Digital equivalent to Nikon 35TI

G

Gerry M

Gerry
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Is there a digital equivalent to Nikon 35Ti? Thinking in terms of lens/build quality and size. Some zoom would be ok.
 
If you can live with a fixed 28mm Ricoh GR. Most like old, premium 90's P&S. Good interface, lens, sensor.

I use the crop 28/35/47 mode more than I thought I would to "switch" focal lengths. Such a big, good sensor you have some pixels to burn.
 
Gerry M said:
Is there a digital equivalent to Nikon 35Ti? Thinking in terms of lens/build quality and size. Some zoom would be ok.
Click to expand...

Not wanting to sound snarky, but my iPhone 8 Plus takes better photos than my Nikon 35Ti did and is nicer to use. I found the 35Ti a frustratingly difficult camera to get what I wanted out of, got too annoyed by it and traded it for a secondhand Rollei 35 Classic Platinum when I was traveling in London an age and a half ago. The Rollei 35 was a delight, and ended up being worth more than I traded/paid for it when I sold it a dozen years later.

The Ricoh GRD is probably as close as you can get to a Nikon 35Ti in terms of form factor in a 'real' camera that's worth owning, but it's a 28mm FoV rather than 35mm. The Leica X2 is in a similar class if a touch larger and has a 35mm FoV, the X typ 113 is a bit larger but also with 35mm FoV. Both of those are really good performers if you don't mind the larger size, with very nice controls.

G
 
Hard to beat the analog display of the 35ti or 28ti.

Sony RX100III has the popup viewfinder and if it's like the one on the HX80 it's pretty nice--tiny camera. 35ti is bigger and easier to hold. But for 35 to 35 and a viewfinder I would give the nod to the Fujifilm X100. Choose Velvia and enjoy the colors.
 
The 35Ti can be nice to use - so long as you have the "later", or factory modified ones that comes with the flash mode lever of the 28Ti.

No longer do we have this type of expensive, somewhat quirky but finely crafted "luxurious" P&S cameras that are more fetish gadgets than no-frills (=plain) tools today. Just turning the camera on and off and watch the analog display needles move around brings a smile to your face, much like the TC-1 would. It's one of the by-products of Japan's bubble age.

The GR is as fine a tool as you'd get, but if you're really after what the 35Ti is, a Leica X is as close as I can think of. The RX1, Q and X100 are all good, but they are more like the Hexar - beefy and efficient, aspiring to be your only camera.
 
Really, no there isn`t. The Ricoh GR and Fujifilm XF10 are closest, but with 28mm lenses. In the past, Nikon made the Coolpix A. The Sony RX100 has a 1" sensor and zoom... not the same spirit. There`s the RX1R II.... but that is bigger and expensive. Everything else mentioned here is bigger that the 35ti.
 
yeah, it doesn't exist. hard to believe in these "days of plenty" that nobody makes a kind of camera that was easy to find back in the film era.

- 35mm f/2.8 lens, fully retractable
- built-in viewfinder (EVF nowadays)
- cigarette pack size with soap bar form factor

i guess the digital camera ecosystem won't support it. :(
 
Been asking myself the same question lately, and one camera that came up on my radar is the Fujifilm X70. Similar to the Ricoh GR, it seems to tick the right boxes: large (APS-C) sensor, fixed wide (28mm) prime lens, compact body with real photo [enthusiast/serious amateur/pro-on-the-day-off/whatever you want to call it] controls. Of course it's discontinued, replaced by the recently announced XF10 - but that camera seems to get a simplified body that loses the direct controls to click wheels even as it gets a higher megapixel sensor, so I think the older X70 looks better on paper, IMO- but I haven't used either. Maybe someone here has?

Anyway, seems worth a look I think. I'll be following this thread and hoping folks who have shod this horse before will have more to add.
 
Everyone always touts the Sony RX100 but the sensor is so much smaller than APS-C (Ricoh, Fuji) that I don't quite understand how it's in same league despite being similarly priced.

Maybe the Sony A6000 with a small lens is another option.
 
nightfly said:
Everyone always touts the Sony RX100 but the sensor is so much smaller than APS-C (Ricoh, Fuji) that I don't quite understand how it's in same league despite being similarly priced.
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Well, it has decent IQ at 100-400 ISO... so it is similar to film in that way. But in all fairness, APSC still allows for useful depth of field separation while 1" sensors don`t, so I agree.
 
aizan said:
yeah, it doesn't exist. hard to believe in these "days of plenty" that nobody makes a kind of camera that was easy to find back in the film era.

- 35mm f/2.8 lens, fully retractable
- built-in viewfinder (EVF nowadays)
- cigarette pack size with soap bar form factor

i guess the digital camera ecosystem won't support it. :(
Click to expand...

I think it comes down to packing all of the electronics into a digital camera vs. minimal electronics in these old P&S cameras. It is also the reason that working versions of these 90s film cameras are a lot more expensive in recent times.
 
I should add that I have an EP2 & NEX 7. Great cameras, but no retracting lens makes them just a bit too thick (?) for a pocket.
 
No one has mentioned the Fuji X70 which is the equivalent of the Ricoh but with a slightly different mix of features. It does have a fixed 28 equivalent, APSC size sensor and tilting LED back.

Apologies: rereading the post the X70 has been mentioned but still a great choice.
 
The only digital camera I've ever used that approximates it's equivalent film camera is a Leica M9. I can pretty much use it exactly like my M4-P and "forget" that it's digital.

There is nothing like that in the compact world. The digital Ricoh GR is much more complex than the original film GR. But it's pretty much the best of breed for everything else. If they made one with just a top aperture dial and exposure comp, I'd be very happy but until then I'll use the unlabeled programmable buttons and knobs as best I can. In practical use, in aperture priority and Snap mode, it's not all that different. You just have to ignore like 90% of what it can possibly do.
 
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