When does SLR start to make sense ?

I understand that the bigger sensors in the current SLRs will give a better
image than the sensors in the compacts, but when does the difference start
to show ? And how ?

Say comparing a good quality 6 MP compact (say Fuji F30) with a good quality
6 MP SLR (say a Pentax DS2 or K100D), will you see the difference on the
screen ? What will be the difference, more noise ?

What about when you print, with both at 6 MP, how big to do you need to enlarge
to see the difference ? And again, how will the difference show ?

I do understand the advantage of the SLR if you want a whole bunch of different
lenses, flashes, etc... but I am not concerned about that here.


Thanks.

wrote:
I understand that the bigger sensors in the current SLRs will give a better
image than the sensors in the compacts, but when does the difference start
to show ? And how ?



Photos taken under perfect conditions --- bright light, tripod, and/or
stationary subject --- most people will not be able to easily
distinguish between the ones from a $2000 dSLR, and a $300 compact. At
least, not for A4 size prints or smaller.

The difference will only become apparent when shooting under less than
ideal situations. Low lighting and/or fast moving subjects will make
for blurry photos on a compact. And even if you can get a decent low
light shot off a compact camera, chances are it'll only look good on
small prints (5" x 7", or internet size, etc). Try printing it on A3
size, and it'll look downright ugly.

wrote:

The difference will only become apparent when shooting under less than
ideal situations. Low lighting and/or fast moving subjects will make
for blurry photos on a compact. And even if you can get a decent low
light shot off a compact camera, chances are it'll only look good on
small prints (5" x 7", or internet size, etc). Try printing it on A3
size, and it'll look downright ugly.

So a 6 MP pixel compact blown up to A3 will be ugly, but the same from an
SLR will look good ?

Ugly/good in what sense, not enough contrast ? Noise ? I am assuming that
a 6 MP image will look pixelated no matter how big the sensor was, when it's
blown to A3, right ?

On Sun, 08 Oct 2006 14:43:13 GMT, wrote:

wrote:

The difference will only become apparent when shooting under less than
ideal situations. Low lighting and/or fast moving subjects will make
for blurry photos on a compact. And even if you can get a decent low
light shot off a compact camera, chances are it'll only look good on
small prints (5" x 7", or internet size, etc). Try printing it on A3
size, and it'll look downright ugly.

So a 6 MP pixel compact blown up to A3 will be ugly, but the same from an
SLR will look good ?

That's not what he said.
Plastic was talking about pics taken in low light. And, for the most
part, he's right.

Ugly/good in what sense, not enough contrast ? Noise ? I am assuming that
a 6 MP image will look pixelated no matter how big the sensor was, when it's
blown to A3, right ?

Yes, noise.
--
Bill Funk
replace "g" with "a"

Hi Yves,

Ok, here is my take. Compacts take great images and I use one a lot when
I don't have my slr with me. But here are the issues with compacts IMHO:

1. Image noise. because the sensor chips are smaller, for lower cost and
other reasons, they have more inherent noise than bigger ones in an SLR.
Especially noticeable in areas of flat color, like blue skies.

2. Lens maximum aperture. The maximum aperture on some compacts are
pretty small, meaning less light to the film, meaning you must either
use flash, a tripod or raise the ISO (noise) earlier than with an SLR
with a decent lens.

3. Shutter lag. Many compacts suffer from longer delays between when you
press the shutter and the picture is taken than slrs do. This makes no
sense because the slr has more to do, but it happens.

4. Slow write times to memory. Many compacts are very slow writing to
the card, especially if they support RAW mode.

5. Heavy JPEG processing. I've noticed many compacts do pretty heavy
JPEG compression even in minimum mode and most do not offer the RAW
option. Thus many compact images when you zoom to 100% look over
sharpened, cover contrast enhanced and have some visible JPEG noise.

Cheers,

Wayne


--
Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, http://www.dimagemaker.com/
Blog http://www.digitalimagemakerworld.com/

On Sun, 08 Oct 2006 05:07:20 GMT, wrote:

I understand that the bigger sensors in the current SLRs will give a better
image than the sensors in the compacts, but when does the difference start
to show ? And how ?

Say comparing a good quality 6 MP compact (say Fuji F30) with a good quality
6 MP SLR (say a Pentax DS2 or K100D), will you see the difference on the
screen ? What will be the difference, more noise ?

In addition to what others have said, DSLRs can focus much quicker
and more accurately than P&S cameras. So one difference will be
that DSLRs will be better able to take shots that you intend while
P&S compacts will sometimes get shots where the subject has turned
around or has vanished completely from the frame. Even if the
compact has an excellent lens (for a compact) if its focus is
slightly off, the shots it takes will be noticeably inferior. It
doesn't matter if under ideal conditions the compact's pictures can
be hard to distinguish from the DSLRs, since real world conditions
will frequently intrude, and DSLRs are much better able to cope than
compacts, and therefore will more often produce better images.

One other place where a difference will show is if you really want
sharper, clearer pictures from the camera and don't mind paying for
it. The compact might take pictures nearly as good as many DSLRs
using cheap kit lenses, but there are reasons why photographers are
willing to pay for lenses that in some cases cost several times more
than either complete compact cameras or DSLR bodies. One of several
is that better optics can produce higher quality images.

wrote in message news:588Wg.107641$1T2.23612@pd7urf2no...
wrote:

The difference will only become apparent when shooting under less than
ideal situations. Low lighting and/or fast moving subjects will make
for blurry photos on a compact. And even if you can get a decent low
light shot off a compact camera, chances are it'll only look good on
small prints (5" x 7", or internet size, etc). Try printing it on A3
size, and it'll look downright ugly.

So a 6 MP pixel compact blown up to A3 will be ugly, but the same from an
SLR will look good ?

I have exhibited and sold quite a few photos that have been enlarged to A3
size from a 5 MP compact, even low light sunset ones. Perhaps my most
popular pic is a sunset taken a few years ago with a 3 MP compact, which has
enlarged perfectly well to A3 size (but it wouldn't enlarge well beyond
this). No one to my knowledge has said these pictures are ugly because I
didn't use a better camera!

But if you want to enlarge just a small portion of a picture, or if you want
an enlargement way beyond A3 size, then I would use a good SLR or a fixed
lense camera like the Sony R1, which has 10.3 mp and a large sensor.

Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:
Hi Yves,

Ok, here is my take. Compacts take great images and I use one a lot when
I don't have my slr with me. But here are the issues with compacts IMHO:


IMHO the biggest difference between compacts and SLR is the same as it
was with film, it is all about what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
With SLR you look through a viewfinder and see what you'll get on the
picture, with compacts you get a viewfinder that shows you roughly what
you're pointing at providing you allow for parallax differences between
the finder and the lens.
With digital compacts you often don't even get a viewfinder and have to
hold the thing at arms length and try to pick a shot from a blurry
little screen that's lagging behind what the subject is doing and is
hard to see in bright sunlight.
With SLR you can use the viewfinder to focus (or see what the autofocus
has done), check depth-of-field and capture the decisive moment. With
compacts you point and hope.

The other big advantage of an SLR viewfinder is it doesn't consume
batteries, you can squint down the finder for as long as you like
waiting for the child/wildlife/sunset to be in just the right position.
With a compact LCD the clock is ticking.

Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:

Have a look at Leica's V-Lux1 or its equivalent the Panasonic Z50.
The lens has a 55 mm diameter and max aperture of F/2.8. IMHO, it might
be a good reason not to buy a DSLR i.e. no lenses to change and no dirt
on sensor issues.
An SLR does have advantages over both, but then its film and not
digital for instant gratification.

regards
-kamal

Hi Yves,

Ok, here is my take. Compacts take great images and I use one a lot when
I don't have my slr with me. But here are the issues with compacts IMHO:

1. Image noise. because the sensor chips are smaller, for lower cost and
other reasons, they have more inherent noise than bigger ones in an SLR.
Especially noticeable in areas of flat color, like blue skies.

2. Lens maximum aperture. The maximum aperture on some compacts are
pretty small, meaning less light to the film, meaning you must either
use flash, a tripod or raise the ISO (noise) earlier than with an SLR
with a decent lens.

3. Shutter lag. Many compacts suffer from longer delays between when you
press the shutter and the picture is taken than slrs do. This makes no
sense because the slr has more to do, but it happens.

4. Slow write times to memory. Many compacts are very slow writing to
the card, especially if they support RAW mode.

5. Heavy JPEG processing. I've noticed many compacts do pretty heavy
JPEG compression even in minimum mode and most do not offer the RAW
option. Thus many compact images when you zoom to 100% look over
sharpened, cover contrast enhanced and have some visible JPEG noise.

Cheers,

Wayne


--
Wayne J. Cosshall
Publisher, The Digital ImageMaker, http://www.dimagemaker.com/
Blog http://www.digitalimagemakerworld.com/

I think that an SLR starts to make sense when you're really committed to
spending a lot more money on your hobby. Since a crappy photographer with a
£2k DSLR will take worse photos than a keen amateur with a £200 compact
there's a lot to be said for buying yourself a nice compact first.

See how much you use it, see what results you get, check to see if a DSLR
really would offer you much of an improvement on what photos you've got
then decide if you want to invest the extra money.

For me a DSLR would help with manual focus, since i've not yet seen a really
good manual focus on a compact, and taking photos of birds in flight the
auto-focus just isn't fast enough, not even on most DSLR's. That and maybe
a very long exposure setting for e.g. star pictures, or meteor trails.
However I don't judge either of these conditions to be important enough to
make the DSLR worth buying just yet.

D


wrote:

I understand that the bigger sensors in the current SLRs will give a
better image than the sensors in the compacts, but when does the
difference start to show ? And how ?

Say comparing a good quality 6 MP compact (say Fuji F30) with a good
quality 6 MP SLR (say a Pentax DS2 or K100D), will you see the difference
on the screen ? What will be the difference, more noise ?

What about when you print, with both at 6 MP, how big to do you need to
enlarge to see the difference ? And again, how will the difference show ?

I do understand the advantage of the SLR if you want a whole bunch of
different lenses, flashes, etc... but I am not concerned about that here.


Thanks.