Best digital STILL cameras?

[Mike Rehmus]

A digital camera forum would be great.

I will upload a picture of the worlds first commercial digital camera. I have it here in my studio in one of the shoe boxes. It was used to shoot negative frames in "The Last Starfighter", and the original "Dune".

After the scanning, the scenes were fed into a Cray 1S supercomputer where it took 30 days to compute just 8 seconds of on-screen film.

[John Garcia]

hmm...Interesting. Cant wait to see it, and what it looked like!

[Nick Kerpchar]

Chris, Great idea about the digital camera section on this forum. My wife has a Nikon with a bunch of lens and she has started asking about going digital that she could use her Nikon lens on. This would be a great way for her to move towards the transition.

Hook Em Horns, Nick

[Mike Rehmus]

John,

It looks like a shoebox with a mesh top and about 2/3rds the length. Normally had an enlarging lens sticking out the front, sometimes a MicroNikor.

Single line array that was moved across the focal plane by a motor. Three scans through RGB filters to get one color image.

At that time, 1981, there wasn't much fast memory out there and this thing, once started, swept across in 2.3 seconds. Took one of the first graphic display systems, a Ramtek, to capture the image and then transfer it via a DEC PDP-10 to the Cray.

The array was a Fairchild CCD designed for facsimile machines. We'd get their entire production run and test them and keep the good ones. The lesser units went back into stock for fax machines.

[Matt Betea]

Chris,
I would love a digital camera forum here. There's a few photography and digital cam sites I frequent, but besides maybe one, none of them have the level of knowledge and the calibre of people that's here.

Back to the topic. I'm partial to Nikon. The price drop Nikon issued on the D100 makes it all the more tempting, it comes down to personal preference really. Either way both produce great images. I would suggest though, if you have a camera or two that you're seriously looking at, try it out before you decide. Hold it, fiddle with it, go through the menus and functions. For me, the D100 just felt better. And that was what "sealed the deal" for me.

Also even at 3mp, the D30 is still a nice cam. Clean used ones can be found for around $600-$800. That might be a consideration as well.

matt

[Boyd Ostroff]

<<<-- Originally posted by Chris Hurd : Instead of emailing Dean privately, what would you think about a public digicam forum here on DV Info? -->>>

You've got my vote!

[Alexander McLeod]

A digital still forum would be excellent, despite the plethora of such newsgroups. The big differences, in my opinion, would be the high level of expertise and a lack of the vitriol normally found in the newsgroups and in many other of the forums. A friend of mine calls it recreational hate and I'm sure it drives away many who would like to add their informed comments. Fortunately, we do not suffer that malady here.
Sandy

[John Garcia]

Looks like we'll all be reading about digi cams soon! I will no longer need to venture else where to ask a question about still photography. We have all the knowledge we need in one place. I still swear by it that this is by far, THE best online community out there. I look forward to learning more with all of you.

Thanks for everyones replies. Now, I need to sell my 707 and pick me up an EOS 10D! I cant wait...

John

[Craig Jones]

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Donald : I have been using the Canon EOS 10D for about a month. WOW. The resolution, image quality etc. rivals medium format. I am producing 13 x 19's with the Epson 2200 that are absolutely stunning. People are shocked, they think they were shot with medium format or large format cameras.
-->>>

My 1MP Casio rivals medium format, too, on 3x5 prints.

Digital SLR's struggle to compete with 35mm film let alone medium and large format. Their dynamic range suffers and their overall resolving power (excepting the 1Ds and 14n) are not as good. They also can't "lie" like film can. You'd think in a videography forum where so many are trying to emulate the look of film this would be better understood.

Digital SLR's are fine tools that offer some real advantages over film but quality is not among those. Today's best dSLR's are beginning to compete in some ways with the quality of 35mm and we can hope they will continue to improve. The Canon 10D is a highly regarded camera but the Fuji S2 significantly outperforms it in resolving power. Today's 6MP cameras produce a good but non-optimal 13x19 print while larger film formats are just starting to hit their stride at those sizes.

I see nothing wrong with supporting a digital SLR forum here, but those interested in learning the subject would do well to participate in all the available forums.

[John Garcia]

hmm...interesting. Im confused though. So you're saying digital SLR's arent all cracked up to what they're said to be?

[Rob Belics]

I wasn't going to say anything about the original medium format comparison but since Craig replied ...

No off the shelf digital camera can come within miles of medium format. A few can only approach 35mm. So there.

And I'm only talking resolution, not contrast or color saturation. Some say you need 10M pixels to come close to 35mm. More say you need 25M pixels to equal 35mm. Medium format, up to 100M pixels.

For contrast and color saturation, digital is still amateurish.

[Craig Jones]

<<<-- Originally posted by John Garcia : hmm...interesting. Im confused though. So you're saying digital SLR's arent all cracked up to what they're said to be? -->>>

No, I think they're very good but saying that they rival medium format is an exaggeration.

In some ways the current cameras are as good or better than 35mm and in other ways they are not. Dynamic range is an area they need to improve. Resolution and noise performance are already very good. Color saturation really depends on the film you compare it to (that's what I meant by "film lies"). You can choose your color rendition with film but with digital you must use photoshop.

There are convenience factors that are compelling with digital so long as slides aren't your preferred output so if you think you're interested in a digital SLR I don't see why you should be discouraged. The 10D, Fuji S2, and Nikon D100 are all fine camaras that are more alike in their performance than different. The 10D is newest, cheapest and most popular. The Fuji is least popular and most expensive but arguably the best performer. The D100 gets the best 3rd party hardware which is important to me underwater.

[Bill Ravens]

--->>>There are convenience factors that are compelling with digital so long as slides aren't your preferred output so if you think you're interested in a digital SLR I don't see why you should be discouraged. -->>>

I think this is the point. The proliferation of images over the internet has reached its asymptotic limit. Images viewed on the most convenient display, i.e. a computer monitor, are the way the medium is being displayed. What I'm trying to say is that large format cameras have their place...in the photographic gallery for high quality prints. The rest of the world, ENG, video art, general image disemination, will be via the internet for screen viewing. In these situations, a 6 MP digital camera is just plain good enough. And, hell, we don't even have TV display that can distinguish a disposable camera image from a Hasselblad. For every photojournalist I've ever known, the 6 MP cameras look like perfection.

[Adrian Douglas]

I think a digital still forum would be good as long as it isn't going to degenerate into the "one vs the other" wars we work so hard to avoid. It's going to be up to the community members to ensure this doesn't happen.

[Chris Hurd]

Thanks Adrian,

I think the whole motivation for us to do a digicam forum is because so many other online message boards from top-notch digicam sites have broken down into unmoderated free-for-all flame fests. Of course, that won't happen here... right, folks?