Question for DSLR Users

[kd6lor]

I have been a SLR user since the 70's and have been using a G2 exclusively for 6 months. At first I refused to use the monitor to compose my pics. Now that I have been using the LCD panel to compose my pics, I am afraid I would miss it if I went to a DSLR.

To those of you who used a G1 or G2 then migrated to a D30 or other DSLR, do you miss it? Was it hard to get back into the viewfinder?

Paul

[oops]

Hi Paul,

I have a G1 and never used the viewfinder. I love the LCD but never realized how much until I purchased the D30. I don't miss the LCD a lot; I MISS IT A LOT!!:~(

The G1 was my first digi-cam and I guess I took the LCD for granted as a "digi-cam given". Give me a "better" camera than the D30 and it would be SLR, have a LCD, and histogram.

As a side note; when I first got my G1, I took it with me everywhere. The D30 was like the new puppy who took the old dog's place for a while.

Now, as I leave for work, they both wait by the back door to see who gets to ride in the truck today. The G1 has re-gained the passenger's seat in the pickup as I think she always knew she would. LCD and portability of high quality images on_the_fly is more important to me right now than EOS lens compatability (I never had any to start with).

Just where I've found myself, lately. Hope it helps with your question.

[kd6lor]

Dear Mr or Ms Oops,

It does answer my question. I also carry my camera a lot. We have two small children, and we do a lot of theme parks, soccer games, etc. I would love to get back into an SLR, but am worried about the size of the camera and a second lens or two compared to the G2, which I carry without thinking. When I look at my pictures, I wonder what I would have gotten with a better camera, and then I wonder if I would have been carrying that better camera. It is a tough question for me to answer, and without a clear answer, I should keep it in my pants. My wallet, that is.

Today I printed one of those shadowed hallway type of pictures that you see all over the place and was quite pleased with the quality of the image. Maybe I should be patient and see what a year or so has to offer in the DSLR market.

One other difference that I am almost embarrased to mention is the ability to capture those grainy AVI's. I have a couple of good ones showing the kids in motion. The voices, tinny over the recording, and the blocky jumpy video are a perfectionists nightmare, but sure bring a smile to my face.

I wonder where the future of DSLR's will be. Question for those who like this kind of thing. Do you think in the near future - 5 years for the sake of argument - that the image sensor will become full frame, or the cameras and lenses will become smaller? It seems that the current disparity between the size of the sensor and the design of the lense needs to be resolved before DSLR's will truly become a film SLR replacement.

Paul




Note to Pekka, please disregard email sent recently. I was able to post ( obviously ) after deleting my cookies. Being unable to post, I thought I was banned somehow. Glad to know I am still welcome.

PJ

[D30man MI]

There already is a 1:1 Dslr. The Contax 6mp. for $7000. and very pricy lenses.


They can't make the lenses smaller, this is photography, the word PHOTO means light. The bigger the lens, the more light, the better pic.

I sell cameras and I show someone a bigger camera like the G2 and they want a small camera for vacation. I always take the time to tell them that if I were going on vacation I wouldn't think of taking a compact camera, because I would want the best pics i could get! Hince the many SLR's at Disney world, etc.

As far as sports, the g1 and g2 have 3x zooms... BOOOO, My d60 is on order, but i was useing a D30, and I had a 70-210 F3.5-4.5 at 210, that was like 320 @f4.5... WAY better than 102mm zoom the g2 has.

The chip size has everything to do with it, and you need big glass to do it. Point & shoot will never be professional, not even Minilux from leica, (spelling?).

About the LCD, they suck in low light, they are birght grey, and you can't see anything. Of course you can use the view finder, but that's not looking out the lens.

I was trying to take a pic of my girlfriend, and her friend on the beach, with a nicely lit 5 mile long bridge behind them, at night, flash, with 3 sec exp. I couldn't see anything in the LCD except a few dots, (lights on the bridge). I looked through the viewfinder, and i could see everything great, BUT i was useing a 1.5x tele converter, and of course the viewfinder doesn't know that, and i can't see what i'm really getting. I MISSED THE SHOT!! :*(

The D60 will have a birght viewfinder, and it's an SLR, so whatever you have on it, you'll see what you're gonna get, and besides, you get to check it once you've taken it. It's way more pro, and when I use my girlfriends Canon S30 point & shoot, i feel funny holding it 1.5 feet from my face, it's like, why not put it all the way up to my face. It seems people want to hold it out like that to show people they have a digital camera. Not to mention holding it up to your face add MUCH stability to the camera.

I think it would be hard for them to give the LCD a live feed when you can change lenses.. that might hurt the AF. It will be cool to see what they come up with.


Dave

[kd6lor]

d30man MI wrote:
There already is a 1:1 Dslr. The Contax 6mp. for $7000. and very pricy lenses.


They can't make the lenses smaller, this is photography, the word PHOTO means light. The bigger the lens, the more light, the better pic.

I sell cameras
Dave



Dave, thanks for the reply. You need to check your facts on this one. Imagine please a shotgun shell that contains 100 pellets. Imagine only 30 hit the target and kill it. Now if you could use a shell with only 30 pellets, but each pellet would hit it's target you could use a smaller shell. You understand that the sensor in the D30 is not the same size as a 35 mm frame, right? Where did the extra photon's go, the ones that would have filled a 35mm frame? Not on the sensor. They were wasted, along with the expensive glass that directed the photons. This is why you sell G2's with small fast lenses. while 35 mm SLR lenses of the same speed and focal length are larger diameter.

Unfortunately with a D-30 or D-60 camera you are carrying a lot of wasted glass. This is why these digital cameras need higher performance lenses than 35 mm SLR film cameras to hide the design limitations of the lens. All the photons ( PHOTO means light here too ) that hit the sensor are going through a smaller area of glass effectively magnifiying the aberations in that area of the glass.

If the area of the sensor is 50% the size of a full frame of 35mm film, my guess is the lens could be 50% the size it is now. This is outside my area of expertise, and the ratio may be different, but should be proportional to the square of the radius of the image, the sensor/film having to fit in a round plane of focus of the lens.

I don't doubt that faster lenses for digital cameras can be made smaller than the 35mm lenses used on these cameras today, the question is when if ever will digital SLR's become prevalent enough for Canon etal, to design a smaller body and smaller lenses for the cameras. Sounds like more profit margin for the companies if they can sell smaller pieces of glass for what I am sure won't be a proportional decrease in cost. It probably won't be for a while, but my guess is that you will be selling them in the not too distant future.

Don't feel bad about the camera lesson. Not a day goes by when I fail to learn something about my profession. In fact if a day goes by when I don't learn something, I wonder how I managed to waste a day.


Paul

[prosurfer]

kd6lor wrote:
Unfortunately with a D-30 or D-60 camera you are carrying a lot of wasted glass. This is why these digital cameras need higher performance lenses than 35 mm SLR film cameras to hide the design limitations of the lens.

IMHO, quite the opposite. Most of the design challenges on the lenses are effective on the outer are of the lens, and the central area is the least distorted part. D30 and others just crop the middle of the image the lens provides, and thus the light coming through the "worst" part of the lens is not at all in the image.

+janne

[prosurfer]

kd6lor wrote:
To those of you who used a G1 or G2 then migrated to a D30 or other DSLR, do you miss it? Was it hard to get back into the viewfinder?


No, not at all.

+janne

[boBquincy]

I use a Kodak DC4800 and a Canon D30. Raised on SLRs, I do not care for the LCD screen but greatly prefer a viewfinder.

The Kodak really needs the screen for close-ups but otherwise I only use it to confirm my exposure is close and that no one walked in front of my lens while I was getting the image. Being over 50 may have something to do with this, the LCD is just too small for serious use.

With my D30 I use the screen much like on My Kodak except not for close-ups (I can't use it that way anyway).

I like the Kodak for it's size and good performance but when the light gets tricky there is no substitute for a serious camera, the D30.

Viewfinders rule! ;)

boB

[kd6lor]

To those who wondered, I was not saying premium lenses are a waste on the D30 etal, but that you are carying a lot of glass that is not involved in imaging your subject. Thus wasted glass refered to the part of the lense that does not contribute to the final image.

Paul

[Leighow]

A camera is a compromise! A balance between resources, abilities and aspirations.

1: I have been looking thru the viewfinder of my Minolta SR-1 for 40 years. I still love its manual focusing and a glass lens with an f/11 or smaller aperture. But, do not miss its hand held metering, or its lack of instantaneous “developing”, or its bulk when fitted with a zoom lens -- that seems to encourage my travel companions to restrict all “en route” photo composition times to about 90 seconds.

2: I treat my new-this-Xmas G2 as an SLR because I love the viewfinder’s cold on the face SLR feel as well as the way its zooms alongside the primary lens. However, I do not love its under sized view of final images, or its inability to “report” lens flare, or its parallax.. So too, I do not love the G2’s auto focus, its smallest f/8 aperture., its limited telephoto, or its LCD that disappears against bright or dull snow light.

3: Looking back -- no matter whether I traveled with my 40 year old SLR (capable zoom), or my new G2 (shoot a fast set), or one of my kid’s Olympus (point-and-shoot) -- I consider that at least one shot each trip was “wonderful” because the camera that I selected for the trip offered either .. the right lens ... the right resolution .. or the incentive to shoot a set of closely similar shots.

I think that you will:
· readapt rapidly to a viewfinder
· not miss the LCD in bright light or when you have no intentions of setting up your tripod.
· be glad to have the longer lens for those soccer games (I did).
· find that for visits to theme parks or more rough and tumble events, you will may still just want to load some film into your old SLR and leave the expensive real estate at home.


HOWIE

[D30man MI]

PAUL, a lesson? Please, I'm the districts digital trainer, I've used every digital camera we sell.

The other guy was right, most distortion is on the outter rim of the lenses light gathering. Therefore, you're only croping out the worst part anyway.

I will agree there is some wasted light, the lenses were built for 35mm film, but Canon would never spend millions on makeing new lenses for the D30. Canon makes lenses that will sell for 5 to 10 years before they make an upgrade. example: my 135 f2 L was introduced in 1995, and its still a great lens that people buy. So makeing new lenses would prob put them out of business. because it would only be fore the d30 and d60.

One of the best things that SELLS a D30 is that you can use all your AF lenses on it.

Canon will soon make a 1:1 chip, it's prob going to be in all the new Dslr's after the D60. The 1D is so good because it only has a 1.3x shift.

It's only a matter of time before all the glass is used. In 5 years no one would buy a camera that doesn't have a 1:1 chip. The point & shoot digital cameras HAVE to increase the chip size because all the 5MP cameras suck. They are way to noisey, and there is no color saturation.

When i said more glass means better picture think of it this way... an SLR film camera gives you better pictures than a point and shoot. They both use the same size film (35mm) so if more glass is better in an SLR, then it would be better in a D-slr also. The body doesn't do ****, it's all in the lens. So the price of one lens can be 3x more than your body. (not the case so much in Dslr's becaue they cost so much).

And the lens on the G2 is no where near as good as my 50 f1.4 or my 135 f2L. The canon G2 lens is the same one sony uses under the carl ziess name. I wonder who makes them????

I think we both have good points, but I think you took me wrong in my responce.

They didn't make new lenses for the EOS IX or EOS IX lite, or Nikons pronea 6I or S, and they use smaller than 35mm film.

Dave

PS
by the way, if you double the size of a circle you increase the area 3.14 times (pi). So if the G2 chip was 1/2 as big as the D30's you could have a lens 3.14x smaller.