Re: SLR concerns, owners experiences please.

Roger N. Clark wrote:

Another factor to consider is that newer generation cameras
generally have better read noise, better fixed pattern noise,
better micro lenses, etc, all to maximize signal and
reduce noise. Thus a newer generation 8 megapixel camera
will likely give better images than an older generation
6 megapixel camera. But these improvements are only about
a factor of 2 or so, so the current crop of small cameras
with 8 to 10 megapixels is pushing pixel size too low in
my opinion.

I think so too. In particular Olympus, with their smaller sensors,
should do them self a favor and offer a camera with a state of the art
5/6 MP sensor. That would clearly be my choice. Not only does the
larger pixel count induce more noise, it also increase file size. Not
only because of pixel count, but also because of noise. We had this
"digital shoot-out" when we compared pics from my 6 MP Fuji F10 with
the same subjects taken with D70s and Minolta 5D. The SLR pictures
(also 6 MP) were not only better, but also came out in slightly smaller
files without visible JPEG artifacts. Beautiful!

How much dynamic range do you want? Digital cameras have huge
dynamic range, but it is in the shadows, so learn to expose
digital correctly and it is not a problem. Just as you need
to expose slide film differently than print film, digital is
different from either.

"in the shadows"? I don't understand what you mean. Dynamic range has
improved in compacts. With my 1999 Canon A50 I often had to make the
sky entirely white during the summer to capture some shadow detail. I
often used fill-in flash to make peoples eyes visible under the sun. My
2005 Fuji F10 handles this better, but still not good enough really. As
I now plan to buy an SLR, I expect improvements here. In particular I
also except to be able to throttle the fill-in flash. (The Canon caused
blue casts and the Fuji's too bright)

Depending on your subject, try mosaicking. Example:
http://www.clarkvision.com/photoinfo/large_mosaics

Since starting mosaics, I carry fewer wide angle lenses. With
mosaics, I choose the aspect ratio (e.g. square to long panorama),
and I end up with a higher resolution image. Some examples,
witch also include moving animals, and hand held:

I don't want wide-angle mainly for landscape. I like putting subjects
at different distances, the frontmost perhaps quite close. I also do
in-door photography. In both these situations perspective distortion
would make mosaicking impossible (I suppose). Further, it's rather time
consuming, right? A actually tried it once or twice with my old camera
(which had framing aids and software for it) but never went back to the
technique.

[...]

My Fuji F10 has a shutter lag of 11 ms when prefocusing. Nikon D70s
has 106 ms. (according to imaging-resource) An order of magnitude
more!! The SLR is faster when not pressing halfway. Is that
important? Doesn't you always do metering and set focus by
half-pressing?

If wildlife and sports photographers did "half pressing" to get the
shot, they would miss the shot most of the time. So would the parent
trying to catch baby's first step, or their child's great baseball
catch.

A DSLR in action has two modes. "Quick draw" from when you press the
shutter button to when everything is "perfect." Example: this rabbit
bolted from the grass trying to escape from a serval cat on the
Serengeti. I quickly swung my lens over to it, composed and pressed
the shutter. The camera had to determine exposure, lock on and take
the shot.

http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.africa/web/rabbit.c01.26.2007.JZ3F2215b-700.html

The mode most used in action photography does focus tracking: the
subject is moving toward or away from you, sometimes at rapid speed
(when the subject fills the frame it always seems rapid because focus
changes too fast to follow manually). The DSLR autofocus system
tracks the moving subject and computes the rate of change of the
focus, and when you press the shutter button, the camera computes
where the focus will be using the rate of change and the known delay
in raising the mirror. Thus, the focus is predicted to be in the
right spot at the time when the shutter actually fires. Examples:

Grizzly bear fight:

http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.bear/web/brown_bear.c09.09.2004.JZ3F4246.b-700.html

Hm, interesting. I wasn't aware those SLR AF-systems where good enough
to actually track focus. Can they also track properly when you pan to
follow a moving subject?

[...]

For the action images on my web pages, I generally use one
autofocus sensor, and I constantly change the active
sensor position depending on the composition I want for the
situation, keeping the sensor on the animal's eye(s).
I the animal changes directions (which is common), I shift
the sensor to the opposite position to keep the
composition the way I want it. The DSLRs I use have the
ability to quickly change sensor position with one hand
and in a fraction of a second.

And that was a Canon 1D, right? Does all SLR's offer to choose sensor
manually? I thought this was automatic. (I haven't read all the fine
details in the reviews nor understood what's important in real life.)

In none of these situations could I have "half pressed" the
shutter and captured the action. This is also the case with
slower action: having a capable camera means more quality
images, whether a candid photo of a person at a party, or
the lion on the Serengeti on a zebra kill.

You're effectively saying AF is a requirement to do action shoots and
thus it can't be done with a manual camera. Hm! I have some (not that
much though) experience from manual film SLR's and quite much
experience using my digital compacts (with compromised AF technology).
So far I must say all kind of photography (including action shoots)
seem easier with a manual camera. Perhaps then my next cam (most likely
a dSLR) will prove I'm wrong.
/Bengt
.

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