Karl Gnter Wnsch

The problem of small sensor cameras is that there are no viable choices for macro lenses and that the gift of higher DOF comes at quite a price because the background usually will be unappealing cluttered and busy...

In my experience it is better to keep the focus of the lens fixed and indeed move the camera via an external focusing rail. It makes life easier for both helicon focus as well as CombineZM - which are the two most popular choices of focus stacking software...

You are quite wrong. Focus stacking is a highly processor intensive business and most of the time you not only have to stack two or three images, I have seen stacks of several hundered images and myself have shot series of up to 50 images to be combined into a single image with this technique.
The problem most of the time when refocusing a lens is that all lenses in closeup photography change not only focus distance but focal length as well (a 180mm macro lens can be just a 100mm lens when focused at 1:1). This focus breathing (which is more developed in zoom lenses) makes stacking a much more tedious process as you have to deal with artifacts due to the change in focal length.

@Sousa: That's a misconception. It is not WISIXYG - as the dynamic range of a sensor video feed is lower than the captured still photo and the EVF can't manage to reproduce even this limited dynamic range properly. So you rather have a limited view of what you certainly capture but won't see what you may have captured inadvertently? Put yourself into the place of someone using flash to manage the subject lighting against a bright background - what will you see in the EVF? Nothing worthwhile, not a chance you can make out the subject or the background at the same time but yet both will be clearly seen in the photo taken! To manage photography like this you need to control the complete dynamic range of the scene to fall within the severely limited dynamic range the EVF will be able to convey - so instead of flash you need several thousand watts in terms of permanent lighting just like film crews carry around.

@mzillich, I resent the tone of your post and no matter how much the EVF will be enhanced there are simple laws of physics they can never avoid and which limit the usefulness. The medical problems that come from messing one eye up in terms of adaptation are real and a real threat to the photographers health.

That "mechanical nonsense" is still and always will be far superior to a lagging video feed with limited dynamic rance, high power consumption, overheating issues and higher eyestrain which can easily lead to head aces and even more severe problems...

@oselimg - such as? It's always those that have no viable argument that resort to inappropriate name calling without providing any arguments to sustain their position.
@SteB - yes an OVF is limiting in some circumstances but to photograph in these situations you can apply different remedies which all are readily available - with the exception of video. But photographic tools are not about video, they are about photography. For video an EVF is indispensable. If you don't have an OVF anymore I'd challenge you to properly take back lit portraits - as in every circumstance where the contrast of the scene while viewing exceeds the strongly limited EVF you are at a loss. And these circumstances are present far more often than those that may require an EVF - so by mandating an EVF you are favoring the worse solution to the problem of delivering a viewfinder. There is no reason not to have a live view solution as well but to only have a live view solution is unacceptable!

Unless they manage to produce sensors that can convey the *full* dynamic range of the scene (not just 6-7 EV in video mode like today, which is at least 20 stops short of the required range) and the EVF would manage to show the same dynamic range (the OLED is limited to about 5-6 EV) and that without lag and without heating up the sensor and without draining the battery... EVF is a solution to a non existing problem, OVF is and always will be superior, it's just hapless NOOBs which crave for the EVF solution as they lack the knowledge (and with an EVF they will never acquire this knowledge) to judge a scene.
EVF are incapable of showing the vital aspects in any high contrast scene - so they are a deal breaker for many!

It seems that Nikons hands were forced as there is a new law in Japan regarding the contacts on high capacity batteries to prevent short circuits and their aftermath.

The second slot is for the CF-Card successor, not a fiddly SD card with it's far inferior performance!

"Whoever succeeds in taking over Olympus,they will be in good hand."
The only company of those that you claim are queuing on their doorstep for a takeover that would keep the camera business alive would be Panasonic. Sony would bury it (eliminating internal competition against their NEX line) and FujiFilm has lost the plot a long time back... The DSLR line would anyways be dead with any of the three.

It isn't economically feasible to produce different optical makeups, so yes, they simply have remove the sensors and micro motors that moved the OS group and fixed them in place.

Why would anyone now buy this lens? The appeal of the lens was mainly in the optical stabilizer the predecessor had as it is more efficient than the built in stabilizers, reduced the overheating issue of the SLT cameras, stabilized the viewfinder, stabilized the image the autofocus works with - so now this lens is just another "Oh Sigma produces one of these as well..."

It was an one off event. Just like the eventual breakup of one of the canary islands will be an one off event - which will destroy the whole eastern seaboard of the american continent up and including to the first mountain range exceeding 3000 feet - So you better start evacuating...

Take a look at rawtherapee, it has evolved quite enormously in the past few months and has surpassed the results I got from LR in terms of quality...

@Guidenet: I am quite sure. Manfrotto seems to source the clamps wherever they may get the best price. They range from bearable to unusable.
I since have replaced my tripod with Berlebach ones and they are faster to setup (and less painful may I add, getting the fingers caught in the Manfrotto clamps is really really painful and takes some time to heal), more silent, much more robust and less prone to require disassembly cleaning...

@Guidenet, It's not the metal part (although it contributes to the problem), it's the way the center column is mounted - and the only way to get rid of it is 3rd party parts. Then there is the issue of the leg clamps on which I had the choice of tightening them to (well beyond) breaking point to get it to stand sturdily or to have them not hold the tripod. I more than once caught my fingers in them and in the end I dumped it (not sold, garbage collection).
I then bought myself a wood tripod of about the same price and weight, which is much more sturdy, no leg clamps to worry about and I still have that. The basic carbon fibre tripods from for example Feisol would be a much better choice but probably aren't an option for DPreview because of the tie ins with Amazon.
I buy lots of things through Amazon but would never limit my choice to their portfolio.

Sorry, but endorsing the Manfrotto metal garbage is making me think about how the Amazon purchase of this site has influenced the contents.
I had this tripod and it's stability wasn't something to write home about, the ability to dampen vibrations from say the mirror slap is virtually non existent. The main culprit (next to the too thin dimensioned legs) is the center column mount - to make this tripod usable this has to be removed completely (which is sort of an emergency measure supported by readily available parts). Even then it's too heavy for the performance it offers...

Sigma HSM is fast, Canon ring USM is faster - and with the help of the focus limiter switch it is much more usable in the field. You just need to know what you are doing...

The only reason NASA prefers Nikon is that certain lenses in the Canon range use the optically superior fluorite elements - which NASA doesn't trust to survive the vibrations during vehicle launch...