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Why no dedicated DSLR lenses ?

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Bjoernar Pedersen wrote:
(...) People want bigger zooms, more storage and
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
more features, like video and sound (...)
Click to expand...
Dear Bjoernar, I never met a photographer who longed to have video or sound in his digicam. All the folks I happened to talk to wanted more resolution, or more tonal range, or (mostly) a wider and better wideangle. In my opinion, people buy toasters to make toasts, and not cars with an incorporated toaster. And radios to listen to the news, not a tv set with an incorporated radio. I think video and sound is just a gimnick that comes for free for camera makaers, who try to convince us that it is what we need.

Fabio
 
Hi Fabio,

I have to disagree. I think the that short movie clips are a wonderful semi-new medium that still photographers are largely missing the boat on. With digital frames there is no reason that a short movie clip couldn't be displayed like a still would be. This type of art may be more diffiuclt in some ways since it relys on a finite amount of time in which a scene has artistic value; however, it might be easier in that it could possibly more precisely capture what the photographer was seeing.

We could leave this type of art to movie producers, but why?

my 2c

-Mark
Fabio said:
Fabio Amodeo said:
more features, like video and sound (...)
Click to expand...
Dear Bjoernar, I never met a photographer who longed to have video
or sound in his digicam. All the folks I happened to talk to wanted
more resolution, or more tonal range, or (mostly) a wider and
better wideangle. In my opinion, people buy toasters to make
toasts, and not cars with an incorporated toaster. And radios to
listen to the news, not a tv set with an incorporated radio. I
think video and sound is just a gimnick that comes for free for
camera makaers, who try to convince us that it is what we need.

Fabio
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
 
Clive01 said:
All the DSLR use existing 35mm
lenses and there does not seem to be any development of lenses
specifically for these DSLR. Why is this as I would have thought
that is a growing market and there is enough third party
manufacturers making special lenses - why not dedicated to
digicams?
Click to expand...
Yes, it is possible to devise some sort of wide digital only design for the current crop of dSLR bodies. But Canon and Nikon own the patent on the lens mounts, and (I conjecture) will not license anyone to build on their mount a lens whose circle of confusion is smaller than 35mm... They stand to lose too much money.
--
Photos, tips and tests at:
http://www.geocities.com/glowluzid
 
So what if they design an interchangeable lens system for a smaller sensor with smaller lenses. There is still problems for certain applications. Why? Well, physics is physics! An Xmm lens with an X aperture will produce a certain effect. Especially with regard to dof. A lens does NOT care what size the meduim the latent image is captured on. Therefore, if you want to stand a reasonable distance from someone and have a shallow dof, you will need a fairly long lens. Moreover, a long lens that's so fast -f/2.8- will still be comprable in size to the current gende of 35mm lenses.

For the average consumer market, this would be great. Most people who buy cameras don't care about these fine points. Moreover, most people think a bigger lens is better!
Clive01 said:
Seems to me that there is a a lot of new stuff to tempt me from my
Pro70. But i am not convinced that it is what I need .
I need good distortion free (direct from the camera - not
propcessed in sw) wide angle lenses All the DSLR use existing 35mm
lenses and there does not seem to be any development of lenses
specifically for these DSLR. Why is this as I would have thought
that is a growing market and there is enough third party
manufacturers making special lenses - why not dedicated to
digicams? Am I missing something fundamental here?
I do not have existing lenses (did but they got stolen) and now
want to be 100% digital. Will this ever happen??

--
Clive
Click to expand...
 
DOF (depth of field) is influenced by the film/chip format. Lenses gives different perspective but same DOF within the same film/chip format. If you take a shoulder portrait with a 35 or 350 mm lens you will get the same DOF, but very different perspective, which can give a illusion of more or less DOF since the background seems to be closer or further away. Smaller film/chip format means more DOF. For most of us that's an advantage. Take an Olympus E-20 as an example. F4 with this camera gives the DOF similar to F16 with a 35 mm camera (with comparable lenses) For nature photos this is great, since you can get great DOF combined with short shutter speeds. The need for a tripod is almost gone. On the other side, F2.0 on the Olympus gives the DOF similar to F8 with a 35 mm camera, which makes it difficult to blur the background when needed. For most of us though the extra DOF is a plus and not a minus.
MikeMiles said:
So what if they design an interchangeable lens system for a smaller
sensor with smaller lenses. There is still problems for certain
applications. Why? Well, physics is physics! An Xmm lens with an X
aperture will produce a certain effect. Especially with regard to
dof. A lens does NOT care what size the meduim the latent image is
captured on. Therefore, if you want to stand a reasonable distance
from someone and have a shallow dof, you will need a fairly long
lens. Moreover, a long lens that's so fast -f/2.8- will still be
comprable in size to the current gende of 35mm lenses.

For the average consumer market, this would be great. Most people
who buy cameras don't care about these fine points. Moreover, most
people think a bigger lens is better!
Click to expand...
--
Bjoernar
 
Tyler Monson - "... An good example is the 40-mm Distagon for the Hasselblad, compared to the Hasselblad SWC, with its 38-mm Biogon. The latter is so sharp and distortion-free that it can be used for copying flat artwork! (It is also my personal favorite lens of all-time)...."

This is my point exactly - as I understand digicams there does not need to be a mirror as the image can be sourced directly from the chip so why cannot a true WA be designed to be used as in the 38mm Biogon ?

".... and all 'consumer' digital cameras must be riddled with automation and gimmicks....."

I do not need gimmicks in fact i crave a "normal" lens with all the controls on the lens but I guess you can call me a luddite
 
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
DOF (depth of field) is influenced by the film/chip format.
Click to expand...
Yes, the EFFECTIVE captured image does. However, I don't care if you put a 100mm/2.8 lens on a 4x5inch or a 35mm, or any digital. When you look through the lens and use the dof button you will see the same effect and dof. This has nothing to do with the medium the latent image is captured on.
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
Lenses
gives different perspective but same DOF within the same film/chip
format. If you take a shoulder portrait with a 35 or 350 mm lens
you will get the same DOF, but very different perspective, which
can give a illusion of more or less DOF since the background seems
to be closer or further away.
Click to expand...
Theoretically focal lenght has nothing to do with perspective. But in reallity it kind of does.
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
Smaller film/chip format means more
DOF.
Click to expand...
Wrong! There is NO difference between your smaller format with a 20mm/2.8 and my larger format with a 20mm/2.8. Why? I can crop my larger format to get the same result! See what I'm saying? With the same lens, and cropping the larger format to the same size as the smaller format, you WILL have the same picture.

For most of us that's an advantage. Take an Olympus E-20 as an
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
example. F4 with this camera gives the DOF similar to F16 with a 35
mm camera (with comparable lenses) For nature photos this is great,
since you can get great DOF combined with short shutter speeds. The
need for a tripod is almost gone. On the other side, F2.0 on the
Olympus gives the DOF similar to F8 with a 35 mm camera, which
makes it difficult to blur the background when needed. For most of
us though the extra DOF is a plus and not a minus.
Click to expand...
To me, it stilfe's my all around creativity. Plain and simple. Might as well just have a P&S (digi/film/whatever)
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
MikeMiles said:
So what if they design an interchangeable lens system for a smaller
sensor with smaller lenses. There is still problems for certain
applications. Why? Well, physics is physics! An Xmm lens with an X
aperture will produce a certain effect. Especially with regard to
dof. A lens does NOT care what size the meduim the latent image is
captured on. Therefore, if you want to stand a reasonable distance
from someone and have a shallow dof, you will need a fairly long
lens. Moreover, a long lens that's so fast -f/2.8- will still be
comprable in size to the current gende of 35mm lenses.

For the average consumer market, this would be great. Most people
who buy cameras don't care about these fine points. Moreover, most
people think a bigger lens is better!
Click to expand...
--
Bjoernar
Click to expand...
 
Mike,

What you say here is only correct if you assume the density of sensor elements (whatever type they are) is constant between the different formats. It typically is not for digital cameras.
MikeMiles said:
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
Smaller film/chip format means more
DOF.
Click to expand...
Wrong! There is NO difference between your smaller format with a
20mm/2.8 and my larger format with a 20mm/2.8. Why? I can crop my
larger format to get the same result! See what I'm saying? With the
same lens, and cropping the larger format to the same size as the
smaller format, you WILL have the same picture.
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
 
Clive01 said:
This is my point exactly - as I understand digicams there does not
need to be a mirror as the image can be sourced directly from the
chip so why cannot a true WA be designed to be used as in the 38mm
Biogon ?
Click to expand...
I don't like this forum in that I can't view all. So this might have been said. Part of the problem is light falloff at the edge of the sensor. Think of a sensor as a bunch of relatively deep holes the light must go through. A wide angle bends the rays significantly. Ergo, at the edge of the sensor it's harder for the light to get through these holes. This has nothing to do with slr vs rangefinder designs.

I need to point out that we JUST got to the second generation dslr! Moreover, the d30 is only about 2 1/2 years old and it's already been replaced by the d60 (sorry, but I'm a canon user, but the same can be said for nikon). Before these digi's, a camera production run was about 8 years!

In a couple of years well be to the d120 (taking the d60's pixel density and expanding to near 35x24mm, this is a guess) which more than likely will be able to do what you want. Just remember, digital photagraphy is in it's infantcy. Also note that film is pretty much dead in consumer land whereas a LOT of top pros still use film for this and other reasons.

Mike
 
kessler said:
Mike,
What you say here is only correct if you assume the density of
sensor elements (whatever type they are) is constant between the
different formats. It typically is not for digital cameras.
Click to expand...
What does resolution have to do with dof or the lens? You lost me here.
kessler said:
MikeMiles said:
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
Smaller film/chip format means more
DOF.
Click to expand...
Wrong! There is NO difference between your smaller format with a
20mm/2.8 and my larger format with a 20mm/2.8. Why? I can crop my
larger format to get the same result! See what I'm saying? With the
same lens, and cropping the larger format to the same size as the
smaller format, you WILL have the same picture.
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
Click to expand...
 
I didn't say resolution, I said density of sensor elements. Two sensors with very different sensor densities can have the same resolution.

In any case, I think the density of sensor elements is one of the central issues in this debate. Is it better for companies to produce very small high density sensors with correspondingly smaller cameras and lenses or larger lower density sensors with correspondingly larger cameras? It seems to me that this needs to be kept in mind if you are going to compare the images from a big sensor from those from a small sensor.
MikeMiles said:
kessler said:
Mike,
What you say here is only correct if you assume the density of
sensor elements (whatever type they are) is constant between the
different formats. It typically is not for digital cameras.
Click to expand...
What does resolution have to do with dof or the lens? You lost me
here.
MikeMiles said:
MikeMiles said:
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
Smaller film/chip format means more
DOF.
Click to expand...
Wrong! There is NO difference between your smaller format with a
20mm/2.8 and my larger format with a 20mm/2.8. Why? I can crop my
larger format to get the same result! See what I'm saying? With the
same lens, and cropping the larger format to the same size as the
smaller format, you WILL have the same picture.
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
 
Mike,

this is a very interesting point. Will this be a serious problem for Foveon sensors given the depth dependence of color?
MikeMiles said:
Part of the problem is light falloff at the edge of
the sensor. Think of a sensor as a bunch of relatively deep holes
the light must go through. A wide angle bends the rays
significantly. Ergo, at the edge of the sensor it's harder for the
light to get through these holes. This has nothing to do with slr
vs rangefinder designs.
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
 
Sorry, I get you now. Yes, I desing IC's for a living, from an economic standpoint smaller is better! This feeds into moore's law. Each generation we supply more functionality on a smaller space. Thereby, things get cheaper. Or at least offer more functions for the same price. This doesn't apply to a fixed size sensor.

Yes, I believe canon's 1d went the route your talking about to address the problem of wide angle lenses. A near full size sensor with less density, which means bigger holes to let the light in at the edges.

Economically it's real-estate that costs money, not density. So once they figure out how to overcome the light/angle problem, the density will go up.

Mike
kessler said:
In any case, I think the density of sensor elements is one of the
central issues in this debate. Is it better for companies to
produce very small high density sensors with correspondingly
smaller cameras and lenses or larger lower density sensors with
correspondingly larger cameras? It seems to me that this needs to
be kept in mind if you are going to compare the images from a big
sensor from those from a small sensor.
MikeMiles said:
kessler said:
Mike,
What you say here is only correct if you assume the density of
sensor elements (whatever type they are) is constant between the
different formats. It typically is not for digital cameras.
Click to expand...
What does resolution have to do with dof or the lens? You lost me
here.
kessler said:
MikeMiles said:
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
Smaller film/chip format means more
DOF.
Click to expand...
Wrong! There is NO difference between your smaller format with a
20mm/2.8 and my larger format with a 20mm/2.8. Why? I can crop my
larger format to get the same result! See what I'm saying? With the
same lens, and cropping the larger format to the same size as the
smaller format, you WILL have the same picture.
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
Click to expand...
 
Clive01 said:
Seems to me that there is a a lot of new stuff to tempt me from my
Pro70. But i am not convinced that it is what I need .
I need good distortion free (direct from the camera - not
propcessed in sw) wide angle lenses All the DSLR use existing 35mm
lenses and there does not seem to be any development of lenses
specifically for these DSLR. Why is this as I would have thought
that is a growing market and there is enough third party
manufacturers making special lenses - why not dedicated to
digicams? Am I missing something fundamental here?
I do not have existing lenses (did but they got stolen) and now
want to be 100% digital. Will this ever happen??

--
Clive
Click to expand...
Here's a stupid question. How about a digital camera based loosely on the Leica rangefinder, but with some sort of electronic viewfinder instead of a rangefinder (no parallax error, no SLR mirror). Interchangeable lenses, but less bulky and less complicated than SLR lenses because the distance to the film is much less. Autofocus of course. Big sensor chip, but not necessariy as big as 35mm.

The biggest problem would be whether an electronic viewfinder would be acceptable (or usable), but that's what lets you avoid the respective pitfalls of rangefinders and SLR's. Does any of this make sense?
 
Tom O'Neil said:
Here's a stupid question. How about a digital camera based loosely
on the Leica rangefinder, but with some sort of electronic
viewfinder instead of a rangefinder (no parallax error, no SLR
mirror). Interchangeable lenses, but less bulky and less
complicated than SLR lenses because the distance to the film is
much less. Autofocus of course. Big sensor chip, but not
necessariy as big as 35mm.

The biggest problem would be whether an electronic viewfinder would
be acceptable (or usable), but that's what lets you avoid the
respective pitfalls of rangefinders and SLR's. Does any of this
make sense?
Click to expand...
It doens't seem a stupid question to me, AT ALL.

I've been shooting an early version EVF (Oly C2100z). Newer EVFs (e.g., Minolta D7i) are much better. The third generation should be sharp enough to allow easy manual focusing and depth of field preview. I see no reason to stick with glass viewfinders.

If we look at what the current DSLRs (S2, D100, D60) are producing it seems clear to me that most of us can meet our needs with a less than 24x36 sensor. Anything that will produce "film quality" 8x10s or a bit larger would certainly fill the mid-range need.

Someone has suggested that a specially designed digital and lens package could be made with the rear element firmly attached to the body, eliminating the dust on the CCD problem.

Put a sharp EVF, a S2 quality sensor, a modest selection of lenses together in a Leica sized package and I'll start rearranging my budget.
--
bob
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
pictures from Thailand, Myanmar(Burma), and Nepal
 
Tom O'Neil said:
Clive01 said:
Seems to me that there is a a lot of new stuff to tempt me from my
Pro70. But i am not convinced that it is what I need .
I need good distortion free (direct from the camera - not
propcessed in sw) wide angle lenses All the DSLR use existing 35mm
lenses and there does not seem to be any development of lenses
specifically for these DSLR. Why is this as I would have thought
that is a growing market and there is enough third party
manufacturers making special lenses - why not dedicated to
digicams? Am I missing something fundamental here?
I do not have existing lenses (did but they got stolen) and now
want to be 100% digital. Will this ever happen??

--
Clive
Click to expand...
Here's a stupid question. How about a digital camera based loosely
on the Leica rangefinder, but with some sort of electronic
viewfinder instead of a rangefinder (no parallax error, no SLR
mirror). Interchangeable lenses, but less bulky and less
complicated than SLR lenses because the distance to the film is
much less. Autofocus of course. Big sensor chip, but not
necessariy as big as 35mm.

The biggest problem would be whether an electronic viewfinder would
be acceptable (or usable), but that's what lets you avoid the
respective pitfalls of rangefinders and SLR's. Does any of this
make sense?
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
 
This is what I have been alluding to. To me it seems logical to take into account the new technology and accept whatever size sensor is practical/economical and design around it acoordingly.

I am not advocating the necessity of 24 x 36 format but to utilize what is best in this new medium. I can see advantage in using existing 35mm lenses with a small sensor in that you could use the larger image circle, approx 43mm diameter, and use the excess to provide shifting for perspective control and/or tilting for increased DOf (may be am oot point anyway)

Clive
kessler said:
Tom O'Neil said:
Clive01 said:
Seems to me that there is a a lot of new stuff to tempt me from my
Pro70. But i am not convinced that it is what I need .
I need good distortion free (direct from the camera - not
propcessed in sw) wide angle lenses All the DSLR use existing 35mm
lenses and there does not seem to be any development of lenses
specifically for these DSLR. Why is this as I would have thought
that is a growing market and there is enough third party
manufacturers making special lenses - why not dedicated to
digicams? Am I missing something fundamental here?
I do not have existing lenses (did but they got stolen) and now
want to be 100% digital. Will this ever happen??

--
Clive
Click to expand...
Here's a stupid question. How about a digital camera based loosely
on the Leica rangefinder, but with some sort of electronic
viewfinder instead of a rangefinder (no parallax error, no SLR
mirror). Interchangeable lenses, but less bulky and less
complicated than SLR lenses because the distance to the film is
much less. Autofocus of course. Big sensor chip, but not
necessariy as big as 35mm.

The biggest problem would be whether an electronic viewfinder would
be acceptable (or usable), but that's what lets you avoid the
respective pitfalls of rangefinders and SLR's. Does any of this
make sense?
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
Click to expand...
--
Clive
 
The big problem is the installed user base of Nikon an Canon with heavy investments of expensive lenses. Of course these people represent a very large portion of the professional market. I see some of them lugging around very large and heavy camera bags!

For most other people, and in the long run for everybody, smaller would be better. I think the Canon APS slrs could be turned into a very nice "bridge" camera, keeping the EOS lens mount, with a couple of new wide to normal and wide to tele zooms.

Ottar
Clive01 said:
I am not advocating the necessity of 24 x 36 format but to utilize
what is best in this new medium. I can see advantage in using
existing 35mm lenses with a small sensor in that you could use the
larger image circle, approx 43mm diameter, and use the excess to
provide shifting for perspective control and/or tilting for
increased DOf (may be am oot point anyway)

Clive
kessler said:
Tom O'Neil said:
Clive01 said:
Seems to me that there is a a lot of new stuff to tempt me from my
Pro70. But i am not convinced that it is what I need .
I need good distortion free (direct from the camera - not
propcessed in sw) wide angle lenses All the DSLR use existing 35mm
lenses and there does not seem to be any development of lenses
specifically for these DSLR. Why is this as I would have thought
that is a growing market and there is enough third party
manufacturers making special lenses - why not dedicated to
digicams? Am I missing something fundamental here?
I do not have existing lenses (did but they got stolen) and now
want to be 100% digital. Will this ever happen??

--
Clive
Click to expand...
Here's a stupid question. How about a digital camera based loosely
on the Leica rangefinder, but with some sort of electronic
viewfinder instead of a rangefinder (no parallax error, no SLR
mirror). Interchangeable lenses, but less bulky and less
complicated than SLR lenses because the distance to the film is
much less. Autofocus of course. Big sensor chip, but not
necessariy as big as 35mm.

The biggest problem would be whether an electronic viewfinder would
be acceptable (or usable), but that's what lets you avoid the
respective pitfalls of rangefinders and SLR's. Does any of this
make sense?
Click to expand...
--
[email protected]
Click to expand...
--
Clive
Click to expand...
 
MikeMiles said:
Bjoernar Pedersen said:
DOF (depth of field) is influenced by the film/chip format.
Click to expand...
Yes, the EFFECTIVE captured image does. However, I don't care if
you put a 100mm/2.8 lens on a 4x5inch or a 35mm, or any digital.
When you look through the lens and use the dof button you will see
the same effect and dof. This has nothing to do with the medium the
latent image is captured on.
Click to expand...
Standing on the same spot using a 4x5 inch camera with a 100 mm lens compared with a 100mm lens on a 35 mm camera will give you a very different view. On the 4x5 camera the 100 becomes a wide angel lens, while on the 35 mm it's a tele...
MikeMiles said:
MikeMiles said:
Lenses
gives different perspective but same DOF within the same film/chip
format. If you take a shoulder portrait with a 35 or 350 mm lens
you will get the same DOF, but very different perspective, which
can give a illusion of more or less DOF since the background seems
to be closer or further away.
Click to expand...
Theoretically focal lenght has nothing to do with perspective. But
in reallity it kind of does.
Click to expand...
Focal length changes perspective if you're standing in the same place. Using a wide angel makes the foreground bigger and the background smaller compared to longer focal lengths
MikeMiles said:
MikeMiles said:
Smaller film/chip format means more
DOF.
Click to expand...
Wrong! There is NO difference between your smaller format with a
20mm/2.8 and my larger format with a 20mm/2.8. Why? I can crop my
larger format to get the same result! See what I'm saying? With the
same lens, and cropping the larger format to the same size as the
smaller format, you WILL have the same picture.
Click to expand...
Cropping the larger format gives you effectivly a smaller format, similar to using a smaller film/chip format. In the real world, you don't crop a large format down to a small format, since the whole point of a bigger format then is gone. Your argument is correct in theory, but not in real life.
 
The problem there is that you immediately place limits on what lenses can be made to fit that fixed rear element.
Member said:
Someone has suggested that a specially designed digital and lens
package could be made with the rear element firmly attached to the
body, eliminating the dust on the CCD problem.
Click to expand...
 
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