Not OT: 2008 A Very Tough Year to Come

[carstenw]

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Focus-by-wire also frustrates the hell out of me. When I hadn't yet gotten fed up with my 5D and was trying to make it focus well manually, by changing focus screen and so on, I quickly decided that the Canon lenses were no good and started buying Leica glass. I hated the feel of manually focusing the Canon lenses.

 

Happy New Year everyone, Simon too!

[wattsy]

The difference between pro and amateur is so small today, due to the great technology, that the creation of an agency like Magnum or similar would likely flop today.

 

Do you seriously believe that the success or failure of a photojournalism agency like Magnum is going to hinge on what level of camera technology is available to amateurs?

[marknorton]

Nikon on the other hand tends to give you full DOF scales on their AF lenses. That way you can shut off the AF and happily scale focus to your hearts content.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the hardly any Nikon lenses have DoF scales these days.

[sdai]

You can´t win, but it was an interesting discussion nevertheless.

 

Best wishes and a Happy New AF- Year for you, sdai

 

This is not a matter of winning an argument on the forum (especially when I have nothing to lose ... ), it's a reality all of us has to face - the days of manual focusing are numbered, come on, folks ... Doug is getting old, I'm getting older day after day too, at a certain point of time, we will lose track of stuff in the viewfinder.

 

Do you believe a mid-50, 60, 70 year old man can manual focus on a flying bird from 50, 100 meters away? not me. Considering this is from a person once trained for precision shooting ... and I believe I'm a tad younger than most of friends hanging around.

 

Happy New Year to everyone, Doug, Carsten, everyone else ... I've really enjoyed the conversation with you guys, let's continue in 2008 as K_G suggests!

[lct]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the hardly any Nikon lenses have DoF scales these days.

AF primes have DoF scales for slow apertures mainly:

10.5/2.8: f/8 and slower

14/2.8: f/4 and slower

18/2.8: f/8 and slower

20/2.8: f/5.6 and slower

24/2.8: f/11 and slower

28/1.4: f/11 and slower

28/2.8: f/11 and slower

50/1.4: f/11 and slower

50/1.8: f/11 and slower

60/2.8: f/16 and slower

85/1.8: f/11 and slower

85/1.4: f/11 and slower

105/2: f/16

135/2: f/16

... and some others (35?) probably.

[lct]

...it's a reality all of us has to face - the days of manual focusing are numbered, come on, folks ...

Hopefully not. It is not because nikanopus brands decided to give up more or less MF that Leica is forced to do the same IMHO. AF is unavoidable for obvious commercial reasons but MF is mandatory for fine photographers, including not-so-fine ones like yours truly. Happy New Year to all!

[carstenw]

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Do you seriously believe that the success or failure of a photojournalism agency like Magnum is going to hinge on what level of camera technology is available to amateurs?

 

Indirectly, yes. I think that Magnum was the product of a specific era, just like Beatlemania will never happen again. There are too many people generating photos now, with the ease of processing which has come with digital, and I see the great photojournalist platforms like Life magazines dying off, in favour of magazines which take the cheap or flashy way, rather than supporting real photojournalism. There are still a few really good ones out there, but more and more it is just a time which has passed. Most news we get now is processed, not raw.

[telyt]

Do you believe a mid-50, 60, 70 year old man can manual focus on a flying bird from 50, 100 meters away?

 

I'm 55 and I've been using reading glasses for 15 years. Use a sliding-focus Telyt and it's easy.

[Jamie Roberts]

I'm 55 and I've been using reading glasses for 15 years. Use a sliding-focus Telyt and it's easy.

 

I'm closer to 55 than I'd like to admit. Sigh. Happy New Year everyone!

 

BTW--here's a 2008 question for Doug...

 

Is there *any* downside to the SL style viewfinder? If it's so great, why don't the current R bodies have the same kind of performance with the viewfinder?

 

I have to say I get frustrated by just about everything in very dim light; something better than the DMR / M8 is what I want, ideally.

 

(I'm with Carsten too on focus-by-wire. Blecch)

[Guest stnami]

It's all you old buggers with out of date scripts for your glasses, walking around half blind and you bring it into your photos with this bokeh ( most things blurred) stuff........... ...................tough year indeed

[telyt]

Is there *any* downside to the SL style viewfinder? If it's so great, why don't the current R bodies have the same kind of performance with the viewfinder?

 

Part of what makes the SL viewfinder so great is the mirror. Except for the central (meter reading) area it's 100% reflective, unlike modern cameras where the mirror is partially-reflective to allow for such light-eating convenience features as multi-pattern metering and AF.

 

Another big reason the SL viewfinder is so great is the extremely fine microprisms over the entire screen area (except for the central coarse microprism area). I was able to compare the SL with this microprism screen with an SL MOT, which by default has a plain matte screen instead of the microprisms. The standard screen is brighter and quicker to focus; the SL MOT screen is more like the R8 viewfinder. The SL also does not have distracting fresnel rings, having instead a pentaprism with a curved bottom (acting like a condenser lens). This pentaprism is expensive. One drawback of the microprism screen is that out-of-focus areas do not accurately represent what you get on film. Specular highlights become stars, for example.

 

All of this is possible in a modern camera. The microprism screen and condenser lens in the pentaprism are just a matter of cost. The 100% reflective mirror might involve doing without some popular convenience feature(s), or perhaps newer technologies will allow some light loss at the mirror without a significant loss of light to the viewfinder.

 

BTW, when Don Goldberg rebuilt my SL MOT I requested that he replace the plain matte screen with the microprism screen. The camera looks like cr@p and it works like new (or better)

[thrid]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the hardly any Nikon lenses have DoF scales these days.

 

Actually they do. I just checked this in a store, because I'm thinking about a D3.

The stops usually start at f8 or f11 and can go to f22, but at least there is a full distance scale. Also all of the Zeiss ZF lenses have complete markings, but of course they are manual focus.

 

From what I can tell Canon only gives you the largest f stop number and the distance markings stop at 3 meters

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped)All of this is possible in a modern camera. The microprism screen and condenser lens in the pentaprism are just a matter of cost. The 100% reflective mirror might involve doing without some popular convenience feature(s), or perhaps newer technologies will allow some light loss at the mirror without a significant loss of light to the viewfinder.{snipped}

 

Doug--thanks for the information.

 

I sure hope Leica is listening and thinking about precisely these kinds of issues.... especially for all of us who still can't focus in really low light, even with AF (and without even needing glasses, Imants This is a terrible problem for event shooters... what good is high ISO if you can't acheive focus?

 

I'd be happy with strange speculars in the VF if I could ensure the subject was in focus!