And you wonder why I stay with old technology?
Not to fear, almost everything in Phil's post is incorrect or misleading. If I didn't know better I would think it to be a parody of a camera magazine article, or a report from 15 years ago (when any sort of decent performance was absurdly expensive).
Good low-light performance *is* important, but almost any decent camera in the last 5 years has had more-than-adequate performance at high ASA/ISO. Unlike the implication, that is a function of the sensor, not the lens. ASA 800 is perfectly good on almost any 2/3 frame camera and any full-frame camera. That covers you in almost all conditions, that's roughly 1/2000 second shutter speed at F/16 on the lens in full sunlight. And by perfectly good, I mean you can't tell the difference between 800 and the design ASA (usually 200). Above that some of them go off the rails a bit, but even my 3-year old D90 is perfectly acceptable at 3200 with only minor loss of saturation. Newer cameras are generally better.
High frame rates (>1 frame/sec) are not particularly useful. In anything other than the most expensive cameras, you can only go for a second or so at very low resolution before the buffer fills up. If you think you need that, most cameras will shoot in "movie" mode that works as well, and then just grab individual frames. I rarely use anything other than single-shot mode at any time for modeling pictures.
More pixels is not necessarily better. Anything more than about 5 Mpixels on tiny point-and-shoot sensor, or maybe 10 or so on a DSLR, is just taking up space. Putting more pixels, shooting at small image sizes, and then cropping it is MUCH WORSE in almost all aspects from filling the sensor with the desired image. You can crop it very tightly before you get visible pixels but it will not be very sharp and the colors and tones will not be smooth. The key to sharp pictures is to put the subject all the way across the sensor/film plane and use every bit or silver molecule you can use. Digital zoom, same thing, not worth using. You need to fill the frame!
You don't need or want huge zoom ratios. If you have interchangeable lenses you just use two that will cover any conceivable purpose. For instance, I have a good array of lenses, but use a 18-55 mm and a 70-300 for almost everything. With my sensor size, thats the equivalent of about 28mm-80mm and about 105mm-450mm for a 35mm camera. I routinely shoot in-flight photos from 10-15 feet away with it set to about the equivalent of 150-175 mm.
Similarly, with any sort of modern quality sensor, super-fast lenses like the f/1.4 are essentially useless. Those were all the rage for photojournalists using relatively slow 35mm film in the 60's. They were adopted for "show" purposes by amateurs in film camera days but they are almost never used wide-open in any circumstances even with film. If for no other reason that most of them had absolutely terrible performance (flare, distortion, etc) wide-open. If you aren't going to use at f/1.4 you are much much better off with a slower lens that is not as compromised for low-light ability. For instance, the extremely inexpensive 50/1.8 lenses are far better performers. That's only 1/2 a stop slower, and you aren't going to use it at even F/1.8, either. Most digital camera "kit" SLRs come with a base lens of F3.5 or so, and that is entirely satisfactory for any decent camera. I have my camera locked to ASA 800 and rarely change it (and then only to set it slower , not faster) and I never bother with my f/1.8 lens.
Moreover, all the current f1.4 (and 1.8 for that matter) like the Nikon 50/1.4 are the same design and construction as they were in 1965, for the most part. No work has been done on these sorts of lenses for a very long time. Zoom lenses are right at the cutting edge, with every trick they know applied. I know from testing that the cheapie 18-55/3.5-4.5 zoom beats the *snot* out of my 50/18 in every regard - sharper, much much less flare, better contrast, etc. Its WAY better than any 50/f1.4 lens ever made, including Leica. And it has shake compensation.
Anyone who pays $2000 for a f1.4 lens for taking model airplane pictures is not thinking the problem through - at all.
All you really need for any modeling application is the cheapest low-end DSLR (DX (nikon) or APS-C (canon)) from a reputable manufacturer, the inexpensive basic lens that comes with it (something like and 18-55 f/3.5-4.5) and maybe the low-end 70-300 zoom, OR the magical Nikon 18-200, which is more expensive up front but covers almost all conceivable needs. They all have sufficient resolution and they all have adequate or better low-light performance.
Of course, even cheaper or free are late 35mm film cameras.
And again, if you are just going to take pictures of stationary objects, any point-and-shoot camera from Canon or Nikon youis probably more than adequate. That's going to be about $150.
Brett
p.s. here's an example -
http://www.adorama.com/INKD5100KR.html?utm_term=Other&utm_medium=Affiliate&utm_campaign=Other&utm_source=rflAID021866p.s. to show how little extra resolution means, this was taken with a 1.8 mPixel camera -
12 years ago! This straight out of the camera and converted to make it a postable size, but is otherwise completely unmanipulated. It looks fine even at 11x17. Its all about technique, not resolution. And now that you use nice free electrons instead of an expensive precious metal, learning the technique is also free.
Topic: Digital Camera Advice (Read 2374 times)