A great camera for limited applications

I've never seen so ambigous reviews for a camera as for the dp Merrills. Therefore I was hesitating to get one. After using the dp3 for a few days I must say that I'm very happy with it. The key thing is that you use it for applications it fits. I's great for still live, plants, portraits (but not children, they move too much) and slow, more artistic photography. For these applications, the slow speed, the small battery and other niggles are no big issue. The camera is ergonomically very well designed and highly customizable, it actually it allows more customization than some semipro SLRs. I do not have to comment the picture quality: It's exceptional as all reviwers stated.

I for one would rate the camera as excellent for landscapes and scenery. In fact that would be one of its best applications. There is a conception out there that a good landscape lens must be wide view and that is just not the case. Much of the poor landscape shots that I see suffer from a view that is so wide that everything in the shot is insignificant. Wide views have to be very well composed to have any impact. The OP has not mentioned lens length as a problem but what else would make him downgrade it as a landscape camera?

DMillier wrote:

I'd also add to the Merrill's list of capabilities, the kind of stuff I do a lot of: photographs of inanimate details of urban scenes in a graphic/abstract way (parts of buildings, cracked and peeling paint, weathered wood for example). Things that will wait around for you to shoot don't stress the camera but benefit from the high contrast and crisp rendition.

And macro, copying work, botanical records, archaeology, cars and tractors (new and vintage), urban and street, effects of the light, clouds, food, etc etc.

A very useful general purpose camera.

james wilson 2 wrote:

I for one would rate the camera as excellent for landscapes and scenery. In fact that would be one of its best applications. There is a conception out there that a good landscape lens must be wide view and that is just not the case. Much of the poor landscape shots that I see suffer from a view that is so wide that everything in the shot is insignificant. Wide views have to be very well composed to have any impact. The OP has not mentioned lens length as a problem but what else would make him downgrade it as a landscape camera?

Agreed, no cameras do far distance detail better than the Merrills. All three of them are superb for landscapes, the 3M is no exception.

james wilson 2 wrote:

I for one would rate the camera as excellent for landscapes and scenery. In fact that would be one of its best applications. There is a conception out there that a good landscape lens must be wide view and that is just not the case. Much of the poor landscape shots that I see suffer from a view that is so wide that everything in the shot is insignificant. Wide views have to be very well composed to have any impact. The OP has not mentioned lens length as a problem but what else would make him downgrade it as a landscape camera?

+1

Both Merrill and Quattro cameras are very good for landscapes and scenery.

DMillier wrote:

I couldn't agree more. Wide angle photography for landscapes is really hard to do well - foregrounds get grossly exaggerated and 10,000 foot mountains reduced to molehills, a ton of irrelevant distractions gets added that people don't notice at the time. Not to mention the inevitable barrel distortions, circles pulled into ellipses at the corners and with 3:2 ratios uncropped portrait mode shots do some odd things to foreground subjects at the bottom of the frame.

Longer lenses for landscapes are much underused and under-rated. The merrill sensor has the ability to punch through distance haze and I quite fancy the idea of trying a longer focal length to pull in that background a bit.

I'd also add to the Merrill's list of capabilities, the kind of stuff I do a lot of: photographs of inanimate details of urban scenes in a graphic/abstract way (parts of buildings, cracked and peeling paint, weathered wood for example). Things that will wait around for you to shoot don't stress the camera but benefit from the high contrast and crisp rendition.

james wilson 2 wrote:

I for one would rate the camera as excellent for landscapes and scenery. In fact that would be one of its best applications. There is a conception out there that a good landscape lens must be wide view and that is just not the case. Much of the poor landscape shots that I see suffer from a view that is so wide that everything in the shot is insignificant. Wide views have to be very well composed to have any impact. The OP has not mentioned lens length as a problem but what else would make him downgrade it as a landscape camera?

As I look at my monitor screen my eyes dart around subconciously while taking in the content. Still I am most comfortable viewing the 15" width at about 18", notwithstanding peripheral vision, etc. So, in camera terms and still talking landscape a lens to match that on an APS-C sensor would be a focal length of 24mm x 18/15 = 29mm. By that logic, the DP2M would be the camera for me.

I love compressed landscapes, I`ve shot a few at 300mm never mind 75 !