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Old November 16th 07, 11:00 PM posted to rec.photo.digital,rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital.zlr
RealityBytes[_3_]
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Posts: 7
Default DSLR vs P&S a replay of Film vs Digital?

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:04:26 -0500, "Neil Harrington"
wrote:


"Helmsman3" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:32:29 +0100, "Bill Again" wrote:



You might be right. But just as the cheap watch from Woolworths tells me
in
general the same time as any other watch, for some daft reason I prefer my
Rolex. And while my neighbours Nissan takes him adequately from A to B, I
prefer, silly as it may sound, driving there in the Mercedes. Daft I know,
but personal preferences play heavily in these choices. I am sure,
however,
that you enjoy your P&S. Keep up the good work, the industry needs you.

:-)


You have that quite backwards, don't you. The industry needs people like
you
paying $12,000 on DSLR bodies that only cost $200 to make, and paying
$2000 or
more per lens when it only costs them $50 each to make. Much more than
they need
someone like me who only puts his money where it really matters. As they
say, a
fool and his money are soon parted. I do the research first to know when
I'm
getting ripped off by some company. I also test things myself instead of
depending on some self-appointed internet pros who have never been nearer
to any
camera than a photograph of one online. Every camera company CEO must
raise a
glass and a hearty round of laughter in your honor from the deck of their
next
new yacht that you stupidly paid for without even realizing it.

By the way, you're using a really poor if not just totally illogical
analogy.
The images from my P&S cameras are every bit as good as any of those from
any
DSLR. If they were not I wouldn't have sold my DSLRs and lenses.


From your posts it seems extremely unlikely you've ever even used a DSLR,
let alone owned one.

I must admit you had me going, though. I actually thought you were
serious -- up to the point where you said "a $100 lens can run rings around
any $20,000 lens on the market" and claimed to make tack-sharp 1-second
exposures hand held. I guess I'm a little slow this morning.

Neil


No, you're just slow all around. Those shutter speeds hand-held are quite doable
with today's IS cameras. I too tested this. With the right stance it's quite
easy. All that you've managed to reveal is that your either very bad at
photography or have never used any of the better P&S IS systems out there. Maybe
you just need to give up that coffee in the morning when you feel that you are
slow. It appears that's not helping, only hurting.

While I might question the $100 lens situation, it is quite possible that the OP
found a combination that works better with his P&S's camera lens than any other
lens on the market. Just by chance it might be optically better than any optical
designer could have come up with on the bench.

I found a similar situation with one of my tele-converters. If I place a
particular flint-glass lens of very low diopter (a surplus acquisition) between
the camera and tele-converter, I get less CA than the tele-converter can do on
its own. It's of such low-diopter that it only changes the focal range a bit,
but well within bounds of the camera's ability to still use it. I have since
made a holder for it so I can mount it permanently behind my tele-converter,
increasing its performance to a ZERO-CA condition. By chance alone, along with
some educated guesswork from studying the CA patterns and knowing about the
properties of various glasses, I managed to accomplish what the lens designers
could not. Mind you, this is only needed when using it with one of my P&S
cameras, something between tele-converter and that particular camera lens don't
like each other. The extra element makes them talk to each other quite nicely.

It's not impossible to find the right combinations of accessory glass + camera
lenses that can do this. But it does require experience, time, research, and
sometimes even luck at getting the right combinations. I don't deny the OP his
choice to not share that with you. I'm not going to tell you what combo of
lenses I use either. Why would I want you to have a better camera than I do?

I also lucked out with the sensor on one of my P&S cameras, in that it has near
zero noise at ISO 400, no hot pixels, and only 3 slightly warm ones when shutter
speeds longer than 10 seconds are used. Just a luck of the draw on sensor
batches that day I guess. If only they could study why that happened and
replicate it for everyone.

There are no absolutes. Just lack of experience in some people. Judging by the
misinformed opinions expressed in these newsgroups I'd say the depth of their
experience with photography begins and ends with their keyboards.