Do you need a better camera? * Good article

[GrJohnso]

I like the guys over at Luminous Landscapes and have read quite a few good articles there. They just have a very matter-of-fact way of looking at things...

The below article is an interesting look at the little'ol G10 vs a quality Medium Format with digital back....

It's not telling most of us anything we didn't already know (whether we admit it or not is another question) but it's a good read and interesting little/informal case study...

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

 

[OdiN]

Yes. I would like a 5DMkII...maybe.

Or a 1D Mk III

 

[angry hampster]

Try that test again with a G10 vs a 1dmkIII in low light. Sure, compact cams are fantastic for some things, but they are not versatile.

 

[OdiN]

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Try that test again with a G10 vs a 1dmkIII in low light. Sure, compact cams are fantastic for some things, but they are not versatile.

They are in the sense that....try stuffing a 1dmkIII in your pocket

 

[spikespiegal]

try stuffing a 1dmkIII in your pocket

Try shooting in a studio with a G10.

I generally like Reichmann's site and his common sense approach to things. However, the comparison betweeen the G10 and the H2 is really *bad*, but it does show that the G10 is capable of decent I.Q under certain conditions. The problem is the scene in question isn't something I would use an H2 for.

You have a scene with a very low dynamic range, and not a lot of color/gamut range. The main subjects in question are two dimensional leaves and tree trunks under a heavy, over-cast sky. The H2 shot is also very soft if you download it and look at it 1:1 compared to the G10. An ideal scenario for a point -n- shoot.

For that matter I could take any cell phone cam and just shoot a pano, stitch them together, and blow both cameras away.

Now let's move to a studio and make some product/fashion shots, or things the H2/P45 back was designed to do well, which doesn't include back-yard photography of leaves under an over-cast sky.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: OdiN

Originally posted by: angry hampster
Try that test again with a G10 vs a 1dmkIII in low light. Sure, compact cams are fantastic for some things, but they are not versatile.

They are in the sense that....try stuffing a 1dmkIII in your pocket

My 'pocket' is a Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home. It's not an issue.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal However, the comparison betweeen the G10 and the H2 is really *bad*, but it does show that the G10 is capable of decent I.Q under certain conditions.

Doesn't he say it's not really a comparison.. but basically what you said, that these small P&S tiny sensors are coming along QUITE well for what they are?

 

[soydios]

I can't find it on Tom Hogan's page, but he had a shot up of a beaver towing a tree branch that he took with a G10. If you looked closely, he said, you could see that the dark parts of the beaver were barely above the noise floor, while the bright parts of the leaves were blown out. So the G10 does well in relatively flat scenes, but the dynamic range is very limited between the high noise floor and low well size.

 

[jamesbond007]

Do I need a better camera? Not really, but a higher resolution would be nice. A 1Ds-Mark III is in short order.

As others have said, I'd like to see that G10 in a studio or shoot at f/1.2. Also, compare the amount of post-processing needed to get the images 'similar' or even if an 80-100% crop of an image is usable for printing.

 

[foghorn67]

I always want a better camera. But I do not need something more for now.
Would I make use of a 1D MKIII? You betcha. I'll go birding every weekend for 6 months straight.

 

[extra]

This seems like a rather dumb comparison, but yeah, unless you are making some HUGE print 39 megapixels is pretty pointless. This really just shows that yeah, in most conditions a high end point and shoot camera from a reputable brand these days does a fantastic job. Put that point and shoot in less ideal conditions, like say, indoors under lower light at a party and your slr will start to show a huge increase in usability, but sure...

 

[rivan]

I've been making this point to friends and family (the segment that can afford a dSLR but really only does snapshots and prints 4x6s) for some time, albeit in a dSLR vs. P&S frame. He's making a 2-tier jump (P&S->dSLR->MF) instead of my single-tier, which has all sorts of other implications.

Yes, it's a dumb comparison on the current gen, and perhaps a little early in the maturity of the P&S, but I firmly believe he's right. The top end improvements are slowing/plateauing and there remains a huge amount of headroom for improvement on the P&S end of the market. Presumably, top-tier cameras will develop other reasons to keep their cameras the ones professionals choose - enhanced usability, workflow, control, whatever. Eventually, P&S sensors will rival the H2, I have no doubt; think about how far digital cameras have come in the last 15 years, and try to think 10 years into the future. The product landscape will be very different, and yet in many respects, exactly the same.

 

[GrJohnso]

I just enjoy the discussions articles like this one provoke... Obviously there are still huge differences in the quality offered by better cameras in the right situation... But it's still nice to see what you can get away with using today's point and shoots...