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#101
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:30:19 -0600, BrianSmith
wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:01:40 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:50:43 -0600, Ethan Araether wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:50:26 -0600, "mcdonaldREMOVE TO ACTUALLY REACH wrote: Pete D wrote: Even when I backpack I take the best camera I can, the weight penalty for a basic setup is not that much and I rarely find an excuse not to take it. True enough my bigger D-SLRs are heavier but then I leave the grips and big lenses at home at take just what I need. me too ... my main photos, that I value most, are made on such trips I take my 30D SLR and 24-105 f/4L IS, 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS, and 100 f/2.8 macro lenses. I leave the kit 18-55mm (no IS) lens at home, making panoramas if desired. I'm considering buying a 5D MKII. I would carry that if I get it. I carried all this 200 miles this summer. Unfortunately I didn't get any great shots. But heh, Ansel Adams, who lived where I was hiking, only got about 10 of them there in his whole life! I did get lots of nice shots. Really nice. Doug McDonald 30D = ($600) 24.7 oz. = 1.6 lb. 24-105 f/4L IS = ($950) 23.6 oz. = 1.5 lb. 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS = ($1,320) 22.2 oz. = 1.4 lb. 100 f/2.8 macro = ($600) 21.2 oz. = 1.32 lb. required tripod = ($450) 128 oz. = 8 lb. filters & accessories = ($200) 2 lbs. total cost/weight = ($4,120) 16 lb. You carried 16 lbs. of photo gear and still had room for shelter, food, clothing, and survival supplies. Constrained backpack of survival supplies alone for a trek of that distance is 50-65 lbs. and you fit your required survival supplies for 200 miles into 34-49 lbs.? SUUuuurre you did. So what's your point? You resent people who have the money to spend on good gear and the willingness to carry it? The point is to reveal resident pretend-photographer trolls, you know, posters like you. I see. And exactly how would you know this? |
#102
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:31:29 -0600, Steven Kentworth
wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:03:43 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 13:25:51 -0500, "J. Clarke" wrote: mcdonaldREMOVE TO ACTUALLY REACH ME wrote: Pete D wrote: Even when I backpack I take the best camera I can, the weight penalty for a basic setup is not that much and I rarely find an excuse not to take it. True enough my bigger D-SLRs are heavier but then I leave the grips and big lenses at home at take just what I need. me too ... my main photos, that I value most, are made on such trips I take my 30D SLR and 24-105 f/4L IS, 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS, and 100 f/2.8 macro lenses. I leave the kit 18-55mm (no IS) lens at home, making panoramas if desired. I'm considering buying a 5D MKII. I would carry that if I get it. I carried all this 200 miles this summer. Unfortunately I didn't get any great shots. But heh, Ansel Adams, who lived where I was hiking, only got about 10 of them there in his whole life! I did get lots of nice shots. Really nice. FWIW, you ever see a picture of Ansel Adams going on a shoot? There's generally either a beat-up Travellall or a heavily laden mule in the background. EXACTLY. Then, as now, if it's worth doing at all then it's worth doing right. Take the p&s for an easy way to document your hike, but take the better gear if your goal is to go out and come back with the best possible photographs. Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) poi Even though you love your pocket camera, that doesn't change the fact that good gear which happens to cost more money and weigh more will always produce much better quality images when used by someone who knows what they are doing. |
#103
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 20:07:24 -0800, Savageduck
wrote: On 2008-12-06 17:12:50 -0800, Ronald G. said: On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 17:19:35 -0500, "Charles" wrote: "Robert Sneddon" wrote in message ... In message , SMS writes b) why the P&S makers even feel compelled to include the ability to shoot at high ISO when they know how poorly their products will perform. Bad shot versus no shot at all. The pixel-peeping purists who infest this august forum can't understand it, perhaps but nearly all the pictures taken on any given day are not shot by would-be Ansell Adams types, but are for the memories of the location and the time. A noisy P&S picture is better than no picture at all, and few people are willing to lug a heavy complex DSLR around with them when they are going out somewhere not expressly to take pictures. Camera enthusiasts are not necessarily photographers. DSLR purchasers are not necessarily photographers. The vast majority of them are desperate talentless amateurs thinking they can become a pro by just buying a more expensive camera. There are also the talentless "Pros" who think they can become "Pro" just by opening a store front or printing cards and creating a web site. Just because an amateur/hobbiest, or whatever you might choose to call him/her has the means to buy the best equipment he/she can afford, does not necessarily mean they are talentless. Many amateur/hobbiest are very talented photographers striving to produce the best they can, many times exceding that produced by some talentless pros. There are many amateur/hobbiests who have 20, 30, 40 and more years experience of producing fine photographs without any pretention of calling themselves "Pros". Then there are the "Pros" who believed they had the chops to earn a living with a camera. The vast majority of those end up as hack studio shooters or wedding photographers producing the same old forgettable stuff year after year. They could learn a thing or two from some of those experience amateurs. I will give you there will always be, in any field those who buy the lastest equipment, be it photographic equipment, ski equipment, scuba gear, firearms, etc. who believe that will make them instantly great without putting in the time and dedication to learn what it takes. That is why we are able to get deals on lightly used equipment. They can go back to being snap shot shooters with a P&S, getting those mundane Disneyland vacation pics. BINGO ! Another analogy: better golf clubs will not improve the score of a duffer, yet the professional golfer will always choose the better and more expensive clubs. |
#104
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:18:58 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:25:01 -0600, Cameron Crest wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:51:08 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:37:47 -0600, Jeremy Calter wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:47:39 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:39:01 -0600, Ruben A****er wrote: On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 21:46:46 -0500, "RichA" wrote: "AlbertC." wrote in message news:e27mj4ldhluu4ml85j1dmge8olsoc5m2q9@4ax .com... On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:55:03 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote: SMS writes: ... why the P&S makers even feel compelled to include the ability to shoot at high ISO when they know how poorly their products will perform. Because the most common problems of amateur photography is inadequate exposure, so high ISO is a selling point. Exactly, that's why so many amateurs buy DSLRs. They NEED that high ISO to make up for their lack of skill as real photographers. Yes, much better to use the retard's "scene modes" P&S's are stuffed with. Those are for when you hand your camera to your DSLR-owning friend and they can't cope with using standard manual adjustments on most P&S cameras. If it weren't for auto-everything on their DSLRs they wouldn't buy them. They've forgotten how to use manual camera features and to manually focus. Notice how much they praise their auto-focus every chance they get. And yet, they claim they don't need that if they have an OVF. How self-contradicting they are. To this day I've never used any scene-modes on any of my P&S cameras, one of my more favorite ones doesn't even have any scene-modes. For the same reason that I don't like to use auto-focus on any camera (P&S or D/SLR) and I don't like to trust a camera's exposure meter all that much. It'll give me a good starting point but that's all. Especially on a D/SLR when the exposure reading is thrown off by any light entering the viewfinder's eyepiece or when changing to wide-angle or telephoto lenses. Then you can't trust a D/SLR's meter one bit. No technician in a lab will ever know how to use a camera properly so he'll never know what my camera should do for me. Most of his programmed auto-settings are great for his bench-tests but falls flat in real world situations. You don't win an off-road race with an automatic transmission. Performance must come from the hands and mind of the photographer, not some silly robotic feature that fails to deal with reality 9 times out of 10. That's precisely why most p&s cameras fall short. They simply aren't designed for proper manual operation. Only in the hands of an inept clod. Wrong. P&S cameras are designed for automatic operation with manual override as an afterthought. Manual focus is much more difficult with the p&s. Most dslrs are designed from the ground up with full flexibility in mind, from fully manual to fully automatic operation. Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) points outlined Your prolific cut and paste skills notwithstanding, it's still true that p&s cameras are designed for automatic operation with manual override as an afterthought. Manual focus is much more difficult with the p&s. Most dslrs are designed from the ground up with full flexibility in mind, from fully manual to fully automatic operation. Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) points outlined below completely disprove your usual resident-troll bull****. You can either read it and educate yourself, or don't read it and continue to prove to everyone that you are nothing but a virtual-photographer newsgroup-troll and a fool. 1. P&S cameras can have more seamless zoom range than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 9mm f2.7 - 1248mm f/3.5.) There are now some excellent wide-angle and telephoto (telextender) add-on lenses for many makes and models of P&S cameras. Add either or both of these small additions to your photography gear and, with some of the new super-zoom P&S cameras, you can far surpass any range of focal-lengths and apertures that are available or will ever be made for larger format cameras. 2. P&S cameras can have much wider apertures at longer focal lengths than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 549mm f/2.4 and 1248mm f/3.5) when used with high-quality telextenders, which do not reduce the lens' original aperture one bit. Following is a link to a hand-held taken image of a 432mm f/3.5 P&S lens increased to an effective 2197mm f/3.5 lens by using two high-quality teleconverters. To achieve that apparent focal-length the photographer also added a small step of 1.7x digital zoom to take advantage of the RAW sensor's slightly greater detail retention when upsampled directly in the camera for JPG output. As opposed to trying to upsample a JPG image on the computer where those finer RAW sensor details are already lost once it's left the camera's processing. (Digital-zoom is not totally empty zoom, contrary to all the net-parroting idiots online.) A HAND-HELD 2197mm f/3.5 image from a P&S camera (downsized only, no crop): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/...1dbdb8ac_o.jpg Note that any in-focus details are cleanly defined to the corners and there is no CA whatsoever. If you study the EXIF data the author reduced contrast and sharpening by 2-steps, which accounts for the slight softness overall. Any decent photographer will handle those operations properly in editing with more powerful tools and not allow a camera to do them for him. A full f/3.5 aperture achieved at an effective focal-length of 2197mm (35mm equivalent). Only DSLRs suffer from loss of aperture due to the manner in which their teleconverters work. P&S cameras can also have higher quality full-frame 180-degree circular fisheye and intermediate super-wide-angle views than any DSLR and its glass for far less cost. Some excellent fish-eye adapters can be added to your P&S camera which do not impart any chromatic aberration nor edge softness. When used with a super-zoom P&S camera this allows you to seamlessly go from as wide as a 9mm (or even wider) 35mm equivalent focal-length up to the wide-angle setting of the camera's own lens. 3. P&S smaller sensor cameras can and do have wider dynamic range than larger sensor cameras E.g. a 1/2.5" sized sensor can have a 10.3EV Dynamic Range vs. an APS-C's typical 7.0-8.0EV Dynamic Range. One quick example: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/...7ceaf3a1_o.jpg 4. P&S cameras are cost efficient. Due to the smaller (but excellent) sensors used in many of them today, the lenses for these cameras are much smaller. Smaller lenses are easier to manufacture to exacting curvatures and are more easily corrected for aberrations than larger glass used for DSLRs. This also allows them to perform better at all apertures rather than DSLR glass which usually performs well at only one aperture setting per lens. Side by side tests prove that P&S glass can out-resolve even the best DSLR glass ever made. See this side-by-side comparison for example http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ca..._results.shtml When adjusted for sensor size, the DSLR lens is creating 4.3x's the CA that the P&S lens is creating, and the P&S lens is resolving almost 10x's the amount of detail that the DSLR lens is resolving. A difficult to figure 20x P&S zoom lens easily surpassing a much more easy to make 3x DSLR zoom lens. After all is said and done you will spend anywhere from 1/10th to 1/50th the price on a P&S camera that you would have to spend in order to get comparable performance in a DSLR camera. To obtain the same focal-length ranges as that $340 SX10 camera with DSLR glass that *might* approach or equal the P&S resolution, it would cost over $6,500 to accomplish that (at the time of this writing). This isn't counting the extra costs of a heavy-duty tripod required to make it functional at those longer focal-lengths and a backpack to carry it all. Bringing that DSLR investment to over 20 times the cost of a comparable P&S camera. When you buy a DSLR you are investing in a body that will require expensive lenses, hand-grips, external flash units, heavy tripods, more expensive larger filters, etc. etc. The outrageous costs of owning a DSLR add up fast after that initial DSLR body purchase. Camera companies count on this, all the way to their banks. 5. P&S cameras are lightweight and convenient. With just one P&S camera plus one small wide-angle adapter and one small telephoto adapter weighing just a couple pounds, you have the same amount of zoom range as would require over 15 pounds of DSLR body + lenses. The P&S camera mentioned in the previous example is only 1.3 lbs. The DSLR + expensive lenses that *might* equal it in image quality comes in at 9.6 lbs. of dead-weight to lug around all day (not counting the massive and expensive tripod, et.al.) You can carry the whole P&S kit + accessory lenses in one roomy pocket of a wind-breaker or jacket. The DSLR kit would require a sturdy backpack. You also don't require a massive tripod. Large tripods are required to stabilize the heavy and unbalanced mass of the larger DSLR and its massive lenses. A P&S camera, being so light, can be used on some of the most inexpensive, compact, and lightweight tripods with excellent results. 6. P&S cameras are silent. For the more common snap-shooter/photographer, you will not be barred from using your camera at public events, stage-performances, and ceremonies. Or when trying to capture candid shots you won't so easily alert all those within a block around, by the obnoxious clattering noise that your DSLR is making, that you are capturing anyone's images. For the more dedicated wildlife photographer a P&S camera will not endanger your life when photographing potentially dangerous animals by alerting them to your presence. 7. Some P&S cameras can run the revolutionary CHDK software on them, which allows for lightning-fast motion detection (literally, lightning fast 45ms response time, able to capture lightning strikes automatically) so that you may capture more elusive and shy animals (in still-frame and video) where any evidence of your presence at all might prevent their appearance. Without the need of carrying a tethered laptop along or any other hardware into remote areas--which only limits your range, distance, and time allotted for bringing back that one-of-a-kind image. It also allows for unattended time-lapse photography for days and weeks at a time, so that you may capture those unusual or intriguing subject-studies in nature. E.g. a rare slime-mold's propagation, that you happened to find in a mountain-ravine, 10-days hike from the nearest laptop or other time-lapse hardware. (The wealth of astounding new features that CHDK brings to the creative-table of photography are too extensive to begin to list them all here. See http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK ) 8. P&S cameras can have shutter speeds up to 1/40,000th of a second. See: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures Allowing you to capture fast subject motion in nature (e.g. insect and hummingbird wings) WITHOUT the need of artificial and image destroying flash, using available light alone. Nor will their wing shapes be unnaturally distorted from the focal-plane shutter distortions imparted in any fast moving objects, as when photographed with all DSLRs. (See focal-plane-shutter-distortions example-image link in #10.) 9. P&S cameras can have full-frame flash-sync up to and including shutter-speeds of 1/40,000th of a second. E.g. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_...%26_Flash-Sync without the use of any expensive and specialized focal-plane shutter flash-units that must pulse their light-output for the full duration of the shutter's curtain to pass slowly over the frame. The other downside to those kinds of flash units is that the light-output is greatly reduced the faster the shutter speed. Any shutter speed used that is faster than your camera's X-Sync speed is cutting off some of the flash output. Not so when using a leaf-shutter. The full intensity of the flash is recorded no matter the shutter speed used. Unless, as in the case of CHDK capable cameras where the camera's shutter speed can even be faster than the lightning-fast single burst from a flash unit. E.g. If the flash's duration is 1/10,000 of a second, and your CHDK camera's shutter is set to 1/20,000 of a second, then it will only record half of that flash output. P&S cameras also don't require any expensive and dedicated external flash unit. Any of them may be used with any flash unit made by using an inexpensive slave-trigger that can compensate for any automated pre-flash conditions. Example: http://www.adorama.com/SZ23504.html 10. P&S cameras do not suffer from focal-plane shutter drawbacks and limitations. Causing camera shake, moving-subject image distortions (focal-plane-shutter distortions, e.g. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/ch...istortions.jpg do note the distorted tail-rotor too and its shadow on the ground, 90-degrees from one another), last-century-slow flash-sync, obnoxiously loud slapping mirrors and shutter curtains, shorter mechanical life, easily damaged, expensive repair costs, etc. 11. When doing wildlife photography in remote and rugged areas and harsh environments; or even when the amateur snap-shooter is trying to take their vacation photos on a beach or dusty intersection on some city street; you're not worrying about trying to change lenses in time to get that shot (fewer missed shots), dropping one in the mud, lake, surf, or on concrete while you do; and not worrying about ruining all the rest of your photos that day from having gotten dust & crud on the sensor. For the adventurous photographer you're no longer weighed down by many many extra pounds of unneeded glass, allowing you to carry more of the important supplies, like food and water, allowing you to trek much further than you've ever been able to travel before with your old D/SLR bricks. 12. Smaller sensors and the larger apertures available at longer focal-lengths allow for the deep DOF required for excellent macro-photography when using normal macro or tele-macro lens arrangements. All done WITHOUT the need of any image destroying, subject irritating, natural-look destroying flash. No DSLR on the planet can compare in the quality of available-light macro photography that can be accomplished with nearly any smaller-sensor P&S camera. (To clarify for DSLR owners/promoters who don't even know basic photography principles: In order to obtain the same DOF on a DSLR you'll need to stop down that lens greatly. When you do then you have to use shutter speeds so slow that hand-held macro-photography, even in full daylight, is all but impossible. Not even your highest ISO is going to save you at times. The only solution for the DSLR user is to resort to artificial flash which then ruins the subject and the image; turning it into some staged, fake-looking, studio setup.) 13. P&S cameras include video, and some even provide for CD-quality stereo audio recordings, so that you might capture those rare events in nature where a still-frame alone could never prove all those "scientists" wrong. E.g. recording the paw-drumming communication patterns of eusocial-living field-mice. With your P&S video-capable camera in your pocket you won't miss that once-in-a-lifetime chance to record some unexpected event, like the passage of a bright meteor in the sky in daytime, a mid-air explosion, or any other newsworthy event. Imagine the gaping hole in our history of the Hindenberg if there were no film cameras there at the time. The mystery of how it exploded would have never been solved. Or the amateur 8mm film of the shooting of President Kennedy. Your video-ready P&S camera being with you all the time might capture something that will be a valuable part of human history one day. 14. P&S cameras have 100% viewfinder coverage that exactly matches your final image. No important bits lost, and no chance of ruining your composition by trying to "guess" what will show up in the final image. With the ability to overlay live RGB-histograms, and under/over-exposure area alerts (and dozens of other important shooting data) directly on your electronic viewfinder display you are also not going to guess if your exposure might be right this time. Nor do you have to remove your eye from the view of your subject to check some external LCD histogram display, ruining your chances of getting that perfect shot when it happens. 15. P&S cameras can and do focus in lower-light (which is common in natural settings) than any DSLRs in existence, due to electronic viewfinders and sensors that can be increased in gain for framing and focusing purposes as light-levels drop. Some P&S cameras can even take images (AND videos) in total darkness by using IR illumination alone. (See: Sony) No other multi-purpose cameras are capable of taking still-frame and videos of nocturnal wildlife as easily nor as well. Shooting videos and still-frames of nocturnal animals in the total-dark, without disturbing their natural behavior by the use of flash, from 90 ft. away with a 549mm f/2.4 lens is not only possible, it's been done, many times, by myself. (An interesting and true story: one wildlife photographer was nearly stomped to death by an irate moose that attacked where it saw his camera's flash come from.) 16. Without the need to use flash in all situations, and a P&S's nearly 100% silent operation, you are not disturbing your wildlife, neither scaring it away nor changing their natural behavior with your existence. Nor, as previously mentioned, drawing its defensive behavior in your direction. You are recording nature as it is, and should be, not some artificial human-changed distortion of reality and nature. 17. Nature photography requires that the image be captured with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. NO focal-plane shutter in existence, with its inherent focal-plane-shutter distortions imparted on any moving subject will EVER capture any moving subject in nature 100% accurately. A leaf-shutter or electronic shutter, as is found in ALL P&S cameras, will capture your moving subject in nature with 100% accuracy. Your P&S photography will no longer lead a biologist nor other scientist down another DSLR-distorted path of non-reality. 18. Some P&S cameras have shutter-lag times that are even shorter than all the popular DSLRs, due to the fact that they don't have to move those agonizingly slow and loud mirrors and shutter curtains in time before the shot is recorded. In the hands of an experienced photographer that will always rely on prefocusing their camera, there is no hit & miss auto-focusing that happens on all auto-focus systems, DSLRs included. This allows you to take advantage of the faster shutter response times of P&S cameras. Any pro worth his salt knows that if you really want to get every shot, you don't depend on automatic anything in any camera. 19. An electronic viewfinder, as exists in all P&S cameras, can accurately relay the camera's shutter-speed in real-time. Giving you a 100% accurate preview of what your final subject is going to look like when shot at 3 seconds or 1/20,000th of a second. Your soft waterfall effects, or the crisp sharp outlines of your stopped-motion hummingbird wings will be 100% accurately depicted in your viewfinder before you even record the shot. What you see in a P&S camera is truly what you get. You won't have to guess in advance at what shutter speed to use to obtain those artistic effects or those scientifically accurate nature studies that you require or that your client requires. When testing CHDK P&S cameras that could have shutter speeds as fast as 1/40,000th of a second, I was amazed that I could half-depress the shutter and watch in the viewfinder as a Dremel-Drill's 30,000 rpm rotating disk was stopped in crisp detail in real time, without ever having taken an example shot yet. Similarly true when lowering shutter speeds for milky-water effects when shooting rapids and falls, instantly seeing the effect in your viewfinder. Poor DSLR-trolls will never realize what they are missing with their anciently slow focal-plane shutters and wholly inaccurate optical viewfinders. 20. P&S cameras can obtain the very same bokeh (out of focus foreground and background) as any DSLR by just increasing your focal length, through use of its own built-in super-zoom lens or attaching a high-quality telextender on the front. Just back up from your subject more than you usually would with a DSLR. Framing and the included background is relative to the subject at the time and has nothing at all to do with the kind of camera and lens in use. Your f/ratio (which determines your depth-of-field), is a computation of focal-length divided by aperture diameter. Increase the focal-length and you make your DOF shallower. No different than opening up the aperture to accomplish the same. The two methods are identically related where DOF is concerned. 21. P&S cameras will have perfectly fine noise-free images at lower ISOs with just as much resolution as any DSLR camera. Experienced Pros grew up on ISO25 and ISO64 film all their lives. They won't even care if their P&S camera can't go above ISO400 without noise. An added bonus is that the P&S camera can have larger apertures at longer focal-lengths than any DSLR in existence. The time when you really need a fast lens to prevent camera-shake that gets amplified at those focal-lengths. Even at low ISOs you can take perfectly fine hand-held images at super-zoom settings. Whereas the DSLR, with its very small apertures at long focal lengths require ISOs above 3200 to obtain the same results. They need high ISOs, you don't. If you really require low-noise high ISOs, there are some excellent models of Fuji P&S cameras that do have noise-free images up to ISO1600 and more. 22. Don't for one minute think that the price of your camera will in any way determine the quality of your photography. Any of the newer cameras of around $100 or more are plenty good for nearly any talented photographer today. IF they have talent to begin with. A REAL pro can take an award winning photograph with a cardboard Brownie Box Camera made a century ago. If you can't take excellent photos on a P&S camera then you won't be able to get good photos on a DSLR either. Never blame your inability to obtain a good photograph on the kind of camera that you own. Those who claim they NEED a DSLR are only fooling themselves and all others. These are the same people that buy a new camera every year, each time thinking, "Oh, if I only had the right camera, a better camera, better lenses, faster lenses, then I will be a great photographer!" If they just throw enough money at their hobby then the talent-fairy will come by one day, after just the right offering to the DSLR gods was made, and bestow them with something that they never had in the first place--talent. Camera company's love these people. They'll never be able to get a camera that will make their photography better, because they never were a good photographer to begin with. They're forever searching for that more expensive camera that might one day come included with that new "talent in a box" feature. The irony is that they'll never look in the mirror to see what the real problem has been all along. They'll NEVER become good photographers. Perhaps this is why these self-proclaimed "pros" hate P&S cameras so much. P&S cameras instantly reveal to them their ****-poor photography skills. It also reveals the harsh reality that all the wealth in the world won't make them any better at photography. It's difficult for them to face the truth. 23. Have you ever had the fun of showing some of your exceptional P&S photography to some self-proclaimed "Pro" who uses $30,000 worth of camera gear. They are so impressed that they must know how you did it. You smile and tell them, "Oh, I just use a $150 P&S camera." Don't you just love the look on their face? A half-life of self-doubt, the realization of all that lost money, and a sadness just courses through every fiber of their being. Wondering why they can't get photographs as good after they spent all that time and money. Get good on your P&S camera and you too can enjoy this fun experience. 24. Did we mention portability yet? I think we did, but it is worth mentioning the importance of this a few times. A camera in your pocket that is instantly ready to get any shot during any part of the day will get more award-winning photographs than that DSLR gear that's sitting back at home, collecting dust, and waiting to be loaded up into that expensive back-pack or camera bag, hoping that you'll lug it around again some day. 25. A good P&S camera is a good theft deterrent. When traveling you are not advertising to the world that you are carrying $20,000 around with you. That's like having a sign on your back saying, "PLEASE MUG ME! I'M THIS STUPID AND I DESERVE IT!" Keep a small P&S camera in your pocket and only take it out when needed. You'll have a better chance of returning home with all your photos. And should you accidentally lose your P&S camera you're not out $20,000. They are inexpensive to replace. There are many more reasons to add to this list but this should be more than enough for even the most unaware person to realize that P&S cameras are just better, all around. No doubt about it. The phenomenon of everyone yelling "You NEED a DSLR!" can be summed up in just one short phrase: "If even 5 billion people are saying and doing a foolish thing, it remains a foolish thing." |
#105
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:20:40 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:26:02 -0600, Luke G Ronson wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:53:49 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:39:22 -0600, MarkusB wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:41:23 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 18:47:55 -0600, AlbertC. wrote: On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:55:03 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote: SMS writes: ... why the P&S makers even feel compelled to include the ability to shoot at high ISO when they know how poorly their products will perform. Because the most common problems of amateur photography is inadequate exposure, so high ISO is a selling point. Exactly, that's why so many amateurs buy DSLRs. They NEED that high ISO to make up for their lack of skill as real photographers. Then when they find out that even that can't help them, they go in search of even more expensive cameras, more expensive lenses, desperately hoping that someday their camera will come included with a "talent button" with 16 user-selectable levels. That may be true in some cases, but it isn't the fault of dslr cameras. It also in no way leads to the conclusion that p&s cameras are better. If you're old enough to remember when film was all that was available, the same thing was true then. Many amateurs falsely believed that they would be better photographers if they owned "pro" gear. That's not a bad thing, because it is the rich amateurs who generally pay for the camera companies' R&D costs by purchasing all that gear as soon as it hits the shelves. But there is a simple reason they want to own "pro" gear. It's pro gear, whether or not they can make good use of it. Then as now, you will often see amateurs with a better collection of equipment than many working professionals. BTW, being an amateur has nothing whatsoever to do with one's ability as a photographer. All the word means is that an amateur doesn't earn his/her living from photography. There are *many* amateur photographers who have more talent than some "real pros." Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) points outlined below completely disprove In other words, you don't have a response to the truth, so here comes the long-disproved list again. Dear Resident-Troll, Your reply is completely off And the part of what I said that you disagree with is what? Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) points outlined below completely disprove your usual resident-troll bull****. You can either read it and educate yourself, or don't read it and continue to prove to everyone that you are nothing but a virtual-photographer newsgroup-troll and a fool. 1. P&S cameras can have more seamless zoom range than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 9mm f2.7 - 1248mm f/3.5.) There are now some excellent wide-angle and telephoto (telextender) add-on lenses for many makes and models of P&S cameras. Add either or both of these small additions to your photography gear and, with some of the new super-zoom P&S cameras, you can far surpass any range of focal-lengths and apertures that are available or will ever be made for larger format cameras. 2. P&S cameras can have much wider apertures at longer focal lengths than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 549mm f/2.4 and 1248mm f/3.5) when used with high-quality telextenders, which do not reduce the lens' original aperture one bit. Following is a link to a hand-held taken image of a 432mm f/3.5 P&S lens increased to an effective 2197mm f/3.5 lens by using two high-quality teleconverters. To achieve that apparent focal-length the photographer also added a small step of 1.7x digital zoom to take advantage of the RAW sensor's slightly greater detail retention when upsampled directly in the camera for JPG output. As opposed to trying to upsample a JPG image on the computer where those finer RAW sensor details are already lost once it's left the camera's processing. (Digital-zoom is not totally empty zoom, contrary to all the net-parroting idiots online.) A HAND-HELD 2197mm f/3.5 image from a P&S camera (downsized only, no crop): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/...1dbdb8ac_o.jpg Note that any in-focus details are cleanly defined to the corners and there is no CA whatsoever. If you study the EXIF data the author reduced contrast and sharpening by 2-steps, which accounts for the slight softness overall. Any decent photographer will handle those operations properly in editing with more powerful tools and not allow a camera to do them for him. A full f/3.5 aperture achieved at an effective focal-length of 2197mm (35mm equivalent). Only DSLRs suffer from loss of aperture due to the manner in which their teleconverters work. P&S cameras can also have higher quality full-frame 180-degree circular fisheye and intermediate super-wide-angle views than any DSLR and its glass for far less cost. Some excellent fish-eye adapters can be added to your P&S camera which do not impart any chromatic aberration nor edge softness. When used with a super-zoom P&S camera this allows you to seamlessly go from as wide as a 9mm (or even wider) 35mm equivalent focal-length up to the wide-angle setting of the camera's own lens. 3. P&S smaller sensor cameras can and do have wider dynamic range than larger sensor cameras E.g. a 1/2.5" sized sensor can have a 10.3EV Dynamic Range vs. an APS-C's typical 7.0-8.0EV Dynamic Range. One quick example: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/...7ceaf3a1_o.jpg 4. P&S cameras are cost efficient. Due to the smaller (but excellent) sensors used in many of them today, the lenses for these cameras are much smaller. Smaller lenses are easier to manufacture to exacting curvatures and are more easily corrected for aberrations than larger glass used for DSLRs. This also allows them to perform better at all apertures rather than DSLR glass which usually performs well at only one aperture setting per lens. Side by side tests prove that P&S glass can out-resolve even the best DSLR glass ever made. See this side-by-side comparison for example http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ca..._results.shtml When adjusted for sensor size, the DSLR lens is creating 4.3x's the CA that the P&S lens is creating, and the P&S lens is resolving almost 10x's the amount of detail that the DSLR lens is resolving. A difficult to figure 20x P&S zoom lens easily surpassing a much more easy to make 3x DSLR zoom lens. After all is said and done you will spend anywhere from 1/10th to 1/50th the price on a P&S camera that you would have to spend in order to get comparable performance in a DSLR camera. To obtain the same focal-length ranges as that $340 SX10 camera with DSLR glass that *might* approach or equal the P&S resolution, it would cost over $6,500 to accomplish that (at the time of this writing). This isn't counting the extra costs of a heavy-duty tripod required to make it functional at those longer focal-lengths and a backpack to carry it all. Bringing that DSLR investment to over 20 times the cost of a comparable P&S camera. When you buy a DSLR you are investing in a body that will require expensive lenses, hand-grips, external flash units, heavy tripods, more expensive larger filters, etc. etc. The outrageous costs of owning a DSLR add up fast after that initial DSLR body purchase. Camera companies count on this, all the way to their banks. 5. P&S cameras are lightweight and convenient. With just one P&S camera plus one small wide-angle adapter and one small telephoto adapter weighing just a couple pounds, you have the same amount of zoom range as would require over 15 pounds of DSLR body + lenses. The P&S camera mentioned in the previous example is only 1.3 lbs. The DSLR + expensive lenses that *might* equal it in image quality comes in at 9.6 lbs. of dead-weight to lug around all day (not counting the massive and expensive tripod, et.al.) You can carry the whole P&S kit + accessory lenses in one roomy pocket of a wind-breaker or jacket. The DSLR kit would require a sturdy backpack. You also don't require a massive tripod. Large tripods are required to stabilize the heavy and unbalanced mass of the larger DSLR and its massive lenses. A P&S camera, being so light, can be used on some of the most inexpensive, compact, and lightweight tripods with excellent results. 6. P&S cameras are silent. For the more common snap-shooter/photographer, you will not be barred from using your camera at public events, stage-performances, and ceremonies. Or when trying to capture candid shots you won't so easily alert all those within a block around, by the obnoxious clattering noise that your DSLR is making, that you are capturing anyone's images. For the more dedicated wildlife photographer a P&S camera will not endanger your life when photographing potentially dangerous animals by alerting them to your presence. 7. Some P&S cameras can run the revolutionary CHDK software on them, which allows for lightning-fast motion detection (literally, lightning fast 45ms response time, able to capture lightning strikes automatically) so that you may capture more elusive and shy animals (in still-frame and video) where any evidence of your presence at all might prevent their appearance. Without the need of carrying a tethered laptop along or any other hardware into remote areas--which only limits your range, distance, and time allotted for bringing back that one-of-a-kind image. It also allows for unattended time-lapse photography for days and weeks at a time, so that you may capture those unusual or intriguing subject-studies in nature. E.g. a rare slime-mold's propagation, that you happened to find in a mountain-ravine, 10-days hike from the nearest laptop or other time-lapse hardware. (The wealth of astounding new features that CHDK brings to the creative-table of photography are too extensive to begin to list them all here. See http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK ) 8. P&S cameras can have shutter speeds up to 1/40,000th of a second. See: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures Allowing you to capture fast subject motion in nature (e.g. insect and hummingbird wings) WITHOUT the need of artificial and image destroying flash, using available light alone. Nor will their wing shapes be unnaturally distorted from the focal-plane shutter distortions imparted in any fast moving objects, as when photographed with all DSLRs. (See focal-plane-shutter-distortions example-image link in #10.) 9. P&S cameras can have full-frame flash-sync up to and including shutter-speeds of 1/40,000th of a second. E.g. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_...%26_Flash-Sync without the use of any expensive and specialized focal-plane shutter flash-units that must pulse their light-output for the full duration of the shutter's curtain to pass slowly over the frame. The other downside to those kinds of flash units is that the light-output is greatly reduced the faster the shutter speed. Any shutter speed used that is faster than your camera's X-Sync speed is cutting off some of the flash output. Not so when using a leaf-shutter. The full intensity of the flash is recorded no matter the shutter speed used. Unless, as in the case of CHDK capable cameras where the camera's shutter speed can even be faster than the lightning-fast single burst from a flash unit. E.g. If the flash's duration is 1/10,000 of a second, and your CHDK camera's shutter is set to 1/20,000 of a second, then it will only record half of that flash output. P&S cameras also don't require any expensive and dedicated external flash unit. Any of them may be used with any flash unit made by using an inexpensive slave-trigger that can compensate for any automated pre-flash conditions. Example: http://www.adorama.com/SZ23504.html 10. P&S cameras do not suffer from focal-plane shutter drawbacks and limitations. Causing camera shake, moving-subject image distortions (focal-plane-shutter distortions, e.g. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/ch...istortions.jpg do note the distorted tail-rotor too and its shadow on the ground, 90-degrees from one another), last-century-slow flash-sync, obnoxiously loud slapping mirrors and shutter curtains, shorter mechanical life, easily damaged, expensive repair costs, etc. 11. When doing wildlife photography in remote and rugged areas and harsh environments; or even when the amateur snap-shooter is trying to take their vacation photos on a beach or dusty intersection on some city street; you're not worrying about trying to change lenses in time to get that shot (fewer missed shots), dropping one in the mud, lake, surf, or on concrete while you do; and not worrying about ruining all the rest of your photos that day from having gotten dust & crud on the sensor. For the adventurous photographer you're no longer weighed down by many many extra pounds of unneeded glass, allowing you to carry more of the important supplies, like food and water, allowing you to trek much further than you've ever been able to travel before with your old D/SLR bricks. 12. Smaller sensors and the larger apertures available at longer focal-lengths allow for the deep DOF required for excellent macro-photography when using normal macro or tele-macro lens arrangements. All done WITHOUT the need of any image destroying, subject irritating, natural-look destroying flash. No DSLR on the planet can compare in the quality of available-light macro photography that can be accomplished with nearly any smaller-sensor P&S camera. (To clarify for DSLR owners/promoters who don't even know basic photography principles: In order to obtain the same DOF on a DSLR you'll need to stop down that lens greatly. When you do then you have to use shutter speeds so slow that hand-held macro-photography, even in full daylight, is all but impossible. Not even your highest ISO is going to save you at times. The only solution for the DSLR user is to resort to artificial flash which then ruins the subject and the image; turning it into some staged, fake-looking, studio setup.) 13. P&S cameras include video, and some even provide for CD-quality stereo audio recordings, so that you might capture those rare events in nature where a still-frame alone could never prove all those "scientists" wrong. E.g. recording the paw-drumming communication patterns of eusocial-living field-mice. With your P&S video-capable camera in your pocket you won't miss that once-in-a-lifetime chance to record some unexpected event, like the passage of a bright meteor in the sky in daytime, a mid-air explosion, or any other newsworthy event. Imagine the gaping hole in our history of the Hindenberg if there were no film cameras there at the time. The mystery of how it exploded would have never been solved. Or the amateur 8mm film of the shooting of President Kennedy. Your video-ready P&S camera being with you all the time might capture something that will be a valuable part of human history one day. 14. P&S cameras have 100% viewfinder coverage that exactly matches your final image. No important bits lost, and no chance of ruining your composition by trying to "guess" what will show up in the final image. With the ability to overlay live RGB-histograms, and under/over-exposure area alerts (and dozens of other important shooting data) directly on your electronic viewfinder display you are also not going to guess if your exposure might be right this time. Nor do you have to remove your eye from the view of your subject to check some external LCD histogram display, ruining your chances of getting that perfect shot when it happens. 15. P&S cameras can and do focus in lower-light (which is common in natural settings) than any DSLRs in existence, due to electronic viewfinders and sensors that can be increased in gain for framing and focusing purposes as light-levels drop. Some P&S cameras can even take images (AND videos) in total darkness by using IR illumination alone. (See: Sony) No other multi-purpose cameras are capable of taking still-frame and videos of nocturnal wildlife as easily nor as well. Shooting videos and still-frames of nocturnal animals in the total-dark, without disturbing their natural behavior by the use of flash, from 90 ft. away with a 549mm f/2.4 lens is not only possible, it's been done, many times, by myself. (An interesting and true story: one wildlife photographer was nearly stomped to death by an irate moose that attacked where it saw his camera's flash come from.) 16. Without the need to use flash in all situations, and a P&S's nearly 100% silent operation, you are not disturbing your wildlife, neither scaring it away nor changing their natural behavior with your existence. Nor, as previously mentioned, drawing its defensive behavior in your direction. You are recording nature as it is, and should be, not some artificial human-changed distortion of reality and nature. 17. Nature photography requires that the image be captured with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. NO focal-plane shutter in existence, with its inherent focal-plane-shutter distortions imparted on any moving subject will EVER capture any moving subject in nature 100% accurately. A leaf-shutter or electronic shutter, as is found in ALL P&S cameras, will capture your moving subject in nature with 100% accuracy. Your P&S photography will no longer lead a biologist nor other scientist down another DSLR-distorted path of non-reality. 18. Some P&S cameras have shutter-lag times that are even shorter than all the popular DSLRs, due to the fact that they don't have to move those agonizingly slow and loud mirrors and shutter curtains in time before the shot is recorded. In the hands of an experienced photographer that will always rely on prefocusing their camera, there is no hit & miss auto-focusing that happens on all auto-focus systems, DSLRs included. This allows you to take advantage of the faster shutter response times of P&S cameras. Any pro worth his salt knows that if you really want to get every shot, you don't depend on automatic anything in any camera. 19. An electronic viewfinder, as exists in all P&S cameras, can accurately relay the camera's shutter-speed in real-time. Giving you a 100% accurate preview of what your final subject is going to look like when shot at 3 seconds or 1/20,000th of a second. Your soft waterfall effects, or the crisp sharp outlines of your stopped-motion hummingbird wings will be 100% accurately depicted in your viewfinder before you even record the shot. What you see in a P&S camera is truly what you get. You won't have to guess in advance at what shutter speed to use to obtain those artistic effects or those scientifically accurate nature studies that you require or that your client requires. When testing CHDK P&S cameras that could have shutter speeds as fast as 1/40,000th of a second, I was amazed that I could half-depress the shutter and watch in the viewfinder as a Dremel-Drill's 30,000 rpm rotating disk was stopped in crisp detail in real time, without ever having taken an example shot yet. Similarly true when lowering shutter speeds for milky-water effects when shooting rapids and falls, instantly seeing the effect in your viewfinder. Poor DSLR-trolls will never realize what they are missing with their anciently slow focal-plane shutters and wholly inaccurate optical viewfinders. 20. P&S cameras can obtain the very same bokeh (out of focus foreground and background) as any DSLR by just increasing your focal length, through use of its own built-in super-zoom lens or attaching a high-quality telextender on the front. Just back up from your subject more than you usually would with a DSLR. Framing and the included background is relative to the subject at the time and has nothing at all to do with the kind of camera and lens in use. Your f/ratio (which determines your depth-of-field), is a computation of focal-length divided by aperture diameter. Increase the focal-length and you make your DOF shallower. No different than opening up the aperture to accomplish the same. The two methods are identically related where DOF is concerned. 21. P&S cameras will have perfectly fine noise-free images at lower ISOs with just as much resolution as any DSLR camera. Experienced Pros grew up on ISO25 and ISO64 film all their lives. They won't even care if their P&S camera can't go above ISO400 without noise. An added bonus is that the P&S camera can have larger apertures at longer focal-lengths than any DSLR in existence. The time when you really need a fast lens to prevent camera-shake that gets amplified at those focal-lengths. Even at low ISOs you can take perfectly fine hand-held images at super-zoom settings. Whereas the DSLR, with its very small apertures at long focal lengths require ISOs above 3200 to obtain the same results. They need high ISOs, you don't. If you really require low-noise high ISOs, there are some excellent models of Fuji P&S cameras that do have noise-free images up to ISO1600 and more. 22. Don't for one minute think that the price of your camera will in any way determine the quality of your photography. Any of the newer cameras of around $100 or more are plenty good for nearly any talented photographer today. IF they have talent to begin with. A REAL pro can take an award winning photograph with a cardboard Brownie Box Camera made a century ago. If you can't take excellent photos on a P&S camera then you won't be able to get good photos on a DSLR either. Never blame your inability to obtain a good photograph on the kind of camera that you own. Those who claim they NEED a DSLR are only fooling themselves and all others. These are the same people that buy a new camera every year, each time thinking, "Oh, if I only had the right camera, a better camera, better lenses, faster lenses, then I will be a great photographer!" If they just throw enough money at their hobby then the talent-fairy will come by one day, after just the right offering to the DSLR gods was made, and bestow them with something that they never had in the first place--talent. Camera company's love these people. They'll never be able to get a camera that will make their photography better, because they never were a good photographer to begin with. They're forever searching for that more expensive camera that might one day come included with that new "talent in a box" feature. The irony is that they'll never look in the mirror to see what the real problem has been all along. They'll NEVER become good photographers. Perhaps this is why these self-proclaimed "pros" hate P&S cameras so much. P&S cameras instantly reveal to them their ****-poor photography skills. It also reveals the harsh reality that all the wealth in the world won't make them any better at photography. It's difficult for them to face the truth. 23. Have you ever had the fun of showing some of your exceptional P&S photography to some self-proclaimed "Pro" who uses $30,000 worth of camera gear. They are so impressed that they must know how you did it. You smile and tell them, "Oh, I just use a $150 P&S camera." Don't you just love the look on their face? A half-life of self-doubt, the realization of all that lost money, and a sadness just courses through every fiber of their being. Wondering why they can't get photographs as good after they spent all that time and money. Get good on your P&S camera and you too can enjoy this fun experience. 24. Did we mention portability yet? I think we did, but it is worth mentioning the importance of this a few times. A camera in your pocket that is instantly ready to get any shot during any part of the day will get more award-winning photographs than that DSLR gear that's sitting back at home, collecting dust, and waiting to be loaded up into that expensive back-pack or camera bag, hoping that you'll lug it around again some day. 25. A good P&S camera is a good theft deterrent. When traveling you are not advertising to the world that you are carrying $20,000 around with you. That's like having a sign on your back saying, "PLEASE MUG ME! I'M THIS STUPID AND I DESERVE IT!" Keep a small P&S camera in your pocket and only take it out when needed. You'll have a better chance of returning home with all your photos. And should you accidentally lose your P&S camera you're not out $20,000. They are inexpensive to replace. There are many more reasons to add to this list but this should be more than enough for even the most unaware person to realize that P&S cameras are just better, all around. No doubt about it. The phenomenon of everyone yelling "You NEED a DSLR!" can be summed up in just one short phrase: "If even 5 billion people are saying and doing a foolish thing, it remains a foolish thing." |
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:22:00 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:30:19 -0600, BrianSmith wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:01:40 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 10:50:43 -0600, Ethan Araether wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:50:26 -0600, "mcdonaldREMOVE TO ACTUALLY REACH wrote: Pete D wrote: Even when I backpack I take the best camera I can, the weight penalty for a basic setup is not that much and I rarely find an excuse not to take it. True enough my bigger D-SLRs are heavier but then I leave the grips and big lenses at home at take just what I need. me too ... my main photos, that I value most, are made on such trips I take my 30D SLR and 24-105 f/4L IS, 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS, and 100 f/2.8 macro lenses. I leave the kit 18-55mm (no IS) lens at home, making panoramas if desired. I'm considering buying a 5D MKII. I would carry that if I get it. I carried all this 200 miles this summer. Unfortunately I didn't get any great shots. But heh, Ansel Adams, who lived where I was hiking, only got about 10 of them there in his whole life! I did get lots of nice shots. Really nice. Doug McDonald 30D = ($600) 24.7 oz. = 1.6 lb. 24-105 f/4L IS = ($950) 23.6 oz. = 1.5 lb. 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS = ($1,320) 22.2 oz. = 1.4 lb. 100 f/2.8 macro = ($600) 21.2 oz. = 1.32 lb. required tripod = ($450) 128 oz. = 8 lb. filters & accessories = ($200) 2 lbs. total cost/weight = ($4,120) 16 lb. You carried 16 lbs. of photo gear and still had room for shelter, food, clothing, and survival supplies. Constrained backpack of survival supplies alone for a trek of that distance is 50-65 lbs. and you fit your required survival supplies for 200 miles into 34-49 lbs.? SUUuuurre you did. So what's your point? You resent people who have the money to spend on good gear and the willingness to carry it? The point is to reveal resident pretend-photographer trolls, you know, posters like you. I see. And exactly how would you know this? Dear Resident-Troll, Your reply is completely off-topic. Here are some (new & improved) topics that befit this newsgroup. Please consider them for future discussions and posts: 1. P&S cameras can have more seamless zoom range than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 9mm f2.7 - 1248mm f/3.5.) There are now some excellent wide-angle and telephoto (telextender) add-on lenses for many makes and models of P&S cameras. Add either or both of these small additions to your photography gear and, with some of the new super-zoom P&S cameras, you can far surpass any range of focal-lengths and apertures that are available or will ever be made for larger format cameras. 2. P&S cameras can have much wider apertures at longer focal lengths than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 549mm f/2.4 and 1248mm f/3.5) when used with high-quality telextenders, which do not reduce the lens' original aperture one bit. Following is a link to a hand-held taken image of a 432mm f/3.5 P&S lens increased to an effective 2197mm f/3.5 lens by using two high-quality teleconverters. To achieve that apparent focal-length the photographer also added a small step of 1.7x digital zoom to take advantage of the RAW sensor's slightly greater detail retention when upsampled directly in the camera for JPG output. As opposed to trying to upsample a JPG image on the computer where those finer RAW sensor details are already lost once it's left the camera's processing. (Digital-zoom is not totally empty zoom, contrary to all the net-parroting idiots online.) A HAND-HELD 2197mm f/3.5 image from a P&S camera (downsized only, no crop): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/...1dbdb8ac_o.jpg Note that any in-focus details are cleanly defined to the corners and there is no CA whatsoever. If you study the EXIF data the author reduced contrast and sharpening by 2-steps, which accounts for the slight softness overall. Any decent photographer will handle those operations properly in editing with more powerful tools and not allow a camera to do them for him. A full f/3.5 aperture achieved at an effective focal-length of 2197mm (35mm equivalent). Only DSLRs suffer from loss of aperture due to the manner in which their teleconverters work. P&S cameras can also have higher quality full-frame 180-degree circular fisheye and intermediate super-wide-angle views than any DSLR and its glass for far less cost. Some excellent fish-eye adapters can be added to your P&S camera which do not impart any chromatic aberration nor edge softness. When used with a super-zoom P&S camera this allows you to seamlessly go from as wide as a 9mm (or even wider) 35mm equivalent focal-length up to the wide-angle setting of the camera's own lens. 3. P&S smaller sensor cameras can and do have wider dynamic range than larger sensor cameras E.g. a 1/2.5" sized sensor can have a 10.3EV Dynamic Range vs. an APS-C's typical 7.0-8.0EV Dynamic Range. One quick example: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/...7ceaf3a1_o.jpg 4. P&S cameras are cost efficient. Due to the smaller (but excellent) sensors used in many of them today, the lenses for these cameras are much smaller. Smaller lenses are easier to manufacture to exacting curvatures and are more easily corrected for aberrations than larger glass used for DSLRs. This also allows them to perform better at all apertures rather than DSLR glass which usually performs well at only one aperture setting per lens. Side by side tests prove that P&S glass can out-resolve even the best DSLR glass ever made. See this side-by-side comparison for example http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ca..._results.shtml When adjusted for sensor size, the DSLR lens is creating 4.3x's the CA that the P&S lens is creating, and the P&S lens is resolving almost 10x's the amount of detail that the DSLR lens is resolving. A difficult to figure 20x P&S zoom lens easily surpassing a much more easy to make 3x DSLR zoom lens. After all is said and done you will spend anywhere from 1/10th to 1/50th the price on a P&S camera that you would have to spend in order to get comparable performance in a DSLR camera. To obtain the same focal-length ranges as that $340 SX10 camera with DSLR glass that *might* approach or equal the P&S resolution, it would cost over $6,500 to accomplish that (at the time of this writing). This isn't counting the extra costs of a heavy-duty tripod required to make it functional at those longer focal-lengths and a backpack to carry it all. Bringing that DSLR investment to over 20 times the cost of a comparable P&S camera. When you buy a DSLR you are investing in a body that will require expensive lenses, hand-grips, external flash units, heavy tripods, more expensive larger filters, etc. etc. The outrageous costs of owning a DSLR add up fast after that initial DSLR body purchase. Camera companies count on this, all the way to their banks. 5. P&S cameras are lightweight and convenient. With just one P&S camera plus one small wide-angle adapter and one small telephoto adapter weighing just a couple pounds, you have the same amount of zoom range as would require over 15 pounds of DSLR body + lenses. The P&S camera mentioned in the previous example is only 1.3 lbs. The DSLR + expensive lenses that *might* equal it in image quality comes in at 9.6 lbs. of dead-weight to lug around all day (not counting the massive and expensive tripod, et.al.) You can carry the whole P&S kit + accessory lenses in one roomy pocket of a wind-breaker or jacket. The DSLR kit would require a sturdy backpack. You also don't require a massive tripod. Large tripods are required to stabilize the heavy and unbalanced mass of the larger DSLR and its massive lenses. A P&S camera, being so light, can be used on some of the most inexpensive, compact, and lightweight tripods with excellent results. 6. P&S cameras are silent. For the more common snap-shooter/photographer, you will not be barred from using your camera at public events, stage-performances, and ceremonies. Or when trying to capture candid shots you won't so easily alert all those within a block around, by the obnoxious clattering noise that your DSLR is making, that you are capturing anyone's images. For the more dedicated wildlife photographer a P&S camera will not endanger your life when photographing potentially dangerous animals by alerting them to your presence. 7. Some P&S cameras can run the revolutionary CHDK software on them, which allows for lightning-fast motion detection (literally, lightning fast 45ms response time, able to capture lightning strikes automatically) so that you may capture more elusive and shy animals (in still-frame and video) where any evidence of your presence at all might prevent their appearance. Without the need of carrying a tethered laptop along or any other hardware into remote areas--which only limits your range, distance, and time allotted for bringing back that one-of-a-kind image. It also allows for unattended time-lapse photography for days and weeks at a time, so that you may capture those unusual or intriguing subject-studies in nature. E.g. a rare slime-mold's propagation, that you happened to find in a mountain-ravine, 10-days hike from the nearest laptop or other time-lapse hardware. (The wealth of astounding new features that CHDK brings to the creative-table of photography are too extensive to begin to list them all here. See http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK ) 8. P&S cameras can have shutter speeds up to 1/40,000th of a second. See: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures Allowing you to capture fast subject motion in nature (e.g. insect and hummingbird wings) WITHOUT the need of artificial and image destroying flash, using available light alone. Nor will their wing shapes be unnaturally distorted from the focal-plane shutter distortions imparted in any fast moving objects, as when photographed with all DSLRs. (See focal-plane-shutter-distortions example-image link in #10.) 9. P&S cameras can have full-frame flash-sync up to and including shutter-speeds of 1/40,000th of a second. E.g. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_...%26_Flash-Sync without the use of any expensive and specialized focal-plane shutter flash-units that must pulse their light-output for the full duration of the shutter's curtain to pass slowly over the frame. The other downside to those kinds of flash units is that the light-output is greatly reduced the faster the shutter speed. Any shutter speed used that is faster than your camera's X-Sync speed is cutting off some of the flash output. Not so when using a leaf-shutter. The full intensity of the flash is recorded no matter the shutter speed used. Unless, as in the case of CHDK capable cameras where the camera's shutter speed can even be faster than the lightning-fast single burst from a flash unit. E.g. If the flash's duration is 1/10,000 of a second, and your CHDK camera's shutter is set to 1/20,000 of a second, then it will only record half of that flash output. P&S cameras also don't require any expensive and dedicated external flash unit. Any of them may be used with any flash unit made by using an inexpensive slave-trigger that can compensate for any automated pre-flash conditions. Example: http://www.adorama.com/SZ23504.html 10. P&S cameras do not suffer from focal-plane shutter drawbacks and limitations. Causing camera shake, moving-subject image distortions (focal-plane-shutter distortions, e.g. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/ch...istortions.jpg do note the distorted tail-rotor too and its shadow on the ground, 90-degrees from one another), last-century-slow flash-sync, obnoxiously loud slapping mirrors and shutter curtains, shorter mechanical life, easily damaged, expensive repair costs, etc. 11. When doing wildlife photography in remote and rugged areas and harsh environments; or even when the amateur snap-shooter is trying to take their vacation photos on a beach or dusty intersection on some city street; you're not worrying about trying to change lenses in time to get that shot (fewer missed shots), dropping one in the mud, lake, surf, or on concrete while you do; and not worrying about ruining all the rest of your photos that day from having gotten dust & crud on the sensor. For the adventurous photographer you're no longer weighed down by many many extra pounds of unneeded glass, allowing you to carry more of the important supplies, like food and water, allowing you to trek much further than you've ever been able to travel before with your old D/SLR bricks. 12. Smaller sensors and the larger apertures available at longer focal-lengths allow for the deep DOF required for excellent macro-photography when using normal macro or tele-macro lens arrangements. All done WITHOUT the need of any image destroying, subject irritating, natural-look destroying flash. No DSLR on the planet can compare in the quality of available-light macro photography that can be accomplished with nearly any smaller-sensor P&S camera. (To clarify for DSLR owners/promoters who don't even know basic photography principles: In order to obtain the same DOF on a DSLR you'll need to stop down that lens greatly. When you do then you have to use shutter speeds so slow that hand-held macro-photography, even in full daylight, is all but impossible. Not even your highest ISO is going to save you at times. The only solution for the DSLR user is to resort to artificial flash which then ruins the subject and the image; turning it into some staged, fake-looking, studio setup.) 13. P&S cameras include video, and some even provide for CD-quality stereo audio recordings, so that you might capture those rare events in nature where a still-frame alone could never prove all those "scientists" wrong. E.g. recording the paw-drumming communication patterns of eusocial-living field-mice. With your P&S video-capable camera in your pocket you won't miss that once-in-a-lifetime chance to record some unexpected event, like the passage of a bright meteor in the sky in daytime, a mid-air explosion, or any other newsworthy event. Imagine the gaping hole in our history of the Hindenberg if there were no film cameras there at the time. The mystery of how it exploded would have never been solved. Or the amateur 8mm film of the shooting of President Kennedy. Your video-ready P&S camera being with you all the time might capture something that will be a valuable part of human history one day. 14. P&S cameras have 100% viewfinder coverage that exactly matches your final image. No important bits lost, and no chance of ruining your composition by trying to "guess" what will show up in the final image. With the ability to overlay live RGB-histograms, and under/over-exposure area alerts (and dozens of other important shooting data) directly on your electronic viewfinder display you are also not going to guess if your exposure might be right this time. Nor do you have to remove your eye from the view of your subject to check some external LCD histogram display, ruining your chances of getting that perfect shot when it happens. 15. P&S cameras can and do focus in lower-light (which is common in natural settings) than any DSLRs in existence, due to electronic viewfinders and sensors that can be increased in gain for framing and focusing purposes as light-levels drop. Some P&S cameras can even take images (AND videos) in total darkness by using IR illumination alone. (See: Sony) No other multi-purpose cameras are capable of taking still-frame and videos of nocturnal wildlife as easily nor as well. Shooting videos and still-frames of nocturnal animals in the total-dark, without disturbing their natural behavior by the use of flash, from 90 ft. away with a 549mm f/2.4 lens is not only possible, it's been done, many times, by myself. (An interesting and true story: one wildlife photographer was nearly stomped to death by an irate moose that attacked where it saw his camera's flash come from.) 16. Without the need to use flash in all situations, and a P&S's nearly 100% silent operation, you are not disturbing your wildlife, neither scaring it away nor changing their natural behavior with your existence. Nor, as previously mentioned, drawing its defensive behavior in your direction. You are recording nature as it is, and should be, not some artificial human-changed distortion of reality and nature. 17. Nature photography requires that the image be captured with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. NO focal-plane shutter in existence, with its inherent focal-plane-shutter distortions imparted on any moving subject will EVER capture any moving subject in nature 100% accurately. A leaf-shutter or electronic shutter, as is found in ALL P&S cameras, will capture your moving subject in nature with 100% accuracy. Your P&S photography will no longer lead a biologist nor other scientist down another DSLR-distorted path of non-reality. 18. Some P&S cameras have shutter-lag times that are even shorter than all the popular DSLRs, due to the fact that they don't have to move those agonizingly slow and loud mirrors and shutter curtains in time before the shot is recorded. In the hands of an experienced photographer that will always rely on prefocusing their camera, there is no hit & miss auto-focusing that happens on all auto-focus systems, DSLRs included. This allows you to take advantage of the faster shutter response times of P&S cameras. Any pro worth his salt knows that if you really want to get every shot, you don't depend on automatic anything in any camera. 19. An electronic viewfinder, as exists in all P&S cameras, can accurately relay the camera's shutter-speed in real-time. Giving you a 100% accurate preview of what your final subject is going to look like when shot at 3 seconds or 1/20,000th of a second. Your soft waterfall effects, or the crisp sharp outlines of your stopped-motion hummingbird wings will be 100% accurately depicted in your viewfinder before you even record the shot. What you see in a P&S camera is truly what you get. You won't have to guess in advance at what shutter speed to use to obtain those artistic effects or those scientifically accurate nature studies that you require or that your client requires. When testing CHDK P&S cameras that could have shutter speeds as fast as 1/40,000th of a second, I was amazed that I could half-depress the shutter and watch in the viewfinder as a Dremel-Drill's 30,000 rpm rotating disk was stopped in crisp detail in real time, without ever having taken an example shot yet. Similarly true when lowering shutter speeds for milky-water effects when shooting rapids and falls, instantly seeing the effect in your viewfinder. Poor DSLR-trolls will never realize what they are missing with their anciently slow focal-plane shutters and wholly inaccurate optical viewfinders. 20. P&S cameras can obtain the very same bokeh (out of focus foreground and background) as any DSLR by just increasing your focal length, through use of its own built-in super-zoom lens or attaching a high-quality telextender on the front. Just back up from your subject more than you usually would with a DSLR. Framing and the included background is relative to the subject at the time and has nothing at all to do with the kind of camera and lens in use. Your f/ratio (which determines your depth-of-field), is a computation of focal-length divided by aperture diameter. Increase the focal-length and you make your DOF shallower. No different than opening up the aperture to accomplish the same. The two methods are identically related where DOF is concerned. 21. P&S cameras will have perfectly fine noise-free images at lower ISOs with just as much resolution as any DSLR camera. Experienced Pros grew up on ISO25 and ISO64 film all their lives. They won't even care if their P&S camera can't go above ISO400 without noise. An added bonus is that the P&S camera can have larger apertures at longer focal-lengths than any DSLR in existence. The time when you really need a fast lens to prevent camera-shake that gets amplified at those focal-lengths. Even at low ISOs you can take perfectly fine hand-held images at super-zoom settings. Whereas the DSLR, with its very small apertures at long focal lengths require ISOs above 3200 to obtain the same results. They need high ISOs, you don't. If you really require low-noise high ISOs, there are some excellent models of Fuji P&S cameras that do have noise-free images up to ISO1600 and more. 22. Don't for one minute think that the price of your camera will in any way determine the quality of your photography. Any of the newer cameras of around $100 or more are plenty good for nearly any talented photographer today. IF they have talent to begin with. A REAL pro can take an award winning photograph with a cardboard Brownie Box Camera made a century ago. If you can't take excellent photos on a P&S camera then you won't be able to get good photos on a DSLR either. Never blame your inability to obtain a good photograph on the kind of camera that you own. Those who claim they NEED a DSLR are only fooling themselves and all others. These are the same people that buy a new camera every year, each time thinking, "Oh, if I only had the right camera, a better camera, better lenses, faster lenses, then I will be a great photographer!" If they just throw enough money at their hobby then the talent-fairy will come by one day, after just the right offering to the DSLR gods was made, and bestow them with something that they never had in the first place--talent. Camera company's love these people. They'll never be able to get a camera that will make their photography better, because they never were a good photographer to begin with. They're forever searching for that more expensive camera that might one day come included with that new "talent in a box" feature. The irony is that they'll never look in the mirror to see what the real problem has been all along. They'll NEVER become good photographers. Perhaps this is why these self-proclaimed "pros" hate P&S cameras so much. P&S cameras instantly reveal to them their ****-poor photography skills. It also reveals the harsh reality that all the wealth in the world won't make them any better at photography. It's difficult for them to face the truth. 23. Have you ever had the fun of showing some of your exceptional P&S photography to some self-proclaimed "Pro" who uses $30,000 worth of camera gear. They are so impressed that they must know how you did it. You smile and tell them, "Oh, I just use a $150 P&S camera." Don't you just love the look on their face? A half-life of self-doubt, the realization of all that lost money, and a sadness just courses through every fiber of their being. Wondering why they can't get photographs as good after they spent all that time and money. Get good on your P&S camera and you too can enjoy this fun experience. 24. Did we mention portability yet? I think we did, but it is worth mentioning the importance of this a few times. A camera in your pocket that is instantly ready to get any shot during any part of the day will get more award-winning photographs than that DSLR gear that's sitting back at home, collecting dust, and waiting to be loaded up into that expensive back-pack or camera bag, hoping that you'll lug it around again some day. 25. A good P&S camera is a good theft deterrent. When traveling you are not advertising to the world that you are carrying $20,000 around with you. That's like having a sign on your back saying, "PLEASE MUG ME! I'M THIS STUPID AND I DESERVE IT!" Keep a small P&S camera in your pocket and only take it out when needed. You'll have a better chance of returning home with all your photos. And should you accidentally lose your P&S camera you're not out $20,000. They are inexpensive to replace. There are many more reasons to add to this list but this should be more than enough for even the most unaware person to realize that P&S cameras are just better, all around. No doubt about it. The phenomenon of everyone yelling "You NEED a DSLR!" can be summed up in just one short phrase: "If even 5 billion people are saying and doing a foolish thing, it remains a foolish thing." |
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:25:24 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote:
On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:31:29 -0600, Steven Kentworth wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:03:43 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 13:25:51 -0500, "J. Clarke" wrote: mcdonaldREMOVE TO ACTUALLY REACH ME wrote: Pete D wrote: Even when I backpack I take the best camera I can, the weight penalty for a basic setup is not that much and I rarely find an excuse not to take it. True enough my bigger D-SLRs are heavier but then I leave the grips and big lenses at home at take just what I need. me too ... my main photos, that I value most, are made on such trips I take my 30D SLR and 24-105 f/4L IS, 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS, and 100 f/2.8 macro lenses. I leave the kit 18-55mm (no IS) lens at home, making panoramas if desired. I'm considering buying a 5D MKII. I would carry that if I get it. I carried all this 200 miles this summer. Unfortunately I didn't get any great shots. But heh, Ansel Adams, who lived where I was hiking, only got about 10 of them there in his whole life! I did get lots of nice shots. Really nice. FWIW, you ever see a picture of Ansel Adams going on a shoot? There's generally either a beat-up Travellall or a heavily laden mule in the background. EXACTLY. Then, as now, if it's worth doing at all then it's worth doing right. Take the p&s for an easy way to document your hike, but take the better gear if your goal is to go out and come back with the best possible photographs. Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) poi Even though you love your pocket camera, that doesn't change the fact that good gear which happens to cost more money and weigh more will always produce much better quality images when used by someone who knows what they are doing. Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) points outlined below completely disprove your usual resident-troll bull****. You can either read it and educate yourself, or don't read it and continue to prove to everyone that you are nothing but a virtual-photographer newsgroup-troll and a fool. 1. P&S cameras can have more seamless zoom range than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 9mm f2.7 - 1248mm f/3.5.) There are now some excellent wide-angle and telephoto (telextender) add-on lenses for many makes and models of P&S cameras. Add either or both of these small additions to your photography gear and, with some of the new super-zoom P&S cameras, you can far surpass any range of focal-lengths and apertures that are available or will ever be made for larger format cameras. 2. P&S cameras can have much wider apertures at longer focal lengths than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 549mm f/2.4 and 1248mm f/3.5) when used with high-quality telextenders, which do not reduce the lens' original aperture one bit. Following is a link to a hand-held taken image of a 432mm f/3.5 P&S lens increased to an effective 2197mm f/3.5 lens by using two high-quality teleconverters. To achieve that apparent focal-length the photographer also added a small step of 1.7x digital zoom to take advantage of the RAW sensor's slightly greater detail retention when upsampled directly in the camera for JPG output. As opposed to trying to upsample a JPG image on the computer where those finer RAW sensor details are already lost once it's left the camera's processing. (Digital-zoom is not totally empty zoom, contrary to all the net-parroting idiots online.) A HAND-HELD 2197mm f/3.5 image from a P&S camera (downsized only, no crop): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/...1dbdb8ac_o.jpg Note that any in-focus details are cleanly defined to the corners and there is no CA whatsoever. If you study the EXIF data the author reduced contrast and sharpening by 2-steps, which accounts for the slight softness overall. Any decent photographer will handle those operations properly in editing with more powerful tools and not allow a camera to do them for him. A full f/3.5 aperture achieved at an effective focal-length of 2197mm (35mm equivalent). Only DSLRs suffer from loss of aperture due to the manner in which their teleconverters work. P&S cameras can also have higher quality full-frame 180-degree circular fisheye and intermediate super-wide-angle views than any DSLR and its glass for far less cost. Some excellent fish-eye adapters can be added to your P&S camera which do not impart any chromatic aberration nor edge softness. When used with a super-zoom P&S camera this allows you to seamlessly go from as wide as a 9mm (or even wider) 35mm equivalent focal-length up to the wide-angle setting of the camera's own lens. 3. P&S smaller sensor cameras can and do have wider dynamic range than larger sensor cameras E.g. a 1/2.5" sized sensor can have a 10.3EV Dynamic Range vs. an APS-C's typical 7.0-8.0EV Dynamic Range. One quick example: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/...7ceaf3a1_o.jpg 4. P&S cameras are cost efficient. Due to the smaller (but excellent) sensors used in many of them today, the lenses for these cameras are much smaller. Smaller lenses are easier to manufacture to exacting curvatures and are more easily corrected for aberrations than larger glass used for DSLRs. This also allows them to perform better at all apertures rather than DSLR glass which usually performs well at only one aperture setting per lens. Side by side tests prove that P&S glass can out-resolve even the best DSLR glass ever made. See this side-by-side comparison for example http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ca..._results.shtml When adjusted for sensor size, the DSLR lens is creating 4.3x's the CA that the P&S lens is creating, and the P&S lens is resolving almost 10x's the amount of detail that the DSLR lens is resolving. A difficult to figure 20x P&S zoom lens easily surpassing a much more easy to make 3x DSLR zoom lens. After all is said and done you will spend anywhere from 1/10th to 1/50th the price on a P&S camera that you would have to spend in order to get comparable performance in a DSLR camera. To obtain the same focal-length ranges as that $340 SX10 camera with DSLR glass that *might* approach or equal the P&S resolution, it would cost over $6,500 to accomplish that (at the time of this writing). This isn't counting the extra costs of a heavy-duty tripod required to make it functional at those longer focal-lengths and a backpack to carry it all. Bringing that DSLR investment to over 20 times the cost of a comparable P&S camera. When you buy a DSLR you are investing in a body that will require expensive lenses, hand-grips, external flash units, heavy tripods, more expensive larger filters, etc. etc. The outrageous costs of owning a DSLR add up fast after that initial DSLR body purchase. Camera companies count on this, all the way to their banks. 5. P&S cameras are lightweight and convenient. With just one P&S camera plus one small wide-angle adapter and one small telephoto adapter weighing just a couple pounds, you have the same amount of zoom range as would require over 15 pounds of DSLR body + lenses. The P&S camera mentioned in the previous example is only 1.3 lbs. The DSLR + expensive lenses that *might* equal it in image quality comes in at 9.6 lbs. of dead-weight to lug around all day (not counting the massive and expensive tripod, et.al.) You can carry the whole P&S kit + accessory lenses in one roomy pocket of a wind-breaker or jacket. The DSLR kit would require a sturdy backpack. You also don't require a massive tripod. Large tripods are required to stabilize the heavy and unbalanced mass of the larger DSLR and its massive lenses. A P&S camera, being so light, can be used on some of the most inexpensive, compact, and lightweight tripods with excellent results. 6. P&S cameras are silent. For the more common snap-shooter/photographer, you will not be barred from using your camera at public events, stage-performances, and ceremonies. Or when trying to capture candid shots you won't so easily alert all those within a block around, by the obnoxious clattering noise that your DSLR is making, that you are capturing anyone's images. For the more dedicated wildlife photographer a P&S camera will not endanger your life when photographing potentially dangerous animals by alerting them to your presence. 7. Some P&S cameras can run the revolutionary CHDK software on them, which allows for lightning-fast motion detection (literally, lightning fast 45ms response time, able to capture lightning strikes automatically) so that you may capture more elusive and shy animals (in still-frame and video) where any evidence of your presence at all might prevent their appearance. Without the need of carrying a tethered laptop along or any other hardware into remote areas--which only limits your range, distance, and time allotted for bringing back that one-of-a-kind image. It also allows for unattended time-lapse photography for days and weeks at a time, so that you may capture those unusual or intriguing subject-studies in nature. E.g. a rare slime-mold's propagation, that you happened to find in a mountain-ravine, 10-days hike from the nearest laptop or other time-lapse hardware. (The wealth of astounding new features that CHDK brings to the creative-table of photography are too extensive to begin to list them all here. See http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK ) 8. P&S cameras can have shutter speeds up to 1/40,000th of a second. See: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures Allowing you to capture fast subject motion in nature (e.g. insect and hummingbird wings) WITHOUT the need of artificial and image destroying flash, using available light alone. Nor will their wing shapes be unnaturally distorted from the focal-plane shutter distortions imparted in any fast moving objects, as when photographed with all DSLRs. (See focal-plane-shutter-distortions example-image link in #10.) 9. P&S cameras can have full-frame flash-sync up to and including shutter-speeds of 1/40,000th of a second. E.g. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_...%26_Flash-Sync without the use of any expensive and specialized focal-plane shutter flash-units that must pulse their light-output for the full duration of the shutter's curtain to pass slowly over the frame. The other downside to those kinds of flash units is that the light-output is greatly reduced the faster the shutter speed. Any shutter speed used that is faster than your camera's X-Sync speed is cutting off some of the flash output. Not so when using a leaf-shutter. The full intensity of the flash is recorded no matter the shutter speed used. Unless, as in the case of CHDK capable cameras where the camera's shutter speed can even be faster than the lightning-fast single burst from a flash unit. E.g. If the flash's duration is 1/10,000 of a second, and your CHDK camera's shutter is set to 1/20,000 of a second, then it will only record half of that flash output. P&S cameras also don't require any expensive and dedicated external flash unit. Any of them may be used with any flash unit made by using an inexpensive slave-trigger that can compensate for any automated pre-flash conditions. Example: http://www.adorama.com/SZ23504.html 10. P&S cameras do not suffer from focal-plane shutter drawbacks and limitations. Causing camera shake, moving-subject image distortions (focal-plane-shutter distortions, e.g. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/ch...istortions.jpg do note the distorted tail-rotor too and its shadow on the ground, 90-degrees from one another), last-century-slow flash-sync, obnoxiously loud slapping mirrors and shutter curtains, shorter mechanical life, easily damaged, expensive repair costs, etc. 11. When doing wildlife photography in remote and rugged areas and harsh environments; or even when the amateur snap-shooter is trying to take their vacation photos on a beach or dusty intersection on some city street; you're not worrying about trying to change lenses in time to get that shot (fewer missed shots), dropping one in the mud, lake, surf, or on concrete while you do; and not worrying about ruining all the rest of your photos that day from having gotten dust & crud on the sensor. For the adventurous photographer you're no longer weighed down by many many extra pounds of unneeded glass, allowing you to carry more of the important supplies, like food and water, allowing you to trek much further than you've ever been able to travel before with your old D/SLR bricks. 12. Smaller sensors and the larger apertures available at longer focal-lengths allow for the deep DOF required for excellent macro-photography when using normal macro or tele-macro lens arrangements. All done WITHOUT the need of any image destroying, subject irritating, natural-look destroying flash. No DSLR on the planet can compare in the quality of available-light macro photography that can be accomplished with nearly any smaller-sensor P&S camera. (To clarify for DSLR owners/promoters who don't even know basic photography principles: In order to obtain the same DOF on a DSLR you'll need to stop down that lens greatly. When you do then you have to use shutter speeds so slow that hand-held macro-photography, even in full daylight, is all but impossible. Not even your highest ISO is going to save you at times. The only solution for the DSLR user is to resort to artificial flash which then ruins the subject and the image; turning it into some staged, fake-looking, studio setup.) 13. P&S cameras include video, and some even provide for CD-quality stereo audio recordings, so that you might capture those rare events in nature where a still-frame alone could never prove all those "scientists" wrong. E.g. recording the paw-drumming communication patterns of eusocial-living field-mice. With your P&S video-capable camera in your pocket you won't miss that once-in-a-lifetime chance to record some unexpected event, like the passage of a bright meteor in the sky in daytime, a mid-air explosion, or any other newsworthy event. Imagine the gaping hole in our history of the Hindenberg if there were no film cameras there at the time. The mystery of how it exploded would have never been solved. Or the amateur 8mm film of the shooting of President Kennedy. Your video-ready P&S camera being with you all the time might capture something that will be a valuable part of human history one day. 14. P&S cameras have 100% viewfinder coverage that exactly matches your final image. No important bits lost, and no chance of ruining your composition by trying to "guess" what will show up in the final image. With the ability to overlay live RGB-histograms, and under/over-exposure area alerts (and dozens of other important shooting data) directly on your electronic viewfinder display you are also not going to guess if your exposure might be right this time. Nor do you have to remove your eye from the view of your subject to check some external LCD histogram display, ruining your chances of getting that perfect shot when it happens. 15. P&S cameras can and do focus in lower-light (which is common in natural settings) than any DSLRs in existence, due to electronic viewfinders and sensors that can be increased in gain for framing and focusing purposes as light-levels drop. Some P&S cameras can even take images (AND videos) in total darkness by using IR illumination alone. (See: Sony) No other multi-purpose cameras are capable of taking still-frame and videos of nocturnal wildlife as easily nor as well. Shooting videos and still-frames of nocturnal animals in the total-dark, without disturbing their natural behavior by the use of flash, from 90 ft. away with a 549mm f/2.4 lens is not only possible, it's been done, many times, by myself. (An interesting and true story: one wildlife photographer was nearly stomped to death by an irate moose that attacked where it saw his camera's flash come from.) 16. Without the need to use flash in all situations, and a P&S's nearly 100% silent operation, you are not disturbing your wildlife, neither scaring it away nor changing their natural behavior with your existence. Nor, as previously mentioned, drawing its defensive behavior in your direction. You are recording nature as it is, and should be, not some artificial human-changed distortion of reality and nature. 17. Nature photography requires that the image be captured with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. NO focal-plane shutter in existence, with its inherent focal-plane-shutter distortions imparted on any moving subject will EVER capture any moving subject in nature 100% accurately. A leaf-shutter or electronic shutter, as is found in ALL P&S cameras, will capture your moving subject in nature with 100% accuracy. Your P&S photography will no longer lead a biologist nor other scientist down another DSLR-distorted path of non-reality. 18. Some P&S cameras have shutter-lag times that are even shorter than all the popular DSLRs, due to the fact that they don't have to move those agonizingly slow and loud mirrors and shutter curtains in time before the shot is recorded. In the hands of an experienced photographer that will always rely on prefocusing their camera, there is no hit & miss auto-focusing that happens on all auto-focus systems, DSLRs included. This allows you to take advantage of the faster shutter response times of P&S cameras. Any pro worth his salt knows that if you really want to get every shot, you don't depend on automatic anything in any camera. 19. An electronic viewfinder, as exists in all P&S cameras, can accurately relay the camera's shutter-speed in real-time. Giving you a 100% accurate preview of what your final subject is going to look like when shot at 3 seconds or 1/20,000th of a second. Your soft waterfall effects, or the crisp sharp outlines of your stopped-motion hummingbird wings will be 100% accurately depicted in your viewfinder before you even record the shot. What you see in a P&S camera is truly what you get. You won't have to guess in advance at what shutter speed to use to obtain those artistic effects or those scientifically accurate nature studies that you require or that your client requires. When testing CHDK P&S cameras that could have shutter speeds as fast as 1/40,000th of a second, I was amazed that I could half-depress the shutter and watch in the viewfinder as a Dremel-Drill's 30,000 rpm rotating disk was stopped in crisp detail in real time, without ever having taken an example shot yet. Similarly true when lowering shutter speeds for milky-water effects when shooting rapids and falls, instantly seeing the effect in your viewfinder. Poor DSLR-trolls will never realize what they are missing with their anciently slow focal-plane shutters and wholly inaccurate optical viewfinders. 20. P&S cameras can obtain the very same bokeh (out of focus foreground and background) as any DSLR by just increasing your focal length, through use of its own built-in super-zoom lens or attaching a high-quality telextender on the front. Just back up from your subject more than you usually would with a DSLR. Framing and the included background is relative to the subject at the time and has nothing at all to do with the kind of camera and lens in use. Your f/ratio (which determines your depth-of-field), is a computation of focal-length divided by aperture diameter. Increase the focal-length and you make your DOF shallower. No different than opening up the aperture to accomplish the same. The two methods are identically related where DOF is concerned. 21. P&S cameras will have perfectly fine noise-free images at lower ISOs with just as much resolution as any DSLR camera. Experienced Pros grew up on ISO25 and ISO64 film all their lives. They won't even care if their P&S camera can't go above ISO400 without noise. An added bonus is that the P&S camera can have larger apertures at longer focal-lengths than any DSLR in existence. The time when you really need a fast lens to prevent camera-shake that gets amplified at those focal-lengths. Even at low ISOs you can take perfectly fine hand-held images at super-zoom settings. Whereas the DSLR, with its very small apertures at long focal lengths require ISOs above 3200 to obtain the same results. They need high ISOs, you don't. If you really require low-noise high ISOs, there are some excellent models of Fuji P&S cameras that do have noise-free images up to ISO1600 and more. 22. Don't for one minute think that the price of your camera will in any way determine the quality of your photography. Any of the newer cameras of around $100 or more are plenty good for nearly any talented photographer today. IF they have talent to begin with. A REAL pro can take an award winning photograph with a cardboard Brownie Box Camera made a century ago. If you can't take excellent photos on a P&S camera then you won't be able to get good photos on a DSLR either. Never blame your inability to obtain a good photograph on the kind of camera that you own. Those who claim they NEED a DSLR are only fooling themselves and all others. These are the same people that buy a new camera every year, each time thinking, "Oh, if I only had the right camera, a better camera, better lenses, faster lenses, then I will be a great photographer!" If they just throw enough money at their hobby then the talent-fairy will come by one day, after just the right offering to the DSLR gods was made, and bestow them with something that they never had in the first place--talent. Camera company's love these people. They'll never be able to get a camera that will make their photography better, because they never were a good photographer to begin with. They're forever searching for that more expensive camera that might one day come included with that new "talent in a box" feature. The irony is that they'll never look in the mirror to see what the real problem has been all along. They'll NEVER become good photographers. Perhaps this is why these self-proclaimed "pros" hate P&S cameras so much. P&S cameras instantly reveal to them their ****-poor photography skills. It also reveals the harsh reality that all the wealth in the world won't make them any better at photography. It's difficult for them to face the truth. 23. Have you ever had the fun of showing some of your exceptional P&S photography to some self-proclaimed "Pro" who uses $30,000 worth of camera gear. They are so impressed that they must know how you did it. You smile and tell them, "Oh, I just use a $150 P&S camera." Don't you just love the look on their face? A half-life of self-doubt, the realization of all that lost money, and a sadness just courses through every fiber of their being. Wondering why they can't get photographs as good after they spent all that time and money. Get good on your P&S camera and you too can enjoy this fun experience. 24. Did we mention portability yet? I think we did, but it is worth mentioning the importance of this a few times. A camera in your pocket that is instantly ready to get any shot during any part of the day will get more award-winning photographs than that DSLR gear that's sitting back at home, collecting dust, and waiting to be loaded up into that expensive back-pack or camera bag, hoping that you'll lug it around again some day. 25. A good P&S camera is a good theft deterrent. When traveling you are not advertising to the world that you are carrying $20,000 around with you. That's like having a sign on your back saying, "PLEASE MUG ME! I'M THIS STUPID AND I DESERVE IT!" Keep a small P&S camera in your pocket and only take it out when needed. You'll have a better chance of returning home with all your photos. And should you accidentally lose your P&S camera you're not out $20,000. They are inexpensive to replace. There are many more reasons to add to this list but this should be more than enough for even the most unaware person to realize that P&S cameras are just better, all around. No doubt about it. The phenomenon of everyone yelling "You NEED a DSLR!" can be summed up in just one short phrase: "If even 5 billion people are saying and doing a foolish thing, it remains a foolish thing." |
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
On Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:29:05 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote:
On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 20:07:24 -0800, Savageduck wrote: On 2008-12-06 17:12:50 -0800, Ronald G. said: On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 17:19:35 -0500, "Charles" wrote: "Robert Sneddon" wrote in message ... In message , SMS writes b) why the P&S makers even feel compelled to include the ability to shoot at high ISO when they know how poorly their products will perform. Bad shot versus no shot at all. The pixel-peeping purists who infest this august forum can't understand it, perhaps but nearly all the pictures taken on any given day are not shot by would-be Ansell Adams types, but are for the memories of the location and the time. A noisy P&S picture is better than no picture at all, and few people are willing to lug a heavy complex DSLR around with them when they are going out somewhere not expressly to take pictures. Camera enthusiasts are not necessarily photographers. DSLR purchasers are not necessarily photographers. The vast majority of them are desperate talentless amateurs thinking they can become a pro by just buying a more expensive camera. There are also the talentless "Pros" who think they can become "Pro" just by opening a store front or printing cards and creating a web site. Just because an amateur/hobbiest, or whatever you might choose to call him/her has the means to buy the best equipment he/she can afford, does not necessarily mean they are talentless. Many amateur/hobbiest are very talented photographers striving to produce the best they can, many times exceding that produced by some talentless pros. There are many amateur/hobbiests who have 20, 30, 40 and more years experience of producing fine photographs without any pretention of calling themselves "Pros". Then there are the "Pros" who believed they had the chops to earn a living with a camera. The vast majority of those end up as hack studio shooters or wedding photographers producing the same old forgettable stuff year after year. They could learn a thing or two from some of those experience amateurs. I will give you there will always be, in any field those who buy the lastest equipment, be it photographic equipment, ski equipment, scuba gear, firearms, etc. who believe that will make them instantly great without putting in the time and dedication to learn what it takes. That is why we are able to get deals on lightly used equipment. They can go back to being snap shot shooters with a P&S, getting those mundane Disneyland vacation pics. BINGO ! Another analogy: better golf clubs will not improve the score of a duffer, yet the professional golfer will always choose the better and more expensive clubs. Dear Resident-Troll, Your reply is completely off-topic. Here are some (new & improved) topics that befit this newsgroup. Please consider them for future discussions and posts: 1. P&S cameras can have more seamless zoom range than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 9mm f2.7 - 1248mm f/3.5.) There are now some excellent wide-angle and telephoto (telextender) add-on lenses for many makes and models of P&S cameras. Add either or both of these small additions to your photography gear and, with some of the new super-zoom P&S cameras, you can far surpass any range of focal-lengths and apertures that are available or will ever be made for larger format cameras. 2. P&S cameras can have much wider apertures at longer focal lengths than any DSLR glass in existence. (E.g. 549mm f/2.4 and 1248mm f/3.5) when used with high-quality telextenders, which do not reduce the lens' original aperture one bit. Following is a link to a hand-held taken image of a 432mm f/3.5 P&S lens increased to an effective 2197mm f/3.5 lens by using two high-quality teleconverters. To achieve that apparent focal-length the photographer also added a small step of 1.7x digital zoom to take advantage of the RAW sensor's slightly greater detail retention when upsampled directly in the camera for JPG output. As opposed to trying to upsample a JPG image on the computer where those finer RAW sensor details are already lost once it's left the camera's processing. (Digital-zoom is not totally empty zoom, contrary to all the net-parroting idiots online.) A HAND-HELD 2197mm f/3.5 image from a P&S camera (downsized only, no crop): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/...1dbdb8ac_o.jpg Note that any in-focus details are cleanly defined to the corners and there is no CA whatsoever. If you study the EXIF data the author reduced contrast and sharpening by 2-steps, which accounts for the slight softness overall. Any decent photographer will handle those operations properly in editing with more powerful tools and not allow a camera to do them for him. A full f/3.5 aperture achieved at an effective focal-length of 2197mm (35mm equivalent). Only DSLRs suffer from loss of aperture due to the manner in which their teleconverters work. P&S cameras can also have higher quality full-frame 180-degree circular fisheye and intermediate super-wide-angle views than any DSLR and its glass for far less cost. Some excellent fish-eye adapters can be added to your P&S camera which do not impart any chromatic aberration nor edge softness. When used with a super-zoom P&S camera this allows you to seamlessly go from as wide as a 9mm (or even wider) 35mm equivalent focal-length up to the wide-angle setting of the camera's own lens. 3. P&S smaller sensor cameras can and do have wider dynamic range than larger sensor cameras E.g. a 1/2.5" sized sensor can have a 10.3EV Dynamic Range vs. an APS-C's typical 7.0-8.0EV Dynamic Range. One quick example: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3142/...7ceaf3a1_o.jpg 4. P&S cameras are cost efficient. Due to the smaller (but excellent) sensors used in many of them today, the lenses for these cameras are much smaller. Smaller lenses are easier to manufacture to exacting curvatures and are more easily corrected for aberrations than larger glass used for DSLRs. This also allows them to perform better at all apertures rather than DSLR glass which usually performs well at only one aperture setting per lens. Side by side tests prove that P&S glass can out-resolve even the best DSLR glass ever made. See this side-by-side comparison for example http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Ca..._results.shtml When adjusted for sensor size, the DSLR lens is creating 4.3x's the CA that the P&S lens is creating, and the P&S lens is resolving almost 10x's the amount of detail that the DSLR lens is resolving. A difficult to figure 20x P&S zoom lens easily surpassing a much more easy to make 3x DSLR zoom lens. After all is said and done you will spend anywhere from 1/10th to 1/50th the price on a P&S camera that you would have to spend in order to get comparable performance in a DSLR camera. To obtain the same focal-length ranges as that $340 SX10 camera with DSLR glass that *might* approach or equal the P&S resolution, it would cost over $6,500 to accomplish that (at the time of this writing). This isn't counting the extra costs of a heavy-duty tripod required to make it functional at those longer focal-lengths and a backpack to carry it all. Bringing that DSLR investment to over 20 times the cost of a comparable P&S camera. When you buy a DSLR you are investing in a body that will require expensive lenses, hand-grips, external flash units, heavy tripods, more expensive larger filters, etc. etc. The outrageous costs of owning a DSLR add up fast after that initial DSLR body purchase. Camera companies count on this, all the way to their banks. 5. P&S cameras are lightweight and convenient. With just one P&S camera plus one small wide-angle adapter and one small telephoto adapter weighing just a couple pounds, you have the same amount of zoom range as would require over 15 pounds of DSLR body + lenses. The P&S camera mentioned in the previous example is only 1.3 lbs. The DSLR + expensive lenses that *might* equal it in image quality comes in at 9.6 lbs. of dead-weight to lug around all day (not counting the massive and expensive tripod, et.al.) You can carry the whole P&S kit + accessory lenses in one roomy pocket of a wind-breaker or jacket. The DSLR kit would require a sturdy backpack. You also don't require a massive tripod. Large tripods are required to stabilize the heavy and unbalanced mass of the larger DSLR and its massive lenses. A P&S camera, being so light, can be used on some of the most inexpensive, compact, and lightweight tripods with excellent results. 6. P&S cameras are silent. For the more common snap-shooter/photographer, you will not be barred from using your camera at public events, stage-performances, and ceremonies. Or when trying to capture candid shots you won't so easily alert all those within a block around, by the obnoxious clattering noise that your DSLR is making, that you are capturing anyone's images. For the more dedicated wildlife photographer a P&S camera will not endanger your life when photographing potentially dangerous animals by alerting them to your presence. 7. Some P&S cameras can run the revolutionary CHDK software on them, which allows for lightning-fast motion detection (literally, lightning fast 45ms response time, able to capture lightning strikes automatically) so that you may capture more elusive and shy animals (in still-frame and video) where any evidence of your presence at all might prevent their appearance. Without the need of carrying a tethered laptop along or any other hardware into remote areas--which only limits your range, distance, and time allotted for bringing back that one-of-a-kind image. It also allows for unattended time-lapse photography for days and weeks at a time, so that you may capture those unusual or intriguing subject-studies in nature. E.g. a rare slime-mold's propagation, that you happened to find in a mountain-ravine, 10-days hike from the nearest laptop or other time-lapse hardware. (The wealth of astounding new features that CHDK brings to the creative-table of photography are too extensive to begin to list them all here. See http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK ) 8. P&S cameras can have shutter speeds up to 1/40,000th of a second. See: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CameraFeatures Allowing you to capture fast subject motion in nature (e.g. insect and hummingbird wings) WITHOUT the need of artificial and image destroying flash, using available light alone. Nor will their wing shapes be unnaturally distorted from the focal-plane shutter distortions imparted in any fast moving objects, as when photographed with all DSLRs. (See focal-plane-shutter-distortions example-image link in #10.) 9. P&S cameras can have full-frame flash-sync up to and including shutter-speeds of 1/40,000th of a second. E.g. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/Samples:_...%26_Flash-Sync without the use of any expensive and specialized focal-plane shutter flash-units that must pulse their light-output for the full duration of the shutter's curtain to pass slowly over the frame. The other downside to those kinds of flash units is that the light-output is greatly reduced the faster the shutter speed. Any shutter speed used that is faster than your camera's X-Sync speed is cutting off some of the flash output. Not so when using a leaf-shutter. The full intensity of the flash is recorded no matter the shutter speed used. Unless, as in the case of CHDK capable cameras where the camera's shutter speed can even be faster than the lightning-fast single burst from a flash unit. E.g. If the flash's duration is 1/10,000 of a second, and your CHDK camera's shutter is set to 1/20,000 of a second, then it will only record half of that flash output. P&S cameras also don't require any expensive and dedicated external flash unit. Any of them may be used with any flash unit made by using an inexpensive slave-trigger that can compensate for any automated pre-flash conditions. Example: http://www.adorama.com/SZ23504.html 10. P&S cameras do not suffer from focal-plane shutter drawbacks and limitations. Causing camera shake, moving-subject image distortions (focal-plane-shutter distortions, e.g. http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/ch...istortions.jpg do note the distorted tail-rotor too and its shadow on the ground, 90-degrees from one another), last-century-slow flash-sync, obnoxiously loud slapping mirrors and shutter curtains, shorter mechanical life, easily damaged, expensive repair costs, etc. 11. When doing wildlife photography in remote and rugged areas and harsh environments; or even when the amateur snap-shooter is trying to take their vacation photos on a beach or dusty intersection on some city street; you're not worrying about trying to change lenses in time to get that shot (fewer missed shots), dropping one in the mud, lake, surf, or on concrete while you do; and not worrying about ruining all the rest of your photos that day from having gotten dust & crud on the sensor. For the adventurous photographer you're no longer weighed down by many many extra pounds of unneeded glass, allowing you to carry more of the important supplies, like food and water, allowing you to trek much further than you've ever been able to travel before with your old D/SLR bricks. 12. Smaller sensors and the larger apertures available at longer focal-lengths allow for the deep DOF required for excellent macro-photography when using normal macro or tele-macro lens arrangements. All done WITHOUT the need of any image destroying, subject irritating, natural-look destroying flash. No DSLR on the planet can compare in the quality of available-light macro photography that can be accomplished with nearly any smaller-sensor P&S camera. (To clarify for DSLR owners/promoters who don't even know basic photography principles: In order to obtain the same DOF on a DSLR you'll need to stop down that lens greatly. When you do then you have to use shutter speeds so slow that hand-held macro-photography, even in full daylight, is all but impossible. Not even your highest ISO is going to save you at times. The only solution for the DSLR user is to resort to artificial flash which then ruins the subject and the image; turning it into some staged, fake-looking, studio setup.) 13. P&S cameras include video, and some even provide for CD-quality stereo audio recordings, so that you might capture those rare events in nature where a still-frame alone could never prove all those "scientists" wrong. E.g. recording the paw-drumming communication patterns of eusocial-living field-mice. With your P&S video-capable camera in your pocket you won't miss that once-in-a-lifetime chance to record some unexpected event, like the passage of a bright meteor in the sky in daytime, a mid-air explosion, or any other newsworthy event. Imagine the gaping hole in our history of the Hindenberg if there were no film cameras there at the time. The mystery of how it exploded would have never been solved. Or the amateur 8mm film of the shooting of President Kennedy. Your video-ready P&S camera being with you all the time might capture something that will be a valuable part of human history one day. 14. P&S cameras have 100% viewfinder coverage that exactly matches your final image. No important bits lost, and no chance of ruining your composition by trying to "guess" what will show up in the final image. With the ability to overlay live RGB-histograms, and under/over-exposure area alerts (and dozens of other important shooting data) directly on your electronic viewfinder display you are also not going to guess if your exposure might be right this time. Nor do you have to remove your eye from the view of your subject to check some external LCD histogram display, ruining your chances of getting that perfect shot when it happens. 15. P&S cameras can and do focus in lower-light (which is common in natural settings) than any DSLRs in existence, due to electronic viewfinders and sensors that can be increased in gain for framing and focusing purposes as light-levels drop. Some P&S cameras can even take images (AND videos) in total darkness by using IR illumination alone. (See: Sony) No other multi-purpose cameras are capable of taking still-frame and videos of nocturnal wildlife as easily nor as well. Shooting videos and still-frames of nocturnal animals in the total-dark, without disturbing their natural behavior by the use of flash, from 90 ft. away with a 549mm f/2.4 lens is not only possible, it's been done, many times, by myself. (An interesting and true story: one wildlife photographer was nearly stomped to death by an irate moose that attacked where it saw his camera's flash come from.) 16. Without the need to use flash in all situations, and a P&S's nearly 100% silent operation, you are not disturbing your wildlife, neither scaring it away nor changing their natural behavior with your existence. Nor, as previously mentioned, drawing its defensive behavior in your direction. You are recording nature as it is, and should be, not some artificial human-changed distortion of reality and nature. 17. Nature photography requires that the image be captured with the greatest degree of accuracy possible. NO focal-plane shutter in existence, with its inherent focal-plane-shutter distortions imparted on any moving subject will EVER capture any moving subject in nature 100% accurately. A leaf-shutter or electronic shutter, as is found in ALL P&S cameras, will capture your moving subject in nature with 100% accuracy. Your P&S photography will no longer lead a biologist nor other scientist down another DSLR-distorted path of non-reality. 18. Some P&S cameras have shutter-lag times that are even shorter than all the popular DSLRs, due to the fact that they don't have to move those agonizingly slow and loud mirrors and shutter curtains in time before the shot is recorded. In the hands of an experienced photographer that will always rely on prefocusing their camera, there is no hit & miss auto-focusing that happens on all auto-focus systems, DSLRs included. This allows you to take advantage of the faster shutter response times of P&S cameras. Any pro worth his salt knows that if you really want to get every shot, you don't depend on automatic anything in any camera. 19. An electronic viewfinder, as exists in all P&S cameras, can accurately relay the camera's shutter-speed in real-time. Giving you a 100% accurate preview of what your final subject is going to look like when shot at 3 seconds or 1/20,000th of a second. Your soft waterfall effects, or the crisp sharp outlines of your stopped-motion hummingbird wings will be 100% accurately depicted in your viewfinder before you even record the shot. What you see in a P&S camera is truly what you get. You won't have to guess in advance at what shutter speed to use to obtain those artistic effects or those scientifically accurate nature studies that you require or that your client requires. When testing CHDK P&S cameras that could have shutter speeds as fast as 1/40,000th of a second, I was amazed that I could half-depress the shutter and watch in the viewfinder as a Dremel-Drill's 30,000 rpm rotating disk was stopped in crisp detail in real time, without ever having taken an example shot yet. Similarly true when lowering shutter speeds for milky-water effects when shooting rapids and falls, instantly seeing the effect in your viewfinder. Poor DSLR-trolls will never realize what they are missing with their anciently slow focal-plane shutters and wholly inaccurate optical viewfinders. 20. P&S cameras can obtain the very same bokeh (out of focus foreground and background) as any DSLR by just increasing your focal length, through use of its own built-in super-zoom lens or attaching a high-quality telextender on the front. Just back up from your subject more than you usually would with a DSLR. Framing and the included background is relative to the subject at the time and has nothing at all to do with the kind of camera and lens in use. Your f/ratio (which determines your depth-of-field), is a computation of focal-length divided by aperture diameter. Increase the focal-length and you make your DOF shallower. No different than opening up the aperture to accomplish the same. The two methods are identically related where DOF is concerned. 21. P&S cameras will have perfectly fine noise-free images at lower ISOs with just as much resolution as any DSLR camera. Experienced Pros grew up on ISO25 and ISO64 film all their lives. They won't even care if their P&S camera can't go above ISO400 without noise. An added bonus is that the P&S camera can have larger apertures at longer focal-lengths than any DSLR in existence. The time when you really need a fast lens to prevent camera-shake that gets amplified at those focal-lengths. Even at low ISOs you can take perfectly fine hand-held images at super-zoom settings. Whereas the DSLR, with its very small apertures at long focal lengths require ISOs above 3200 to obtain the same results. They need high ISOs, you don't. If you really require low-noise high ISOs, there are some excellent models of Fuji P&S cameras that do have noise-free images up to ISO1600 and more. 22. Don't for one minute think that the price of your camera will in any way determine the quality of your photography. Any of the newer cameras of around $100 or more are plenty good for nearly any talented photographer today. IF they have talent to begin with. A REAL pro can take an award winning photograph with a cardboard Brownie Box Camera made a century ago. If you can't take excellent photos on a P&S camera then you won't be able to get good photos on a DSLR either. Never blame your inability to obtain a good photograph on the kind of camera that you own. Those who claim they NEED a DSLR are only fooling themselves and all others. These are the same people that buy a new camera every year, each time thinking, "Oh, if I only had the right camera, a better camera, better lenses, faster lenses, then I will be a great photographer!" If they just throw enough money at their hobby then the talent-fairy will come by one day, after just the right offering to the DSLR gods was made, and bestow them with something that they never had in the first place--talent. Camera company's love these people. They'll never be able to get a camera that will make their photography better, because they never were a good photographer to begin with. They're forever searching for that more expensive camera that might one day come included with that new "talent in a box" feature. The irony is that they'll never look in the mirror to see what the real problem has been all along. They'll NEVER become good photographers. Perhaps this is why these self-proclaimed "pros" hate P&S cameras so much. P&S cameras instantly reveal to them their ****-poor photography skills. It also reveals the harsh reality that all the wealth in the world won't make them any better at photography. It's difficult for them to face the truth. 23. Have you ever had the fun of showing some of your exceptional P&S photography to some self-proclaimed "Pro" who uses $30,000 worth of camera gear. They are so impressed that they must know how you did it. You smile and tell them, "Oh, I just use a $150 P&S camera." Don't you just love the look on their face? A half-life of self-doubt, the realization of all that lost money, and a sadness just courses through every fiber of their being. Wondering why they can't get photographs as good after they spent all that time and money. Get good on your P&S camera and you too can enjoy this fun experience. 24. Did we mention portability yet? I think we did, but it is worth mentioning the importance of this a few times. A camera in your pocket that is instantly ready to get any shot during any part of the day will get more award-winning photographs than that DSLR gear that's sitting back at home, collecting dust, and waiting to be loaded up into that expensive back-pack or camera bag, hoping that you'll lug it around again some day. 25. A good P&S camera is a good theft deterrent. When traveling you are not advertising to the world that you are carrying $20,000 around with you. That's like having a sign on your back saying, "PLEASE MUG ME! I'M THIS STUPID AND I DESERVE IT!" Keep a small P&S camera in your pocket and only take it out when needed. You'll have a better chance of returning home with all your photos. And should you accidentally lose your P&S camera you're not out $20,000. They are inexpensive to replace. There are many more reasons to add to this list but this should be more than enough for even the most unaware person to realize that P&S cameras are just better, all around. No doubt about it. The phenomenon of everyone yelling "You NEED a DSLR!" can be summed up in just one short phrase: "If even 5 billion people are saying and doing a foolish thing, it remains a foolish thing." |
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
"Stephen Bishop" wrote in message ... On Mon, 8 Dec 2008 00:16:49 +0100, Alfred Molon wrote: In article , Stephen Bishop says... On Sun, 7 Dec 2008 15:54:15 +0100, Alfred Molon wrote: In article , Stephen Bishop says... The fact is that if dslr cameras resulted in so many missed shots, then the vast majority of professional photographers wouldn't rely on them to put food on their table. The point simply is that you are more likely to have a small and lightweight camera with you than a huge and heavy one. My camera phone is always with me, but not my DSLR. Better a mediocre photo than none at all. Not always, but that depends on what your goals are. Sometimes a camera phone picture is "good enough." But we're not talking about snapshots. I think the shots of the London bombings were taken with a camera phone. That was the only camera available in that circumstance. Newsworthy images, no doubt. Camera phones are great for those in a pinch if the photos aren't going to be used for anything more. Like forensic analysis, images way too crappy. The irony is they probably "banned" DSLRs on the trains.... |
#110
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The sickening reality of high ISO on a P&S
"Stephen Bishop" wrote in message ... On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:25:01 -0600, Cameron Crest wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:51:08 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:37:47 -0600, Jeremy Calter wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 05:47:39 -0500, Stephen Bishop wrote: On Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:39:01 -0600, Ruben A****er wrote: On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 21:46:46 -0500, "RichA" wrote: "AlbertC." wrote in message news:e27mj4ldhluu4ml85j1dmge8olsoc5m2q9@4ax .com... On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:55:03 +0100, Mxsmanic wrote: SMS writes: ... why the P&S makers even feel compelled to include the ability to shoot at high ISO when they know how poorly their products will perform. Because the most common problems of amateur photography is inadequate exposure, so high ISO is a selling point. Exactly, that's why so many amateurs buy DSLRs. They NEED that high ISO to make up for their lack of skill as real photographers. Yes, much better to use the retard's "scene modes" P&S's are stuffed with. Those are for when you hand your camera to your DSLR-owning friend and they can't cope with using standard manual adjustments on most P&S cameras. If it weren't for auto-everything on their DSLRs they wouldn't buy them. They've forgotten how to use manual camera features and to manually focus. Notice how much they praise their auto-focus every chance they get. And yet, they claim they don't need that if they have an OVF. How self-contradicting they are. To this day I've never used any scene-modes on any of my P&S cameras, one of my more favorite ones doesn't even have any scene-modes. For the same reason that I don't like to use auto-focus on any camera (P&S or D/SLR) and I don't like to trust a camera's exposure meter all that much. It'll give me a good starting point but that's all. Especially on a D/SLR when the exposure reading is thrown off by any light entering the viewfinder's eyepiece or when changing to wide-angle or telephoto lenses. Then you can't trust a D/SLR's meter one bit. No technician in a lab will ever know how to use a camera properly so he'll never know what my camera should do for me. Most of his programmed auto-settings are great for his bench-tests but falls flat in real world situations. You don't win an off-road race with an automatic transmission. Performance must come from the hands and mind of the photographer, not some silly robotic feature that fails to deal with reality 9 times out of 10. That's precisely why most p&s cameras fall short. They simply aren't designed for proper manual operation. Only in the hands of an inept clod. Wrong. P&S cameras are designed for automatic operation with manual override as an afterthought. Manual focus is much more difficult with the p&s. Most dslrs are designed from the ground up with full flexibility in mind, from fully manual to fully automatic operation. Dear Resident-Troll, Many (new & improved) points outlined Your prolific cut and paste skills notwithstanding, it's still true that p&s cameras are designed for automatic operation with manual override as an afterthought. Almost right. With P&S's, all "thought" is afterthought. |
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