My Dream Pocket Camera

[Jonathan Wienke]

It seems to me that there is a large unfilled market niche for a compact camera with good image quality and high-ISO performance, but smaller in size and weight than any current DSLR. While there are many digicams that fill the low end of this area, they all have significant limitations that make them unattractive to serious photographers. Here's what I'd like to see somebody build, which could be done with mostly off-the-shelf technology:

*8-10MP sensor with ~1.6-2x crop factor, like the one in the 30D or a bit smaller, allowing shooting up to ISO 1600 or so with reasonable noise levels.

*Articulated LCD/EVF viewfinder. I know this is not as nice as an optical viewfinder, but the size reduction possible by eliminating the OVF and mirror would make it an acceptable design compromise. Eliminating the reflex mirror will make lenses more compact as well. And a tilt/swivel LCD is handy for shots from odd angles where looking through a viewfinder is inconvenient or impossible. Heck, make the LCD detachable, with an accessory extension cord so that it can operate several feet away from the camera. And make it a touch screen, to easily select autofocus zones and suchlike, or function as a remote control for the camera.

*Viewfinder zoom feature where one can select an arbitrary area to view at 100% magnification to check critical focus. Touch screen would be helpful here, both to select the magnification area and make fine focus adjustments. Put a ThinkPad-type eraser controller on the LCD instead of the normal mini-joystick.

*RAW support, with a buffer big enough to shoot 8-10 RAWs at 3FPS.

*CF-II (microdrive) or SD card support.

*Interchangeable lenses. There's no real reason a compact camera has to be stuck with a single factory-installed lens. The lenses should have Canon L-style manual focus rings so that precise manual adjustments can be made without having to disable autofocus, and should be comparable to or better than Canon L glass quality-wise.

*An IR filter that can slide out of the way via a knob or lever on the body, so that IR shooting is possible without adding filters to the lens. Without a mirror to deal with, the filter can be in front of the sensor a bit to minimize the effects of dust, and be easier to clean. In addition,

*Instead of the normal R-G-B-G sensor filter array, have R-G-B-Ir; instead of one red, one blue, and two green pixels, have one red, one blue, one green, and one infrared-sensitive pixel, allowing infrared photography without filters over the lens and shutter speeds similar to visible-light photos.

*Ultrasonic sensor dust removal.

*Tripod mount centered on the lens instead of off to one side like way too many digicams.

This ought to be doable for <$2000 US dollars, including a reasonably decent kit lens. Any takers? Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

[Kenneth Sky]

I'd like to add an optical rangefinder type of viewfinder linked to lens for those bright days when an LCD is useless. And it should have good optical relief to allow eyeglass wearers to not have to squish their face against the body.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Jonathan,

When you start production, please put in an order for me. I want the model with Kenneth's rangefinder-type viewfinder, however, even if it adds a little to the cost.    

Eric

[Jonathan Wienke]

I'd like to add an optical rangefinder type of viewfinder linked to lens for those bright days when an LCD is useless.

I'm not sure how practically that could be implemented on an interchangeable-lens camera, especially if some of the lenses were zooms. A well-made EVF would probably work better.

[howiesmith]

I'm not sure how practically that could be implemented ... .

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Why limit this fantasy to the practical?

[BJL]

If it has a sensor size in the 4/3 to EF-S range and interchangeable lenses, this sounds basically like the EVIL IBIS camera I have been thinking of lately (Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangeable Lenses, In-Body Image Stabilization). I suspect that Olympus is considering such a creature, though aspects of the 4/3 lens and mount specification might get in the way of making the lenses, and thus the camera, as small as you envision.

I am all for supporting infra-red. Maybe omit the IR filter from the sensor, and have a removable one in the camera body, using the space whet the reflex mirror no longer is.


P. S. Once the desire for small overall size limits minimum f-stops to slower than about f/4, one is probably better downsizing the sensor and focal lengths, keeping maximum aperture diameter the same, so maybe such a compact system would benefit from format smaller than any current DSLR.
That is, go from f/5.6 lenses in one format to a sensor, focal lengths, and minimum f-stop all 1.4x smaller, so f/4 lenses. Half the "sensor speed" (ISO) balanced by twice the "lens speed", similar size weight and cost of lenses, but lenses a bit shorter and so overall a more compact camera.

[Gary Brown]

Heck, make the LCD detachable, with an accessory extension cord so that it can operate several feet away from the camera. And make it a touch screen, to easily select autofocus zones and suchlike, or function as a remote control for the camera.
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Or Bluetooth, to make it a wireless viewfinder/remote?

[howiesmith]

A GPS with maps, software and a compass so I can figure out when and where the sun will rise/set and where I parked the car.

A DoF calculator.

An alarm clock.

And autobracketing for both exposure and focus distance to make blending easier later.

[Jonathan Wienke]

I suspect that Olympus is considering such a creature, though aspects of the 4/3 lens and mount specification might get in the way of making the lenses, and thus the camera, as small as you envision.

I am all for supporting infra-red. Maybe omit the IR filter from the sensor, and have a removable one in the camera body, using the space whet the reflex mirror no longer is.

The main purpose of ditching the reflex mirror is to simplify the lens design so that an equivalent focal length can be more compact (fewer lens elements, and less lens-sensor gap since there is no mirror). So 4/3 lenses would be unnecessarily bulky; maybe give the thing a Leica lens mount, since the camera would use the same type of lenses as a rangefinder anyway.

Regarding IR, the idea I had was making the sensor cover glass twice as wide as the sensor, and only coat one half of it with the IR block. Slide it to the left, IR is filtered out; slide it to the right, IR is allowed through. Have an external lever or knob move the filter glass. The biggest hassle would be rewriting the RAW converter to handle 4 primary colors (IR, R, G, and  instead of three (R, G, . But that would open up significant new methods for making false-color IR and B&W IR images.

[BernardLanguillier]

So 4/3 lenses would be unnecessarily bulky; maybe give the thing a Leica lens mount, since the camera would use the same type of lenses as a rangefinder anyway.

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Jonathan,

Funny, when I read your initial post yesterday, the first thing that came to my mind was that this camera was real close to what I would have expected a fully modernized Leica M series to be.

Regards,
Bernard

[Gary Brown]

The biggest hassle would be rewriting the RAW converter to handle 4 primary colors (IR, R, G, and  instead of three (R, G, .
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Hopefully this isn't a dumb question, but: As I understood it, DNG is supposed to be a better raw file format because it's a standard, so if a new model of camera generates a DNG, you can use it without having to wait for software makers to add raw support specifically for that camera model.

How would something like this fit into DNG?

[Jonathan Wienke]

Jonathan,

Funny, when I read your initial post yesterday, the first thing that came to my mind was that this camera was real close to what I would have expected a fully modernized Leica M series to be.

There is a certain logic to that, but I doubt Leica would go for the really cool stuff like the detachable viewfinder LCD and the R-G-B-Ir sensor. And if Leica made the camera, I'm sure it would cost more than $2000. But I really don't care who makes it; as soon as somebody did, I'd probably get one.

How would something like this fit into DNG?

DNG supports the Foveon sensor, which is true RGB, so I don't think storing the R-G-B-Ir RAWs as DNG would be a problem. What would be interesting would be updating ACR to handle the extra channel of color data, as well as traditional RGB > B&W converters.

I'd love to see Convert To B&W Pro with extra sliders for IR to add it into the mix when converting to B&W. Perhaps ACR could output two simultaneous conversions; the standard RGB, and a separate IR image as a separate channel or layer.

[Paulo Bizarro]

Such "compact" camera would be bigger than the current G7, so you would need really big pockets.

I would settle for the G7 with RAW. Even though the JPEGs are quite good already.

[Bobtrips]

A couple of advantages that I didn't notice getting a mention...

Going to an EVF viewfinder means a live histogram.

And it would provide for live feed to a remote monitor.

(The latter a great aid for composing and light positioning without having to return to the viewfinder.)

[32BT]

But if the sensor is "in general" highly sensitive to IR, how do you separate the ir signal from the "desired/conventional" rgb signal?

[BJL]

Such "compact" camera would be bigger than the current G7, so you would need really big pockets.
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That is my concern. It could be downsized to G7 dimensions, but only by the method used to make compact 35mm film cameras: "compact lenses", with small maximum apertures, and thus high minimum f-stops and the need to use high ISO more often to get adequate shutter speed. (ISO 800 film became almost standard!)
Use of such compact lenses would wipe out the commonly expected larger format advantages in shutter speed/noise trade-offs and more OOF blur, leaving mostly just higher dynamic range. And getting that extra DR would requiring use of longer shutter speeds to gather more light per pixel, since the lens would not be gathering light any faster than a smaller format lens of equal aperture size. So basically the advantages would only occur when near minimum ISO speed could be used, despite the high minimum f-stops of the compact lenses.

Those trade-off made sense with film because 35mm film and processing was so cheap that smaller film formats actually had higher total costs. But I doubt it makes sense with electronic sensors.


In summary: it is the size of the lens that limits speed and OOF blur, not the size of the image recorded on the sensor. If you want a small lens, there is usually not much point putting a big sensor behind it. That is a bit like buying a big SUV, with a 90hp engine as an attempt at fuel efficiency.

[Jonathan Wienke]

Notice that I specified a sensor with about a 1.6-2X crop factor, and non-retrofocus (since there is no optical viewfinder) lenses. The camera could be smaller than a Leica M8, (which has a 1.33X crop factor and uses lenses originally designed for full-frame 35mm film) but still have high-ISO noise abilities comparable to DSLRs rather than digicams. The Leica is 139 x 80 x 37 mm (5.5 x 3.2 x 1.5 in), and the G7 is 106 x 72 x 43 mm (4.2 x 2.8 x 1.7 in), a little shorter and narrower, but thicker than the M8. A camera with a 2X crop sensor and non-retrofocus lenses designed specifically to cover that size image circle should have no trouble giving both these cameras a run for their money in the size department.

[Jonathan Wienke]

A couple of advantages that I didn't notice getting a mention...

Going to an EVF viewfinder means a live histogram.

And it would provide for live feed to a remote monitor.

You're right about live histogram, though I've found that the "live" histogram is not always the same as the exposure histogram. My SP-350's live histogram is off by about +2/3 EV. And I did mention a detachable tilt/swivel viewfinder on the wish list.

[BJL]

Notice that I specified a sensor with about a 1.6-2X crop factor, and non-retrofocus (since there is no optical viewfinder) lenses.
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First, a clarification: by "non retro-focus" I presume you mean that the lenses can have a short back focus distance (lens to focal plane distance). Compact digicam lenses still generally have a high rear-nodal point, for the sake of being moderately telecentric, even when the rear lens elements sit only a few mm from the sensor.

The aperture size constraints I have seen on compact cameras cannot be completely overcome by avoiding SLR lens design constraints: compact 35mm film cameras can use lenses with very short back-focus and low rear-nodal points too, but are always limited to small maximum aperture diameters in order to keep the camera small.
As far as I know, every compact digital camera lens with a maximum effective aperture diameter over about 10mm is so big as to make the camera far from pocket sized (cargo pants and army fatigues excluded). For example, the (discontinued?) Sony R1 lens reaches 71.5mm, f/4.8, so maximum effective aperture diameter only 15mm, and that is one "big-nosed" camera.

Traditional near-symmetric rangefinder lens designs are not suitable comparisons: there are still telecentricity problems getting wide angle coverage from those designs, and thus the new 21/2.8 is a somewhat retro-focus design.

[BJL]

Notice that I specified a sensor with about a 1.6-2X crop factor ... The camera could ... have high-ISO noise abilities comparable to DSLRs rather than digicams. The Leica is 139 x 80 x 37 mm (5.5 x 3.2 x 1.5 in), and the G7 is 106 x 72 x 43 mm (4.2 x 2.8 x 1.7 in) ... the G7 is ... thicker than the M8.
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On two counts here, you ignore lens size. Unless your size constraint is only fitting the body in your pocket with no lens attached.

Firstly, noise performance under shutter speed constraints depends on "lens speed" (minimum usable f-stop) as well as sensor speed (maximum usable ISO?), with the combined effect roughly measured by effective aperture diameter. So you have to address the aperture size constraints of compact cameras before jumping from "less noise at a given ISO speed" to the practical issue "less noise at a given shutter speed under given lighting conditions".

Secondly, those depth comparisons are meaningless: the 43mm depth for the G7 includes a wide ranging zoom lens, the 37mm for the M8 is with no lens at all.