Nikon maintains DSLR lead over Canon

On Jul 16, 6:48 am, "per" wrote:
"Rita Ä Berkowitz" ritaberk2O04 @aol.com wrote

IS/VR on *ANY* lens of 50mm and wider is totally impractical and is so
ineffective that it is nothing more than a sales gimmick. Simply put,
IS/VR
does not work at these focal lengths.

Rita

That's funny, a Panasonic FZ8 or a Canon S3IS have focal ranges of just
6-72mm and their vibration reduction systems are certainly effective.
/per

Focal lengths are not the same across different sensor formats. The
field of view obtained with the 6-72mm is the same as 36-432mm on an
SLR lens, so yes, you would expect the VR on the above mentioned cams
to be effective. Having said that, it is prob more useful at the long
end than the short.

Rusty
http://blog.pixelpix.com.au

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

IS/VR on *ANY* lens of 50mm and wider is totally impractical and is so
ineffective that it is nothing more than a sales gimmick. Simply put,
IS/VR
does not work at these focal lengths.

Rita

Funny, I'll try remembering that the next time I'm shooting
dimly lit scenes with my 28-135mm IS at 28mm. Gee, in the past,
it's worked great, even down to 1/8 second exposures, both back
in 35mm film days, as well as with DSLRs.
Now that I know it's impractical and ineffective, I won't
do it any more. Should I also take the sharp prints
off my walls? ;-)

Roger

notbob wrote:
On 2007-07-14, Alfred Molon wrote:

106 million compact digital cameras sold vs. 5 million DSLRs sold. Guess
which cameras are more popular.

Get a dictionary and look up surge.


See? The surge is working!

--
It Came From Corry Lee Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
http://www.unclaimedmysteries.net

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:32:07 GMT, Unclaimed Mysteries wrote:

Get a dictionary and look up surge.


See? The surge is working!

Only possible with cameras that have a Green Zone, er, Mode. And
even then we won't know for sure (officially) until at least
September or the middle of October. As if we don't already know.

In article ,
SMS wrote:
It's the "all my old lenses will work with my new body" that's the value
in a lens mount. Until the D40/D40x, this was the case for all AF lenses
other than the F3AF lenses.

For values of 'old' and 'work' that do not include actually mounting
the lens (non-Ai) lenses, or having a lightmeter/program/automatic modes
(non-cpu lenses).

Full backward compatibility went out of the door in 1979 (consumer
cameras) and in 1988 (for the professional cameras).

In other words, for consumer cameras, the last time you could just buy any
model was when they were called Nikkormats.


--
That was it. Done. The faulty Monk was turned out into the desert where it
could believe what it liked, including the idea that it had been hard done
by. It was allowed to keep its horse, since horses were so cheap to make.
-- Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

dj_nme wrote:
Tony Polson wrote:

Nikon has sold low-end SLR bodies with key features disabled for many
years - at least since the Nikon EM of the late 1970s. That policy
does not seem to have done Nikon any commercial harm in the last 28
years, and is unlikely to do them any harm now.

The difference being with this particular DSLR camera is that they have
disabled a key feature that prevents mostly currently available AF
lenses from working on the D40x.
The previous "disabled" Nikon SLR cameras just meant that a new feature
(or two) in the new flagship model weren't included in the base
"disabled" model, not something as vital as lens compitiblity.

Look up the details of the Nikon EM, the Nikon N4004 and the Nikon
N80. Each of them omitted some element of compatibility with some
(then) currently available Nikon lenses and accessories. You could
add to the EM the Nikon FE2 and FM2.

My point is that Nikon has been doing this for many, many years, and
the less-than-fully-featured D40X is therefore nothing new.

The Nikon D40X is an excellent product and it is selling very well.
And that is all that really matters.

I'm sure that the D40x is great if what you're after is essentially an
APS sensor P&S (having no wish for other lenses than the kit lens), but
will readily show it's lens compatiblity problem as soon as the owner
decides to upgrade the lens.

On the contrary, Nikon will ensure that a wide range of AF-S lenses
will be available to Nikon D40X owners. What Nikon has done is made
it more difficult for D40X owners to buy third party lenses, because
nearly all of them lack the motor-in-lens focusing.

However, as long as they have the Nikon AF chip, they will work fine,
but they will need to be focused manually.

You cannot blame Nikon for wanting to sell Nikkors rather than see
buyers choosing independent brands.

If you were after a Nikon DSLR that is fully compatible with currently
available lenses, I would have to recommend the D80.

If you mean compatibility with *all* currently available lenses, you
would have to choose the D200, because the D80 is not compatible with
some of them.

In article , Tony Polson
wrote:

If you mean compatibility with *all* currently available lenses, you
would have to choose the D200, because the D80 is not compatible with
some of them.

and then there's the d40, where non-ai lenses work without modification.

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

per wrote:

IS/VR on *ANY* lens of 50mm and wider is totally impractical and is
so ineffective that it is nothing more than a sales gimmick. Simply
put, IS/VR
does not work at these focal lengths.


That's funny, a Panasonic FZ8 or a Canon S3IS have focal ranges of
just 6-72mm and their vibration reduction systems are certainly
effective. /per


Hmm. We're talking dSLRs here, not point and shoot cameras. P&S
cameras have in body IS/VR and their focal length is very different from
what a traditional dSLR is. Both Nikon and Canon made a technical
blunder by putting VR/IS in the lens instead of the body on dSLRs.

Not if the intention is to come out with a 24x36mm sensor DSLR camera
(as Canon has), in-body AS/IS/VR would require the mirror box and body
of the camera to be made bigger (to allow for sensor movement and
AAS/IS/VR mechanism) and they would have to be lucky to find that all of
their lenses can cover larger than the sensor to allow for AS/IS/VR
movement without vignetting.
Either that or require every user to purchase newer AS/IS/VR covering
lenses to work with their new FF sensor body with AS/IS/VR.
That would pretty much stuff up the Canon EOS promise of lens compatibility.

Then
again, they might have done it from a marketing perspective of where
they can sell us more expensive lenses. In-lens VR/IS does not work on
lenses of 50mm and wider since it is a physical impossibility.

Do you have any proof of this claim, or is it merely hot air?

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:

Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

IS/VR on *ANY* lens of 50mm and wider is totally impractical and is
so ineffective that it is nothing more than a sales gimmick. Simply
put, IS/VR
does not work at these focal lengths.


Funny, I'll try remembering that the next time I'm shooting
dimly lit scenes with my 28-135mm IS at 28mm. Gee, in the past,
it's worked great, even down to 1/8 second exposures, both back
in 35mm film days, as well as with DSLRs.
Now that I know it's impractical and ineffective, I won't
do it any more. Should I also take the sharp prints
off my walls? ;-)


It's the placebo effect you are seeing! Just because you read it in
marketing literature or from Ken Rockwell's site you truly believe it
so. I'm equally confident in your ability to get equally sharp images
with IS turned off.

Even if the IS lens gives an extra stop of hand-held shooting, it is
better than nothing.
With FF (or film) I would expect some-one with steady hands to be able
to hand-hold a shot at half the shutter speed recommended with the 1/FL
formula.
If your hands shake so much that IS/VR doesn't help you, it might mean
that there is a problem with you and not the equipment.

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:
Roger N. Clark (change username to rnclark) wrote:

IS/VR on *ANY* lens of 50mm and wider is totally impractical and is
so ineffective that it is nothing more than a sales gimmick. Simply
put, IS/VR
does not work at these focal lengths.

Funny, I'll try remembering that the next time I'm shooting
dimly lit scenes with my 28-135mm IS at 28mm. Gee, in the past,
it's worked great, even down to 1/8 second exposures, both back
in 35mm film days, as well as with DSLRs.
Now that I know it's impractical and ineffective, I won't
do it any more. Should I also take the sharp prints
off my walls? ;-)

It's the placebo effect you are seeing! Just because you read it in
marketing literature or from Ken Rockwell's site you truly believe it
so. I'm equally confident in your ability to get equally sharp images
with IS turned off.

Hardly. I bought the lens many years ago (film days),
before I ever heard of Ken Rockwell, and I didn't read
marketing hype. In fact I was skeptical that IS was worth
it in such a short focal length lens. But right after buying
it, I took it to Europe and was photographing the inside
of dimly lit churches with Fuji Velvia ISO 50. I've was so
impressed with the results that it has been my standard lens
on European trips ever since. It is no placebo effect!

Roger