Posted by Ian Craigie
Grab a heady malt bubbly, some junk food and take off your shoes. I have answered your message. Every point!
> I suppose you have more or less convinced me that I really need to
> invest in different cameras for different purposes.
At least define your primary purpose and satisfy that first. Add equipment as the workflow demands. Never by a solution in search of a problem.
>
> Really, I simply need to get BOTH, don't I? ; - )
Also think outside of the box. Rather than a high-end, short-lived digital for say epic travel landscapes, consider a used Mamiya7 and a scanner. I carry a Plaubel Makina 67, which is even more compact and has a superb lens. I got it through pure luck, since used, it can cost as much as a Mamiya7 new.
The digital does all the routine stuff that I would normally shoot with a 35mm camera, and I use medium format for the contemplative images - which are comparatively few in number and thus only a small blip in the travel budget. I have found the meter in my Plaubel accurate enough to totally trust with unforgiving low-ISO chromes, so I rarely bracket.
Epson's flatbeds are now capable of superb scans of medium format at 1/6th the price of the Nikon. There have been a number of people comparing scans from the 4870 (now the 4990 has replaced it) with scans from Imacon and drum scanners. While the high-end scanners look great on the screen at 100%, everyone has said that the Epson scans look better as prints. My 13" x 19" prints are at least the equal of the best prints I have ordered from top pro-labs. Film - at least medium and large format - is still a most viable partner for digital.
> All your points about the way the designers and
> engineers are combining previous concepts with new technology are well
> made, and I agree with you, but the thought that Nikon or Canon don't
> have a game plan, even one that will see them consigned to the dustbin
> of history, seems hard to believe.
I expect they go through the traditional motions, but in the end, they are winging it. Canon and Nikon are accustomed to bringing out a flagship camera every eight to ten years, not every 18 months to two years - or every year with Canon. With all the formal bowing in the board room, I expect there are a whole lot of sea-sick executives trying the cut the time of consensus down to the schedules that digital imposes. At the best, they probably have the hardest abs in Japan.
Take a moment to ponder, and tell me what you think will be the specifications and capabilities of a 2015 Nikon or Canon - prosumer or top of the line camera.
I closely watch the industry and would not even begin to know where to start. OK, make that five years. That is almost within grasp - I bought my first digital about five years ago, and this computer about six. The camera is long gone, and the computer only does e-mail and MIDI music. It was top of the line when I bought it and it has been upgraded steadily but is REALLY showing its age in spite of it.
Ten years ago, I was doing my image processing on a highly tarted Amiga with 13MB of RAM, and delighted to have a newish 1GB drive. I could never have guessed that a decade later I would have a dual monitor 3.4GHz workstation, networked to two other computers with a full terabyte of drive space and two gigs of RAM - well over 1.5TB on-line. Had this been predicted, I certainly would not have guessed that the new machine would be totally bogged down by the projects I give it.
Everyone involved in the digital world is constantly beboggled. It is a wonder that anything works at all, much less works as well as it does.
> Most of this thread has been devoted to tossing around the idea that
> Nikon have ditched a number of features that a fair proportion of us
> still find useful. I may not feel that they have taken the right
Perhaps the biggest lapse of prescience, was the idea that legacy equipment would easily merge with the digital world. I expect that they felt that they could smoothly transition their plants - and their users - into the new era in this way.
As it actually came about, there was absolutely no knowledge in the world about how sensors work with lenses. It is only in the past year or so that optical engineers have defined the problems well enough to be able to make lenses for digital.
It is almost weird to find a lens designed for film, that also works well with sensors - amazingly quite a number do. With foresight they would have designed a new lens mount and designed cameras from the ground up - cutting all bonds to those designed for film.
There would have been weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth for a while, then it would have been over, and no-compromise digital cameras would have been flowing. Instead there are uncomfortable hybrids, trying to accommodate legacy concepts and not achieving the optimum with either. There is always far greater clarity with 20/20 hindsight.
Even with prosumer compacts that were designed from a clean sheet of monitor, glitches are still being ironed out. Only with the CP8400/8800 is there finally through-the-lens metering for flash. Sensors are highly reflective, and the problems of metering off them has been enormous. Chromatic aberration - also known as "purple fringing" has been a great problem for all the camera makers, and has finally been tamed by the ED glass elements in the CP8400's lens. Problems beget more problems.
I have no problems using the manual controls on my medium format cameras. Every company's aperture setttings are different. In fact every lens for my Linhof and GraphicXL is different. I have no lust for them on my CP8400. I very much like the fact that with a tap of a button, I can see all my settings without taking my eye off the composition in my monitor. I have no problem toggling between focus, aperture, shutter speed, ISO setting, menu paging and so on with a single control wheel. It works with an intelligent array of analogue controls - a command dial and discrete buttons.
After decades of walking around view cameras to cock the shutter, open the lens, walk around back and compose and focus, walk around front and close the shutter, re-meter and reset the aperture, check the shutter speed and then walk around back to load in the film holder, pull the dark slide and walk around front to trip the shutter, then walk around back to replace the dark slide and pull the film holder making sure that the sheet I just shot is identified so I don't double expose, it is really lovely having everything together on a single screen seen from shooting position. There are enough discrete controls, that I no longer need to page through menus like with the first digital. The designers have obviously learned a lot. I love shooting with a large format view camera, but would love to have shutter-speed, aperture, metering, focus, exposure compensation and all the other stuff like my CP8400. I have no nostalgia for mind-numbing routine just to spend $25US tripping a shutter once.
> Surely, it would be far better to make lenses that are acceptable to
> ALL, and then allow purists, pros, perfectionists, and punters to
> attach whatever body they feel is appropriate. This would allow
> migration of all of these potential purchasers, using anything from
> second-hand FM2 up to the most highly-sophisticated D2X (or D200!), to
> use the SAME Nikon legacy glass. Photographers would be kept loyal to
> the system because they have the CHOICE of whether to use a fully
> mechanical, or an all bells and whistles digital machine. And if they
> choose to upgrade the body in 18 months to the latest 48 megapixel
> D6x, then they can do so knowing that their expensive investment in
> the high-quality Nikon lens/photography system has not been wasted.
Who gives a flying crap - if it does the job. Every camera system is different, every camera format is different, even the lenses within a system are different. You learn to use them. A camera is a burden every photographer must bear in order to do photography.
Fully automatic cameras usurp the photographer's mind. Having control of a camera to create the image you see in your mind is fundamental.
So at least concentrate the controls so much of the crap of camera-operation as possible is concentrated in one place. It is nice having each lens work the same, it is even nicer not to have to deal with individual lenses at all. If I have to set the bloody lens, the simpler the better. If the setting is mechanical, it does not make any difference if it is rings, knobs, levers, buttons or cranks. All are a nuisance that keeps your mind off the real purpose of photography.
It takes a bit less effort to set the aperture electronically. That is attention I can put on capturing the subject. If you want to have the thrills of playing around with widely distributed controls and complex camera operation - buy a nice wooden field camera and a case of film holders, a used Weston meter and Ansel's books. Camera operation is a necessary evil - nothing more. To get the quality of an 8x10 view camera, one has to do the extended ritual the damn thing demands. Everything in photography is a trade-off, a compromise.
If I am shooting "street", I sure don't want to do it with a bloody 8x10. If I am doing architecture for a top world-class architect, and he is paying the freight, I am only to happy to shoot 8x10. I can be bought, but I won't do it for pleasure.
> Perhaps, though, this nonsensical approach is support for your
> "Strategy? What strategy?" concept! We keep asking if Nikon are
> listening to its loyal users, but I fear this is a forlorn hope -
> along with the hope that we will see anything to cheer our "retro"
> ideas of what we want from an image-gathering machine.
Well, one can see how well it worked for Leica. They have continued to make the same cameras for so long that they are now doing reproductions of antiques. And they may be out of business in mere days. Of course, the fact that they regarded all their customers as collectors who would never take the camera or lens out of the box, and so let quality slide while outrageous prices grew, may have contributed as well.
I have a substantial archive of Nikon glass - most of which would neither work nor work well with current bodies, as I understand. At least the Nikon D70 expects lenses that talk back. My lenses were all designed 20 to 40 years back and there are still film cameras about that can fully exploit them.
I would be a bloody clot to expect Nikon to have foreseen digital cameras in 1970 and designed lenses with heavily coated, non-reflective rear elements and collimated light for no fall off. I am simply not that dense! Even ten years ago, no optical designer in the world had a grasp of the peculiarities that sensors would demand. Yet lenses of a decade back WILL at least fit on a digital and will fully function - focus, expose and so on - even if they ghost through infinitely bouncing reflections off the sensor and produce dark fall-off to the corners of the frame.
THEY WERE DESIGNED BEFORE DIGITAL WAS EVEN THOUGHT OF. How can you expect a bloody company to be clarvoyant? Sure, they could stick to a 1960 design and go the way of Leitz. I happened to be discussing rangefinder cameras on another forum and the subject of M-mount lenses came up. While I was checking on Voigtlander lenses, I paged by the Leica lenses. A lens I particularly liked, the 50mm Noctilux normal lens is now priced at $3,295US, with the common 50mm Summilux for $2,500US. Not zooms - not extreme telephotos, nor extreme wide angles - NORMAL LENSES!!!
Yup, Nikon could have kept the old manual lenses and made no autofocus lenses. Leitz made no M-mount autofocus lenses. All Leica M-mount lenses work on all M-mount bodies, but not on the classic III-g and its bretheren. Bad Leitz.
What would have happened to Nikon if it skipped auto-focus lenses in order that its glass would continue to function on all bodies. Lose a few loyal customers, perhaps?
They could also have skipped the lenses that talk back to the cameras and with it matrix metering. Lose a few more loyal customers, perhaps?
Lose enough customers that they are bankrupt like Leitz in spite of charging $3,200US for a normal lens? Would that please you with their devotion to their "loyal" customers? Sacrifice the company to thwart progress so a few folks can have their aperture ring. Noble, real noble.
In the mean time, Canon, Pentax and Konica-Minolta are eating not only their shorts, but also their customer base. How many loyal supporters are there of Leica M cameras compared to Nikon users? Perhaps Nikon has a shred of a brain? At least they stand a chance of staying in business.
By the way, does Canon, Contax, Pentax, Konica-Minolta still offer a full line of manual lenses compatible with their ancient cameras? If I needed a replacement if a thief took my AIS manual-focus 28mm PC-Nikkor, 35mm f-1.4, 55mm Micro-Nikkor, 105mm f1.8, would I have to search the flea-markets for a replacement? No bloody way! Nikon can supply me with a new lens in the box with full warrantee. Try and find a replacement for a manual-focus Canon lens!!!
In fact with a bit of shopping around, you can buy a brand-new, still in the box, Nikon S3 RANGEFINDER camera. It is the same design as the original, but uses contemporary manufacturing methods.
Show me another company that supports its legacy equipment as well as Nikon, while still moving forward with contemporary photographic solutions.
Leitz? Well they do have a couple of SLRs, but have you actually seen anyone using them? Out of business in days, anyway.
Contax? Out of business by the end of the year.
Canon? Haven't served the legacy market in years. Not a single compatible lens for non-auto-everything EOS cameras.
Pentax and Konica-Minolta are bit players, but I believe that Pentax still does have some stuff for their legacy K mount. Whether it works on their brilliantly named *ist, I have no idea. (I understand that the * stands for the letter "P" - or so I have been told.)
Olympus wisely bit the bullet, and scrapped all links to legacy. They came up with a whole new system. Not a single legacy item fits their current two digital SLR cameras. Legacy Oly owners howled for a while, then it was over. Of all the old line camera makers, I think Oly got it right. No problems with degrees of compatibility, semi-compatibility or anything else. Everything was designed from the ground up to work as a digital system. Yup, some ticked off "loyal" Olyists, but very satisfied buyers of excellent digital SLRs. These are entirely new cameras for an entirely new technology. They are not hamstrung by lenses designed when computers filled a large room - not tiny cameras with room to spare.
When digital first came on the scene in the early 90s, I fully expected to eventually use my arsenal of Nikon glass in front of a sensor. As I got to know the problems a sensor causes with legacy glass, it became obvious that I never would. Reflections, fall-off, lack of matrix metering capability in the lenses themselves, lack of autofocus and so on, but primarily the DX-size sensor and its 1.5x cropping factor. Canons have 1.6x with the exception of the 1D with 1.3x, and both Pentax and Konica-Minolta share Nikon's 1.5x. Olympus is 2x, but no non-4/3s lenses fit it, so it it really doesn't matter. Point being that it is not a Nikon issue - it is an industry wide issue.
My 28mm PC-Nikkor shift-lens was never wide enough over 35mm film. With the DX cropping factor of 1.5x it becomes the equivalent of a 42mm lens - which for a shift-lens is absurd! All my lenses are similarly shifted. Each one was bought for a specific reason and the reason is nullified when you multiply it by 1.5. I bought the 105mm f1.8 because it was the longest fast lens I needed for sports and stage. It becomes the equivalent of a 160mm lens - which I would never have bought for anything.
If I went digital, I would have to buy a whole new arsenal even if these did function electrically. NONE of my lenses would serve the purpose for which they were purchased! Even if they were 100% compatible in every way other than focal length, they would be basically useless - like random purchases. I do not see a full-frame sensor anywhere in the near future for Nikon - everything points to the DX as the nearest thing there is to a long term strategy.
Contax tried to build a camera with a full frame sensor. And tried, and tried. They bled money and never managed to ship a product. Parent Kyocera is shutting them down - and I understand that the full-frame camera disaster is a major factor in the decision. Kodak built the 14n with a full-frame sensor, and it was delayed, and delayed, and delayed. When it finally shipped, it was both unfinished and a disaster. When Kodak came out with their next body, they offered to buy the 14ns back from the owners if they would buy the new one. It too got dismal reviews. It seems that Canon was the closest to get it right - but at an astronomic cost.
So I abandoned hope, accepted life as it is and moved on. In so doing, I found a far better solution. The F3 and lenses have not been used since early the year 2000. When I am sure that I will never again shoot a commercial job or magazine assignment where chromes may be needed, I will probably dump the whole system. I will continue shooting medium format where warranted until digital cameras - in the compact form factor - exceed the quality I can get from medium format.
Life goes on, and I go with it. There are issues in photography beyond whether a lens has an aperture ring or a manual zoom or focus ring. It is up to the photographer to find the camera best suited to one's style and subject matter, and work to become fluent enough that operation becomes second nature.
One can handle the complexities of a large-format view-camera that one barely needs to take one's eyes off the subject and produce superb photographs. Vastly more complex than an aperture ring.
Mastering the camera to the point that you do not have to think about it, so all your attention is put on the image is what makes you a photographer, not a camera-operator. Good ergonomics make the learning easier, but even the most complex camera can be mastered.
It just is not about cameras - it is about photographs. An aperture ring will not make the difference, no matter how obsessive you are about it. It is the most trivial detail, a factor of so little relevance that is is absurd to even contemplate, much less discuss. If your photographs are impacted by such a tiny factor, it is probably time to study accounting or something even less creative.
larry!
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