DSLR vs P&S a replay of Film vs Digital?

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.zlr William Graham wrote:
"TerrenceHamm" wrote in message
...

The only problem with that is unless you buy a top-of-the-line D-SLR
that
now
includes an LCD display that they try to pawn off as something special
called
"live preview", then you will only get any benefits from histograms,
under/over-exposure overlay displays, and other features,
after-the-fact.
Meaning, you can't see those features applied to anything but a shot you
have
already taken. Whereas all P&S cameras that have those features display
them as
you are taking the photo, no time wasted taking "test shots" then seeing
how it
turned out. You know in advance it that setting is going to work or not
before
you even press the shutter.

But the way you talk about digital Point & Shoots, one would think
they
are more sophisticated electronically, and I can't understand why this
would
be the case......Why couldn't you take a digital Point & Shoot, add a
mirror
and a rangefinder to it, and give it the ability to interchange lenses
and
have a better camera? Of course, it wouldn't be smaller or lighter or
cheaper, and therefore as capable of being smuggled into opera houses and
night clubs, but for general photography, why wouldn't it be a better
(more
versatile) machine? IOW, why would leaving off a mirror provide the
machine
with any better electronics than not leaving off a mirror?

It doesn't necessarily provide the machine with more sophisticated
electronics, but having a mirror in front of the sensor prevents you
from using those extra sophistications, because they depend on having
the lens focussing the image on the sensor instead of through the
viewfinder. In other words, the mirror literally gets in the way.

The few very expensive DSLRs which do offer such facilities do so
either by offering a dual mode of operation, such as mirror up and
mirror down, with mirror up losing you the valued optical viewfinder,
or they compromise on optical efficiency by using a half silvered
mirror, etc.. In other words, if you want a mirror *and* those
facilities, getting round the mirror problem involves further costly
engineering and compromises.

The SLR mirror is a carry over from clockwork film camera technology
some of whose advantages haven't yet quite been duplicated by purely
digital technology. In fact digital technology can do it, just not yet
at an marketable price. We won't have to wait long. In other words
the SLR design concept is already obsolescent. There are huge
investments in the technology which will prevent it from becoming
obsolete for a long time yet, however.

OK. I understand that the mirror can be a pain. the same thing is/was true
for film cameras. but the alternative is the electronic viewfinder, and I
haven't seen any that measure up to the "real" image view that you get with
a mirror yet. These tiny screens on the back of the cameras just won't cut
it. Maybe a combination....You look in the hole just like an optical
viewfinder, but instead of a mirror, you see a huge view of an electronic
image that is as spectacular as the one you will eventually see on your
desktop 20 inch monitor.....

In rec.photo.equipment.35mm Chris Malcolm wrote:

You can't can't convince anyone with evidence who didn't use evidence
to make up their minds in the first place.

Ok Chris,

You seem like a reasonable person.
Buy a roll of Tmax 100. (Because it makes sense to go with
what is supposed to be the best case.) Make a series of
at least 12 exposures one stop apart going up from normal
metered exposure. If you have a medium format camera, it would
be a good choice because you probably aren't going to want
to use the densest negatives in an enlarger. Develop normally
in D-76. Make prints. Don't be put off by the fact that the
highest exposures produce really black looking negatives.

Peter.
--

In rec.photo.digital.zlr Scott W wrote:
Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital.zlr Mr. Strat wrote:
In article , Ray Fischer
wrote:

And how many times will you inform us of your incredible expertise and
your ability to judge light levels just by looking at a scene?

I don't believe I used the word "incredible." But you amateurs never
seem to grasp the degree of competency required to produce quality
images consistently.

One of the reasons for that is that so many experts like yourself
spend so much time boasting about your skills and experience and
telling us what amateurs we are, and so little time telling us
anything useful which might help us improve.

Then there are all those people here who do exactly the same without
actually having the skills, just pretending, because if you never
communicate any of your skill it's so easy to pretend.

I sometimes wonder why a real professional would want to post anything
here, if all they ever wanted to post was sneers at the incompetence
of amateurs.

I read this back and forth and am surprised by a couple of things.
Chris you seem to believe that it is hard to get a well exposed shot
without using a histogram, have I got this right?

Nope. I find a live histogram useful enough that I wouldn't like to
have a camera without it, but probably only use it for a difficult 1%
of shots. My camera by the way is a Sony R1, probably somewhere
between a good P&S and a good DSLR in dynamic range because although
it has a DSLR sized sensor it is noisier than a DSLR, I suspect
because with live view it runs the sensor warmer. I find the rolling
zebra stripes on blown highlights useful more often than the
histogram, maybe 2% of shots. That doesn't mean these are not
important facilities: I probably only use my (35mm equiv) 19mm wide
angle 1% of the time, but consider that an essential lens.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

In rec.photo.digital.zlr Scott W wrote:
Chris Malcolm wrote:
In rec.photo.digital.zlr Scott W wrote:

I read this back and forth and am surprised by a couple of things.
Chris you seem to believe that it is hard to get a well exposed shot
without using a histogram, have I got this right?

Nope. I find a live histogram useful enough that I wouldn't like to
have a camera without it, but probably only use it for a difficult 1%
of shots. My camera by the way is a Sony R1, probably somewhere
between a good P&S and a good DSLR in dynamic range because although
it has a DSLR sized sensor it is noisier than a DSLR, I suspect
because with live view it runs the sensor warmer. I find the rolling
zebra stripes on blown highlights useful more often than the
histogram, maybe 2% of shots. That doesn't mean these are not
important facilities: I probably only use my (35mm equiv) 19mm wide
angle 1% of the time, but consider that an essential lens.


It sounds like you use your live histogram about as much as I check my
histogram after the shot. If you are only using maybe 1% of the time
then the small bit of work to snap an image to see it is not all that
bad. I might do this if I have very flat light and very low contrast,
or small bright objects on a fairly dark background. And in truth I can
pretty much tell what I need without looking at the histogram.

What you get from these things is more than just help in getting a
specific shot right. You also acquire an education through using
them. In that respect you get a useful extra from the live view
histogram, which is seeing how it changes dynamically as you punt the
EV back and forth. In a few seconds you can see at a glance what it
would take at least minutes of experimental snapping and chimping to
discover, if you could be bothered to make the effort.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Chris Malcolm wrote:
What you get from these things is more than just help in getting a
specific shot right. You also acquire an education through using
them. In that respect you get a useful extra from the live view
histogram, which is seeing how it changes dynamically as you punt the
EV back and forth. In a few seconds you can see at a glance what it
would take at least minutes of experimental snapping and chimping to
discover, if you could be bothered to make the effort.

That is a really good point that might be well to
generalize. It is true of virtually all of the high
tech facilities provided on modern digital cameras.

While it is certainly possible, and historically was
done, to learn about composition, exposure, etc etc
without any of these new tools, it takes longer and may
not even be possible for some people.

But with the rapid feedback loops that characterize
every part of digital photography, the learning process
for *many* things is just so much quicker than it was
with film. Things that everyone did, but took days to
do, can now be done with iteration times in the minutes
or seconds range.

One example that I just *love* is EXIF data, simply
because I was never good at taking notes on exposures,
never mind things like which lenses! That alone has
increase my ability to learn more and learn quicker
about any number of small things like techniques, that
add up to significantly better results across the board.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

"William Graham" wrote in message
. ..

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.zlr William Graham wrote:
"TerrenceHamm" wrote in message
...

The only problem with that is unless you buy a top-of-the-line D-SLR
that
now
includes an LCD display that they try to pawn off as something special
called
"live preview", then you will only get any benefits from histograms,
under/over-exposure overlay displays, and other features,
after-the-fact.
Meaning, you can't see those features applied to anything but a shot
you
have
already taken. Whereas all P&S cameras that have those features display
them as
you are taking the photo, no time wasted taking "test shots" then
seeing
how it
turned out. You know in advance it that setting is going to work or not
before
you even press the shutter.

But the way you talk about digital Point & Shoots, one would think
they
are more sophisticated electronically, and I can't understand why this
would
be the case......Why couldn't you take a digital Point & Shoot, add a
mirror
and a rangefinder to it, and give it the ability to interchange lenses
and
have a better camera? Of course, it wouldn't be smaller or lighter or
cheaper, and therefore as capable of being smuggled into opera houses
and
night clubs, but for general photography, why wouldn't it be a better
(more
versatile) machine? IOW, why would leaving off a mirror provide the
machine
with any better electronics than not leaving off a mirror?

It doesn't necessarily provide the machine with more sophisticated
electronics, but having a mirror in front of the sensor prevents you
from using those extra sophistications, because they depend on having
the lens focussing the image on the sensor instead of through the
viewfinder. In other words, the mirror literally gets in the way.

The few very expensive DSLRs which do offer such facilities do so
either by offering a dual mode of operation, such as mirror up and
mirror down, with mirror up losing you the valued optical viewfinder,
or they compromise on optical efficiency by using a half silvered
mirror, etc.. In other words, if you want a mirror *and* those
facilities, getting round the mirror problem involves further costly
engineering and compromises.

The SLR mirror is a carry over from clockwork film camera technology
some of whose advantages haven't yet quite been duplicated by purely
digital technology. In fact digital technology can do it, just not yet
at an marketable price. We won't have to wait long. In other words
the SLR design concept is already obsolescent. There are huge
investments in the technology which will prevent it from becoming
obsolete for a long time yet, however.

OK. I understand that the mirror can be a pain. the same thing is/was true
for film cameras. but the alternative is the electronic viewfinder, and I
haven't seen any that measure up to the "real" image view that you get
with a mirror yet. These tiny screens on the back of the cameras just
won't cut it. Maybe a combination....You look in the hole just like an
optical viewfinder, but instead of a mirror, you see a huge view of an
electronic image that is as spectacular as the one you will eventually see
on your desktop 20 inch monitor.....

Which would mean an EVF resolution of more than a megapixel, maybe two
megapixels. I don't expect to see anything like that marketed for a long
time, if ever.

But apart from the difference in viewfinder clarity, the DSLR has other
advantages over anything with an EVF. My Coolpix 8800 for example is a great
camera, but doesn't have all the flash capabilities of my D80 or even D40,
or even any of the Nikon DSLRs being made when the 8800 was introduced. It
accepts the same flash units but can't do the same things with them.

For whatever reasons, the DSLR is able to do easily some things the EVF
camera cannot do at all.

Neil

In rec.photo.digital.zlr Neil Harrington wrote:

"William Graham" wrote in message
. ..

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.zlr William Graham wrote:

But the way you talk about digital Point & Shoots, one would think
they
are more sophisticated electronically, and I can't understand why this
would
be the case......Why couldn't you take a digital Point & Shoot, add a
mirror
and a rangefinder to it, and give it the ability to interchange lenses
and
have a better camera? Of course, it wouldn't be smaller or lighter or
cheaper, and therefore as capable of being smuggled into opera houses
and
night clubs, but for general photography, why wouldn't it be a better
(more
versatile) machine? IOW, why would leaving off a mirror provide the
machine
with any better electronics than not leaving off a mirror?

It doesn't necessarily provide the machine with more sophisticated
electronics, but having a mirror in front of the sensor prevents you
from using those extra sophistications, because they depend on having
the lens focussing the image on the sensor instead of through the
viewfinder. In other words, the mirror literally gets in the way.

The few very expensive DSLRs which do offer such facilities do so
either by offering a dual mode of operation, such as mirror up and
mirror down, with mirror up losing you the valued optical viewfinder,
or they compromise on optical efficiency by using a half silvered
mirror, etc.. In other words, if you want a mirror *and* those
facilities, getting round the mirror problem involves further costly
engineering and compromises.

The SLR mirror is a carry over from clockwork film camera technology
some of whose advantages haven't yet quite been duplicated by purely
digital technology. In fact digital technology can do it, just not yet
at an marketable price. We won't have to wait long. In other words
the SLR design concept is already obsolescent. There are huge
investments in the technology which will prevent it from becoming
obsolete for a long time yet, however.

OK. I understand that the mirror can be a pain. the same thing is/was true
for film cameras. but the alternative is the electronic viewfinder, and I
haven't seen any that measure up to the "real" image view that you get
with a mirror yet. These tiny screens on the back of the cameras just
won't cut it. Maybe a combination....You look in the hole just like an
optical viewfinder, but instead of a mirror, you see a huge view of an
electronic image that is as spectacular as the one you will eventually see
on your desktop 20 inch monitor.....

Which would mean an EVF resolution of more than a megapixel, maybe two
megapixels. I don't expect to see anything like that marketed for a long
time, if ever.

Why not? Konica Minolta's Dimage A2 had a 9.2MP EVF in 2004. If there
isn't already a higher resolution EVF than that in the marketplace it
shouldn't be long in coming.

But apart from the difference in viewfinder clarity, the DSLR has other
advantages over anything with an EVF. My Coolpix 8800 for example is a great
camera, but doesn't have all the flash capabilities of my D80 or even D40,
or even any of the Nikon DSLRs being made when the 8800 was introduced. It
accepts the same flash units but can't do the same things with them.

Only because someone in marketing decided not to offer those
features. The camera doesn't have to have a mirror in order to conrol
a flash.

For whatever reasons, the DSLR is able to do easily some things the EVF
camera cannot do at all.

Since the converse is also true, the reasons are rather
important. We're not talking about what you can easily find in a High
St camera shop today, we're discussing what may be offered in the near
future.

--
Chris Malcolm DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Chris Malcolm wrote:

Why not? Konica Minolta's Dimage A2 had a 9.2MP EVF in 2004.


Surely that cannot be right? The review of this camera on the Steve's
Digicams web site suggests that the EVF has only VGA resolution:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/a2.html

VGA implies 640x480 resolution, or 0.3 MP, which is a very long way
from the 9.2 MP you suggested.

Tony Polson wrote:

Chris Malcolm wrote:

Why not? Konica Minolta's Dimage A2 had a 9.2MP EVF in 2004.


Surely that cannot be right? The review of this camera on the Steve's
Digicams web site suggests that the EVF has only VGA resolution:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/a2.html

VGA implies 640x480 resolution, or 0.3 MP, which is a very long way
from the 9.2 MP you suggested.


.... although the Luminous Landscape review of the same model suggests
it is 1.0 MP:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re...nolta-a2.shtml

The reviewer states:
The A2 has the highest resolution electronic viewfinder (EVF) of any
camera currently (March, 2004) on the market, at nearly 1 Megapixel.
Four times that of anything else.

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.zlr Neil Harrington wrote:

"William Graham" wrote in message
. ..

"Chris Malcolm" wrote in message
...
In rec.photo.digital.zlr William Graham wrote:

But the way you talk about digital Point & Shoots, one would think
they
are more sophisticated electronically, and I can't understand why this
would
be the case......Why couldn't you take a digital Point & Shoot, add a
mirror
and a rangefinder to it, and give it the ability to interchange lenses
and
have a better camera? Of course, it wouldn't be smaller or lighter or
cheaper, and therefore as capable of being smuggled into opera houses
and
night clubs, but for general photography, why wouldn't it be a better
(more
versatile) machine? IOW, why would leaving off a mirror provide the
machine
with any better electronics than not leaving off a mirror?

It doesn't necessarily provide the machine with more sophisticated
electronics, but having a mirror in front of the sensor prevents you
from using those extra sophistications, because they depend on having
the lens focussing the image on the sensor instead of through the
viewfinder. In other words, the mirror literally gets in the way.

The few very expensive DSLRs which do offer such facilities do so
either by offering a dual mode of operation, such as mirror up and
mirror down, with mirror up losing you the valued optical viewfinder,
or they compromise on optical efficiency by using a half silvered
mirror, etc.. In other words, if you want a mirror *and* those
facilities, getting round the mirror problem involves further costly
engineering and compromises.

The SLR mirror is a carry over from clockwork film camera technology
some of whose advantages haven't yet quite been duplicated by purely
digital technology. In fact digital technology can do it, just not yet
at an marketable price. We won't have to wait long. In other words
the SLR design concept is already obsolescent. There are huge
investments in the technology which will prevent it from becoming
obsolete for a long time yet, however.

OK. I understand that the mirror can be a pain. the same thing is/was
true
for film cameras. but the alternative is the electronic viewfinder, and
I
haven't seen any that measure up to the "real" image view that you get
with a mirror yet. These tiny screens on the back of the cameras just
won't cut it. Maybe a combination....You look in the hole just like an
optical viewfinder, but instead of a mirror, you see a huge view of an
electronic image that is as spectacular as the one you will eventually
see
on your desktop 20 inch monitor.....

Which would mean an EVF resolution of more than a megapixel, maybe two
megapixels. I don't expect to see anything like that marketed for a long
time, if ever.

Why not? Konica Minolta's Dimage A2 had a 9.2MP EVF in 2004. If there
isn't already a higher resolution EVF than that in the marketplace it
shouldn't be long in coming.

9.2M pixel?
Get real.