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Author Topic: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?  (Read 74028 times)

shadowblade

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #20 on: December 31, 2017, 02:32:45 am »

Honnestly you are talking about technological limitations that could be by-passed in a variety of ways. I am not sure how you can be that sure about your claims?

The reasonnable thing to say is that we’ll have to see what Nikon is able to come up with.

They are likely to both produce new lenses and a way to adapt existing ones.

Cheers,
Bernard

What makes you think Nikon can do it when neither Canon nor Sony could? Canon EF-M lenses, and others with STM motors work far better than other L-series lenses on Canon mirrorless bodies. Same with Sony lenses - A-mount lenses are slow and inaccurate on E-mount with an adapter.

Ring USM-type motors can make big moves quickly and accurately, but not multiple moves in rapid (as in, many times a second) succession. Linear motors can do both. Unless you've discovered a new type of motor that just happens to have been used by Nikon for all their lenses over the last five years, or unless Nikon mirrorless cameras give up on CDAF and AI-based focus refinements and stick with PDAF only, the current lenses won't be up to the task. It doesn't particularly matter what sort of motor the mirrorless lenses end up using - either way, you'll still need new ones.
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petermfiore

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #21 on: December 31, 2017, 09:20:54 am »

Cameras to shoot DNG...

Peter

Paul Roark

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #22 on: December 31, 2017, 11:08:28 am »

Hi Paul.

How do you like the Loxia 85/2.4 and/or the Loxia 21/2.8? Too big?

I have the Loxia 21.  I would like smaller and lighter, but to get the performance I want, it seems necessary.  I use it a lot. 

At the long end, the Leica Marcro Elmar 90mm f/4 is what has knocked the others out.  With its profiles used in conversion, the red fringing it exhibits is generally under control.  I've never not been able to clean up it's images.

In the middle, which is used less than the ends of the range, my latest acquisition is the Voigtlander 40mm f/1.2.  (40mm is a good, half way point between the ends.)  F/1.2 is *not* what I had in mind, but I have not found a lighter, smaller 40mm lens that can equal it on the Sony.  (The Sony 35mm f/2.8 and I have never bonded.  I like manual focus with an accurate infinity stop.  The Sony 35 is also soft compared to what I'm looking for, though it's done a great job on the corner sharpness.)   I think reasonable size/weight and usable for large landscape printing at f/2.8 should be achievable with today's tech.  The Nokton, to its credit might actually be usable in the central 24x30 mm even at f/2.  Not bad, Voigtlander!  And it's not too large, thought not a Leica M "compact" by any means.  (Leica M optics less than 90mm show soft edges due to the thick Sony  sensor coverglass.)

I might add that when I get a lens that is different, it tends to induce experimenting with what the un-wanted feature can do.  I've had Canon f/1.2 optics and always ended up selling them.  I generally like everything in focus and sharp.  I shoot for B&W printing.  As such, the out of focus blobs that can look interesting in color are just characterless blobs -- not to my liking.  But, since it looks like I'll be carrying f/1.2 (test hike with it indicated it's no too heavy), I'll probably experiment with what it can do.  Those challenges are good for me and my photography.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #23 on: December 31, 2017, 07:25:06 pm »

What makes you think Nikon can do it when neither Canon nor Sony could? Canon EF-M lenses, and others with STM motors work far better than other L-series lenses on Canon mirrorless bodies. Same with Sony lenses - A-mount lenses are slow and inaccurate on E-mount with an adapter.

Ring USM-type motors can make big moves quickly and accurately, but not multiple moves in rapid (as in, many times a second) succession. Linear motors can do both. Unless you've discovered a new type of motor that just happens to have been used by Nikon for all their lenses over the last five years, or unless Nikon mirrorless cameras give up on CDAF and AI-based focus refinements and stick with PDAF only, the current lenses won't be up to the task. It doesn't particularly matter what sort of motor the mirrorless lenses end up using - either way, you'll still need new ones.

Allow me to wish you a great year 2018 with a lot of photography and happiness.

May the light continue to reveal itself to you and your dear ones.

Cheers,
Bernard

BradSmith

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #24 on: January 01, 2018, 12:20:24 pm »

The only thing I'd like is a camera body with the same image quality as today's $1,000 and up bodies, BUT, with about 80% of the bells and whistles eliminated for simplicity sake. In my opinion, the seemingly endless feature sets and menu structure of many of today's cameras actually reduce the camera's operability and reduce the enjoyment of using the camera.
Brad 
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Rob C

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #25 on: January 01, 2018, 12:56:57 pm »

The only thing I'd like is a camera body with the same image quality as today's $1,000 and up bodies, BUT, with about 80% of the bells and whistles eliminated for simplicity sake. In my opinion, the seemingly endless feature sets and menu structure of many of today's cameras actually reduce the camera's operability and reduce the enjoyment of using the camera.
Brad

At the very least, they force the spending of a lot of time and effort to eliminate as much as possible and set them up for as near as dammit fully manual control.

I was thinking about taking some pix today as I wound up the energy to go for a walk; in the event, I just couldn't be bothered with the idea of having a camera hanging off me on a strap. So nothing happened other than the walk. Perhaps photography ends up becoming as much a nuisance as pleasure.

However, if cellphones were to be made featuring DNG, it would change everything and make DNG the common currency - at last. But folks want connectivity...
« Last Edit: January 01, 2018, 02:36:29 pm by Rob C »
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NancyP

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #26 on: January 02, 2018, 07:54:19 pm »

Some phone camera apps already have RAW capability and DNG files.
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the_luminous_french

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #27 on: January 03, 2018, 04:26:17 am »

a nice 35mm PC... sigma or zeiss in order to have it on sony, nikon and canon...

maybe even a fully mechanical one, with a sort of universal mount !
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HywelPhillips

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #28 on: January 03, 2018, 05:22:42 am »

Mine remains the same as it was last year when I started the thread - proper RAW histograms. It frustrates me that we've now got a technology where there's a pretty foolproof way to set exposure right there and then: ETTR. (OK maybe you need to fire off a test shot, but in most circumstances that's fine). BUT the cameras steadfastly refuse to expose the information to the photographer.

For Canon: make me a dSLR form factor camera which shoots 4K to a nice modern codec with PDAF touch-screen autofocus. I'd buy one to live on my gimbal today. I'm indifferent to whether it is mirror or mirrorless, but it must take EF lenses (via adaptor is fine). Make a full-frame GH5 killer.

For Sony:  Keep working on the autofocus, especially for video- you're making great improvements here and it's really starting to pay off. Hire a good UI designer at board level or something, because across your products from cameras to blu-ray players your user interfaces are lamentable and stop me loving them despite your technological wizardry. Integrate the touch screen. Keep it up with the lenses, they're awesome.

For Apple: Resurrect Aperture (or it's fine to just ensure Photos has the full functionality of Aperture at last). Make a new boxy MacPro that can take normal PC cards again.

For Capture One: bury the hatchet with Hasselblad and other MF manufacturers and support all camera RAW files. FFS, enough is enough. Add skin smoothing tool or integrate Imagenomic Portaiture.

For Panasonic: add PDAF to your sensors. A GH6 with 1DXII-style tap to focus would be awesome.

For everyone: stop making "film era" cameras with digital sensors. Embrace digital photography and really think about what that means. ETTR and RAW histograms should be omni-present but they're not. Timelapse, HDR, focus stacking, long exposure simulation stacking multiple exposures etc. should all be supported in camera without us having to do the low-level stuff of manually refocussing and taking the next shot in the stack. By all means do a rough job of actually assembling the stacks in camera, with the raw files stored and tagged so that we can do a better job in post. Some cameras do some of this; in 2018 ALL cameras should do ALL of it.




Cheers, Hywel






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Hulyss

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #29 on: January 03, 2018, 07:00:41 am »

I wish you all a great year 2018, health, projects and joy.

Technically I do not need more than what actual camera can do but I have some requests for Nikon and Sigma.

Nikon :

Please, do not give up on mirrorless. I was pretty excited when the DF was teased. I mean... I love pre launch marketing and I was hoping for something very very serious, at least more than the Df. Now, with all the patents, I would like a very serious Fx mirrorless. I would like also that your compagny relocate full in Japan even if the price jump a bit.


Sigma :

You release technically very good lenses. Let's focus on your cameras as you said you don't make profit out of it. Stop the pixel race because it destroy your former magic. Release a fat pixel 1.1.1 full frame sensor please. Sure it would please a load of consumers.

That's all :)
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Rob C

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #30 on: January 03, 2018, 07:33:23 am »

Some phone camera apps already have RAW capability and DNG files.

Hi Nancy,

Even with all the time I blow on the Internet, I didn't know that!

Do you, off the top of your head, know which ones offer RAW?

Thanks, and happy new year to you.

Rob

GrahamBy

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #31 on: January 03, 2018, 07:49:51 am »

Cameras to shoot DNG...

Peter

Pentax. Does everything I need, in fact.
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petermfiore

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #32 on: January 03, 2018, 08:26:46 am »

Pentax. Does everything I need, in fact.

I amend my wish...All cameras shoot DNG.

Peter

scooby70

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #33 on: January 03, 2018, 08:51:44 am »

1.  Lens makers -- Some of us need top quality prime manual focus lenses that are small and light -- the old Leica M approach,

I don't need state of the art image quality and I'd settle for the same quality I get from an old manual Minolta Rokkor but with the ability to mount it directly onto my camera without the added bulk of a spacer/adapter.

We've seen quite a few new manual lenses be introduced but lenses that are good enough with the ability to mount directly are not so common.

And on another note...
Whenever I read about people wishing that Nikon (or Canon or anyone else for that matter) would introduce a mirrorless camera I do wonder why people are so badge obsessed. I used a Nikon SLR for decades before going to Canon DSLR's which I used for over 10 years before going mirrorless and maybe I'm in a minority but I really don't care what name is on the from of my camera.
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Rob C

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #34 on: January 03, 2018, 09:59:06 am »

I don't need state of the art image quality and I'd settle for the same quality I get from an old manual Minolta Rokkor but with the ability to mount it directly onto my camera without the added bulk of a spacer/adapter.

We've seen quite a few new manual lenses be introduced but lenses that are good enough with the ability to mount directly are not so common.

And on another note...
Whenever I read about people wishing that Nikon (or Canon or anyone else for that matter) would introduce a mirrorless camera I do wonder why people are so badge obsessed. I used a Nikon SLR for decades before going to Canon DSLR's which I used for over 10 years before going mirrorless and maybe I'm in a minority but I really don't care what name is on the from of my camera.


Simple: they hope they don't have to buy a new set of lenses. That was Nikon's big thing until they introduced the G-system of glass which is no good with old film cameras, as I discovered.

Rob

BJL

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My #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018? Better ergonomics!
« Reply #35 on: January 03, 2018, 02:56:36 pm »

Trying to play by the one wish rule: I feel utterly blessed by the image quality that is possible these days, so give me better ergonomics! Like user interfaces that on one hand provide the far greater array of options made possible by digital, computerised cameras but on the other hand let me easily hide the frills when I do not want them. For example, a way to remember what I have programmed my buttons and dials to do! Maybe a voice interface would help?
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32BT

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #36 on: January 03, 2018, 09:08:09 pm »

Mine remains the same as it was last year when I started the thread - proper RAW histograms. It frustrates me that we've now got a technology where there's a pretty foolproof way to set exposure right there and then: ETTR. (OK maybe you need to fire off a test shot, but in most circumstances that's fine). BUT the cameras steadfastly refuse to expose the information to the photographer.

1. Why do you need ETTR specifically? How many times do you actually have so little DR in a scene and enough time to capture it, that ETTR is both viable and advantageous?
2. how do you know the camera isn't already doing ETTR under the hood?
3. would you be willing to sacrifice color-accuracy for true ETTR?
4. What do you hope to learn from a RAW histogram? If the histogram clips, what does that mean for actual image pixels? Specular highlights, or entire image elements like clouds?
5. would you prefer a proper clipping indication instead?
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HywelPhillips

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #37 on: January 04, 2018, 06:05:01 am »

1. Why do you need ETTR specifically? How many times do you actually have so little DR in a scene and enough time to capture it, that ETTR is both viable and advantageous?
2. how do you know the camera isn't already doing ETTR under the hood?
3. would you be willing to sacrifice color-accuracy for true ETTR?
4. What do you hope to learn from a RAW histogram? If the histogram clips, what does that mean for actual image pixels? Specular highlights, or entire image elements like clouds?
5. would you prefer a proper clipping indication instead?

1. Because unlike film, which had a genuine, physical roll-off in the highlights, digital sensors have a "correct" exposure. That exposure is the highest exposure consistent with not clipping any individual channel, modulo the complication of specular highlights (which I'll discuss below). Coming from a physics background, I just want to be able to expose my sensor optimally, and in the vast majority of situations there actually is an optimal exposure choice.

How many times would I use it? All the time, for landscape. Especially if sunlight clouds are in shot, which where I live means "almost every shot".

2. Because when you dig into RAW files with RAW digger or similar, it clearly isn't. For example, the clipping indicator on my Sony A7RII show clipping a fair bit before actual saturation occurs. And your question answers itself- if I had RAW histograms, I'd KNOW whether or not my camera was doing ETTR under the hood. I want to KNOW- right there on the camera- which is the whole point of my request. The information is right there in the RAW file immediately after capture, but modern cameras do not have the facility to display it.

With the information, the choice is mine as to whether to redo the exposure to get closer to optimum. Without the exposure information, I frequently bracket and hope. I would prefer to remove the "hope" part of that operation.

3. I fail to see why presenting the RAW histogram would have any effect at all on colour accuracy. Possibly automatic ETTR in the camera would compromise colour accuracy, but presenting the INFORMATION to me cannot have any effect. And generally speaking ETTR is the best way to prevent loss of colour accuracy by making sure no individual channel is clipping.

4. I want to see the range of values in the image as shot. Simple as that. We have histograms now, and very useful they are, but they are much more useful if supplemented by the OPTION to see what's actually come directly off the sensor. RAW histograms are useful for when you are shooting RAW in the same way that histograms of in-camera JPEG are useful when shooting in-camera JPEG.

5. Proper clipping indication would be hugely useful as well! Personally if I had to choose one of the two, I'd prefer histograms, with a bin indicating total number of overflow sensels for each channel. (It just gives one more information). But yes, RED-style RGB clipping indicators would be a big step forward. It's one of the very best features of my RED Scarlet.

I'd really like it if the clipping overlay would show pixels which have clipped in each colour overlaid as well, so I can judge whether or not to care about a small amount of clipping. Specular highlights- don't care. Sun's disk in a sunset- do care if I possibly can. Sun's disk in a sunstar - do care, want to make sure the smallest amount is clipping consistent with not having noise in the shadows. A combination of a proper RAW-based clipping indication, RAW-based noise floor indication, channel-by-channel clipping indicators and RAW histograms gives one the necessary information, and that's what I want to have added to camera UI.

Hywel
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32BT

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #38 on: January 04, 2018, 07:39:01 am »

Right,

let me first state that i am all for more control based on correct information. I just want to find out what specifically is desired. This request for ETTR and RAW histograms is posted time and again over the years, but I'm not sure whether people are really aware of what they are requesting. A RAW histogram in linear space for example, will be mostly unusable info. Adjustments required to make it more readable to the average mortal will automatically get one into a swamp of questionable practices with a different "optimum" for different photographers.

The primary example is the linear behaviour of the RAW data. So we have a RAW file with data that preferably represents linear behaving samples from the sensor.

Let's assume that the sensor actually does behave linear up to saturation. How do you know that the camera does NOT actually expose for saturation and re-adjusts the data written to the file to represent your exposure settings? (note that seeing RAW data samples in a file has very little relation to whatever happens on the sensor and in the electronics.)

Let's assume the sensor does not behave linear, which is a reasonable assumption for most electronics, then:
1. do you prefer linear behaviour over saturation behaviour?
2. is "correct" or "optimal" exposure now a "middle gray" referenced exposure in the sense that most data should concentrate on the most linear part of the curve?

If you want feedback for the saturation side of the exposure, do you also want feedback for the shadowtones? When do shadowtones become unusable? If you have to make a compromise between not clipping clouds and reasonable foliage shadowtones, how do you know you've nailed the exposure? Is this an issue of experience? Just like experience helps you to translate clipping in the output to actually clipping the data?

These are just questions to get to the bottom of it. Maybe I'm hijacking the thread and this should be discussed elsewhere.

For good measure I'll add a post with a feature wish as well. :-)
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32BT

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Re: What is your #1 wish for manufacturers in 2018?
« Reply #39 on: January 04, 2018, 07:49:08 am »

Wish:

A useful and quick manual focus override on fly-by-wire mirrorless lenses.

or maybe I just want direct focussing, don't know for sure: point is that IF the camera/lens combo somehow isn't able to acquire focus or finds the wrong focus location, I need to immediately be able to turn the focusring and adjust, and not have to turn it like 500 full rotations to actually have it where I want it. (Canon's original 24-70 seemed to work really well at the time.)

For Fuji specifically:
IS mode that only engages during autofocus lock (half press shutter).

In general:
Highlight and shadow blinkies that actually represent the data prior to sharpening and focus highlight. It's extremely annoying to attempt to use focus contours and blinkies at the same time currently.
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