Most significant cameras of the DPReview era: Part 2

Looking at these historical photos and write-ups brought back memories of how many cameras I have fallen in love with or at least had dalliances with since the Millennium. Thanks for the memories. It was a good trip.

I wish I'd bought that Samsung NX1 when I had a go on it, a sale might have kept them in business! Damn fine camera I recall.

Oh come on, Fujifilm GFX100 by a mile, the most staggering quality camera within reach of the enthusiast. I dont like Sony at all but the A7R4 deserves a mention for great quality output from a Full Frame camera. Olympus EM-1X is the nicest camera ive ever shot with

I reckon you have missed another camera sector, once very popular indeed. The 'travel zoom' exemplified by the Panasonic TZ series which seemed to come of age with the TZ6 and TZ7 up to TZ40 and maybe beyond.

I got the Nikon 50-year "F" anniversary D5000 when an odd combo with the excellent 55-250 kit zoom came up on a special price from my local "bricks and mortar".
The model number likely invented to fit that anniversary, and being a refinement of the D90, I thought Nikon would put special effort into it. It certainly fitted my requirements at the time, and I liked the size.
Short for cash, I never added a "standard zoom", and wanting a prime for my main lens, I simply used my original model Nippon Kogaku Macro 55mm. These were the days when the public were interested in cameras, and the irony of two pieces being 50 years apart started many a conversation.
A D7200 has dethroned it in my APS-C kit, but it's still my grab camera for macro work.

Missing the Canon D30 - a pretty ground-breaking camera.

I assume there will be a part 3 where the Ricoh GRD/GR and the Olympus TG series will feature. Stars in their own categories.

This piece stands as testament to what made your site different.
Combining technology, history an relevance in well written editorials.
In a (strange) way, it might be almost better to fill these last installments with dribble;
so that way we could forget that much sooner what it meant to us all-

The Most significant Camera around 2010 is Pentax K-5
- among 2 first cameras with a " Sony Exmor Sensor "
- first APSC camera with a DR up to 14 Ev !
- first totally " ISOless " camera
- first able to achieve HQ Astro-Photography at Base ISO :
https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/tags/iso-80
A totally opposite way to my Eos 20d to build Astro Images
- the Eos 20d needs tens + tens of ISO-800-1600 Sub-frames
- the Eos 20d needs tens of ISO-800-1600 Dark-frames
- the Eos 20d needs tens of ISO-800-1600 Bias-Maps
- the Eos 20d shows Uncorrectable Amp-Glow !
Forget its Right Bottom frame corner !
Versus
- the Pentax K-5 only needs from 3 to 8 ISO-80 Sub-frames
then you can Stack these Subs in a very High SNR Picture.
Especially the RED layer is way better than Eos 20d's one :
https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/tags/iso-80
Pentax K-5, a Revolutionary sensor inside

This 2 part series shows, vividly, why dpreview was (and is??) special: real, confident, depth of knowledge and a sense of perspective. Great stuff. Thank you thank you.

You forgot the Nikon D700!!! =)

The guys missed out the Nikon D300, the first pro APSC camera in the FF era, I personally think the Canon R5 is an honorable mention too, but that's just me...

Leica X1. 2009 and a small lightweight fixed lens point and shoot with an APS-C sensor. Ahead of most of the competition by a year. Too expensive and impractical for the majority
of shooters. The IQ was there though.

I'm glad to see the Samsung NX1 given its due. What a shame Samsung closed the door on the NX series, because the NX1 was a GREAT camera, and had everything one could want at the time. When I covered Photokina in 2014, I was absolutely blown away by it, and then I rented one to review the next year, and it similarly impressed. What a great machine, that met a far too premature end.

During the heyday of the digital SLRs, I was often asked by non-pro beginner friends and family what camera to buy out of Nikon or Canon. (Their restriction, not mine)
Sensing they had already secretly decided, but wanted my tick of approval, I "outed them" by saying they're all good, so you might choose by appearance, i.e. what you would be proud to own!

I would say of Nikon: Their stylists have stayed with the techo look-and-feel, bristling with overt technology.

And of Canon: Their stylists have stayed with the smooth tidy look, make it seem to hide the technology, the simple look and smooth in the hand.

I guessed their decision every time. My friends that wanted a showy camera happily went for Nikon, my minimalist friends happily went for Canon.

Although the Fuji X-Pro1 was arguably just a further development of the X100, it surely deserves its own mention as the camera that launched the Fuji X line of ILCs. I think it was groundbreaking then as a camera that enticed many people away from the big Canikons. I had a Canon 5D mk1 before I bought it (still do), but yearned for a digital camera that handled more like my beloved Olympus OM2 from my film days.

That X-Pro1 I bought 10 years ago is still the camera I use today - there hasn't yet been a compelling upgrade (for me) that I would buy over an additional lens. I still have high hopes for the X-Pro4 though :)

Ah Nikon 1, what a wasted potential

Nice swan song! :-)

So far I’ve only owned 2 digital ILCs. The D90 which I used for a couple of years got a mention, without being featured, as the first DSLR with video. But I replaced it with a D800, which I still use. (I’d like to get a lighter FF mirrorless, Nikon Z mount, similar to the Z7 II if only one was available with a front-mounted connector, where it wouldn’t interfere with the handling, for my GPS cum wireless shutter release, or had those features built-in, with a purpose-built remote control available.) I think the D800 and it’s stablemate the D800E should have been featured for the groundbreaking combination of resolution and good dynamic range, which was available at a reasonable price in the D800, while the D800E could be compared directly, and led the way showing that anti-aliasing filters could be omitted to maximize that resolution.

Generally solid list, with a lot of firsts as well as some pinnacles of design and implementation. I’d argue there’s a few cameras missing there, like the Leica Q/2 (apparently the best-selling Leica bodies in decades, and reviewer’s darlings if there ever were some), the Nikon P1000, and the Fujifilm X-T3 (representing possibly the largest individual advance, in terms of features, for any manufacturer during the digital age, as well as cementing Fuji’s stake in the advanced enthusiast/pro segment). And of course, the GFX 100S, one of the most desirable MF bodies ever made.

I was one of the early a6000 buyers. I actually picked it over the Samsung NX1 due to similar image quality (I used the DPR comparison tool extensively), smaller size, and significantly lower cost. I ultimately went to M4/3 a few years later having always loved the GX1 I bought in 2012 and used for travel. A GX85, G9, and G95 are still my go to cameras, plus a smaller LX10 and LF1 for when I need something pocketable.

Sales figures for individual cameras are hard to find... There is a Nikon serial number tracker that provides some estimates for them (the D5100 sold close to 3 million bodies, and seems to be the best selling Nikon DSLR ever). I wonder if it's also the best selling digital ILC ever, or if that's some Rebel from around the same time. This article also brings up the possibility that the crown goes to the A6000 a few years later? It stayed a current model for an extraordinary period! I'm guessing that it IS the A6000 if you count its close relatives (A6100 in particular) as A6000s...

No pentax made it into these "standout" assortment. I understand this but
I own a canon 5Dii and there is a ton of stuff missing for my photography adventures. IBS weather sealing Green button SD cards. All things that even a K10 excelled at. Everyone is different. Pentax are miles ahead in things that matter to me. Miles because now they are the only one with a viewfinder. Miles ahead.

Kinda surprised the Nikon D3 didn't make either list. I remember it was a breakthrough camera in many ways.

The Olympus ZX-1 was a lovely camera, the mechanics and lens from Tamron, and it came in various iterations with various brands, including Pentax MX-10.

The Nikon 1 suffered from two things: having a very small sensor (8x11mm) they should have gotten fast lenses, which came in the form of the 32/1.4, 18.5/1.8, and the 70-300 CX, which were extremely expensive.

Small sensors are noisy so the cameras should have built-in stacking, which they have not.

Most of the native lenses shared a design where a blade on the aperture mechanism closed the aperture totally, so as not to expose the sensor to sunlight when the camera not was in use (most N 1 cameras had no mechanical shutter to protect the sensor). This mechanism often failed had the aperture froze up half open, the only lenses free from this issue were the 6.7-13, 10-30 PD, and the 70-300 CX (the first two came so late that the failing cog wheel had been replaced by a brass one, which does not fail, and the 70-300 is an entirely different design).

Image-wise, the cameras, when used with the F Mount adapter (FT1) is just as good as DX or FX cameras with the same resolution in good light, although with a lower dynamic range, of course, just as DX cameras have less dynamic range than FX cameras (of the same generation and a similar number of MBs).

I've shot tens of thousands of shots with my N 1 cameras and been lucky, as just one of my wife's lenses failed. If you sent a failed camera to Nikon they replaced the failed cogwheel with a new identical blastic gear, not a metal one, so the odds were great for having another breakdown. The original 10-30 kit lens got a free repair for years till Nikon lost interest, I had three repaired, just to be on the safe side.

Low maximum ISO and the inherent noise were the main drawbacks, the latter easily fixed with modern editing software like DxO's offerings and several others. Same problem with m43, to a lesser degree.

A million no-name mirrorless cameras? No D3? D700? D300? D90? D7000? wut

No mentions (P! & P2) to Nikon's great D4, D700, D800, D300 or the D90

What? No Pentax? Get outta here.

No mention to Dji ?

Superb articles, both of them. Missing the D700 I would say but that's about it.

*** GREAT *** - looking forward to parts 3 to 25 of this series :)

Good article, but seems like you forgot something:

Nikon D90, the world's first DSLR that could record video! In a 1280p, with very bad autofocus, for a short time, with a lot of rolling shutter etc.

In a time when there were DSLRs that had live view, but not recording of that live view into video.

And when many people didn't understand why someone would need a DSLR that could also do video!

This is truly Photography Site Limbo Land.

With that being stated, the Nikon D500 should be on this list. I would say most folks think about 1 cameras when it comes to cropped camera and the proper introduction to High Specs and High Performance in the recent Modern Age. I think Nikon paved the way for others to follow in the cropped arena.

I also think that part of the reason DPR is still here, the Z8 is imminent.

I thought the Sony R1 was a real milestone. A tiny full frame mirrorless camera.