Nikon vs Canon and the whole dSLR thing

In article , SMS
wrote:

nospam wrote:

nonsense. *any* nikon f mount lens will work on the d40/d40x,
including the very old non-ai lenses -- something that won't work on
the more expensive nikon bodies. the only loss of functionality is
that manual focus lenses do not meter and non-afs lenses won't
autofocus. since the d40 isn't targetted at someone who has a pile of
old lenses, that is not really a big deal.

You should visit

"http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/nikon_articles/other/compatibility.ht
ml"

and that page confirms what i just said, however, i did forget about
the f3af lenses, but those are fairly obscure anyway.

and

"http://www.aiconversions.com/compatibilitytable.htm"

and that also confirms what i said. one need not read very far either:

Non-AI lenses must be converted before they can be used on any digital
body (except the D40).

to learn about the differnt combinations of body and lens that will and
will not work. It's too much detail for me to go into here or on my we
sites.

first of all, we're discussing the d40 not the entire nikon lineup, and
second, it is actually far simpler than that chart implies. basically,
older lenses work fine on newer bodies and newer lenses generally work
on older bodies but some features may not activate, the obvious case
being autofocus on a pre-autofocus body. early autofocus bodies won't
activate stabilization and any lens without an aperture ring requires a
control on the body. there are minor exceptions such as non-ai lenses
won't work on recent bodies, other than the d40/d40x. it is really
that simple.

on the other hand, the selection of lenses for canon is substantially
less because canon obsoleted *all* of their manual focus lenses.
however, one thing in canon's favour is that there are various adapter
rings available for non-canon lenses. there's no autofocus with those
lenses, and metering sorta works, but not realiably.

LOL, ironically, if you have a collection of Nikon AI lenses, you are
better off buying a Canon digital SLR, and a Nikkor AI to Canon EOS
adapter ring, than buying a Nikon digital SLR, since metering still
works. This is cheaper than paying to get a bunch of lenses modified.
Note that on Nikon's D200 and D2x metering does work with AI lenses (and
presumably on the D3 and D300 as well).

as i said, metering sorta works. it is stop-down metering and it isn't
linear, which means it can vary from correct exposure. this is
actually worse because the user might think that because it is correct
at one f/stop, all others are correct too. if they don't chimp (just
as they need to do with nikon), they might be in for a surprise later.

Canon produced a professional quality adapter when they obsoleted their
old lens mount, for those that wanted to use their old manual focus lenses.

yes they did. canon made two: the cheaper one lacked an optical
element, and therefore could not focus to infinity, while the more
expensive one had an optical element and functioned as a 1.26x
teleconverter, thus costing about 2/3rd of an f/stop. it was also only
compatible with very few fd mount lenses because the optical element
could collide with the rear element of the lens. and if that wasn't
enough, it was not available to the public; it was only sold via canon
professional services. here's a picture of it, along with a list of
which lenses work:
http://www.wildpicture.com/pages/photography/fdsystem/fdeos.htm

You should look at

??

"Paul Furman" wrote in message
et...
John Ortt wrote:
"David J Taylor" wrote
John Ortt wrote:
"frederick" wrote
Daniel Silevitch wrote:

For example, the D300 has vs the Canon 5d:

100% viewfinder.

If so I am absolutely amazed from a professional product.

The 5D is a budget full frame camera, not a top of the line pro model.

Regardless for a camera which will clearly attract professionals to not show
the image you are taking through the viewfinder is a serious flaw. How big a
difference are we talking here, a few pixels or everything beyond the crop
factor?

It's a reasonable compromise for the price. I'm amazed the D300 has a 100%
viewfinder. Canon & Nikon have always staggered the features & prices on
their various models so they are never directly competing.

I will reserve judgement until I use one but it is a great concern
cnsiddering I have dreampt of a 5D ever since it came out.

"John Ortt" wrote:
"Paul Furman" wrote:

For example, the D300 has vs the Canon 5d:

100% viewfinder.

If so I am absolutely amazed from a professional product.

The 5D is a budget full frame camera, not a top of the line pro model.

Regardless for a camera which will clearly attract professionals to not
show the image you are taking through the viewfinder is a serious flaw.
How big a difference are we talking here, a few pixels or everything
beyond the crop factor?

The difference is 5%. If you carefully frame, you get a bit extra.

Most SLRs (digital or otherwise) show a slightly cropped view. Until the
D300, it was only the "pro" cameras that showed 100%. In film cameras, the
Nikon F100 was 96% and the EOS 3 was 97%. And those were real nice cameras.

I will reserve judgement until I use one but it is a great concern
cnsiddering I have dreampt of a 5D ever since it came out.

A 100% finder is better. Is it enough to make up for not being FF?

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Oct 11, 12:53 pm, "John Ortt"
wrote:
"Paul Furman" wrote in message

et...

John Ortt wrote:
"David J Taylor" wrote
John Ortt wrote:
"frederick" wrote
Daniel Silevitch wrote:

For example, the D300 has vs the Canon 5d:

100% viewfinder.

If so I am absolutely amazed from a professional product.

The 5D is a budget full frame camera, not a top of the line pro model.

Regardless for a camera which will clearly attract professionals to not show
the image you are taking through the viewfinder is a serious flaw. How big a
difference are we talking here, a few pixels or everything beyond the crop
factor?

It's completely inconsequential. Don't worry about it.


It's a reasonable compromise for the price. I'm amazed the D300 has a 100%
viewfinder. Canon & Nikon have always staggered the features & prices on
their various models so they are never directly competing.

I will reserve judgement until I use one but it is a great concern
cnsiddering I have dreampt of a 5D ever since it came out.

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 20:18:04 +0900, "David J. Littleboy"
wrote:


"John Ortt" wrote:
"Paul Furman" wrote:

For example, the D300 has vs the Canon 5d:

100% viewfinder.

If so I am absolutely amazed from a professional product.

The 5D is a budget full frame camera, not a top of the line pro model.

Regardless for a camera which will clearly attract professionals to not
show the image you are taking through the viewfinder is a serious flaw.
How big a difference are we talking here, a few pixels or everything
beyond the crop factor?

The difference is 5%. If you carefully frame, you get a bit extra.

Most SLRs (digital or otherwise) show a slightly cropped view. Until the
D300, it was only the "pro" cameras that showed 100%. In film cameras, the
Nikon F100 was 96% and the EOS 3 was 97%. And those were real nice cameras.

I will reserve judgement until I use one but it is a great concern
cnsiddering I have dreampt of a 5D ever since it came out.

A 100% finder is better. Is it enough to make up for not being FF?

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan


You're forgetting to figure in the exposure errors when changing lenses with
different focal-lengths. Zoom lenses causing exposure-accuracy nightmares. No
DSLR can compensate for that accurately. If any stray light from the viewfinder
gets in it will effect the exposure reading too. Better keep that eye pressed to
the viewfinder really tight. Add that up with the inaccurate framing, and ....
you can keep it. I wouldn't want one even if someone gave it to me. I demand
more accuracy of my cameras than that. You might as well just use an antique
twin-lens reflex film camera, at least you'll get some of the accurate framing
back. They can put a man on the moon 40 years ago, but they still can't get
accurate framing from an SLR design. Well, what do you expect when idiots that
just bend over and take it are still this easily brainwashed into buying them.
They get what they pay for! LOL!

"Allen" wrote:
acl wrote:

It's completely inconsequential. Don't worry about it.

Hmm. I'd like to see the whole image in the viewfinder. Kudos to Nikon.
(Actually, it's more complicated than that. I find the Canon 1-series
viewfinders seriously wonderful, and all the others not as good. Including
the 5D. Nikon's pro viewfinders are great, too. I should remember to check
out the D200 viewfinder next time I'm at the camera store.)

I believe that somewhere down the line somebody got confused and thought
that "95%" meant that the recorded image was only 95% of the VF image.

Interesting. I missed that.

It is actually the opposite: the recorded image contains about 5% _more_
data than the VF.

Correct.

The film SLRs that I had in the past had similar BFs and it was a problem
only with slides--and not a _big_ problem with them. When printing, I was
clever enough to crop what I didn't want--not exactly a "rocket scientist"
level issue.

When slides are projected, they are put in a mount that blocks off about 5%
of the area.

My memory has it that back in the good old days, the 95% viewfinders were
advertised as being an advantage for slide shooting, which was apparently
most of what people shot back then.

Nowadays, people say that they're cheaper because (a) smaller is cheaper and
(b) not having to align perfectly accurately is cheaper. Maybe. I don't
know.

Back in the 60s and 70s, I only shot B&W medium format, but my impression is
that Kodachrome 32 and 64 were seriously amazing films, and that lots of
people used them in 35mm.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On Oct 11, 3:40 pm, "David J. Littleboy" wrote:
"Allen" wrote:
acl wrote:

It's completely inconsequential. Don't worry about it.

Hmm. I'd like to see the whole image in the viewfinder.

Sure, me too. If I had to choose between two cameras, the D900 and the
D900.0001, which differ only in that the viewfinders show 95% and
100%, respectively, and cost the same, I'd go for the D900.0001.
However, if the D900 also had a thread in the shutter release to use
mechanical remote releases, or cost 20 euro less, I'd get that
instead. That's about how much importance I'd attach to it.

On 10/11/07 8:40 AM, in article
, "David J. Littleboy"
wrote:

Back in the 60s and 70s, I only shot B&W medium format, but my impression is
that Kodachrome 32 and 64 were seriously amazing films, and that lots of
people used them in 35mm.

There were folks who thought that anything but the original Kodachrome 25
was junk. They would not touch the 64.

"David J. Littleboy" wrote in message
...

"John Ortt" wrote:
"Paul Furman" wrote:

For example, the D300 has vs the Canon 5d:

100% viewfinder.

If so I am absolutely amazed from a professional product.

The 5D is a budget full frame camera, not a top of the line pro model.

Regardless for a camera which will clearly attract professionals to not
show the image you are taking through the viewfinder is a serious flaw.
How big a difference are we talking here, a few pixels or everything
beyond the crop factor?

The difference is 5%. If you carefully frame, you get a bit extra.

Most SLRs (digital or otherwise) show a slightly cropped view. Until the
D300, it was only the "pro" cameras that showed 100%. In film cameras, the
Nikon F100 was 96% and the EOS 3 was 97%. And those were real nice
cameras.

I will reserve judgement until I use one but it is a great concern
cnsiddering I have dreampt of a 5D ever since it came out.

A 100% finder is better. Is it enough to make up for not being FF?


I'm feeling a bit happier again now

Newsnet wrote:

Greetings Aniramca,

Interesting review. Just thought I would note that it was Kodak that
invented the digital camera. It was also Kodak that provided digital cameras
to our troops in desert storm (1990). This kind of camera was introduced
shortly after to the professional marketplace. Long before Nikon and Canon
has a product.

I do not recall ever seeing a Fujifilm digital camera until later.

Kodak did not get into the general market (point and shoot) of digital
cameras until later with the introduction of the DC20 in 1996.

Since you were interested in the history of digital cameras I thought you
might want to know these facts.

Talk to you soon,

Ron Baird
Eastman Kodak Company

cut earlier messages, for brevity

Hello, Ron:

You're preachin' to the choir, now, pal! :-P Although, I'd already known
that Kodak's innovative technology had brought digital photography to
the world, I was still unaware of the company's important contributions
to "Operation Desert Storm."


Cordially,
John Turco