Ruined! (1 Viewer)

[Ari]

I get your point....it's entirely possible to produce an acceptable camera without a mirror (at least I can't think of a reason)...but they haven't done it yet. I think the limiting factor is the shutter/exposure metering. They just can't seem to get cameras with the electronic shutters to meter and expose nearly as quickly as the SLRs with the mechanical shutters. For shots involving action, animals and kids, that's a big limiting factor.

 

[Thomas Newton]

If you remove the requirement for a mirror, the Sony F828 or Canon PowerShot Pro1 might be called "SLRs". They lack optical viewfinders, prisms, and mirrors, but the EVF/LCD view is through-the-lens.

Reviewers consistently distinguish between these sorts of cameras and digital SLRs. That suggests to me that it takes more than a TTL view (a feature common to all digital cameras except the cheapest) to earn the "SLR" designation.

So -- what features beyond "some sort of through the lens viewfinder or display screen" would a camera need, for it to qualify for the new definition of "SLR"?

 

[Thomas Newton]

Some photo magazines suggest that there is an advantage to not having a mirror (or at least to having mirror lockup). When the mirror swings up right before the shutter opens, there's vibration that might potentially hurt sharpness.

This is probably only an issue when shooting with a tripod; I would guess that hand movement is a much bigger source of vibration/fuzziness for handheld shots.

 

[JohnRice]

Thomas, vibration from a mirror is generally only considered to be a factor with long exposures. The mirrors are pretty well dampened and any loss of sharpness from them on instantaneous exposures is negligible to nothing. Stuff like that comes from people writing articles about cameras who have no real background in photography. The instant return mirror has been around over 30 years and has been refined quite nicely.

That's a good question. I see 2 different styles of "SLR" cameras evolving. 1 is the type based on a 35mm SLR body with interchangeable lenses and so on. The other is what seems to often be called "SLR Style" or things along that line, which are not really any different from the cheaper models, but just seem to have a more SLR type shape and longer range lenses.

The truth is, the people coming up with these marketing terms usually have no idea what the terms they are using actually mean, so if they think calling something an SLR will promote more sales, they will use it. As this discussion shows, the term will soon lose all actual meaning since virtually any digital camera will have a TTL viewfinder, which is what the "reflex" in SLR was for in the first place.

 

[Ari]

Getting back to JamieD's original post:

It depends what your idea of "bargain price" is. If you're looking for a dSLR that's much cheaper, then I think you're out of luck. The cheapest right now would be the Digital Rebel...if you have Canon lenses then this would be the cheapest way to go. If you're using Nikon, then it's the D70. If you can go either way, the Nikon is a better body but I'd also look at the lens systems of Nikon vs. Canon since this is where the "real" money is spent.

If it doesn't have to be a dSLR, then the field is wide open. Lots of good choices out there.

 

[Max Leung]

The Nikon D70 is also much more responsive than the Canon Digital Rebel. You can turn on the D70 and be off taking a picture in less than a second. I have to wait 5 seconds or so before I can take pictures with my Rebel.

Also, the D70 can write to the CF card much quicker than the Rebel. Apparently it only takes a second to write a RAW file to the CF card on the D70, but it takes 3-4 seconds on a Rebel. On the other hand, RAW processing tools are abundant for the Canon...choices choices.

The D70 is better suited for action photography IMHO than the Rebel because of the larger continuous frame buffer (8 frames I think compared to 4 on the Rebel). However, Nikon lenses are rather pricey.

Bottom line: Buy Nikon, you also buy into Nikon lenses. Buy Canon, you also buy into Canon lenses. Lots of tradeoffs either way...(I'd like to try out Nikon's Matrix Metering system - but I guess I should master Canon's metering system first! )

 

[James^Brian]

I too would suggest the D70. It is for most practical purposes equivelant to the D100. I use the D100 for my primary camera and have the D70 as back-up. The D100 has a few more bells and whistles and is in a more rugged construction. I would suggest to go with SLR than one of the newer prosumer high mp cameras. You will be able to invest in some good lenses that will give you much more flexibility and you can keep with you should you decide to upgrade in the future. Cannon has some great cameras too that are highly competitive with Nikon. But once you go one way, its awful difficult to change (lenses, flashes, battery packs etc., that are all propriety to one brand of camera).

 

[Ryan Tsang]

JohnRice:

The D100 DOES NOT have an electronic viewfinder. It's a pentaprism. One possible reason why they don't make DSLRs with live preview: (and I can't believe no one mentioned this yet)

it eats batteries for breakfast, lunch, and supper.

Even if you had infinite battery life, why would you look at an electronic image rather than an optical one? LCD screens are hard to see in the sun anyway. So, I don't agree with your opinion that mirrors/prism is on its way out. Pros and enthusiasts would never go for it. SLRs have the huge advantage of letting you compose endlessly before even powering up. And cold temps already affect digital cameras much more than film camera, so why be even more reliant on electronics?




An SLR to me has to 1) give you the ability to see exactly what you are capturing, electronically or optically. So, no parallax error 2) have interchangeable lenses 2a) this allows teleconverters, extensive tubes, bellows to be used 3) full manual control 4) hotshoe for an external flash, cuz you can't have the flash toward the subject all the time. Or least have sync cables or wireless adapters.



To original post:
I have the D70 and it handles and shoots like an SLR. I have an F90x also. With respect to the DRebel: Write speed may not be a deal breaker unless you like to shoot fast. But start up time may be. I tried out a Nikon Coolpix 5700 and it goes into standby mode all the time and took a few seconds to boot up. I returned the thing. And that darn live preview eats batteries.

If you're going to take photography seriously, buy a SLR. Eat Kraft dinner for a couple months to save up Nikon or Canon is up to you. I saw a used D100 going for $1400cdn on Ebay three weeks ago.

check out http://www.dpreview.com

 

[JohnRice]

Ryan, apparently you are right. I don't research all these cameras and I was told by someone who I thought knew what he was talking about the D-100 had an electronic viewfinder. Still, the matter of LCDs being hard to see in the sun is not a factor for an electronic viewfinder.

I agree with most of what you spell out as being the essential aspects of an SLR type camera. Mostly it is the interchangeable lenses.

 

[Michael St. Clair]

Eventually I'd like to see a DSLR with an LCD preview. This would be especially useful for mirror lock-up shots and/or tripod use where you are taking multiple shots of the same subject under the same lighting and focal conditions (only composition changes). There are situations where it is nice to be hands-off of the camera (even using a remote shutter release) but to be able to continue to use an LCD screen to verify composition. And the benefits of preview during mirror lock-up is obvious.

I didn't know there were any pseudo-DSLRs (no mirror) with interchangable lenses. Can anyone name them?

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

The biggest issue I have faced with any kind of photography is really seeing what I am capturing, especially the exposure. No SLR will do this through the viewfinder. You can see the composition, but there is stil a lot of room for mistakes in exposure and depth of field. Since I don't have my digital SLR yet, is what you see through the viewfinder really what you get for composition, or is their cropping due to the (incorrectly named) focal point compensation?

For exposure, the last high end prosumer digital Canon (non SLR, but still in the $1600CAN range) I tried would not give you anywhere near accurate preview on the LCD screen. What looked perfect on the LCD was always WAY underexposed in reality. If I composed a shot that was completlety blown out on the LCD, the shot was properly exposed. Having the ability to see this up front would save a lot of grief later on. Another prosumer model I used always needed compensation in the field of view, since the framing was off to the left.

I guess we a re still a few generations away from a SLR camera that has enough computing power to give you an accurately rendered preview, but it would be nice to have one day, especially for those once in a lifetime opportunities.

 

[JohnRice]

Jeff, my experience with my Fuji S2 is that the viewfinder is completely accurate, even more accurate than the average 35mm film SLR viewfinder, which always crop a bit from the full image.

The displays never seem to be a very good indication of exposure or color correction. I generally only use it for confirmation of composition and then I use the histogram to verify a usable exposure. If you want a camera that removes skill and a general understanding of how the camera behaves, you're in for a long wait.

 

[Ryan Tsang]

Jeff:

I understand your "frustration" with not being able to preview exposure. However, I believe you feel this way simply because of limited experience. (I'm not a pro by any measure) Learning to read a scene takes a lot of time/experience and experimentation. And that refers to an average scene in daylight! Now imagine mixed lighting, low lighting, city-lights, studio flash, high key/low key, it is impossible to have a machine tell you exactly what a scene will look like. I suppose I could go further and say I want to preview the effects of saturation, softening, sharpening, zooming, infra-red, cross-processing, sepia-toning......and on and on. Depth of field can be estimated with depth-of-field preview on many cameras. Keep in mind that stopping down will make the image darker and you need time for your eyes to adjust.

You will be in for a huge letdown if you think an LCD monitor on the back of a digicam will give you an accurate representation of a scene. Your monitor with which you are viewing this may not be able to do that either, especially if not calibrated. The histogram is a very powerful tool and that's something I too need to discover in greater detail. What you see on the LCD screen may be nothing like what you see on your monitor at home, and what you see on your monitor may be nothing like in print. The best thing to do is learn how each step in the process affects the image (shooting, manipulating, printing) and use it to your advantage. It is a lifelong learning process.


Which leads me to the power of digital photography. The instant feedback shortens the learning curve tremendously.
Go out and practice metering. here....I'll introduce to you an exercise:

Buy a gray, white, and black card from a photo retailer. Let your digital camera do auto TTL metering and fill the frame and shoot each card by itself. You will get three identical shots. Now meter off the gray card, record the exposure and shoot the cards again with that GC exposure only. Now....gray is gray, white is white and black is black. It illustrates the need to think. You can't do this will print film because your printer will make adjustments.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Just to clear up some things here..

SLR = Single Lens Reflex without the Reflex part of the
definition it doesn't really make sense to refer to a
camera as an SLR. The Olympus E10 and E20 fit the SLR
definition because they have a splitting prism rather than
a mirror and pentaprism viewfinder but anything with an EVF
that meters through the lens is just defined as "TTL" Through
The Lens.

It is possible to have an SLR body that could use an LCD
for a live preview but it goes completely against what an
SLR is for. If you buy a D-SLR you are buying it because
you want the absolute best quality photographs and by using
a real leaf shutter and keeping the CMOS or CCD off all the
time except when capturing the image this keeps the noise
down by eliminating excess heat created by the constant
use of the sensor.

As for metering that comes with experiance. I find that the
built in metering on my SD10 is "close" within about a half
a stop. If I wanted spot on metering I would use an external
meter before I ever took a photo. But the beauty of digital
is the ability to auto bracket and fire of a bust of images
with varying exposures. Surely one is bound to be right

Or shoot RAW and you have at least 1 stop exposure latitude
with most cameras. In RAW on my SD10 I have more than 2
stops of exposure lat.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Just to clear up some things here..

SLR = Single Lens Reflex without the Reflex part of the
definition it doesn't really make sense to refer to a
camera as an SLR. The Olympus E10 and E20 fit the SLR
definition because they have a splitting prism rather than
a mirror and pentaprism viewfinder but anything with an EVF
that meters through the lens is just defined as "TTL" Through
The Lens.

It is possible to have an SLR body that could use an LCD
for a live preview but it goes completely against what an
SLR is for. If you buy a D-SLR you are buying it because
you want the absolute best quality photographs and by using
a real leaf shutter and keeping the CMOS or CCD off all the
time except when capturing the image this keeps the noise
down by eliminating excess heat created by the constant
use of the sensor.

As for metering that comes with experiance. I find that the
built in metering on my SD10 is "close" within about a half
a stop. If I wanted spot on metering I would use an external
meter before I ever took a photo. But the beauty of digital
is the ability to auto bracket and fire of a bust of images
with varying exposures. Surely one is bound to be right

Or shoot RAW and you have at least 1 stop exposure latitude
with most cameras. In RAW on my SD10 I have more than 2
stops of exposure lat.

 

[JohnRice]

Since we're being so unbelievably technical, 35mm SLRs don't have leaf shutters. Several MF SLRs (Such as Hasselblad and Bronica) do but 35mm ones have cloth or metal blade shutters, which are not the same as a leaf shutter.

 

[JohnRice]

Since we're being so unbelievably technical, 35mm SLRs don't have leaf shutters. Several MF SLRs (Such as Hasselblad and Bronica) do but 35mm ones have cloth or metal blade shutters, which are not the same as a leaf shutter.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Yes sorry for my error.. Blade Shutter not leaf..

We aren't being technical we are being accurate and thank
you for pointing out my error on the shutter mechanism.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Yes sorry for my error.. Blade Shutter not leaf..

We aren't being technical we are being accurate and thank
you for pointing out my error on the shutter mechanism.

 

[Adam Bluhm]

I agree with Brett. There is a lot of talk about using a preview with a dSLR. The thing that makes an SLR an SLR is the ability to see nearly exactly what the lense sees. You are seeing what the lense and sensor will see.

My point-and-shoot cam cannot do jack with the viewfinder. I can center on an image using the viewfinder and the picture comes out way off center.

I'm sure there are cams that do a better job at this, but I'm sure they won't do nearly the job an SLR would. That's exactly why you cannot have an SLR cam with an lcd preview. It then wouldn't be an SLR.

Oh yeah.. back on topic, the Canon 300D is probably the best economical choice for a dSLR. I like the Nikon D70 and all the features, but we're talking ~$500 more for the kit with lense.