Digital Photography from 20,000 Feet
by Wesley Fink on September 25, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
Digital Directions
When consumer Digital Photography first launched over a decade ago, the only real choice for the average consumer was a point-and-shoot camera, which was completely unlike the SLR cameras that ruled the Amateur and Hobbyist film market. The image quality of the initial offerings was also poor at best, with the first models offering 0.3 megapixel sensors (640x480 images). However, the market was developing fast and megapixel ratings - the number of dots that were used to create an image - were moving higher by leaps and bounds. All of the cameras from that era seemed to have way too many compromises - slow start-up, long times to process and save an image, mediocre optics, extremely limited dynamic range, and color flaws. There were a few great ones along the way, but the market had to develop for a while before Digital cameras for photo hobbyists could even approach being as good as film-based cameras.
That goal was still a ways off, as the digital SLR cameras the Pros used had massive power requirements, battery packs that looked like they belonged in hybrid cars, and price tags of $20,000 or more. Most agreed the goal was the familiar and flexible SLR (Single Lens Reflex) format that could take advantage of the huge inventory of lenses that had developed over 40 years. It seemed every Pro and most 35mm hobbyists had a large number of lenses they would love to use on digital camera bodies.
Progress in technology development was rapid, prices dropped quickly, and most agree the photography enthusiast finally got a real camera option at a doable price with the introduction of the Canon Digital Rebel in October 2003 - just 3 short years ago. The Digital Rebel finally broke the magic $1000 price barrier for a 6 megapixel SLR and an 18-55mm lens. That kind of pricing was unheard of just 3 years ago and the Digital Rebel sold in huge volume.
The Press was astounded by the value of the Rebel, as shown in this quote in October 2003 from Steve's Digicams:
"The 'magic' $1000 price mark for digital SLRs has been broken like the sound barrier and Canon is positioning the EOS Digital Rebel as 'the digital SLR for everyone.' These cameras will be an instant hit with those wanting a digital camera that works the same as their 35mm SLR, and dealers will no doubt sell them as fast as Canon can make them. And Canon is planning on making a lot of them. They announced at the London press event that production was set at an amazing 70,000 units a month. The Digital Rebel may not be black, but don't let the silver-colored body fool you, this isn't some cheap knock-off. It's loaded with state of the art imaging technology and is sure to please both novice and seasoned photographers alike."
The 6 megapixel Canon Digital Rebel can still be bought today, although the bigger seller is the updated 8 megapixel Rebel XT. The important thing from a photography enthusiast point-of-view is that the Rebel was an inexpensively built camera with digital features previously unheard of at the selling price. Canon designed the Digital Rebel for mass sales. It was a bit of an upscale move from the 35mm Rebel series that had been advertised on TV by John McEnroe, but they were designed to be mass market. The Digital SLR had finally arrived, and would quickly grow to dominate the digital photography market.
Many readers do not realize how very much the Digital Photography market has changed since the introduction of the Digital Rebel. The $1000 price now seems high since today you can buy a Pentax Digital SLR, the *ist DL, with an 18-55mm lens for less than $500 (the body alone is $379). The price of entry for the 6 megapixel DSLR has dropped by almost 50%. This has led to Digital SLRs becoming the fastest growing segment of the Digital Camera market. Camera makers are still making point-and-shoots, and the market leader in Digital point-and-shoot cameras is now Kodak (does this sound familiar?). Big and serious players in the market have quickly moved to introduce cheaper and cheaper DSLR cameras at the bottom, and more and more resolution and features in the now "middle" $1000 price range.
This does not mean that digital point-and-shoot cameras are now useless. There will always be a market for very small, pocketable point-and-shoot cameras. That was also true in the 35mm film market. It does mean, however, that the SLR-like high-speed fixed-lens digitals in the $400 to $800 price range are having a tough time these days. The point-and-shoot offerings of tiny "stealth" cameras and mainstream point-and-shoot will continue to be targeted at families to shoot vacation pictures of their kids - the typical Kodak market. Sooner than later you will likely even see reusable digital point-and-shoots similar to today's disposable film cameras. The companies make money on paper and ink, so this market segment is a natural for Kodak and HP as technology costs continue to decline.
When consumer Digital Photography first launched over a decade ago, the only real choice for the average consumer was a point-and-shoot camera, which was completely unlike the SLR cameras that ruled the Amateur and Hobbyist film market. The image quality of the initial offerings was also poor at best, with the first models offering 0.3 megapixel sensors (640x480 images). However, the market was developing fast and megapixel ratings - the number of dots that were used to create an image - were moving higher by leaps and bounds. All of the cameras from that era seemed to have way too many compromises - slow start-up, long times to process and save an image, mediocre optics, extremely limited dynamic range, and color flaws. There were a few great ones along the way, but the market had to develop for a while before Digital cameras for photo hobbyists could even approach being as good as film-based cameras.
That goal was still a ways off, as the digital SLR cameras the Pros used had massive power requirements, battery packs that looked like they belonged in hybrid cars, and price tags of $20,000 or more. Most agreed the goal was the familiar and flexible SLR (Single Lens Reflex) format that could take advantage of the huge inventory of lenses that had developed over 40 years. It seemed every Pro and most 35mm hobbyists had a large number of lenses they would love to use on digital camera bodies.
Progress in technology development was rapid, prices dropped quickly, and most agree the photography enthusiast finally got a real camera option at a doable price with the introduction of the Canon Digital Rebel in October 2003 - just 3 short years ago. The Digital Rebel finally broke the magic $1000 price barrier for a 6 megapixel SLR and an 18-55mm lens. That kind of pricing was unheard of just 3 years ago and the Digital Rebel sold in huge volume.
The Press was astounded by the value of the Rebel, as shown in this quote in October 2003 from Steve's Digicams:
"The 'magic' $1000 price mark for digital SLRs has been broken like the sound barrier and Canon is positioning the EOS Digital Rebel as 'the digital SLR for everyone.' These cameras will be an instant hit with those wanting a digital camera that works the same as their 35mm SLR, and dealers will no doubt sell them as fast as Canon can make them. And Canon is planning on making a lot of them. They announced at the London press event that production was set at an amazing 70,000 units a month. The Digital Rebel may not be black, but don't let the silver-colored body fool you, this isn't some cheap knock-off. It's loaded with state of the art imaging technology and is sure to please both novice and seasoned photographers alike."
The 6 megapixel Canon Digital Rebel can still be bought today, although the bigger seller is the updated 8 megapixel Rebel XT. The important thing from a photography enthusiast point-of-view is that the Rebel was an inexpensively built camera with digital features previously unheard of at the selling price. Canon designed the Digital Rebel for mass sales. It was a bit of an upscale move from the 35mm Rebel series that had been advertised on TV by John McEnroe, but they were designed to be mass market. The Digital SLR had finally arrived, and would quickly grow to dominate the digital photography market.
Many readers do not realize how very much the Digital Photography market has changed since the introduction of the Digital Rebel. The $1000 price now seems high since today you can buy a Pentax Digital SLR, the *ist DL, with an 18-55mm lens for less than $500 (the body alone is $379). The price of entry for the 6 megapixel DSLR has dropped by almost 50%. This has led to Digital SLRs becoming the fastest growing segment of the Digital Camera market. Camera makers are still making point-and-shoots, and the market leader in Digital point-and-shoot cameras is now Kodak (does this sound familiar?). Big and serious players in the market have quickly moved to introduce cheaper and cheaper DSLR cameras at the bottom, and more and more resolution and features in the now "middle" $1000 price range.
This does not mean that digital point-and-shoot cameras are now useless. There will always be a market for very small, pocketable point-and-shoot cameras. That was also true in the 35mm film market. It does mean, however, that the SLR-like high-speed fixed-lens digitals in the $400 to $800 price range are having a tough time these days. The point-and-shoot offerings of tiny "stealth" cameras and mainstream point-and-shoot will continue to be targeted at families to shoot vacation pictures of their kids - the typical Kodak market. Sooner than later you will likely even see reusable digital point-and-shoots similar to today's disposable film cameras. The companies make money on paper and ink, so this market segment is a natural for Kodak and HP as technology costs continue to decline.
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silver - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
I think this is one tidbit that you might write on when you're realy bored. My images are backed up using Verbatim UltraLife Gold DVD-R media. You also need to make sure that they stay cool and dry much as you do with film. They're not as sensitive to humidity but as certainly far more sensitive to heat.Googer - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
Panasonic is makeing and selling cameras based on good old Leca Lens. If you have a leica lens from any point in the last 55+ years, it will be compatable with a Panasonic/Leica Camera.
Wesley Fink - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
The Pansonic Lumix DMC-L1 digital SLR uses a Leica lens built with a four thirds mount. This is the new digital only mount pioneered by Olympus. The LMC-L1 is mentioned in the guide.silver - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
One of my friends has one of these and the images are simply incredible. He states that the Opticla Image Stabilization is simply the best he could find.wilburpan - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
As someone used to shooting with film cameras, I can say that I still notice some shutter lag when using digital SLRs, even with current models. To write this off as "Virtually none of the lags of early digital cameras remain" is to ignore a real factor when it comes to the use of any camera.To put this another way, if a digital camera website stated that the choice of CPUs was unimportant in buying a computer because all modern day CPUs were fast and powerful enough, the readers of this site probably would bust a gut.
There are also speed issues involved with other uses of a digital camera that need to be addressed. The Nikon D80 takes about 1.4 seconds to store and then display an image after the shutter has been pressed. The speed of this process varies widely from camera to camera. Similar variances in speed and performance come into play when performing tasks such as playback of pictures taken, the time that it takes to process bursts of photos when shooting in continuous mode, etc.
silver - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
Regarding shutter lag, digital cameras will always be slower than film. There's no way around that. My FM2n's have near instantaneous shutter release and are quite the opposite of my admittedly dated Fuji S602. What manufacturers need to do is to have separate power sources (batteries) for lens focusing and camera functions other than CCD/CMOS/memory charging. Obviously this would complicate the camera so they probably aren't considering this option.Wesley Fink - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
This is where we start to get into questions about what test is real. The file flush time on a Nikon D80 is 2.0 seconds for a fine jpeg and a little less than 3s for a RAW+jpeg. However, you never encounter this becuase of the memory buffering built into the Nikon D80 and every other digital SLR camera. The D80 can do 3 fps for a little over 30 seconds shooting raw+jpeg, and with fine jpeg it can shoot 3fpm until you run out of flash card room or battery.I consider the D80 time of 160ms viewfinder blackout (0.16s), and a less than 0.1s from off to shot negligible for almost any users. Even the Sony, which has a 1 second start-up, is using almost all that time to clean the sensor before shooting, while shot-to-shot is very competitive with the best SLRs around. Some users might be happier if you could turn off the cleaning on start. While this may be very important for some users, it is doubtful that the small differences in recent digital SLR cameras will really be noticable or matter to most users.
dpreview is an excellent and respected digital review site, and I have sent many readers there with their questions. They often come back with more questions than answers, which usually means they found the technical level too far above their skills and needs. We can't be all things in Digital Camera reviews so we will likely err toward the more basic side.
We'll consider your suggestion about start-up times, but I'm not convinced yet.
yacoub - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
I appreciate your article but I don't know: I think that folks into digital photography, no matter what other hobbies they have, including computer hardware or gaming, are knowledgable enough (or are competent enough to gain the knowledge needed) to make good use of a site like DPReview, which offers about all the info most need to make an intelligent purchase of a digital camera. Plus that being their primary focus (and has been for years), they automatically get much more credibility than a computer hardware site can hope to achieve by writing content basically saying "look we can do this too!" and writing what most good highschool photography classes are teaching today anyway.I guess my question is, why not stay focused on computer component hardware? All branching out does is reduce the chance of the main hardware getting the attention it needs. There are umpteen motherboard, videocard, and RAM reviews and guides yet to be completed or even begun, yet you're going off into digital photography land? That's kind of disappointing. For that hobby there are already many strong resources for folks who are into that, and many more for folks who want a simple pocket-sized point-n-shoot (which is the majority of folks). Why not focus on being the strong resource in computer hardware that folks in this hobby need?
fanbanlo - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
Maybe AnandTech can explain to use what are the new technology built into the sensor rather than meaningless marketing terms givin to them.Different algorithm used? what's their computational power?
Why shoot RAW? RAW-enabled software review!?
Thx
Heidfirst - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
For the lower end DSLRs (D50,350D,K100D etc.) I think that you should also review the standard kit lens as the majority of buyers will probably be buying it with the body as a package.By the time that you start hitting EOS30D type level imo most people will probably have lenses already or be buying a better lens than the entry level kit lens. Also if they are paying that for a body they quite probably are reasonably knowledgeable photo enthusiasts & maybe Anandtech isn't going to be the first place that they look for reviews so sticking to the lower end at least initially sounds reasonable to me.
The idea of a standard test scene is interesting but it would have to be reproducible which means in the studio & that means that it's less representative of the conditions in which most people will use them (I imagine that the % of even current DSLR users who shoot in the studio is in single figures & probably low single figures at that).