Quiet DSLR?

I was out and about shooting 'candid' photos and got to thinking about the D70 I was using - why is it so noisy when taking a shot?
I understand when the lense motor kicks in that there is noise, but taking the photo should be mostly electronic. It would be handy to have a quiet or silent camera in some situations - are there any DSLRs out there that people have which are like this?
Thanks.

Most of the noise a DSLR makes is the mirror swinging up. This is why
some people liked the range-finder cameras, no mirror to swing so a lot
less noise.

A non-DSLR digital will be almost silent since there is no mirror in
it, and the shutter is very quite compard to the mirror.

Scott

greeny wrote:
I was out and about shooting 'candid' photos and got to thinking about
the D70 I was using - why is it so noisy when taking a shot?
I understand when the lense motor kicks in that there is noise, but
taking the photo should be mostly electronic. It would be handy to have
a quiet or silent camera in some situations - are there any DSLRs out
there that people have which are like this?
Thanks.



I've read that the Olympus E-1 is remarkably quiet.

Clyde

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:37:57 +0000, greeny
wrote:


I was out and about shooting 'candid' photos and got to thinking about
the D70 I was using - why is it so noisy when taking a shot?
I understand when the lense motor kicks in that there is noise, but
taking the photo should be mostly electronic. It would be handy to have
a quiet or silent camera in some situations - are there any DSLRs out
there that people have which are like this?
Thanks.

I presume you have turned off the stupid sound effect focus-lock beep
thingy?

(Custom menu setting 01)

I find the D70 much quieter than the equivalent film camera - N80 due
to the lack of motorized film winding. And I don't miss the
end-of-film rewind whine either.

--
Owamanga!

greeny writes:

I was out and about shooting 'candid' photos and got to thinking about
the D70 I was using - why is it so noisy when taking a shot?
I understand when the lense motor kicks in that there is noise, but
taking the photo should be mostly electronic. It would be handy to have
a quiet or silent camera in some situations - are there any DSLRs out
there that people have which are like this?

Most of the things that make noise on a film SLR work exactly the same
on a DSLR: The mirror has to flip up, and then back down, and the
shutter has to open and close. That's where most of the noise comes
from. Not much to be done about it really.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, , http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
RKBA: http://noguns-nomoney.com/ http://www.dd-b.net/carry/
Pics: http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/ http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/
Dragaera/Steven Brust: http://dragaera.info/

greeny wrote:
I was out and about shooting 'candid' photos and got to thinking about
the D70 I was using - why is it so noisy when taking a shot?
I understand when the lense motor kicks in that there is noise, but
taking the photo should be mostly electronic. It would be handy to have
a quiet or silent camera in some situations - are there any DSLRs out
there that people have which are like this?
Thanks.


The only situation that the mirror noise might be objectionable is
during concert performance. As for candid pictures, people already are
seeing your big camera before they even notice the sound, if any. As
someone mentioned that before, the noise seems to be loud because the
camera is just inches from your eyes. Normally, people won't notice it.

In article .com,
Scott W wrote:
Most of the noise a DSLR makes is the mirror swinging up. This is why
some people liked the range-finder cameras, no mirror to swing so a lot
less noise.

Agreed. Up and back, actually.

And if you want gratuitous noise for comparison -- consider the
NC2000e/c made by Kodak around the Nikon N90s body for the AP. Not only
do you have the mirror noises, but it even insists on advancing the
(non-existent) film to the next frame, while the image is actually being
stored in a PCMCIA disk drive in the sub-base.

I wonder whether Cannon will bring out a digital version of the
Pellex? That one used a partially silvered mirror, and most of the
light went on through the mirror to expose the film. (Not all, as some
had to be deflected up to the focusing screen -- and even so. there was
less light for low-light-level focusing as well.)

When did Cannon discontinue the Pellex?

Hmm ... one built on the Pellex principle could even allocate a
lower-resolution image sensor for focusing, and allow display on the LCD
screen during focusing -- which would be nice for some types of
photography.

A non-DSLR digital will be almost silent since there is no mirror in
it, and the shutter is very quite compard to the mirror.

And if it is a leaf shutter, even more so than a focal-plane
shutter. Of course, this makes interchangeable lenses more difficult.
Not impossible, but still more difficult.

It *could* be set up with a Pockel(sp?)-cell shutter, so you
would have no moving parts involved at all, thus it would be very quiet.
But it would be far from the through-the-lens immediacy of a SLR, so
many of us would not like it.

Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
(too) near Washington D.C. | http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
--- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

In article ,
DoN. Nichols wrote:

I wonder whether Cannon will bring out a digital version of the
Pellex? That one used a partially silvered mirror, and most of the
light went on through the mirror to expose the film. (Not all, as some
had to be deflected up to the focusing screen -- and even so. there was
less light for low-light-level focusing as well.)

When did Cannon discontinue the Pellex?

Canon have used that idea far more recently that the Pellex; the EOS-1n RS
had a pellicle mirror, with about 1/3 of the light going to the viewfinder,
and 2/3 passing through to the film plane. This allowed the camera to have
an amazing 10 frames/second continuous shooting mode.

Nowadays Canon have managed to get that same frame rate in the EOS-1v,
even with a moving mirror.

Hmm ... one built on the Pellex principle could even allocate a
lower-resolution image sensor for focusing, and allow display on the LCD
screen during focusing -- which would be nice for some types of
photography.

The astro-photography-modified Canon EOS 20Da allows live LCD display.

2005-02-28, John Francis wrote:

and 2/3 passing through to the film plane. This allowed the camera to have
an amazing 10 frames/second continuous shooting mode.

Nowadays Canon have managed to get that same frame rate in the EOS-1v,
even with a moving mirror.

IIRC, the Nikon F3HS got to 13,5 fr/s with a moving mirror (1998?)

-peter

Owamanga wrote in
:

And I don't miss the
end-of-film rewind whine either.


An - out of flash memory space - whine would be cool


/Roland