When does SLR start to make sense ?

Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
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 Kamal,

Yup, I have an FZ50 in front of me right now that I have been testing.
Nice camera but not the same as my 350D and just arrived 400D (I'm
having the 350D converted to IR). The FZ50 is a lot noiser than the 350D
and the electronic viewfinder is not a substitute for a real one.

BTW the FZ50 is only f2.8 at the wide end.

Cheers,

Wayne

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

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.

There is another point here. Even well below 6MP, the sensor
resolution is far better than the screen resolution on typical LCD
screens, which are usually well below 1MP. Even good EVF are less
resolution than chip provides. If you are trying to do something
manual such as manual focusing, the LCD screens and EVF don't do the
job. If all you usethe viewfinder for is aiming the camera, then the
LCD or EVF is okay. Beyond that, the SLR provides an advantage.

I do a lot of macro work, and SLR is very important here. One must use
manual focus to place the plane of best focus at the right point on the
volume representing the main object. This takes critical focusing.

On 9 Oct 2006 05:58:07 -0700, POHB wrote:

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.

How convenient, that you avoided mentioning EVFs, which often come
closer to showing 100% of what the captured image will be than many
DSLRs. Many of the cheapest cameras using EVFs don't allow manual
focusing but the better ones do, and some of those can focus quite
well manually (unfortunately my S5100 is not one of those).

Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:
Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
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 Kamal,

Yup, I have an FZ50 in front of me right now that I have been testing.
Nice camera but not the same as my 350D and just arrived 400D (I'm
having the 350D converted to IR). The FZ50 is a lot noiser than the 350D
and the electronic viewfinder is not a substitute for a real one.

whats 350D and what is IR? Try the coresponding one from Leica. It
supposedly costs $200 more -and Im not sure if that is without reason.

BTW the FZ50 is only f2.8 at the wide end.


yes -it is F/4.1 at full zoom. Does Leica have a better lens? Nikon has
a lot of fast lenses, but none built into non-slr cameras,

regards
-kamal

Cheers,

Wayne

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

wrote:
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.

Well... It depends on what you're shooting. If you're talking about
landscape shots, you're probably right in some cases. But when it comes
to, for example, portraits, the difference between a compact
point-and-shoot and a DSLR will be readily apparent to anyone. Same
thing with high dynamic range scenes.

For portraits, you'll be able to get a much shallower depth-of-field
with a DSLR than with a compact, which lets you get the nice effect of
your subject in focus on a blurry background. For very contrasty
scenes, a DSLR will have a better dynamic range, and you won't see
nearly as much clipping of highlights.

-Gniewko

"D Russell" wrote in message
...
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.


DSLRs have the distinct advantage that you can get a large number of
different lenses that allow you to get extreme wide angles or telephoto
shots. But there is then the disadvantage of having to carry several lenses
with you and changing lenses quite often. With many DSLRs, changing lenses
can open the way for the dreaded DSLR dust problem, which can cause unwanted
specks to appear on your pictures.

Some compact cameras have quite a large zoom range, such as 38mm to 200mm
(in 35mm equivalent), but when you buy a DSLR, you often get a lense that
covers just the 28mm to 70mm range, and you are then faced with getting
another lense to get beyond 70mm. And often the lenses can cost a lot, so
DSLRs are best suited to professional photographers, or very keen amateurs
who have a sizeable budget to spend on photography!

Also, when you are on holiday, for example, DSLR owners carry around large
camera bags and this can be an inconvenience and a burden. Now that you can
get 10mp compacts that also take reasonable movies, these make sense for
many occasions for the amateur photographer. You can keep your camera in a
shirt pocket without the need to even carry a bag with you. And when you put
on a slide show, or make prints up to A3 size, they look great, so you have
to be really dedicated to lug around a bag full of DSLR goodies with you.
It's even worse if your bag has to include a sizeable camcorder as well, so
a nice 10 mp compact that takes good stills and reasonable movies has a huge
appeal to travellers in particular!

POHB wrote:

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.

I have never had a problem with that. The 2 compacts I've had (Fuji
F700 and Panasonic Lumix LX-1) have big high resolution screens that
make picture composition very easy. And actually, it's the LCD screen
that gives you "what you see is what you get". A viewfinder gives you
no preview of what the picture will look like when you take it (in
terms of exposure), but the LCD does.

The "blurriness" of the LCD screen is only a problem with crappy
low-resolution screens, and I suppose older people with poor close-up
vision would have issues, too. I guess that's why you're talking about
holding the camera "at arm's length", when that's not how you're
supposed to do it. I hold the camera very close to my face when taking
a picture, so I can see every little detail.

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.

Again, if you don't hold the camera at arm's length, you can do the
same thing on the screen - to a certain extent. But yes, you can check
the focus much easier through an optical viewfinder.

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.

Yup, that's a big advantage of DSLRs.

-Gniewko

Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:
Kamal R. Prasad wrote:
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 Kamal,

Yup, I have an FZ50 in front of me right now that I have been testing.
Nice camera but not the same as my 350D and just arrived 400D (I'm
having the 350D converted to IR). The FZ50 is a lot noiser than the 350D
and the electronic viewfinder is not a substitute for a real one.

whats 350D and what is IR? Try the coresponding one from Leica. It
supposedly costs $200 more -and Im not sure if that is without reason.

BTW the FZ50 is only f2.8 at the wide end.


yes -it is F/4.1 at full zoom. Does Leica have a better lens? Nikon has
a lot of fast lenses, but none built into non-slr cameras,

regards
-kamal

350D is the same as the Canon Rebel XT, 400D is the same as the Rebel
XTi, just a different name outside the US. IR is infrared, the part of
the light spectrum beyond red that sensors are sensitive to but most
digital cameras substantially block with a filter in front of the sensor.

The FZ50 has a Leica lens, so I suspect the Leica model is the same. The
$200 buys the Leica name on the body and the little red circle Leica
logo probably

Cheers,

Wayne


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

On Tue, 10 Oct 2006 07:21:48 +1000, Wayne J. Cosshall wrote:

The FZ50 has a Leica lens, so I suspect the Leica model is the same. The
$200 buys the Leica name on the body and the little red circle Leica
logo probably

A magazine review of an earlier Panasonic/Leica pair (several
months ago - don't recall the model numbers) said that the cameras
were identical except for the Panasonic's having more plastic vs.
the Leica's all metal body, and the Leica version included more
photo editing software. That probably accounts for $50, with the
value of the red circle adding the remaining $150.

D Russell wrote:

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.

Ah ! I have never set a manual focus, and thought this was an old lost art,
assuming that autofocus was always doing as good a job as could be done, so
I had not thought of this one.

Thanks.