Digital Photography from 20,000 Feet
by Wesley Fink on September 25, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
Moving Forward: Digital Camera Reviews at AnandTech
Digital SLR cameras have come a very long way in a very short period of time. They have gone from very expensive instruments affordable only to corporations and professionals to the fastest growing segment of the imaging market in only a few short years. Many of the early problems like low resolution, slow startup, slow saves of images, high energy requirements, and bulky batteries have all but disappeared. The fairest measure of the state of Digital SLR cameras is that today they are not much different in appearance and function than the last generation of film cameras. In general, however, they offer even more electronic sophistication than the film cameras they replace.
Recent digital SLR cameras are capable of 1000, 2000 or even more images on a single battery charge. Digital SLRs are also getting smaller in general, and now average even smaller than the last generation of film SLRs. Despite the decreasing size, many camera makers are paying much more attention to ergonomics - how the cameras feel in the users hands - and the smaller digital SLRs handle very well.
For all of these reasons you will find many more digital SLRs than point-and-shoot cameras in future digital camera reviews at AnandTech. This is because the digital SLR is now the fastest growing segment of the digital camera market, and that is where most of the new camera introductions will happen. This does not mean we will ignore the digital point-and-shoot, as there is always a place for a small, pocketable, and reasonable digital camera. It does mean AT will pick more carefully among the point-and-shoot cameras we will choose to review.
The Sony Alpha or A100 and Nikon D80 are already planned for review. They are the first of the new breed of affordable (under $1000) 10 megapixel SLR cameras. We will also review the other announced members of the 10 megapixel club - namely the Canon Rebel XT1, Pentax K10D, and Samsung GX-10 - when they become available in the market. As stated at the beginning of this guide, we really need your help in deciding how to test these cameras.
Many of the tests used at photo websites have very little real relevance to the digital SLRs of today. Start-up and shot-to-shot times are all but instantaneous with the latest models and even those fast times continue to improve. Virtually none of the lags of early digital cameras remain, and the response time no longer reminds you that you are using a digital SLR camera. Since SLRs have interchangeable lenses there is no fixed lens to review and every major lens line has some incredible lenses and a few dogs. Do you want us to test the standard kit lens in our upcoming reviews or should we use a standard quality lens for all tests in that line like a 50mm f1.4? Or both?
What tests would you like to see in the digital camera reviews? This is your time to sound off. Resolution targets are available and it is fairly easy to determine resolving ability of the kit or a standardized lens. Would these be useful to you in our reviews? There has also been the suggestion that we shoot a standard scene (the same scene) in every review so readers can compare fine details like color balance and resolution. If you want that let us know. We are open to new ideas and new ways of examining digital cameras in AnandTech reviews. We have a different audience than the photo websites and we want our reviews to provide you with what you are looking for.
We sincerely hope you enjoyed our overview of digital photography, with a slant toward the digital SLR. It is our belief that, in contrast to computers, many readers at AnandTech don't know a lot about photography and digital cameras. Some of you are very knowledgeable, but our letters indicate many more readers have been shopping for digital cameras with little understanding of how they work or what to look for. The purpose of this Guide from 20,000 feet is to provide a broad overview with enough specifics to help our readers become better shoppers for digital cameras in general and digital SLRs specifically. If we helped in that arena please let us know in your comments. If there are additional articles on digital imaging you would like to see in the future we would be happy to hear your suggestions.
Digital SLR cameras have come a very long way in a very short period of time. They have gone from very expensive instruments affordable only to corporations and professionals to the fastest growing segment of the imaging market in only a few short years. Many of the early problems like low resolution, slow startup, slow saves of images, high energy requirements, and bulky batteries have all but disappeared. The fairest measure of the state of Digital SLR cameras is that today they are not much different in appearance and function than the last generation of film cameras. In general, however, they offer even more electronic sophistication than the film cameras they replace.
Recent digital SLR cameras are capable of 1000, 2000 or even more images on a single battery charge. Digital SLRs are also getting smaller in general, and now average even smaller than the last generation of film SLRs. Despite the decreasing size, many camera makers are paying much more attention to ergonomics - how the cameras feel in the users hands - and the smaller digital SLRs handle very well.
For all of these reasons you will find many more digital SLRs than point-and-shoot cameras in future digital camera reviews at AnandTech. This is because the digital SLR is now the fastest growing segment of the digital camera market, and that is where most of the new camera introductions will happen. This does not mean we will ignore the digital point-and-shoot, as there is always a place for a small, pocketable, and reasonable digital camera. It does mean AT will pick more carefully among the point-and-shoot cameras we will choose to review.
The Sony Alpha or A100 and Nikon D80 are already planned for review. They are the first of the new breed of affordable (under $1000) 10 megapixel SLR cameras. We will also review the other announced members of the 10 megapixel club - namely the Canon Rebel XT1, Pentax K10D, and Samsung GX-10 - when they become available in the market. As stated at the beginning of this guide, we really need your help in deciding how to test these cameras.
Many of the tests used at photo websites have very little real relevance to the digital SLRs of today. Start-up and shot-to-shot times are all but instantaneous with the latest models and even those fast times continue to improve. Virtually none of the lags of early digital cameras remain, and the response time no longer reminds you that you are using a digital SLR camera. Since SLRs have interchangeable lenses there is no fixed lens to review and every major lens line has some incredible lenses and a few dogs. Do you want us to test the standard kit lens in our upcoming reviews or should we use a standard quality lens for all tests in that line like a 50mm f1.4? Or both?
What tests would you like to see in the digital camera reviews? This is your time to sound off. Resolution targets are available and it is fairly easy to determine resolving ability of the kit or a standardized lens. Would these be useful to you in our reviews? There has also been the suggestion that we shoot a standard scene (the same scene) in every review so readers can compare fine details like color balance and resolution. If you want that let us know. We are open to new ideas and new ways of examining digital cameras in AnandTech reviews. We have a different audience than the photo websites and we want our reviews to provide you with what you are looking for.
We sincerely hope you enjoyed our overview of digital photography, with a slant toward the digital SLR. It is our belief that, in contrast to computers, many readers at AnandTech don't know a lot about photography and digital cameras. Some of you are very knowledgeable, but our letters indicate many more readers have been shopping for digital cameras with little understanding of how they work or what to look for. The purpose of this Guide from 20,000 feet is to provide a broad overview with enough specifics to help our readers become better shoppers for digital cameras in general and digital SLRs specifically. If we helped in that arena please let us know in your comments. If there are additional articles on digital imaging you would like to see in the future we would be happy to hear your suggestions.
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silver - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
I think this is one tidbit that you might write on when you're realy bored. My images are backed up using Verbatim UltraLife Gold DVD-R media. You also need to make sure that they stay cool and dry much as you do with film. They're not as sensitive to humidity but as certainly far more sensitive to heat.Googer - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
Panasonic is makeing and selling cameras based on good old Leca Lens. If you have a leica lens from any point in the last 55+ years, it will be compatable with a Panasonic/Leica Camera.
Wesley Fink - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
The Pansonic Lumix DMC-L1 digital SLR uses a Leica lens built with a four thirds mount. This is the new digital only mount pioneered by Olympus. The LMC-L1 is mentioned in the guide.silver - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
One of my friends has one of these and the images are simply incredible. He states that the Opticla Image Stabilization is simply the best he could find.wilburpan - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
As someone used to shooting with film cameras, I can say that I still notice some shutter lag when using digital SLRs, even with current models. To write this off as "Virtually none of the lags of early digital cameras remain" is to ignore a real factor when it comes to the use of any camera.To put this another way, if a digital camera website stated that the choice of CPUs was unimportant in buying a computer because all modern day CPUs were fast and powerful enough, the readers of this site probably would bust a gut.
There are also speed issues involved with other uses of a digital camera that need to be addressed. The Nikon D80 takes about 1.4 seconds to store and then display an image after the shutter has been pressed. The speed of this process varies widely from camera to camera. Similar variances in speed and performance come into play when performing tasks such as playback of pictures taken, the time that it takes to process bursts of photos when shooting in continuous mode, etc.
silver - Wednesday, September 27, 2006 - link
Regarding shutter lag, digital cameras will always be slower than film. There's no way around that. My FM2n's have near instantaneous shutter release and are quite the opposite of my admittedly dated Fuji S602. What manufacturers need to do is to have separate power sources (batteries) for lens focusing and camera functions other than CCD/CMOS/memory charging. Obviously this would complicate the camera so they probably aren't considering this option.Wesley Fink - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
This is where we start to get into questions about what test is real. The file flush time on a Nikon D80 is 2.0 seconds for a fine jpeg and a little less than 3s for a RAW+jpeg. However, you never encounter this becuase of the memory buffering built into the Nikon D80 and every other digital SLR camera. The D80 can do 3 fps for a little over 30 seconds shooting raw+jpeg, and with fine jpeg it can shoot 3fpm until you run out of flash card room or battery.I consider the D80 time of 160ms viewfinder blackout (0.16s), and a less than 0.1s from off to shot negligible for almost any users. Even the Sony, which has a 1 second start-up, is using almost all that time to clean the sensor before shooting, while shot-to-shot is very competitive with the best SLRs around. Some users might be happier if you could turn off the cleaning on start. While this may be very important for some users, it is doubtful that the small differences in recent digital SLR cameras will really be noticable or matter to most users.
dpreview is an excellent and respected digital review site, and I have sent many readers there with their questions. They often come back with more questions than answers, which usually means they found the technical level too far above their skills and needs. We can't be all things in Digital Camera reviews so we will likely err toward the more basic side.
We'll consider your suggestion about start-up times, but I'm not convinced yet.
yacoub - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
I appreciate your article but I don't know: I think that folks into digital photography, no matter what other hobbies they have, including computer hardware or gaming, are knowledgable enough (or are competent enough to gain the knowledge needed) to make good use of a site like DPReview, which offers about all the info most need to make an intelligent purchase of a digital camera. Plus that being their primary focus (and has been for years), they automatically get much more credibility than a computer hardware site can hope to achieve by writing content basically saying "look we can do this too!" and writing what most good highschool photography classes are teaching today anyway.I guess my question is, why not stay focused on computer component hardware? All branching out does is reduce the chance of the main hardware getting the attention it needs. There are umpteen motherboard, videocard, and RAM reviews and guides yet to be completed or even begun, yet you're going off into digital photography land? That's kind of disappointing. For that hobby there are already many strong resources for folks who are into that, and many more for folks who want a simple pocket-sized point-n-shoot (which is the majority of folks). Why not focus on being the strong resource in computer hardware that folks in this hobby need?
fanbanlo - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
Maybe AnandTech can explain to use what are the new technology built into the sensor rather than meaningless marketing terms givin to them.Different algorithm used? what's their computational power?
Why shoot RAW? RAW-enabled software review!?
Thx
Heidfirst - Monday, September 25, 2006 - link
For the lower end DSLRs (D50,350D,K100D etc.) I think that you should also review the standard kit lens as the majority of buyers will probably be buying it with the body as a package.By the time that you start hitting EOS30D type level imo most people will probably have lenses already or be buying a better lens than the entry level kit lens. Also if they are paying that for a body they quite probably are reasonably knowledgeable photo enthusiasts & maybe Anandtech isn't going to be the first place that they look for reviews so sticking to the lower end at least initially sounds reasonable to me.
The idea of a standard test scene is interesting but it would have to be reproducible which means in the studio & that means that it's less representative of the conditions in which most people will use them (I imagine that the % of even current DSLR users who shoot in the studio is in single figures & probably low single figures at that).