Bigger Sensors in Pro-sumer cameras ???

[Tobias]

Well ..we have come a long way in a few short years with digital cameras ...it seems to me now that there is a market out there for a particular kind of camera that a lot of folks are looking for. With the big names of Nikon , Canon , Sony etc all coming out with similar 8 meg cameras with a built in zoom ...the so called Pro-sumer camera or upscale Digicam ....they are certainly taking notice of consumers demands ....( the Pro's ..semi- Pros ..and Advanced Amateurs I'm referring to ).

Seems to me that this group is looking for exceptional quality in a camera with a built in zoom ..and I certainly am looking for this. What I would like to see is a camera with a say 28-200 lens ..insignificant CA ....and very minimal noise up to 400 ISO. I would like to see the 2/3 sensor gone from this particular market ..and replaced by a thouroughy tested 1"(3/3) or maybe 4/3 sensor. I want the camera to feel like a thoroughbred ..heavy and all metal ..( well fairly heavy anyway ....makes for steady shots).....minimal pincushion and barrel distortion and great sharpness and color.
Now if all this makes the camera larger so be it ...I dont want quality compromised for a 20% larger camera. I think noise and CA are some of the huge problems that consumers just wont tolerate any more in a flexible Prosumer camera. If this puts the camera into the Pro level ...even better ..lots of Pros out there would love to have the flexibilty of a built in zoom .

About these small sensors and noise.....Hopefully there will be a lot of R&D done here to give the consumer what they want ...one option could be going to an Optics block (Prism ) and splitting the RGB on to 3 separate sensors each sensor could be about 1" (3/3) and from 3 to 6 megs each (9-18megapixels) with larger pixel pitch and lots of space around the pixels. This might seem like it takes up a lot of space in the camera ..but it wouldnt really ...the camera and lens would be about the size of an SLR. Foveon are layering their silicon chip ..and this is OK ..but splitting RGB onto 3 sensors would be a better way to go. The image results from this would meet the consumers quality demands ...and the R&D expense would be re-couped with huge sales ..and market domination for years.

I was really attracted to the 300D with its large sensor and features until I actually felt the camera in my hand ..eewwwww ... that cheap plastic body thing looks and feels soooo tacky ..I hope all these manufacturers get it right 1 day at least once ...just build a camera that feels like a heavy duty pro camera ...make it all metal and black and make it feel like it weighs a ton for good stability ( well not quite a ton lol ) ...oh and stop making 2/3 size sensors ...just start at least with 1" sensors( test those and if it works ..use it ) ..oh and just make it manual focus and zoom ..no trick power focus ..( just like a real 35mm )....throw a decent piece of glass on the front ..( 28mm to 200mm works fine ..aperture around 2- 2.4 ) and of course fluorite the hell out of it so its crisp ..and please just dont put it on the market until the CA is almost gone ...and the noise is not apparent up to 400 asa..Dont worry about competing at $999 bucks ...YOU make the right Pro-sumer that the Con-sumer is looking for and the sales will dictate the selling price!What the consumer wants is a PRO camera ( or darn close ) with just 1 zoom lens built in !...I'll bet the first manufacturer to come up with this camera will be the market leader for a very long time !

PS ...having worked with film cameras like Mitchell, Arriflex & Panavision ..you really feel the quality from a solidly built camera ....and ya dont shoot high end TV commercials and Features on 16mm .only 35 mm( too much grain (noise) )....likewise ya dont make high end digital pictures with small chips . Just my 2 cents worth lol !
Cheers ...Tobias.
:D

[Andy_T]

Hi Tobias,

nice first post, welcome to the forum!

(Maybe try to structure your next posts a wee bit more, it might make reading it easiser for other people :lol: )

I basically agree with the things you wish for in a camera ... but I'm just not sure if there are enough people with your wishes and the willingness to spend considerable $$$ for the major manufacturers to jump on that train .

Right now most manufacturers are trying to convince the customer that smaller sensors (that are cheaper to produce) are better because you get wider reach due to the crop factor. Full frame or near-full-frame cameras like the 1D and 1Ds are the exception, not the rule and fiendishly expensive.

Nuff said ... maybe you should take a look at the 10D and some quality lenses ... that combo might satisfy a lot of the wishes you put on your list (I didn't read 'compact size').

Regards,
Andy

[Duke107]

Well I agree with Tobias, I, and many others would likely pay the price for such a cam, I think the Pro 1 is another step towards that (just a step). I have said this before, this is not all about quality, its about profits and knowing what your compitition is expected to release as the next cam and pairing or slightly outdoing them. This is a new massive money game to these manufactures and they are going to milk this cow to death. Producing such a cam could be the death of these companies as just like the light bulb, easily produced to not burn out but truth is the manufacture needs them to burn out!!!

[KRDV]

Tobias,

You seem quite knowledgeable about these issues so my question is why a DSLR doesn't fit your requirements? Those looking for a "prosumer" camera are typically concerned about price (at least somewhat) but mostly versatility and size (hence the fixed lenses and smaller lenses and chips). My understanding is that right now the tecnology requires certain tradeoffs, although at this point I would probably like the Pro1 better if it were 6 MP (not 8).

[Tobias]

Hi again ,
well I dont have anything against DSLR's for those who need their requirements . I know photographers who shoot still promos for motion pictures who use them and have been since the early Nikons were$25,000 ! They have the luxury of recouping their investment with high salaries and contracts ...so they can afford the best on the market and of course the best set of matched prime lenses they can factory order !
For me however I would just like the flexibility of carrying 1 camera with a built in zoom ....28 - 200 is just fine . I just think their is a large market out their for Pro's , Semi- Pro's and Advanced Amateurs who want to see really high quality from a camera with a zoom lens built in. It will happen ...they are getting much closer ..their is much interest in the new Canon Powershot Pro1 ...myself included .... I still stand firm tho that when the emphasis is now put on the right sensor for this type of camera then their will be a product out their to meet the needs of numerous photo buffs.
What the manufacturers ( and consumers) really need is to just remove this digicam stigma thing and let them know the exact things they need in a Professional fixed zoom lens camera. The average person will not need this criteria and will be happy with many of the fine digicams already on the market . Many of us however need to up the ante with our requirements.
Cheers and thanks for your feedback.....Tobias.

[WW50]

Tobias...

I know exactly what you are talking about..a dream camera. I have my ideas of what I want also. But even with the unbelievable advances that have been made in digital technology over the last few years I don't think
the industry can produce it profitably even yet. I have an avid interest in photography, and read almost everything I can get my hands on about cameras, techniques, etc. But you and I, and the members of this and other forums, are still a very small percentage of the customers who buy cameras. I think that cameras have to be produced that will sell to the highest number of people.

When I am at a store that carries digital cameras I always browse just
to see what's there and to touch cameras that I have read about. Many times a salesman is talking to customers and it seems that most of them are looking at the lower end of the spectrum. If the salesperson is enthusiastic, and tells them some of the neat things the camera will do, the customers seem only mildly interested.

This is just my perspective....I certainly don't disagree with what you are saying about what you want..I want it too.

Wendell

[Willard]

Tobias,
ever see canon FD converted to arriflex mount

[sdommin]

Tobias,

While there's no such thing as the "perfect camera", many of the features that you want are already incorporated in the Sony R1. Or should I say "were incorporated", because it appears that stocks of the R1 are getting low, probably because Sony is concentrating on their new DSLR.

[Jon]

Tobias,

While there's no such thing as the "perfect camera", many of the features that you want are already incorporated in the Sony R1. Or should I say "were incorporated", because it appears that stocks of the R1 are getting low, probably because Sony is concentrating on their new DSLR.You're looking at a 2 year old post, folks. Move along.

[DavidW]

This is an old post - but it's interesting to comment on because it shows how the marketplace has changed. With cheaper DSLRs, "advanced compacts" and "bridge" cameras have been disappearing.


This post (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=1661006) and, indeed, the rest of that thread are relevant to this discussion.


Once you switch to a larger image sensor (for lower noise), it gets harder to make a lens to match - especially a superzoom type lens. You finish up with something expensive and heavy.

I once handled an EF 28-300mm L IS, which I found heavy and unwieldy, even though I'm used to the still quite heavy EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. The 28-300mm is a relatively slow f/3.5-5.6 lens and has fairly obvious optical compromises at both ends of the zoom. However, if you need such a zoom range in one lens, it's a valuable tool.

You could get some weight saving by designing the lens with a smaller image circle than that needed for 35mm full frame, but it's still going to be a big, heavy lens.


4/3 inch is somewhat larger than APS-C (22mm x 15mm - so a diagonal of 26.6mm, or a little over an inch). The only APS-C "advanced compact" is the Sony R1, which I also suspect will quietly disappear and not be replaced now that Sony have the former Konica Minolta DSLR system, which they're taking forwards as Alpha with quite an interesting feature set on the new body.


I suspect that beam splitting is a non-starter. You can do it in a video camera - but the resolution is much lower than that you're talked about in this thread. Aligning the thing and keeping it in alignment would be very difficult, and therefore expensive.

If you want high resolution, digital medium format exists. Hasselblad will be happy to part you with a sizeable chunk of cash for an H2D-39. I'm 99% sure the back is Bayer pattern. There doesn't seem to have been any advances with Foveon recently. What's so wrong with a Bayer pattern sensor anyway? Demosaicing has got very good these days.


Coming back to reality, if you're going to spend a fair amount of money on a camera, it makes sense to have removeable lenses so that you can choose the right lens for the job, and so that you don't finish up with an excellent lens permanently attached to an obsolete camera. An optical viewfinder is nice - lo and behold, you have a DSLR.

Not all DSLRs entirely follow the 35mm paradigm. Four Thirds attempts to take a middle way - it's a 2.0x crop system with a 4:3 aspect ratio. Olympus and Panasonic are putting a fair amount of effort into this format, but it has nothing like the market presence of Canon and Nikon.

Modern DSLRs have good performance up to ISO 800. Beyond that, noise is present, but not always objectionable. I get excellent ISO 1600 pictures from my 20D, and I've also got plenty of usable ISO 3200 shots.


A 30D, which isn't that much more expensive than the 350D (the 300D now being obsolete) is certainly not a plastic box, especially with the battery grip and a fairly hefty lens attached.


As I mentioned in this thread (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=192525), the marketplace is basically after small compacts, superzooms and DSLRs. Many worthy cameras in what could be described as the "advanced compact" or "bridge" market sectors have disappeared without replacement - including the G6, Pro 1 and more recently and even more quietly, the S80. It seems that people won't pay extra for these cameras - they'll jump to DSLRs instead, which have dropped greatly in price.


I guess it's like all things - the market matures, as has certainly happened with digital cameras. Bayer sensors are the norm, demosaicing algorithms are good, and most digital cameras (ignoring expensive kit such as digital medium format, digital view cameras and the like) fall into the "compact", "superzoom" or DSLR brackets now, with most of the mould-breaking cameras being discontinued without replacement.


Finally, Jon, I wonder if it's worth having a warning if you try to post to a thread that's more than a year old. Something along the lines of "this discussion happened more than a year ago, some or all of the members involved may have moved on, and it's best to start a new thread unless you're wanting to talk about exactly the same thing" - though worded a whole bunch better. I know of one technical forum where you can't post to threads more than about four months old - you get a "too old" error.

We seem to see a lot of people new to the forum hunting for something, then posting on a very old thread, which isn't always noticeable. Starting a new thread is usually a better idea, though people seem to find the New Topic button quite hard to find sometimes. I remember once someone asking in an existing thread how to start a new topic!



David

[Terrywoodenpic]

Larger sensors mean bigger cameras.
The mass market likes small.
The specialist area has room for Large sensor DSLR's and Technical Compacts.(for want of a better word)
As sensors improve the 4/3rd size sensor makes a lot of sense.
Five years on and the development of new sorts of sensors The 4/3rd size will be better than full 35mm today, this is far better than most people need.
Those in that market and making lenses to suite will have a head start.
With inexpensive software like PTLens there is no need for lenses to correct for pincushion and barrel distortion. It can be added to in camera processing.
as a result lenses can be made even smaller.

I suspect that Camera makers are moving in the right direction, To keep the industry moving on and profitable.
Quality and progress, will reach a point where specialist camers will need to be produced in order to keep interest in the market place.
This was the case with film, and digital seems to be following a similar route.

[sdommin]

You're looking at a 2 year old post, folks. Move along.

The subject matter is still relevant, so if you don't mind, let us decide whether or not to comment about it. If necessary, lock or delete the thread. Then we'll "move along".

[CyberDyneSystems]

Scott,. I think your taking Jon's post a little too strongly.

Poeple were telling somone about a camera that had been made that fit the bill (Sony R1) to the OP who posted two years ago when the camera did not exist is all.

It is interesting to see that in fact the OP eventually got most of what he asked for, in the Sony R1 (so far)
Unfortunately I don't think the demand for this camera is living up to Sony's expacrtations, so it may be a while before we see another.

As mentioned,. in the two years since,. 6 and 8 MP DSLR prices have dropped so low that the transition camera is if no import if it is priced as Sony's R1 was (ie a lot more than a 6-8MP DSLR)

[DavidW]

I took Jon's warning to be pointing out that someone had woken up an old thread and that the original poster probably wasn't after an answer any more.

That doesn't stop us commenting on the thread - I found it interesting, anyway.



David

[Andy_T]

The original poster obviously got a Pro-1 which - apart from the large sensor and low noise - has many of the requirements he stated.
Let's hope he is happy with us.

For all the others wishing for a similar model, the success (or possibly lack thereof) of the Sony DSC-R1 should give a good indication of whether DSLRs are the way to go or not. My personal guess is that a 350D with 200/2.8L is a lot smaller than a fast large-sensor/long-zoom compact camera...

Best regards,
Andy