Dave Lively

Does a FTZ adapter really add 80mm of length?

That sounded wrong so I went to the Nikon website which sure enough says the adapter is 70mm in diameter and 80mm long. But looking at the pictures of the adapter it looks much shorter. And the F mount is not 80mm deeper than the Z mount. Not the first time I have seen a typo on a company website but I am curious how deep the adapter really is.

Put modern film in it and you would still have a fixed focus camera with a single shutter speed and a single element lens.

If 1901 Brownies took better pictures than a 2021smartphone I must be one of those people that does not know what a good photo looks like. I inherited the family photo albums after my mother died and the pictures I see on Facebook taken with smartphones are vastly superior to the old B&W images in those albums.

Brownies were never meant to be cameras for people trying to create art. They were meant for people that wanted to preserve a moment or share it with others. That printed photos were usually shared with a few friends or family members instead of hundreds of "friends" or followers did not make them less valuable.

Having to deal with the limitations of film in a Brownie did not transform people into artists. They took the same badly composed pictures people do with smartphones. They were just far more likely to be blurred, poorly exposed or otherwise flawed.

A 500MP smartphone sensor is silly. But so is claiming Brownies take better pictures than smartphones.

The uncle/auntie types typically leave their phones in their pockets most of the time and want something small. Its more often the younger crowd that usually has their phone in hand and don't own anything with a bigger screen that want the huge displays.

The Z6 or the S21?

We all have things we want but don't need. I am sure there are plenty of smartphone users out there that are sure anyone with enough creativity can take great pictures with a phone and your Z6 is a useless luxury.

BTW, where did you find a Z6 for less than $800? If used ones are that cheap now on eBay I am going to try to pick one up.

People that are suffering economically shouldn't be buying $800 phones. There are much cheaper options that will do everything you actually need a phone to do just fine. Phones like these are a luxury.

Those that buy a new high end cell phone every year would probably rather have the price reduced $35 than have another charger. And yes, I know guys at work that rarely go a year without buying another cell phone. Early adopters are going to make up a large part of the initial sales of these phones so it makes sense to cater to them instead of those of us that use the same phone for years. We are more likely to be buying something low end anyways.

I do miss the SD slot but now that getting an extra 128 GB is $50 extra it is not as bad as it used to be.

If I do buy a S21 I will want to buy a fast charger and a good set of wireless headphones. But I can live without them and the slippery glass back if that is what it takes to knock $200 of the price of the phone.

Does anyone have a phone geek- photography snob dictionary handy?

Samsung says the S21 telephoto has "30x (Hybrid Optical 3x)" zoom. Does that mean:

a) A prime lens 3x longer than the main camera with up to 10x digital zoom?

b) A prime lens 3x longer than the main camera with up to 30x digital zoom?

c) A prime lens the same focal length as the main camera but with a higher megapixel sensor that makes it easier to crop?

d) Something else?

I am hoping it means a longer lens, not just digital zoom.

My S7 has seen better days and needs to be replaced. It's certainly not going to replace my real cameras but I want the best camera possible in a reasonably sized cell phone. Since I almost always have a cell phone with me it gets used to take a lot of quick snapshots and something with more reach than the typical wide angle cell phone camera would be useful. It doesn't have to be as good as a real camera but I want it to be as useful as possible given the constraints.

Yes they do and it is a rational decision.

They need to have a phone and a separate camera is be an additional expense. Buying a $500 phone and $500 camera doesn't save any money over buying a $1000 phone. That camera would also be an additional item they would never have with them when they needed it. Cameras small enough to fit in a pocket usually have the same problems of poor ergonomics and image quality that phones do.

If you are going to take a lot or all of your pictures with your phone it makes sense to pay attention to how good the camera and image processing in that phone is.

If art is in the eye of the beholder I am not seeing any art in the samples. This is a great option for street photographers that want to take something complex and beautiful and make an ugly, stark caricature of it to hang on their wall. It is probably also great for being able to make any woman look like strung out, drug addicted hooker. Art is finding meaning and beauty where others don't, not the other way around.

If you like these photos and consider them art I cannot say you are wrong, it is 100% subjective. But I have seen much better art taken with a cell phone.

As a proud gearhead I understand the joy of playing with old equipment that makes you think about what you are doing and forces you to think more about composition and what your are doing. But that makes you a gearhead, not an artist. The two are not mutally exclusive but really good photographers want gear that expand their creative options, not limit it to one cliched look.

Features like Dual Exposure Control are not for people that 10 years ago were carrying a compact with the mode dial set to the big green "A" for full auto everything. And 10 years before that were shooting and Instamatic or inexpensive 35mm compact loaded with color print film. They are for people that care more about image quality and would otherwise still be carrying a compact camera, or worse yet in Google's opinion and iPhone or Samsung product.

Not every feature needs to be used by the majority of phone users. If adding more computational photography software persuades a few people to buy a Pixel 4 instead of an iPhone XR its a win for Google.

People complain about a phone being thick and then stick it in an even thicker case.

That's an impressive lens.

But these samples confirm that a FF 85mm f1.8 lens would offer all the DOF control I need. If your needs are different than mine it is great that Canon offers this option.

No, they didn't ignore mirrorless. They developed the Nikon 1 cameras and some lenses for the new mount.

While in retrospect it may be obvious that the combination of the small sensor and high prices set the system up to fail Nikon wanted it to succeed. They thought mirrorless was all about small and light and whatever flaws the system had it was certainly small and light. At the time of it's introduction it also had much better autofocus than other mirrorless systems.

Hopefully they have learned from their mistakes but the rumored prices make me wonder if they are not going to over price the system compared to Sony.

Did you pay for the ad free plan? I did that early this year and my links are still currently working. I am hoping that the $15 I paid to get rid of the ads constituted a contract and Photobucket will wait until the year I paid for is over before raising the price.

But I plan to switch soon instead of waiting. I only use PB for inserting images into hobby forums and auction sites that do not host images themselves. I never came close to using up the 2 GB of storage space. If PB offered a low cost plan with minimal storage and bandwidth limits I might consider it. But for what they are charging there are better options.

@DueSouth: In January I paid them $15 a year of ad free service. This is the first I have heard of Photobucket changing their TOS and so far all my hotlinks are still valid. It looks like they are being careful about not changing to TOS for anyone that paid even the smallest amount of money for their service. It will be hard for people to sue because they are not getting the service they paid for when they paid nothing.

I expect that in January I will be told I need to select a different plan and will do so, but not with Photobucket. I always thought their niche was people wanting to post images on forums and auction sites that do not provide photo hosting and that is what I used it for. I have never come close to the 2 GB of storage they provide. If they had an option where for $20 a year or so I could keep using hotlinks on up to 1 GB of images I would do so. But for $40/month there are far better options.

The author left what is probably the best m43 lens for this purpose off his chart, the Panasonic 15mm f1.7.

Designed to work well with the GM5 it is small, fast and has a good reputation optically. I decided to go with the Olympus 17mm f1.8 because it was less expensive but looked hard at the 15mm. I tried the Panasonic 20mm first but found its focusing too slow and noisy.

I did not notice the profile. The attachments made it look like it was protruding. Still a big phone though.

I would have to see one to know for sure if it would fit into a pocket. I thought a 5 inch phone would be too big until I tried one.

The aspect ratio of the screen matters too. This one looks to be more like a 2.35:1 screen if it fills the frame. A tall, skinny, thin phone might fit. I am not sure how well that sort of aspect ratio would work for the applications I use most.

A phone has to fit into my pocket. With a 6 inch screen and protruding lens I doubt this one can do that.