On Mon, 2 Feb 2004 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On what grounds? The Canon EOS-1D (even the "old" one) and Nikon D2h are > > better CAMERAS than ANY film SLR made by ANY manufacturer in most > > if not all respects. > > OK, here's a lsit of what's "wrong" with them.
The original statement was that it might be argued that no "real" DSLRs had been made yet. This list, while valid in places, is not a list of things that keep current DSLRs from being "real". > 1 too big > 2 too heavy *istD is not big or heavy compared with many film SLRs. D1h is probably lighter than F2, F3, or F4 with motor drive attached. Yes, none of them are ME Supers (yet). OTOH, the average optio-class Digital P&S can run rings around the ME Super in a lot of ways and is probably what is being sold to the ME Super market today. Yes, you don't have to attach a motor drive to a "real" SLR but the list of recent cameras without built-in film advance is pretty short. Canon 1D series are indeed boat anchors, but also the best cameras around. This is a choice Canon has made. The F1 was no lightweight. > 3 dependant on batteries True of damn near every SLR made since 1980. The exceptions that come to mind are the Olympus OM-3 (discontinued), Pentax LX (discontinued), Nikon FM2n/FM3A, and Pentax K1000 (discontinued). Increasingly true of larger format cameras too now that they have AF and other fancy dancies. Are you saying that no "real" SLRs have been made since 1980? (It is arguable, in a way...) Battery life per picture is still too low with DSLRs, especially compared to "old style" film SLRs. My D1h gets about 500 shots per charge of its expensive, proprietary rechargeable battery and won't take AAs. The D2h apparently gets four times that because shots/battery is an area of real effort for manufacturers. A lot of the battery drain of a modern pro DSLR may not be the digital part. The Nikon F5 gets about 1000 shots on a set of standard AAs, poor for a film SLR but understandable in the light of an 8fps mechanical motor drive and an autofocus motor that could power a Mack truck. > 4 ISO selection poor WHAT?! OK, most don't do both 50 and 6400. Most do 200-3200, and the N14 does something like 50-800. This "ISO selection" is also availible every frame, not once in 24 or 36. I've very rarely been in a shooting situation where I NEED a low ISO for technical reasons. If it happened a lot, I could always carry neutral density filters. One only wants low ISO film because it produces higher quality. If someone produced an 800 ISO film with the grain, latitude, resolution, etc of ISO 50 films we'd all use it. This has, in fact, been slowly happening which is why there aren't a lot of sub-100 ISO films any more. There is very little inherant need for a photographic medium optimized purely for low light-sensativity. At ISOs above 800, film selection is poor and in my experience digital produces better results in terms of "grain", color saturation, and tonality. Most DSLRs go to 1600 these days, with "boost" settings up to even 6400, plus you can normally underexpose digital a full stop without noticeable loss of quality. > 5 don't use film This is often cited as the greatest advantage of DSLRs. For most professionals, "film" is not the end product, but a print or publication. If you can get to the end product better without film, great. For slides, I'm with you 100%. The four of us worldwide who still shoot slide film will cling to our film SLRs. It's not that bad, but close. > 6 low resolution per unit area Why is this an issue inherently? Low resolution per unit price is a much bigger issue. Low absolute resolution is an issue for some folks. If it were that case that DSLRs that delivered adequate resolution had to be larger than equivalent film SLRs BECAUSE of the resolution/unit area then it would be an issue. I'll bet that at the low end digital P&Ss can now produce better pictures in every way than APS and 110 cameras, and the result is smaller cameras because you can squeeze them down past the size of the film cassette. Note that the Nikon D2h is narrower than the D1h and all preceding F Nikons because as a designed-for-digital camera they finally built a body that doesn't have to accomodate a 35mm film cartidge at the one end. > 7 need too many peripherals to work Less and less. You can take the card from your DSLR and plop it straight into the magic machine at many photofinishers now. The industry is working very hard to take the computer out of the DSLR loop. One could consider a darkroom a "peripheral" for film use. > 8 need huge amounts of storage media It's expensive as a one time thing, sure, but a week's worth of storage media fits in my POCKET, whereas I couldn't cram that much film into my camera bag before. Honestly, you'd need some sort of belt feed mechanism to get film through an EOS-1V the way guys shoot its digital brother. A pack of negative sleeves is probably more expensive than the number of CDs that would hold the data from that many rolls of film. > On number five alone, any camera between and including a Holga and the > giant Polaroid beats them hands down. If film is inherantly important, or part of being a "real" SLR, yes. By this definition no "real" DSLR could ever be made, except perhaps Thom Hogan's fanciful modular-media Nikon F6 or the yet-to-exist Leica digital back, or the aborted e-film digital film cassette. > Horses for courses........ Yes indeed. DSLRs are taking over in the fields where their advantages over film matter, such as Photo-J. In fields where film's advantages matter such as wedding photography (which apparently needs the extra exposure latitude of film) and photography "in the bush" film remains the choice. DJE
