DSLR eye for the RF guy?

[Peter Klein]

Hi, I'm Peter, and I am deep in the digital dumps. :-)

Seriously, I am a confirmed rangefinder shooter. I really prefer the look and dynamic range of film. But like many, I don't have a lot of time and I hate scanning. Sometimes, you just need digital convenience and speed, and don't want to deal with film.

About a year and a half ago, I decided to get a DSLR. I read lots of reviews and pixel peepings. I played with several DSLRs at a local camera store. It came
down to three cameras--the Pentax *ist D, the Olympus E-1 and the Canon
10D. (The 20D, *ist DS, E-300 and E-500 were not out yet).

The Pentax had the nicest viewfinder (and the easiest to focus
manually). It felt a little small. I have a bunch of old Olympus
OM lenses, and those wouldn't work on the Pentax. They would work on
the Canon--with a $175 adapter. I didn't like the Canon
viewfinder, nor the huge size of its lens mount and many lenses.

I liked the E-1 viewfinder almost as much as the Pentax'. Olympus was
giving away the OM-E-1 lens adapter. The E-1 price had dropped from overly
high to fairly reasonable. The E-1 felt good in my hands. And though
Olympus was not making any fast primes yet, they appeared to be on the
lens "road map."

Fast forward to the present. I feel like I made the wrong choice, and
I'm feeling rather fed up with Olympus. I'm an available light hound,
and the Oly is one of the noisier cameras at high ISOs. Yes, I can clean
up ISO 800 images with Neat Image, but it's a lot of work.

Olympus changed the road map. There are no fast digital Zuiko primes, except a 50/2, which is too long for most indoor work. The OM lenses work OK, but only with stop-down metering. Metering and exposure are off at widest apertures--in different directions. Using a 28/2.8 as a normal lens is an exercise in frustration--I just can't focus it. The 50/3.5 macro is wonderful. So is my late-serial 50/1.4 But, due to some fluke of the 4/3 design, the 50/1.4 only gives me a f/1.8
worth of light at the sensor, so using it wider than f/2 is pointless. And it's a portrait/medium tele lens on the E-1. Stop-down metering is a PITA except for static subjects.

I like small and light. I realize the E-1 plus standard zoom is smaller and lighter than the better Canon and NIkon offerings, but it's a lot bigger an heavier than an OM or Leica and a prime.

So I'm stuck with a triple whammy--noisy camera, no fast lenses in the
normal range, and I live in the Pacific Northwest, which is fairly
light-deprived a good part of the year. I find myself putting Pentax
*ist DS bodies into my E-bray "watched items," along with the occasional
20D or R-D1.

Oh, yeah, the R-D1. As I said, I'm an RF kind of guy. Despite the absurd price, I would have bought and R-D1 long ago but for the QC issues, the question of Epson's long term commitment, and the fact that I can only use it with contact lenses. With glasses, I can only see the 50mm viewfinder frames (effective 75mm).

So, what would you do if you were me?

1. Shut up and keep shooting film for now. There's a digital Leica M in your
future. Start saving big-time.

2. Olympus is what it is. Sell the E-1, along with your OM stuff, take
your losses, and buy a used Pentax *ist body and 50/1.7 or 50/1.4. Use
it to satisfy your digital lusts until the digital RF of your dreams comes out, be it Leica, Zeiss, or Epson R-D2.

3. Sell the E-1, but get a used Canon 20D body. Or one of the digital Rebels. Plus a Canon 50/1.8 or 50/1.4 and a Katz Eye screen. And the CameraQuest adapter for your OM lenses.

4. Olympus will come through eventually. Hang tight. The new sensor
in the Olympus E-330 shows promise. A Japanese Olympus executive did
say recently that they recognize that primes are needed and they will
come eventually. Your 14-54/2.8-3.5 is a great lens, better than any
other kit lens. It will work well on a newer body.

Sorry for the rant, but my frustration level hit some critical point this week. Any thoughts?

--Peter

[sychan]

Pick up the Sigma 30/1.4 for your Olympus and get used to a RAW + noise reduction for your workflow.

[Gid]

If you want digital, small, fast primes and reasonable high ISO performance, then get the RD-1. You can get a diopter lens (Nikon) that should help with the glasses issues and you can get an RD-1 relatively cheaply now. Also note that QC issues don't seem to feature much in posts now.

[ChrisN]

I'm biased:


You should also ask at the Pentax SLR forum on DPReview - lots of good people there with experience of all the K-mount lenses.

[Pherdinand]

Thoughts?
I can only wonder about why did you not even consider minolta's 5D or 7D. (were they out already?)
If you liked the pentax vf, just try the minolta. If size was just too small, try the minolta. If you need good quality fast primes, second hand or new, there's minolta. If you feel you don't have enough light for your lenses, turn on the antishake on the minolta.
I know, it doesn't help you much coz they are discontinued now. But maybe the Sony promise in June will come true.

[ChrisN]

Re noise: sample image just taken with the DS, iso 1600, manual focus Pentax 35/2.8, at f/2.8, 1/50. Hand held and I wobbled a bit which shifted the focus slightly; the tripod's outside in the shed. Nil post-processing other than resizing to 500x752 and "saving for web" at medium jpg quality. Not too noisy. 3200 iso does get noisy.

[wyk_penguin]

What self respecting DSLR producer makes a whole line of primes? It is like primes = old fashioned & obsolete.

But hope is not be given up on digital, just give it some time. Now, it is best to stay with the old fashioned and obsolete RFs. I don't buy the myth of Leica M. It is likely to be just a good/bad as any DSLR out on the market.

If I were you, I would stay with the Oly. Selling the Oly is not an ecconomical decision. You would be fortunate if your Oly went for 75%~80% of what you paid for it. Even if you sold it now, what would you do? You would either lose the ability to use digital or you would need to get another DSLR (which IMHO will become obsolete in 2 years time since every new DSLR seems to be similar to the previous). So my choice would be to stick with what I have and wait till there's a break in digital RF/M/SLR technology that will get digital stuff to be on par with the best emulsions.

[Pherdinand]

"What self respecting DSLR producer makes a whole line of primes?"
?????
Most of them, last time i checked. But your definition for self-respecting ... might differ from mine, of course!

[bmattock]

Thoughts?
I can only wonder about why did you not even consider minolta's 5D or 7D. (were they out already?)
If you liked the pentax vf, just try the minolta. If size was just too small, try the minolta. If you need good quality fast primes, second hand or new, there's minolta. If you feel you don't have enough light for your lenses, turn on the antishake on the minolta.
I know, it doesn't help you much coz they are discontinued now. But maybe the Sony promise in June will come true.

When I was going through some of the same internal questions and decision-making, the 7D was out, but not the 5D. And the difference in price was about x3. So sadly, the Minolta was out of the running for me.

I ended up with the *ist DS and have been happy with it. But for the price, the Minolta would have done very well for me.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[markinlondon]

What self respecting DSLR producer makes a whole line of primes? It is like primes = old fashioned & obsolete.

But hope is not be given up on digital, just give it some time. Now, it is best to stay with the old fashioned and obsolete RFs. I don't buy the myth of Leica M. It is likely to be just a good/bad as any DSLR out on the market.



I don't think it's a problem of technology, more a problem of market pressure. SLR users had given up on prime lenses long before they gave up on film opting for convenience over image quality. I remember buying a copy of Pop Photo (not common in the UK) to see what it was like and reading a Herbert Keppler (?sp) article about how he had repeated a trip he took in the '60s. The original outfit was a Nikon F and a bag of primes, his 00's outfit was a plastic Canon SLR and a 24-300mm superzoom. He seemed to be suggesting that having one lens to do it all was an advance, speed was dismissed with the "modern iso800 is better than old iso 100" argument. The upshot being that the new oufit covered every mm and was lighter.

This for me summed up the way the SLR market had evolved and was about the time I started using rangefinders. The thing is I started out with prime lenses and still prefer to use prime lenses, but those beginning in photography today start with a zoom P&S and get used to that feature. When they "upgrade" as the photo press continually advise there are zooms to buy. I don't see any manufacturer of SLR's producing a range of fast primes anytime soon. The Sigma 30 f1.4 appears to be a niche product. It's the price of a used 'cron and bulky as well.

Just my thoughts,

Mark

[Pherdinand]

that's right, the prices of the minolta dslr's were a bit too high in the beginning. Later on dropped alot, but now they are nowhere to find:D

[bmattock]

The Oly 4/3 lens mount system is gathering steam - which I had predicted incorrectly - I thought it was a dead player. The Oly body is thinner than the other DSLRs, so it has the ability to mount lenses from many other manufacturers - fun if you have a collection of older primes or zooms from another system that you want to put to use.

I agree that the Oly is probably not the DSLR for available light, but if you get an adapter and use a fast MF prime, you may be able to take it a bit further.

I presume you have seen this, but just in case:

http://www.cameraquest.com/adapt_olyE1.htm

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

[Pherdinand]

I don't see any manufacturer of SLR's producing a range of fast primes anytime soon.

Guys, what are you talking about? Unless you want to use only the latest designed, only-for-small-sensor lenses, plenty of choice
http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/lens/af/index.htm
http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/EF_Lenses/Fixed_Focal_Length/index.asp?ComponentID=25200&SourcePageID=26112#2
http://www.pentax.co.uk/products.php?divisionid=2&parentid=22

[anselwannab]

I think till the end of 2007 is going to very interesting in DSLRs. You have Sony coming on line with the old Minolta stuff, the Canon 30D just begs a model above it, the Nikon 200D technology should trickle down to thier other models. Wait if money is tight and what is out there doesn't fit your bill. If Sony is dedicated to the Minolta mount, a new or used 5D and the Sigma 30/1.4 might be a killer low light camera.

I really wonder how much farther we really need to go technology wise though. I took my 20D to Italy and got some incredible pics of the Vatican that I printed out on my Epson 2200 at 13x19. Simply stunning. Yeah, I'd love to be able to print 36x24 inch prints at 300dpi, but 13x19 is fine for now, plus with my Dual Scan IV and CL I can print 220dpi 13x19 prints.

I'm warming to the 4/3 concept, but to me, especially for the crop sensor, the cameras, and definately the lenses are way big. That new Lumilux model looks good, but way to front heavy with most of the lenses out there.

I think that when the 4/3 and APS-C sized sensors came out, they lens mounts should have been shortened and narrowed. Make the EF-s lens "flange-to-film" shorter thanfor EF lenses, and make the diameter narrower. If you want to use EF lenses on a crop body, you just use and adaptor that would step up to the larger diameter and longer back-focus length of EF lenses.

The 4/3 are better, but I would think a 2x crop camera wouldn't need as bulky lenses.

As to zooms versus primes, if you don't see depth-of-field, almost always print 4x6 (maybe 8x10), like the all in one aspect of zooms, I can definatly see why primes fell out favor with manufacturers.

If some small, fast primes come out in 4/3 mount, I might be looking at a used E-300 or even the Lumilux.

[markinlondon]

Guys, what are you talking about? Unless you want to use only the latest designed, only-for-small-sensor lenses, plenty of choice
http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/lens/af/index.htm
http://www.canon-europe.com/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/EF_Lenses/Fixed_Focal_Length/index.asp?ComponentID=25200&SourcePageID=26112#2
http://www.pentax.co.uk/products.php?divisionid=2&parentid=22

I stand corrected, but as you say they are leftovers from the film bodies. Will they be around in 2 years time? My feeling is that if no new primes are offered they will acquire an "outmoded" tag. Also there is the question of lens mount "evolution", 100% seems to be a variable when it comes to lens compatibilty

Mark

[Ken Ford]

The Nikon D50 has a reputation for very good high-ISO performance, and it's certainly small, light and cheap enough. My D70S is no slouch at 1600, either.

[anselwannab]

I pay attention to Canon. The wide primes are there, but they aint cheap (14/2.8 Eeeecckks!), they really aren't that fast (2.8 - fast for me starts at 2.0), and I don't hear many people signing their praises they way they do with 50, 85, 135 lenses.

[nksyoon]

I pay attention to Canon. The wide primes are there, but they aint cheap (14/2.8 Eeeecckks!), they really aren't that fast (2.8 - fast for me starts at 2.0), and I don't hear many people signing their praises they way they do with 50, 85, 135 lenses.

I hear many people singing praises of the 35/1.4, more so than the 50/1.8 or 50/1.4.

[John Camp]

Zeiss is making manual lenses for the Nikon, f/1.4 50 and 85. A Nikon D200 without any extra junk on it and Zeiss lenses would give you a camera about as close to the upcoming M-digital as you could get in the SLR world.

But the SLR world is a different world. The cameras are heavy and the lenses are big, and one of the common things you see on most SLR sites is that "the most important thing you can do to improve your pictures is to put the camera on a tripod." My D2x is semi-permanently married to a RRS L-bracket, and the bracket itself weighs as much as most Leica lenses.

Rangefinders IMHO are inherently made for hand-holding. If you really want the Rangefinder experience in digital, you either go P&S (there are several nice cameras there with optical view finders and good chips), the R-D1, or wait. I'm traveling right now under somewhat awkward personal circumstances and rather than take my R-D1 and Leica glass, I just took a Pentax Optio 750z which has an optical viewfinder, a 5x optical zoom, a great 7mp chip, a twistable LCD with live view, and a manual control option. It's not a rangefinder and the lens isn't a Leica, but it's not dogfood, either.

JC

[RML]

Oh, yeah, the R-D1. As I said, I'm an RF kind of guy. Despite the absurd price, I would have bought and R-D1 long ago but for the QC issues, the question of Epson's long term commitment, and the fact that I can only use it with contact lenses. With glasses, I can only see the 50mm viewfinder frames (effective 75mm).

Peter, I'm slightly surprised to hear you can only see the 50mm framelines with glasses. I wear glasses and I can see both the 50 an 35mm lines perfectly well. The 28 lines are a bit out of my view but not by much.

[Peter Klein]

Peter, I'm slightly surprised to hear you can only see the 50mm framelines with glasses. I wear glasses and I can see both the 50 an 35mm lines perfectly well. The 28 lines are a bit out of my view but not by much.

Yes, I seem to need more eye relief than many other people. It has to do with the shape of my face (I have a prominent eybrow ridge) and my eyeglass prescription. I have the same problem on a .72x Leica. I can see about 4/5 of the 35mm frame. My compositions with a 35mm lens improved when I started wearing contact lenses some of the time. But when I'm traveling or on weekends, I prefer not to wear contacts. I keep my glasses on a neck cord so I can quickly take them off after focusing. This works for landscapes, but not so well for moving people! :-)

Some great comments and suggestions by everyone, by the way. Thanks! I'll be re-reading them a few times and see what would work best for me.

It's an imperfect world out there, so I'll just have to see what suits me best. I deliberately did not buy any extra lenses or accessories for the E-1, so if I have to bail out, I can. But bailing out is a hassle, and you do lose money. The upcomng Sigma 4/3 30/1.4 is indeed a possibility, though pricey and heavy.

--Peter

[KEH]

Pentax has some wonderful glass, new and vintage. And it all will work with the istDS2 body. Viewfinder is excellent, permitting manual focusing. Small and light and good ergonomics. This is my 'alternative rangefinder.'

Photos here (http://www.pbase.com/kirkh/pentax) - mostly snapshots, and quality is hard to judge with little jpg's.

Cheers,
Kirk

[amateriat]

Well, SLRs are now a niche category in my photography – there's an Olympus OM2n that gets pressed into service whenever I need to do extreme close-up work, but other than that I use RFs and the occasional pocket 35. The only digicam I can tolerate happens to be an Olympus: the Camedia C8080. I had high hopes for the E-1 when it came out, but they've largely been dashed by the dearth of decent primes, the overemphasis on outsized (and outpriced...have you seen what they're asking for some of their newest numbers?) zooms., and the E-1's underwhelming low-light performance. Provided they aren't eaten alive by Canon and/or Nikon by this time next year, maybe they'll bring out a decent prime or two, along with a reworked flagship model.

If I were buying a dSLR right now, Pentax seems to have the right idea: small body, better than fair-to-middling sensor performance, and a lens mount and adaptor system that lets you go as far back in the Pentax catalog as you like. But if I'm doing anything digital, it'll be with just the 8080, which handles just about anything I'd care to do via digital capture.


- Barrett

[Dougg]

...The Oly body is thinner than the other DSLRs, so it has the ability to mount lenses from many other manufacturers - fun if you have a collection of older primes or zooms from another system that you want to put to use.

I presume you have seen this, but just in case:

http://www.cameraquest.com/adapt_olyE1.htm I'm very surprised that at least the Olympus-to-Olympus adaptor doesn't transfer auto-diaphragm action from the body to lens. True for all other lens mounts too: "All 4/3 adapters operate at shooting aperture -- you manually open or close the lens aperture using the lens aperture ring" and "Stop down TTL ambient light or flash metering, as well as stop down AE priority at shooting aperture." Hard to imagine putting up with this inconvenience these days, and this lack is a "killer" of the adapting idea for me. I have used a similar adaptor to mount Pentax M42 lenses on an Olympus Pen F; fine for some special purpose lens but not for everyday use, IMHO. Advantage to Pentax *istD...

[RObert Budding]

I bought a Nikon D200 - it's too difficult to shoot my kid's soccer games with a RF! Nice camera, and you can use the older Nikon primes and still get matrix metering (nice for sports and rapidly changing light). Another bonus is the older Nikon primes are very good lenses and very cheap. And the pre-AI lenses can be adapted for $25.