Opinions on P&S

On -hh wrote:

SMS ???* ? wrote:
What's much worse is what Nikon has done by refusing to make a clean
break with a new lens mount. They now have to issue elaborate
compatibility charts to show which lenses will work on which cameras.

Thanks for mentioning this, as this happened to be one of the reasons
why I personally didn't continue to buy Nikon after the late 1990s,
despite already having a modestly hefty investment in Nikon: it was
confusing and just too much of a PITA to tolerate such bull****.

Well, if those lists are too complicated for you then you can simplify the
list dramatically: any modern Nikon [d]SLR requires an AI-P lens(*), i.e.
you cannot use any lens manufactured before 1986. Period.
This way you don't have to bother with legacy lenses and compatibility lists
and effectively you are doing exactly the same what Canon did, except you
are doing it on paper instead of in hardwa making a clear cut.

Now, if you do want to go beyond what Canon offers and you do want to try
legacy lenses, then you will be lucky with many body and lens combinations,
and only in that case the gurus can check out those lists that confuse you
to no end. With Canon on the other hand you cannot use old lenses at all
because they cut in hardware instead of on paper.

*: Please note that this statement will even work for the D40[x] although
you obviously need AF-S for auto focus.

jue

-hh wrote:
SMS 斯蒂文* � wrote:
...

What's much worse is what Nikon has done by refusing to make a clean
break with a new lens mount. They now have to issue elaborate
compatibility charts to show which lenses will work on which cameras.

Thanks for mentioning this, as this happened to be one of the reasons
why I personally didn't continue to buy Nikon after the late 1990s,
despite already having a modestly hefty investment in Nikon: it was
confusing and just too much of a PITA to tolerate such bull****.
Since my Nikon gear is 35mm based and not digi-compatible with their
current products, I'm probably going to finally sell it sometime in
2008...maybe there's a few Edsel-esque affectionados who will are
willing to pay more than 10% of its original cost :-) although it has
had provided a long & honorable service, which is nothing to be
ashamed of.

My nephew was over last night and he had a relatively new D200. Very
impressive, and it works with most of the older lenses, unlike the D40,
D50, D70, and D80, which is why he went with the D200 versus a lower end
body. Very nice camera, but a bit more camera than he wanted.

-hh wrote:
SMS 斯蒂文* � wrote:
...

What's much worse is what Nikon has done by refusing to make a clean
break with a new lens mount. They now have to issue elaborate
compatibility charts to show which lenses will work on which cameras.

Thanks for mentioning this, as this happened to be one of the reasons
why I personally didn't continue to buy Nikon after the late 1990s,
despite already having a modestly hefty investment in Nikon: it was
confusing and just too much of a PITA to tolerate such bull****.
Since my Nikon gear is 35mm based and not digi-compatible with their
current products, I'm probably going to finally sell it sometime in
2008...maybe there's a few Edsel-esque affectionados who will are
willing to pay more than 10% of its original cost :-) although it has
had provided a long & honorable service, which is nothing to be
ashamed of.

Well the point is that what Nikon has done in making newer bodies
incompatible with older lenses, and newer lenses incompatible with older
bodies, is really no worse than what Canon did in making a clean break,
but Canon gained the advantage of a lens mount with more capability
going forward, something that all the jury-rigging of the Nikon mount
struggles to accomplish.

If you're buying all new lenses and a new body on either system, and you
don't need the high-end professional lenses that only Canon offers, then
either system is just fine, and some of the new Nikon bodies work with
more of the old lenses than others.

nospam wrote:
-hh wrote:
Thanks for mentioning this, as this happened to be one of the reasons
why I personally didn't continue to buy Nikon after the late 1990s,
despite already having a modestly hefty investment in Nikon: it was
confusing and just too much of a PITA to tolerate such bull****.

what did you find confusing?

The lack of a simple identification system. The need for a "Secret
Decoder Ring" table is what was the PITA, as I'm not particularly
inclined to go memorize trivia, nor faithfully carry a copy of it
around, just in case I might stumble across some interesting potential
gem on commission in some small camera shop in Delft, Bern,
Philadelphia, St Louis, or wherever.


Since my Nikon gear is 35mm based and not digi-compatible with their
current products,

of course it's compatible. there are very very few lenses that won't
work with current dslrs, such as the 6mm fisheye that required mirror
lockup. and with a little cleverness, it can even be made to work.

My tolerance for putting up with kludges has become much lower than it
was in the past.


I'm probably going to finally sell it sometime in
2008...maybe there's a few Edsel-esque affectionados who will are
willing to pay more than 10% of its original cost :-) although it has
had provided a long & honorable service, which is nothing to be
ashamed of.

whatcha got to sell?

Drop me a note offline. IIRC, you'll get a "please prove you're a
human" bounce to reply to (white listing) that you'll have to reply to
before I'll se it.

I'll fill you in on the details, and you can decide the degree to
which a Nikon "Pre-AI" lens that was in production long after 1977 is
considered an oddball :-) Original MSRP's for the sum of the lenses
that I have would have added up to roughly (IIRC just under?) $2K, so
it would be really nice if I could get $750 for the lot, but I should
probably tell myself to be happy if I could get $500.


-hh

David J Taylor wrote:
SMS ???. ? wrote:
[]
Better to the SD800 IS from Canon. The problem with Panasonic cameras
are that they are extremely noisy. If you look only at specs,
Panasonic is great.

The noise argument is over-stated. Sure pixel peepers can see noise, but
when kept at ISO 100 the results may well be fine for the OP's wife, with
images displayed on a computer monitor or at a relatively small print
size.

This is based on actually using Panasonic cameras, rather than just
reading reviews.

Yes, that's the whole issue, having to keep the ISO at 100 to achieve
acceptable results. That's quite a limitation, but as you point out it
may be acceptable to some users including the OP's wife.

With so many P&S models not having the noise issues of the Panasonic's,
you have to _really_ want whatever unique features Panasonic may have.
It's a big compromise.

SMS ???• ? wrote:
[]
Yes, that's the whole issue, having to keep the ISO at 100 to achieve
acceptable results. That's quite a limitation, but as you point out it
may be acceptable to some users including the OP's wife.

With so many P&S models not having the noise issues of the
Panasonic's, you have to _really_ want whatever unique features
Panasonic may have. It's a big compromise.

I think the great majority of models with similarly sized sensors have
similar noise problems. Panasonic choose a different set of processing
parameters which make the noise more apparent, but may also produce
sharper images. You choose.

Cheers,
David

ray wrote:
On Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:24:59 +0000, Chris Malcolm wrote:

Ron Hunter wrote:

I ignore everything canon because of their total lack of support for
Linux.

Ahh, yes, you and the rest of your 3-5% of the userbase. Grin.

No, you have to apply to that 3-5% the 1% of Linux users who don't
know about any of the several different methods for interfacing Canon
cameras to Linux, and then within that 1% the 5% of those who don't
know how to find out what facilities are available, and within that 5%
the 5% who think that what they don't know about doesn't exist. That
works out to 0.0001%. But I could be out by an order of magnitude or
few :-)

What there is no doubt about is that we're very lucky indeed to have
such a rare specimen right here in this newsgroup!

OK dimwit - I fully acknowledge that a canon camera can be interfaced to a
Linux computer. A canon scanner usually can't - and neither can a canon
printer - until they remedy the situation, I'll continue to avoid them.

Just like those helpful folk who recommend against buying a BMW car because
they don't like BMW motorcycles :-)

--
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:
Ron Hunter wrote:

I ignore everything canon because of their total lack of support for
Linux.

Ahh, yes, you and the rest of your 3-5% of the userbase. Grin.

No, you have to apply to that 3-5% the 1% of Linux users who don't
know about any of the several different methods for interfacing Canon
cameras to Linux, and then within that 1% the 5% of those who don't
know how to find out what facilities are available, and within that 5%
the 5% who think that what they don't know about doesn't exist. That
works out to 0.0001%. But I could be out by an order of magnitude or
few :-)

What there is no doubt about is that we're very lucky indeed to have
such a rare specimen right here in this newsgroup!

It's economical to be one of those specimens, since you have to avoid
every product from every company because virtually every company has
done something unacceptable in regards to support for their products.

Supporting Linux is especially problematic for hardware vendors. I've
been there, done that. There are so many different versions of Linux,
and so many different distributions, that it's a nightmare to try to
support devices, and you end up spending a fortune in never-ending
development costs in order to support a tiny number of users. Linux is
great for servers, but in terms of a box that you want to attach a
variety of I/O devices to, it's ungreat.

SMS ???. ? wrote:
[]
Supporting Linux is especially problematic for hardware vendors. I've
been there, done that. There are so many different versions of Linux,
and so many different distributions, that it's a nightmare to try to
support devices, and you end up spending a fortune in never-ending
development costs in order to support a tiny number of users.
[]

Been there, done that, agreed on the effort, given up!

Cheers,
David

On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 03:51:34 -0800, SMS 斯蒂文• � wrote:

Chris Malcolm wrote:
Ron Hunter wrote:

I ignore everything canon because of their total lack of support for
Linux.

Ahh, yes, you and the rest of your 3-5% of the userbase. Grin.

No, you have to apply to that 3-5% the 1% of Linux users who don't
know about any of the several different methods for interfacing Canon
cameras to Linux, and then within that 1% the 5% of those who don't
know how to find out what facilities are available, and within that 5%
the 5% who think that what they don't know about doesn't exist. That
works out to 0.0001%. But I could be out by an order of magnitude or
few :-)

What there is no doubt about is that we're very lucky indeed to have
such a rare specimen right here in this newsgroup!

It's economical to be one of those specimens, since you have to avoid
every product from every company because virtually every company has
done something unacceptable in regards to support for their products.

Supporting Linux is especially problematic for hardware vendors. I've
been there, done that. There are so many different versions of Linux,
and so many different distributions, that it's a nightmare to try to
support devices, and you end up spending a fortune in never-ending
development costs in order to support a tiny number of users. Linux is
great for servers, but in terms of a box that you want to attach a
variety of I/O devices to, it's ungreat.

B.S. The only Linux support that is needed is to release the proprietary
information which everyone in the industry already knows anyway. Allow the
Linux folks to write the drivers - you don't have to do a damned thing.