Re: [Killietalk] Digital cameras

[Wright Huntley <jwwiii at pacbell_net>]

I'm glad to see something to really discuss in this thread. :-)

BizEcology at aol_com wrote:

> I have an older Nikon Coolpix and it's great.  

I have friends who really like their's, but when they complain about the 
dread "purple fringe" and other image defects, I have to leave the room 
or at least bite my tongue. Anyone paying several hundred dollars for a 
name-brand camera doesn't need that kind of criticism, and if they are 
happy with that kind of optical performance, it's perfectly fine with me.

I have even casually looked for an old Nikon 950, for myself, as that 
was the last one I saw that had lens resolution almost as good as the 
number of pixels, and it's a truly wonderful little pocket camera in 
many, many ways.

> I was working on a crime scene 
> investigation course for our agents and we've moved to digital cameras 
> recently.  A 4 megapixel digital camera gives more than enough resolution for just 
> about anything you would want.  

Don't be misled by marketing hype. Resolution in the final image is due 
to the lens, first, then the sensor, and then the alogorithms that do 
the Bayer conversion, etc. All interact, but the limiting one in most 
3.3 and up MP cameras is the lens and it hasn't gotten much better as 
they went to 4 and 5 MP P&S cameras. Really *good* 5MP cameras are now 
clearly better than film for most uses. Unfortunately it takes too much 
glass to be in any small P&S design.

A fast lens with good resolution takes too-large glass to fit in a shirt 
pocket, and there are some fundamental optical reasons for that. Add 
zoom and they grow big really fast.


> Most of the major camera brands have good 
> lenses.  

That is not borne out by either the reviews or by independent tests. 
Canon and Olympus *have* put some very good lenses on consumer cameras. 
Sony has come up with some that were even better, eventually selling the 
designs to Oly. Several have bought designs and mfg. license from Carl 
Zeiss and the improved results are fairly obvious.

> I would stick with a camera company (Nikon, Canon) rather than a computer 
> or electronics company (Sony, Panasonic) because everyone gets the same 
> digital elements, but camera companies know optics better.

Nikon and Canon would be my choice, along with Fuji (Nikon body), for a 
high-end camera (thousands of dollars). They know camera *bodies* and 
ergonomics of small cameras better than most. In the consumer arena, 
they have not always done well, and Sony and Olympus have both beaten 
them in quality for the buck.

The worst camera I ever bought was from a company famous for its imagery 
expertise -- Ricoh. Generalities are hard to make stick in this area.

> Remember that optical zoom is the only zoom that counts.  Digital zoom just 
> reduces resolution.

That, too, is no longer really quite true. Kodak and Fuji have both come 
up with better digital zoom than the early crap that was worse than 
cropping in Photoshop. Some digital zoom appears to be getting almost 
decent, but the jury is still out. It will take better lenses than most 
folks will afford for the final results to be any good, I suspect.

If I wanted film, I usually picked either Kodak or Fuji (usually Fuji). 
For a camera body, when they were usually separate from the lens, I 
picked Olympus and Canon, only because Nikon was a tad too expensive for 
what you got.

Lenses, I usually bought from a specialty lens maker, like Vivitar, 
Zuiko, Sigma, etc. but did find some special uses for Nikkor (Nikon's 
lens brand).

Digital cameras are 98% computer, and 2% camera, so it pays to watch who 
makes what in the electronics area. Sony has been an electronics company 
from the days of the first transistor radios, and made the vast bulk of 
the ccd sensors (and chip sets) for the first couple of generations of 
consumer digital cameras. Their dominance of the video camera business 
made them very expert at the tradeoff in lens design vs algorithms to 
get acceptable images. That was not lost when they moved to still 
digital cameras, but their marketing was for stink in that area (rare 
for Sony).

Keep in mind that the objective of a digital camera is about the same as 
a film camera -- to get a good picture. From there, things come apart 
fast. A digicam is a computer with a lens on the world. That means a 
host of features and confusion for the first-time buyer. The obvious 
dominance of the Point and Shoot film cameras caused the early digitals 
to go pretty much that way. Only higher-end models gave the control and 
flexibility of the nearly-forgotten 35mm SLRs.

Only recently have we started to see cameras that are digital from the 
ground up. The latest in this trend is the Sony 828, coming out next 
month. It would never have been realizable as a film camera. 
Fortunately, it is a strong move away from imitating a 35mm P&S camera.

We live in interesting times.

Wright


--
Wright Huntley -- 760 872-3995 -- Rt. 001 Box K36, Bishop CA 93514

           Mencken's maxim—every election is a sort
             of advanced auction of stolen goods.



To join the AKA see http://www.aka.org/pages/join.html