The next crop of cameras is coming down the chute

[fotometria gr]

Did it really, which film and which dust?
 Not long ago I could see no reason for shooting film either, in fact I still don't see much use in shooting transparency film, I think digital does that job better. What I do find is once you have got over the Oohhs and ahhs of digital detail and start looking for other stuff in the picture a decent scan of colour negative leaves digital somewhat wanting.
I'm even looking at TV these days and thinking yes it sharp, yes the colour is neutral but there is no character in it or great depth. It's like decorating your house in the style of a hospital operating theatre, all neat clean, bright, precise and cold. I was watching Spooks the other night and thought someone spent a lot of time getting it very neutral with bang on skin tones, but the greens in the park lacked any great range of green and that's it for me in the digital I have experience of, yes you get the colours it gives you bang on , but it does not give you many colours.
If it was not for the fact I need digital to make a living, I think I would not bother with it, the more I look the less I like about it, the less I like the bells and whistles that clutter the cameras up and the endless permutations of setting the camera up.

Kevin.

+1. Exactly the way its written in my mind as well, inevitably digital will overcome its disadvantages, but we are not there yet... not yet! Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

[ixania2]

IMO the distance to be covered between now and a really good DSLR, is the same from a 2000 DSLR till now! Of course there will be people that will be more satisfied than before as tech advances and of course the percentage of completely satisfied customers will be higher all the time, but until the remaining drawbacks of digital to where film was have been reached, I will stay with the unsatisfied ones. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

The dslrs in 2025 will be far superior to anything you canimaging now.
But i will like the unsharp pictures of cartier-bresson even more, with burnt skies without clouds.
Why, oh why?.

[ondebanks]

If it was not for the fact I need digital to make a living, I think I would not bother with it, the more I look the less I like about it, the less I like the bells and whistles that clutter the cameras up and the endless permutations of setting the camera up.

I presume you are not referring to medium format or view cameras with digital backs or scan backs. Because (a) nearly all these cameras can also shoot film and (b) one would hardly describe them as being cluttered with bells and whistles and endless permutations. "Digital" is a broad church, as broad as film ever was/is; somewhere in that church there may be a digital or hybrid platform which you could find yourself liking, if not loving.

Ray

[fotometria gr]

The dslrs in 2025 will be far superior to anything you canimaging now.
But i will like the unsharp pictures of cartier-bresson even more, with burnt skies without clouds.
Why, oh why?.

  YOU KNOW WHY! But lets stay with the topic here.... Mind you though that some can misunderstand your quote and think that you are an enemy of DR..., I felt surprised that when I mentioned Cartier's saying that "the photographer should be able to vision the photograph before he even captures it" and even emphasized that "a photograph is only the printed image", which should be considered a fundamental to photography, there were some "photographers" (the same that can misunderstood your quote) that opposed even that..... There is one thing for sure, ....for the moment film is here to stay until 2025 (maybe... more or less) and make us smile with its extra abilities from current digital! Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr
 P.S. I really admired your ...poetic approach, it proves that art can save words.

[telyt]

Did it really, which film and which dust?

All of the color films I compared it with.  Color gradation, detail, shadow and highlight detail retention are all clearly better with the DMR.  If you think that CaNikon's digital cameras are the best digital cameras available I can see how you'd reach the conclusion you have, but they're quite lacking in several areas.  It is a mistake IMHO to paint all digital cameras with the same brush based on experience with only the popular brands.

[fotometria gr]

All of the color films I compared it with.  Color gradation, detail, shadow and highlight detail retention are all clearly better with the DMR.  If you think that CaNikon's digital cameras are the best digital cameras available I can see how you'd reach the conclusion you have, but they're quite lacking in several areas.  It is a mistake IMHO to paint all digital cameras with the same brush based on experience with only the popular brands.

Are you trying to say that the DMR (which is really an imacon), is better than my Imacon 528c? I say this because my 528c may be far better than the Canikons digital that you mention, but there is still some handicap left over some aspects of negative film (which have been discussed earlier) and certainly its not advantages that the superb Leitz glass can  overcome. I know because I am using equally superb (or better) glass on my Contax 645. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

[telyt]

Are you trying to say that the DMR (which is really an imacon), is better than my Imacon 528c? I say this because my 528c may be far better than the Canikons digital that you mention, but there is still some handicap left over some aspects of negative film (which have been discussed earlier) and certainly its not advantages that the superb Leitz glass can  overcome. I know because I am using equally superb (or better) glass on my Contax 645. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

The DMR is an Imacon/Kodak/Leica product, and I compared it with 35mm films.  A 645 is an inappropriate camera for my photography so a cross-format comparison is pointless.  For 35mm-format photography the only film I'm willing to use instead of the DMR is fine-grain B&W.  For 35mm-format color photography at comparable ISO I much prefer the color quality, gradation, highlight, mid-tone & shadow detail and noise (vs. film grain) from the DMR, using the same Leica APO lenses on both the film camera and the DMR.

[fotometria gr]

The DMR is an Imacon/Kodak/Leica product, and I compared it with 35mm films.  A 645 is an inappropriate camera for my photography so a cross-format comparison is pointless.  For 35mm-format photography the only film I'm willing to use instead of the DMR is fine-grain B&W.  For 35mm-format color photography at comparable ISO I much prefer the color quality, gradation, highlight, mid-tone & shadow detail and noise (vs. film grain) from the DMR, using the same Leica APO lenses on both the film camera and the DMR.

"Prefer" is different, than what you earlier quoted..., the qualities of film that are retained in advance of digital are independent of the size of the area that is covered by the medium. For example highlight DR is (much) better with film than digital, either with my FF or with my APS-c or even with my MFDB. But "I prefer..." is certainly something that nobody can argue with. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

[BernardLanguillier]

If you think that CaNikon's digital cameras are the best digital cameras available I can see how you'd reach the conclusion you have

They may not be the best, but there are more differences between a D3x and a 1Ds3 than there is between a P65+ and a D3x... so I don't believe that the entity CaNikon has any more meaning than Phikon or sHassony would have.

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/%28appareil1%29/485|0/%28brand%29/Nikon/%28appareil2%29/436|0/%28brand2%29/Canon

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Cameras/Compare-Camera-Sensors/Compare-cameras-side-by-side/%28appareil1%29/485|0/%28brand%29/Nikon/%28appareil2%29/579|0/%28brand2%29/Phase%20One

Cheers,
Bernard

[telyt]

"Prefer" is different, than what you earlier quoted..., the qualities of film that are retained in advance of digital are independent of the size of the area that is covered by the medium. For example highlight DR is (much) better with film than digital, either with my FF or with my APS-c or even with my MFDB. But "I prefer..." is certainly something that nobody can argue with. Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

I find much better highlight DR with the DMR than with any of the color films I've used.  "I prefer" better highlight DR.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I actually compared DR on my Alpha 900 and Kodak Ektar 100. It's about the same, but Ektar compresses shadows and highlights.

Imatest says total DR is 12 stops for Ektar and 10.8 for Alpha 900, but for "high quality" it says 5.34 for Ektar and 8.69 for Alpha 900. Not easy to shoot a Stouffer Wedge, but same setup was used for both. This is scanned on my CCD scanner, I would not rule out that a drum scanner would be able to extract more DR, but I assume that highlight compression is more a feature of the film than of the scan.

This crop from an Ektar 100 shot shows very little detail on sunlit white wall:


Top left: Sonya Alpha 900, top right Ektar 100 6x7 drum scanned at 6096 PPI bottom left same negative scanned on CCD scanner. All the images scaled to the same height (17000 pixels). Drum scanning of the Ektar image was kindly made at http://www.high-end-scans.de . The CCD scan was intentionally made a bit dark, to keep as much detail as possible in another part of the image. I presume that this sample illustrates that highlight compression is for real.

Best regards
Erik

I find much better highlight DR with the DMR than with any of the color films I've used.  "I prefer" better highlight DR.

[fotometria gr]

I find much better highlight DR with the DMR than with any of the color films I've used.  "I prefer" better highlight DR.

My findings are different you may find that others state so as well, perhaps you are not scanning film right, surely there is something in your process of comparing that should be revised, Erik's quote up there states correctly that film compresses more highlight range in its S-slope (curve) this is my observation as well. But again you may consider what you have enough, ...it doesn't have to do be the same with all of us, does it? Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

[bcooter]

Agree. I was kind of surprised of this Cooter's point in his post, ......snip........

I understand the reason for nodes, just as I understand that in the past it took 10,000 watts to light a scene.

The thing is I think those days are leaving us, because as any tech company will tell you, it's all about software.

Once again, I'll mention fcpx and everytime I mention this software, I have to add a disclaimer that today it's not ready to edit a full feature movie, BUT, the system makes sense.

Whatever you do to a file you can visually see and adjust on a timeline by just clicking and opening it and you can share fcpx projects between workstations.

I just think, most imaging software is old think and I do believe we're going to get to the point with still and motion imagery where whatever we shoot on the day, we can take a controller like an Ipad and do enough close effects in very short order where a client or director or the money guy can see almost exactly what the session will look like on set, not in 4 weeks of post production.

How this relates to cameras? 

We'll cameras like some imaging software are still stuck in 1996 and if that works for a particular artist or style then that's great, but I believe the world is moving much faster than that and everything from pre, on set and post production has to be easier, more cost effective and faster, without sacrificing the story, the look and the project.

In fact, I believe it all has to become more intuitive and simple, to free up the creative process.

IMO

BC

[fredjeang]

I understand the reason for nodes, just as I understand that in the past it took 10,000 watts to light a scene.

The thing is I think those days are leaving us, because as any tech company will tell you, it's all about software.

Once again, I'll mention fcpx and everytime I mention this software, I have to add a disclaimer that today it's not ready to edit a full feature movie, BUT, the system makes sense.

Whatever you do to a file you can visually see and adjust on a timeline by just clicking and opening it and you can share fcpx projects between workstations.

I just think, most imaging software is old think and I do believe we're going to get to the point with still and motion imagery where whatever we shoot on the day, we can take a controller like an Ipad and do enough close effects in very short order where a client or director or the money guy can see almost exactly what the session will look like on set, not in 4 weeks of post production.

How this relates to cameras?  

We'll cameras like some imaging software are still stuck in 1996 and if that works for a particular artist or style then that's great, but I believe the world is moving much faster than that and everything from pre, on set and post production has to be easier, more cost effective and faster, without sacrificing the story, the look and the project.

In fact, I believe it all has to become more intuitive and simple, to free up the creative process.

IMO

BC

I certainly won't contradict yourself on that, because I'm suffering daily, like a lot of us, the mess (to be polite) of the ridiculous complexity of the pipeline and the unfriendliness if not hostile interfaces.

Yes camera are using stone age designs so as softwares and all that will be soon irrelevant in the fascinating digital age we just entered.

Indeed we need as soon as posible a huge step in camera-softwares designs and get much more intuitive and fast and reliable and standardized processes because as you point, it's such a mess that the time we have to use in order to solve this or that generaly silly issue could be better used for the creative processes.

About the nodes IMO, they make all sense when a very complex task has to be done and no short-cut possible, like special FX. But they make zero sense IMO in a Da-Vinci software for ex dedicated to grade, it's complicating where it should be simple, overkill. Having started to use Nuke recently, I could see how good they are in FX compared to the layers and how they can make what would be a complete mess into a very intuitive and flexible workflow, instantanously playing different settings in different viewers, allowing to group them logicaly so if I abandon a project for awhile it costs nothing to be back into it.

But there is no question that we really need much more intuitive tools and less softwares involved.

My dream would be this: a thought process software. You think the result, and the software does it for you. We'll get there I'm sure. Our bones will already be back where they come from, but it will come.

[KevinA]

I presume you are not referring to medium format or view cameras with digital backs or scan backs. Because (a) nearly all these cameras can also shoot film and (b) one would hardly describe them as being cluttered with bells and whistles and endless permutations. "Digital" is a broad church, as broad as film ever was/is; somewhere in that church there may be a digital or hybrid platform which you could find yourself liking, if not loving.

Ray

Correct my experience is DSLR's are of the FF 35mm variety. Each new one of them makes MF more sensible for taking pictures.
But I can't make a business case for MF, I try but it just does not add up. I would not make a penny more if I supplied my clients with a file shot on a MF system over a Canon. I don't see digital output having anywhere near the variety of film.

Kevin.

[KevinA]

All of the color films I compared it with.  Color gradation, detail, shadow and highlight detail retention are all clearly better with the DMR.  If you think that CaNikon's digital cameras are the best digital cameras available I can see how you'd reach the conclusion you have, but they're quite lacking in several areas.  It is a mistake IMHO to paint all digital cameras with the same brush based on experience with only the popular brands.

Sorry mate but that is way off the mark, better DR? I think not. Try Portra 160, get a few multi sampled 48 bit dng scans, then come back and report.
I have never used the latest Phaseone, but I doubt they could get near the DR of the latest colour negs. Before you mention grain, for all practical output there isn't any.
If you compared the DR with Chrome then it's about the same, except digital throws the towel in at the extremes with ugly side effects.
We all mostly moved from Ektachrome/Fujichrome to digital and thought wow, well take a look at the latest colour neg and you might go WOW.
If landscape was my thing I would think a LF and Portra would give a lovely look to prints. If portraits was my thing I would think Portra would give a lovely look to prints. As it is, I overexpose it and get shadow detail while retaining highlights.

Kevin.

[KevinA]

My findings are different you may find that others state so as well, perhaps you are not scanning film right, surely there is something in your process of comparing that should be revised, Erik's quote up there states correctly that film compresses more highlight range in its S-slope (curve) this is my observation as well. But again you may consider what you have enough, ...it doesn't have to do be the same with all of us, does it? Regards, Theodoros. www.fotometria.gr

Same here, I find highlight detail retention on film (Portra 160) is huge, the difficult part is capturing it in a scan.
In fact if you read anything about the film everyone is knocked out by it's ability to retain highlight. I tried it at a full 6 stops normal dev over exposed and could still get a perfectly decent image out of it, my Canon struggled at +2, at +3. Any highlight was giving up in a truly weird way. Not that we go out to over or under expose at any time, but the latitude of Portra is amazing.

Kevin.

[Graham Mitchell]

Canon seem to be gearing up for a 1Ds4 launch pronto, and are said to be showing around a 5DMarkIII.

Well now we know that the new flagship is the 1Dx, with 18 MP.
www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_1Dx/

[KevinA]

Well now we know that the new flagship is the 1Dx, with 18 MP.
www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_1Dx/

......and it's just more of the same. I keep fighting the urge for MF then Canon bring out something like this and MF starts to make sense again.

Kevin.

[ondebanks]

Well now we know that the new flagship is the 1Dx, with 18 MP.
www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_1Dx/

Great to see that they didn't just chase more MP pointlessly. Dropping to 18MP for their FF flagship is actually a rather bold and progressive move. As they continue to improve readout noise, the larger pixels have enabled them to reach astonishing high ISO. I used to joke about "1 meeellion ISO!" in the mode of Dr. Evil, but that day is getting closer.

All I'd really care about is the sensor; IMO stuff like the 61 AF points is completely superfluous!

Ray