera while it's at your eye. Granted, your dial doesn't have printed shutter speeds on it, but otherwise it's all there.
The interface problem in a digital camera is managing complexity. In a simple 1970s-style SLR you can translate directly from every control to a function simply because there are so few functions. But people want extra features and have wanted them since the 1980s, even if some people don't want them. Camera designers had the problem of managing this complexity already in the 1980s and there were few cameras that did this well already back then, well before the digital age. In a digital camera, which is intrinsically more complex than an FM3a, I'd take the interface of an F5 over an FM3a any day.
I agree... this is one of the things Leica gets right. Why can't anyone else? These days, I need an ISO button too. To me, the Leica X1 has the best menu and set of buttons I've seen.
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The E-P2 takes a fine picture. It's a good camera.
I think the over-complex menu scheme and every "bell and Whistle" option on it prevents it from getting into the hands of a lot of users. This has been a trend lately, some perception that amateurs buying a digital camera want a video game to play with that also makes pictures.
This could be corrected by new firmware. But the marketeers are obviously driving the design specifications and the firmware developers love to write code.
I think the over-complex menu scheme and every "bell and Whistle" option on it prevents it from getting into the hands of a lot of users. This has been a trend lately, some perception that amateurs buying a digital camera want a video game to play with that also makes pictures.
This could be corrected by new firmware. But the marketeers are obviously driving the design specifications and the firmware developers love to write code.
hipsterdufus
Photographer?
Perhaps an open source firmware would be the solution for the EP-2. I know practically every company in existence abhors open source anything, but I am trying to figure out what the drawbacks would be...
Btw, I have a EOS Digital Rebel (300d from 2003) with a hacked firmware on it. Perhaps that is what I am drawing inspiration from.
Igor.Burshteyn
Well-known
yes, digital OM please!
modular system
- Digital OM with classic controls (and form-factor) of OM1-4, as a capturing device;
- all digital controls including LCD are on separate module (wifi connected);
- or alternatively, all digital controls along with LCD are on the back, and back could be rotated 180 a-la RD1 to conceal all digital controls.
well, I already stopped dreaming, even without your help
modular system
- Digital OM with classic controls (and form-factor) of OM1-4, as a capturing device;
- all digital controls including LCD are on separate module (wifi connected);
- or alternatively, all digital controls along with LCD are on the back, and back could be rotated 180 a-la RD1 to conceal all digital controls.
well, I already stopped dreaming, even without your help
Spyro
Well-known
Canon t90? R u sure? man thats one ugly camera
Naaah, no more 25 year old cameras for me, plus I'd have to buy lenses, I have nothing in FD...
not_in_good_order
Well-known
You make it sound like the folks here (myself included) who would like a simple digital body just haven't tried a more complex modern body and should just get over themselves and go with the flow.
Alongside my FM2n and F3HP, I use a D700. Before I switched to Nikon, I used a Rebel XTi along with an EOS 3 and an Elan 7. I'm quite familiar with modern bodies and am comfortable using them. I simply prefer a simpler body for my style of shooting.
This whole thread, where people are acting flabbergasted that someone would want a DSLR with a form factor similar to a classic manual SLR, is somewhat absurd considering that it is posted on rangefinderforum.com, a website where the majority of folks would love to have an M9 which is about as close to the concept of a throw back body as you can currently buy.
funkpilz
Well-known
I have no need for a digital Nikon because there already are lost of good ones out there. I would love a digital OM-1 because I love the 35mm Olympusses for their handling and I don't want any full-auto crap that comes with normal dSLRs. That stuff is only there because amateurs now can afford cameras designed for people who know what they're doing. Some automatization features are very handy for pros, but I still like the simplicity of shutter speed-aperture-iso that makes up a classical camera.
gavinlg
Veteran
I think we should ban the mentioning of such a camera not having an LCD screen on RFF, it really makes us look like loonies - I don't think anyone would take someone seriously if they said they wanted pro digital SLR without an LCD screen.... Why would you possibly want to not have one? They don't cost much at all to add, and you'd be shooting completely blind....
I think that is film fans wanting that... to me, it is one of the great additions to digital cameras. I love chimping to make sure I got the shot I want.
Frankie
Speaking Frankly
No, Brian,
What you might have said is not blasphemy...just truthful comments from actual observations.
Given the current 800 x 600 x 12u chip size, or 9.6 x 7.2mm size [12mm diagonal] http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09101501epsonhtpspanel.asp and chip development trend, a future 1,600 x 1,200 x 6u chip is definitely conceivable...making it a 1.92 x RGB [5.76MP] rather than the current 800 x 600 x RGB [1.44MP] chip; or even a 9u version...much finer than human vision acuity at a mere 1 arc-minute.
Elsewhere, a cutaway image of the Panasonic G1 indicates that the EVF parts are contained in a space about 25 x 25 x 40mm in physical size, and connected by a flexible circuit to the imaging CCD fly-by-wire style... Olympus had certainly encased all that in a box. I can imagine interchangeable EVF if manufacturers adopt a standard HDMI like connector.
In the end, the lens mount, CCD and circuitry can be contained in a box...Ricoh style; the battery/CD another box...SONY NEX style; and the EVF a third box...Olympus style. The camera body is just a shell/chassis for mounting the components...whether it was grafted from an old FM or OM or M, or whether the original was SLR or RR or whatever are immaterial.
Hotroders had been doing the equivalent for ages.
not_in_good_order
Well-known
I agree. I love shooting film, but the LCD on a digital camera is absolutely wonderful and I would never want to do without it.
Frankie
Speaking Frankly
Real RR photographers don't chimp. Eyes glued to the incomparable M-viewfinders and keep shooting in order to capture the "decisive moment" is all important...no?
"Shooting blind" has always been a photographer's way of life. Why do we now must have an LCD?
Aren't all the Leica experts dominating RFF also experts in photography? They could all do "sunny 16", make superb prints...so that arcane comments made on subtle differences between generations of Leica lenses and other lesser lenses are defensible...no?
An LCD is cheap, by all means pack it in whatever camera. But shoot first, chimp later...much later.