DSLRs at the Athens Olympics

In article ,
Alfred Molon wrote:

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful.

Indeed. The shots of the pole, falling back down, would surely be magnificent.

I do this with my Oly E10 but a true DSLR cannot do it.
Maybe we need a borg like eyepiece that attaches to the viewfinder....hey!
that might work and it would work with any camera....somebody get to work on
that! All the technology exists already.


"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
You may have noticed the crowd of sports photographers trying to get a
photo of the female Russian pole-jumping final winner while she hugs the
trainer five minutes ago.

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful. By the way, the DSLRs used looked like Canons.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Olympus_405080/
Olympus 5060 resource - http://www.molon.de/5060.html
Olympus 8080 resource - http://www.molon.de/8080.html

I do this with my Oly E10 but a true DSLR cannot do it.
Maybe we need a borg like eyepiece that attaches to the viewfinder....hey!
that might work and it would work with any camera....somebody get to work on
that! All the technology exists already.


"Alfred Molon" wrote in message
...
You may have noticed the crowd of sports photographers trying to get a
photo of the female Russian pole-jumping final winner while she hugs the
trainer five minutes ago.

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful. By the way, the DSLRs used looked like Canons.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Olympus_405080/
Olympus 5060 resource - http://www.molon.de/5060.html
Olympus 8080 resource - http://www.molon.de/8080.html

In article ,
Phil Stripling wrote:

Alfred Molon writes:

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful.

Well, I used to have a twin-lens reflex that I held upside down over my
head and framed shots over the heads of the madding crowds. But, it wasn't
digital.

I miss my old Rolleiflex...

In article ,
Phil Stripling wrote:

Alfred Molon writes:

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful.

Well, I used to have a twin-lens reflex that I held upside down over my
head and framed shots over the heads of the madding crowds. But, it wasn't
digital.

I miss my old Rolleiflex...

"Steve Hix" wrote:
Phil Stripling wrote:
Alfred Molon writes:

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a
situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful.

Well, I used to have a twin-lens reflex that I held upside down over my
head and framed shots over the heads of the madding crowds. But, it
wasn't
digital.

I miss my old Rolleiflex...

So buy a used one. You can get a nice f/3.5 Tessar model for well under
US$500, and an f/2.8 Xenotar model for around US$500. Get the Epson 4870
scanner, and you'll easily get images that can be downsampled to a very
sharp, say, 4400 x 4400 pixels*. That's 19MP: not too shabby at all.

*: This is a conservative** number assuming an effective resolution of
around 2000 dpi. Some people claim it's more like 2800 dpi.
**: I _really_ hate the idiot film partizans who claim near-infinite
resolution for film and don't get it that scanners produce images that are
grossly soft. I'm quite sure that you really can get 2000 dpi of clean
pixels from the 4870.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"Steve Hix" wrote:
Phil Stripling wrote:
Alfred Molon writes:

Perhaps two dozen photographers surrounding her - impossible to frame
with the viewfinder and indeed most photographers were just blindly
pointing the camera to her and pressing the shutter. That's a
situation
where a swivelable LCD screen with live preview would have been very
helpful.

Well, I used to have a twin-lens reflex that I held upside down over my
head and framed shots over the heads of the madding crowds. But, it
wasn't
digital.

I miss my old Rolleiflex...

So buy a used one. You can get a nice f/3.5 Tessar model for well under
US$500, and an f/2.8 Xenotar model for around US$500. Get the Epson 4870
scanner, and you'll easily get images that can be downsampled to a very
sharp, say, 4400 x 4400 pixels*. That's 19MP: not too shabby at all.

*: This is a conservative** number assuming an effective resolution of
around 2000 dpi. Some people claim it's more like 2800 dpi.
**: I _really_ hate the idiot film partizans who claim near-infinite
resolution for film and don't get it that scanners produce images that are
grossly soft. I'm quite sure that you really can get 2000 dpi of clean
pixels from the 4870.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

Instead of the mirror have a CCD or CMOS chip? It would have to be
really, really light to work properly... or maybe not. If you put the
sensor in the space currently occupied by the prism and viewfinder, you
could keep it stationary. But - say goodbye to doing things the old
fashioned way, you're stuck with one method, like it or not.
Resolution, gamma and color would be other issues - the viewing sensor
would have to match the main one so results don't vary from LCD
composition to final shot.

Why not just have a mirrir lock up and use the CCD on the film plane? surely
this couldn't be to hard to implement.

Instead of the mirror have a CCD or CMOS chip? It would have to be
really, really light to work properly... or maybe not. If you put the
sensor in the space currently occupied by the prism and viewfinder, you
could keep it stationary. But - say goodbye to doing things the old
fashioned way, you're stuck with one method, like it or not.
Resolution, gamma and color would be other issues - the viewing sensor
would have to match the main one so results don't vary from LCD
composition to final shot.

Why not just have a mirrir lock up and use the CCD on the film plane? surely
this couldn't be to hard to implement.

That's a really cool idea.

I do this with my Oly E10 but a true DSLR cannot do it.
Maybe we need a borg like eyepiece that attaches to the viewfinder....hey!
that might work and it would work with any camera....somebody get to work on
that! All the technology exists already.