Toronto Photography Meetup Group

So, I was thinking about (gulp!) going digital before my next major trip in the summer.

(I think the main thing is that whenever I try to shoot a night-time urban street scene with film, it costs me $1.50 in bracketed slides to be sure I

For some reason 8 became a smiley-emoticon...

Hummm, in-camera HDR limits your choices. I know the Sony Alpha 500/550 offer in-camera HDR, 7fps on the 550 and 5fps on the 500. Both pretty good in low light.

Pentax might the other option.

FYI, it appears that both the Pentax and Sony HDR modes only work when shooting JPEG. It does not work in RAW or RAW+JPEG.

if not for the in camera HDR most of the recently released bodies fit the bill.

I would recommend against in camera HDR. It is much better to do it in post processing on a computer.

d90/d300s. not sure about the in camera HDR, but it has an overlay mode that can blend a couple shots together.



if you want small, you can consider the olympus ep-1, but i don't think that has many of the things you want.

with the exception of HDR, the D3s covers everything except NOT draining the bank account

Everything in the list drains the bank account.

haha.

Overlay does not come anywhere close to HDR processing.

In-camera HDR is only possible with JPEG.

Any DSLR on the market will outperform film at higher ISO's. ISO 800 colour film is worse than 'bad' ISO 3200 digital.

Choose fast AF or no too big and heavy. You only get one. The K-7 is the highest performance compact DSLR but it's AF is merely good. For truly fast you need to look at a Nikon D300 or Canon 7D or up. Note that to get faster AF than a P&S is easy, the 'fast' bodies can easily track fast-moving birds or athletes.

Overall it sounds like you want a Pentax K-7, Nikon D90 or Canon T1i. The Canon and Nikon lack in-camera HDR though and the D90's largish.

For lenses in Pentax, I'd look at the Sigma 17-70 or Pentax 16-45/4 combined with the Pentax 55-200 or 55-300.

For Nikon I'd look at the 16-85VR and 70-300VR

For Canon I'd look at the new 15-85IS and the 70-300 IS (NOT the 75-300 IS)

Whoa, you better lie down there, Dan. Don't worry, the dizzy feeling will pass.


As others have mentioned, this one will be a dealbreaker. I would strike this one off the requirements list, and simply take advantage of bracketing and raw format to create your HDR's on a computer. If you're going to take the time to do an HDR, you'll want more control over it than what a camera can give you anyway.


Really fast, or really accurate? Or both? All DSLRs today will outperform point-n-shoots in this category. Also, how do you define "really fast"? What application are you thinking of that would need this? Tracking a bride running down the aisle of a dark church? Focusing on a lone bird against a clear sky?


Most cameras and lenses these days have a physical switch to go from automatic to manual focus. "Easy to manually focus" might be another dealbreaker, depending on what you are used to. Finely-geared lens movements with a large, diagonal split-screen ground glass viewfinder? Your choices will be quite limited there. Canon makes one for their 1-series DSLRs, but I don't think Nikon does. Not sure about Sony, Pentax or Olympus. There may be third-party options (e.g., Katz Eye, Haoda), but be prepared for the additional expense.

Alternatively, most DSLRs these days have LiveView, which lets you use the rear LCD as a viewfinder. You can zoom in for precise manual focusing that way. I've used that on many occasions, and it is better than the 10x Canon angle finder I had at the time, if you can get in a position to see the screen in the first place.

[quote](9) Some way of covering the 35mm-equivalent focal lengths of 24* to 200 mm (* or better yet, 20) without draining the ol

Dan - decide what your budget is for a body and lenses/accessories, then prioritize the options you wants. Go online and see what your options are based on your price range. Narrow down your options to three camera/lens kits that fit your budget and go to Henry's and handle them yourself.

A camera that ticks all your boxes maybe out of your price range or it might not suit your hand.

Since you're coming from film SLRs I suspect you may want a camera that offers dials rather than buttons to access/change settings. Since you also have a bunch of Minolta MF lenses, the Sony Alpha line may be a good place to start, assuming you want to use your old glass (via adapters).

Good luck.

Thanks guys for the input.

Re: HDR

Re HDR, you might be mislead or confusing it with something else. No sensor can do what you ask here with neons perfectly. What you do is use dynamic optimizer (most recent cameras have some sort), or bracket shots (usually req tripod) and merge them together as either HDR or exposure blend. I can assure you, Lightroom or Aperture can handle this part far better when shooting raw

Re lenses, I am not the expert here, but I think you could probably be better off with sony body, so you can use your lenses on it. Wait for Chris on this one

I do not recommend the going to the Alpha lineup on account of existing Minolta manual glass. If it was AF lenses, different story. Like mounting FD stuff on EOS, MD stuff on MAF is a virtual impossibility, or at the very least difficult. However, if the other features of the Sony bodies draw you, they can be dissected on their own merits.

I know someone made a replacement MinMF mount flange for crop canon bodies once upon a time, but haven't heard anything in years, and seemed like vapourware to me.

The Sony A500 and 550 have two live view implementations. One is the mirror in the prism assembly, and there is an MF only main sensor live view implementation. I have only had very limited exposure to these bodies, but know as a result of the mechanics of the former, the viewfinder is not crazy bright.

The K-7 has a lot of advantages when it comes to mounting old M42 screw mount glass. I cannot speak to the viewfinder quality, but as a general rule, anything less than full frame will be lacking. That being said, I know some Nikon shooters have been very happy with the ~D300 level viewfinders for crop.

Dan, I know you may have a budget established, but based on your experience and capability, anything less than a Canon 40D, D300, K-7 etc level body would be outgrown by you very quickly.

What's your timetable? We could have a Dan camera shopping social?

Thanks Hotwire -- my ego likes the sound of that last line -- anyway there is no huge urgency, but if I do take the plunge, I would aim to do so before June 2010.

Mawz, you said you wanted the K7 a while back... Not sure if you acquired one... I'm gonna send you an e-mail...

Dan, I found some more recent info on that digital option for your existing Minolta MD lenses.

http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/eosmd-flang ... page1.html
http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/topic57011& ... tml#629839

The site in question: http://digitalrokkor.altervista.org/

For those not clicking the links, or completely confused, basically this guy in Italy is offering a replacement mount that goes on a Canon crop body (not full frame on account of mirror interference). It looks like the installation is not necessarily easy, but can be done. As I assume you'd still want to use your MD lenses on film, so there is an additional camera body modification required of some sort. The guy claims the mod is reversible.

On the plus, you would have a digital body that would natively take your existing library of MD lenses, on the negative you have to deal with a 1.6x crop factor, stop down metering, and a viewfinder that may not meet your wildest dreams (buying a split focusing screen is recommended by this guy). You can't mount Canon EF lenses without reversing the mod. On account of the 1.6x crop factor, the widest equivalent fov would be 32mm, using your 20mm lens. I'm having a heck of a time finding lens options compatible with MD mount wider than 20mm.

According to his ebay site, the price is 50 euro (plus shipping?). Looking in the tpmg selling forum, I found a Canon 30D for 400 bucks. By my rough math, that meets your criteria of "clearly impossible".

I would greatly appreciate if any other technically minded people can read the above links and give an opinion on this "solution".

Thanks for this, hotwire.

Although continuing to use my Minolta lenses on a digi body appeals to me in theory, I fear it may be a major headache in practise.

I suspect that, because I will likely continue to use film a signigicant amount of time (star trails, black and white...) I may just keep all (or at least some) of that equipment -- but move on to a digital body and a new copmpatible lens (or lenses) for the bulk of my travel photography.

At the moment I am leaning toward the Pentax K-7, with the choice of lens or lenses up in the air... (Basically reading online lens reviews until I turn blue... :p )

I would suggest the 5Dm2 + 24-105/4L if you're willing to go that high. Otherwise, a 7D + 15-85 would be a very good alternative and you'd save about $1500-.

The cool part about Canon USM lenses that have FTM ability (you can also do the same with Sigma HSM lenses on the Canon system), is that you don't have to switch btwn AF and MF. you can just adjust the focus as you need to. Nikon has similar technology on some of their lenses, Sony and Pentax have as well, but on much fewer lenses.

The video feature on these two Canon's are likely the best out there right now, with the GH1 very close behind.

If you like to review and cull your pics in-camera, you'll love the 3inch LCD. I believe the Nikon D300 and higher cameras also have the same LCD, as does the Sony A900 and A700.

Note the higher-end Sony's with the DMF AF mode have FTM focusing on all screwdriver lenses when set to that mode (It disengages the AF drive after locking focus, allowing override).

It doesn't seem that your price range is realistic considering you would need to pay for optics that were at least as good as your film camera. Sure you can get some inexpensive used digital bodies but there is a good reason used digital bodies are cheap yet good used optics are not.

Have you ever considered just switching to negative film. The new Kodak Ektar 100 is great for the type of stuff you shoot it seems to be a cross between slide for dynamic range and colour and c41 for latitude, also good for night short to medium long exposures. Theres really not much need to bracket with ektar and c41 films in general that is of course if you know how to read a scene lightwise.