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The secret of old DSLRs

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ioshadha

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I recently came to realize something interesting about photos taken from old DSLRs.

This all started some time ago when one of my friends showed me some photos taken from a series of his recent trips around the world. The photos where stunning !!! Having an interests in photography I asked him what camera he used for those shots. I expected the answer to be a recent camera with all the bells and whistles... but to my surprise he replied - Ahh, its very old Olympus DSLR and I can't remember the model number. He is definitely not this guy who had any idea of photography at all...

It made me think... and I pulled out some of my own photos from back in the day.. not form a DSLR though. And I did a bit of searching trying to see those photos taken from a DSLR about 10 years ago.. My search showed me that most of these photos are really good.. specially for cameras that had about 6MP or so but APS-C DSLRs. They had great dynamic range, good colors, good IQ in general though I didn't pixel peaking or anything... I thought how?

Is this because those senors had plenty of room for pixels? Was it that they had really low noise? I don't know...

Unfortunately, I can't post this photos I have come across. Maybe you have noted this as well with some of your old photos? I'm not saying these 10 year ago photos are better than the best of the cameras of today but for that time most of those DSLR photos are stunning.

What's your thoughts on this? love to hear your reasoning!!!

Cheers !!
 
Objective measures (like DxOMark) show that the new sensors are better. It is just the difference between enough and more than enough - if looking just at numbers as many do, it is never enough. Reality - it was enough for quite some time.

Also, some cameras try to show off its new abilities - for a bad reason. For example, many large-sensor cameras have reached 12 or more EV of dynamic range. But the LCD screens and paper have about 7, if that. Try to compress 12 (yet alone more) EV to 7 as cameras do in some modes, and you'll end up with lower contrast than that existed in the original scene, and often to unnatural degree.
 
No, those 10 year old DSLRs did not have great dynamic range. By today's standards they were quite poor. Nor did they exhibit low noise characteristics. I still have my 10 year old 6 Mp APS-C DSLR and in the right conditions I can still produce good images with it but current cameras have it beat on every level.
 
ioshadha said:
The photos where stunning !!!
Click to expand...
First Question: What You mean exactly with "stunning !!!" ?

Is "stunning !!!" like:
  • A Photo from a beautiful Woman ?
  • A Photo with tons of Colors ?
  • A sharp Photo ?
  • ...
Please explain what You exactly mean with the Term: "stunning !!!".
 
It is probably one of the cameras with the Kodak sensor, so the colors offered up are very "Kodaky" in nature. This is what people in North America (and maybe the rest of the world as well) grew up thinking of as "good".

This is one of the reasons I haven't gotten rid of my 8 meg E500 yet. (The others are, there is no residual economic value in it anyway, and that It is one of the most fun cameras to shoot).

In measurable terms these cameras are NOT the equal of modern cameras, so I can't blame people for thinking of them as inferior, since they are. But the jpgs especially do have a quality about them that is hard to replicate.
 
If you get the lighting and framing right, virtually any camera will take a stunning picture. The major difference is modern cameras can do it with slightly worse conditions (a bit less light, a bit more dynamic range, etc.). There is definitely a difference, but it is also definitely not make-or-break. Perhaps you'll get 50% more keepers with a modern camera than you could a decade ago with a 6MP dSLR.

Note that you might not be able to get stunning photos with older cameras in the way you could when they were new. I'm convinced at least some of my older cameras had in-factory calibration of some kind for things like variations between sensor sites. After a decade, that calibration no longer helps since the variation will have changed.

For example, I once owned a Casio QV-3000EX (3.3MP premium point-and-shoot from around 2000; f/2.0-2.5 3x zoom lens, 1/1.8" sensor). I took some great photos with it. I took that camera out after it had sat in a box for a decade, and gave it a go. I got zero usable photos. The noise levels were unacceptable, and clearly much higher than when it was new. This was an extreme case, but I have had the impression that several of my older cameras got at least a little bit worse with time.
 
I look at photos taken with my D50, D40x, and D60 and the color and sharpness are very good. What's not very good is the noise at iso's over 800. The noise at 6400 is less with my D5200 than it is at 1600 with them. Even my new Nikon P7800 compact has lower noise at iso 1600 than my D50, D40x, and D60.
 
ioshadha said:
The photos where stunning !!!
Click to expand...
Unless you're shooting for the accuracy of catalogue or forensic purposes, the subjective term "stunning" is what will captivate any audience by a photograph regardless of pixel count, dynamic range, bit depth, ISO, FPS, focal length and on and on and regardless if it was taken from a tripod or shot from the hip.

It's interesting that this website is called Digital Photography Review when it probably should be call Digital Photography Equipment Review.


 
What many of us knew anyway. Learn your camera well and try to use it in those ways that maximize its strengths and minimize its weaknesses!
 
ioshadha said:
What's your thoughts on this? love to hear your reasoning!!!

Cheers !!
Click to expand...
I’m still publishing old photos, taken with a Minolta Dimage 7 camera dating from 2001. I pretty much shot raw images with this camera from the time I got it, and advances in raw processing really helped significantly, especially since this camera originally had a colorspace problem.

Now, these don’t look so good enlarged too much, and high ISO photos tend to be garbage.



b1d171c2a3a5488cb1a7a019e33c7fed.jpg



--

The Refracted Light

A website about the Art and Science of Photography
therefractedlight.blogspot.com therefractedlight.blogspot.com
 
Hi Ioshadha, Sounds like your friend has talent.. I'll bet he also has some good technique and glass to go with it..
 
chkproductions said:
ioshadha said:
The photos where stunning !!!
Click to expand...
Unless you're shooting for the accuracy of catalogue or forensic purposes, the subjective term "stunning" is what will captivate any audience by a photograph regardless of pixel count, dynamic range, bit depth, ISO, FPS, focal length and on and on and regardless if it was taken from a tripod or shot from the hip.

It's interesting that this website is called Digital Photography Review when it probably should be call Digital Photography Equipment Review.

http://chkphotography.zenfolio.com/
Click to expand...
Maybe it should be called "Scratch your GAS affliction here" :-P
 
My Nikon D100 has rather poor dynamic range, and noise gets out of hand at ISO800. But for a 6MP camera I can get some "punchy" color at ISO100. Best $149 used camera I've owned.
 
Camera doesnt make you a good photographer, but with a good camera you get good results.
 
I agree, the old 6 and 10 mp photos look very clean at ISO. You can only cramp so many pixels on a given size sensor, I guess.
 
Few scenes truly demand modern sensors (the only image I can recall that would have needed more dynamic range was a moon rise where very shortly after the moon's rise/sun's set the moon was substantially brighter than the other elements in the scene).

Also, a 6-10 mp image means a smaller enlargement (when pixel peeped) than a 24-36mp image (36mp is like viewing the an 8 mp image at 400%, if one does that noise is going to be pretty obvious). It's pretty tough to beat the noise performance of a low megapixel camera with even a substantially newer high resolution camera (when both are compared at native resolution). For example a 1DII was a sold noise performer in its day, and does well at native resolution:







but is blown out of the water (two stops behind when the resolution of the resulting images are equalized).

As others mention, good lighting and a compelling subject are generally much more important than noise performance, dynamic range, and other sensor specific things when considering a compelling picture.
 

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ioshadha said:
I recently came to realize something interesting about photos taken from old DSLRs.

This all started some time ago when one of my friends showed me some photos taken from a series of his recent trips around the world. The photos where stunning !!! Having an interests in photography I asked him what camera he used for those shots. I expected the answer to be a recent camera with all the bells and whistles... but to my surprise he replied - Ahh, its very old Olympus DSLR and I can't remember the model number. He is definitely not this guy who had any idea of photography at all...

It made me think... and I pulled out some of my own photos from back in the day.. not form a DSLR though. And I did a bit of searching trying to see those photos taken from a DSLR about 10 years ago.. My search showed me that most of these photos are really good.. specially for cameras that had about 6MP or so but APS-C DSLRs. They had great dynamic range, good colors, good IQ in general though I didn't pixel peaking or anything... I thought how?

Is this because those senors had plenty of room for pixels? Was it that they had really low noise? I don't know...

Unfortunately, I can't post this photos I have come across. Maybe you have noted this as well with some of your old photos? I'm not saying these 10 year ago photos are better than the best of the cameras of today but for that time most of those DSLR photos are stunning.

What's your thoughts on this? love to hear your reasoning!!!

Cheers !!
Click to expand...
 
steephill said:
No, those 10 year old DSLRs did not have great dynamic range.
Click to expand...
Fujifilm S3 and S5 Pro, dynamic range champions.

7093184627_d29e64cc27_b.jpg

steephill said:
By today's standards they were quite poor. Nor did they exhibit low noise characteristics. I still have my 10 year old 6 Mp APS-C DSLR and in the right conditions I can still produce good images with it but current cameras have it beat on every level.

--
Steve
www.pbase.com/steephill
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
digitallollygag said:
My Nikon D100 has rather poor dynamic range, and noise gets out of hand at ISO800. But for a 6MP camera I can get some "punchy" color at ISO100. Best $149 used camera I've owned.
Click to expand...
I don't get why noise handling is becoming such an important issue with cameras now. The art of photography seems to be dwindling in favor of ISO performance. Whether people can see it or not, image quality starts to fall apart on any camera over ISO 800 just like it did with film yet high ISO is the holy grail now. Something has to give in low light no matter what camera processor can do.
 
mgd43 said:
I look at photos taken with my D50, D40x, and D60 and the color and sharpness are very good. What's not very good is the noise at iso's over 800. The noise at 6400 is less with my D5200 than it is at 1600 with them. Even my new Nikon P7800 compact has lower noise at iso 1600 than my D50, D40x, and D60.
Click to expand...
Yea this is the biggie. My D40 was pretty much unusable above ISO800. Shooting at ISO3200 on my NEX C3 was a real revelation even with the downgrade in glass.
 
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