dochira wrote:I think the newer lenses that Nikon uses have CPUs in them that report the focal length (and other info) back to the camera. Again, I think they do.
Hmm, that would make sense, especially for the zoom lenses... Sold.:victory:
Ok.. tons of posts, tons to reply to to get my 2 cents in.
All D-SLR have manual mode. If it doesn't, then I don't know what the hell they're doing.
D50/70/70s/80 can use Nikon AI/AI-s lens. But you can only use them in manual mode. D200 and above are the only ones that I am aware of that lets you meter and operate in M/A/S/P mode. Nikon AI-p lens can be used in D80 in M/A/S/P. but of course none of these can auto focus.
Rebel XTi is already out. Seen it in bestbuy. I don't feel it's a worth while upgrade to the XT. 2 more megapixels + anti dust shake. Not worth the upgrade.
Canon autofocus motor is in the lens, Nikon is in the body. HOWEVER, Nikon's AF-S lens and Sigma's HSM lens have the motor in the lens is and the more or less the same technology as Canon's USM.
All Nikon cpu lens should report focal length. This include the range of the lens, and the what focal length you shot the photo at.
D80 is a HUGE bang for the buck. It's essentially a D200 crammed into a D50 body with D70 like functionality. You lose about 2 fps in burst shot, metering with AI lenses, weather seal, max shutter speed is 1/4000th rather than 1/8000th.
Almost all AF lenses out on the market are CPU lenses. There're some old AF lenses, but main thing you lose is Distance information which is used in maxtrix metering. For nikon these are the non D/G lenes. You can still meter with spot metering though.
I would not spend the money on the D70. I'd get the D80 instead, and if I don't have enough for the D80, I'd get the D50. Much better high ISO noise levels. Keep in mind that the D50 came out after the D70, and features more firmware improvements.
Canon vs Nikon.. whatever. What matters to me the most is how it feels in my hand, and how easily I can operate the camera without having to remove my face from the view finder. All D-SLR can produce photos of the same quality. What makes the difference is how much time you're willing to spend composing the shot, and how much time you're willing to put into developing the shot in the darkroom. If you're not willing, than don't bother with D-SLR.
APS-C doesn't not screw you on focal length. What it does screw with is the depth of field focus. You just need to know what your crop factor is, and take into consideration when you choose your lenses. What's great about APS-C is that is uses the sweet spot of the lens. The futher out from the center you go, the more the sharpness and contrast is reduced. APS-C doesn't use the show image circle, and the majority of your shot will be in the sweet spot. I'm actually very hesistant about Canon's full frame sensor. 35mm is an accident. Not some well thought out format. It came about cause someone decided to use left over movie films. The way that I see it is this.
If two sensors have the same number of pixels, I'd much rather have smaller sensor. Why? Simple, denser pixels, higher resolution. More pixel does not equal higher resolution. Resolution is the number of pixles divided the size of the sesnor. Plus it is to my understanding that CCD/CMOS requires the light to be hitting the sensor at a perpendicular angle in order to record the light. If you go with a bigger sensor, the angled the light rays would be cause less avaliable light to expose the sesnor. So good luck with vignetting. Not only do you have to deal with vignetting with wide angle lenses to begin with, you now have to deal with the vignetting cause by the sensor. Only reason that I see for the existance of full frame is to simply give you a wider angle. But that's not a big deal since you can just use a wider lens.
As for lens cost, it may screw with you a bit on the wide angle side, but definitely not on the telephoto side. The close the lens is to 50mm, the cheaper it is to manufacture. So for wide angle, you're having to make the lens wider make it futher away from 50mm which equals more cost to the glass. But if you're going telephoto, then that cost is reduced cause you no long need as big as a glass to get the aperature you want. a typical 35mm 70-200mm f/2.8 can be replaced with a 50-150mm f/2.8. You get the same effective focal length, but the 50-150mm will be a smaller glass, lighter, and cheaper.
If aps-c was the first sensory size, and companies started going full frame, people'd be bitching about how they now need to factor in the crop factor in order to get the right focal length they want.
Just my 2cents, and I'm pretty sure I offended quite a few people, but so be it.
It's a lot of information, and to summarize, there is no one correct way to do something. There're always several correct ways.
Here's an example that I took to demonstrate the sweet spot in the lens.
THIS IMAGE IS A 8MB+ DO NOT OPEN IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN WAITING SEVERAL MINUTES FOR IT TO LOAD
http://moderation.dyndns.org:8080/D80/DSC_0754.jpg
I took this image of my LCD with my D80 + Nikon 50mm f/1.8. If you look in the center of the image, you'll see that the image is dead sharp, but if you start examining the image further out, you'll see that sharpness is starting to diminish. Especially so on the left side, and that's actually worrying me about my copy of the 50mm f/1.8. If the sensor was a full frame sensor, you can just imaging what the sharpness will be like further out.
However, keep in mind that most lenses perform at their best 1 to 2 stops down. So this is kinda of an exagerrated case. Still, it demostrates the sweet spot.
Well, I wouldn't go as far as saying htat 35mm is a shame, since I think what matters the most is whether or not it got the job done, and 35mm got the job done.
I do like the fact that Nikon appears to be sticking with APS-C, since as a Nikon user, I don't have to worry or not if I will be able to use my lens in the future. Canon is having that split decision, and IMHO, it does more harm than good to the consumer. If you want to go full frame, you've just lost access to any EF-S lenses. If you already have a collection of EF-S lenses and Canon decides to ditch EF-S or you decided to switch to full frame, you're pretty screwed since you'll have to start your lens collection from scratch.
You'd think that the natural progression would be towards a 35mm frame, so for Nikon to begrudgingly stick to APS-C would be a mistake in the long run...
With the CCD/CMOS sensor technology progressing so rapidly, I would think the Holy Grail would be a 35mm CMOS sensor with a pixel density equivalent to that of film.... :)
35mm is definetely not the natrual progression. If the sensor is what matters the most, then you can just as easily say that 4x6 medium is what we need to be aiming for for digital photography. Actually, I believe there is a 20 megapixel hasselbald 4x6 DSLR, and I'm pretty sure there's someone that actually turned a scanner into a sensor and used it to capture pictures as a camera.
Question is, what is the natural progression. Is natural progression going toward what we have already, or going toward the next solution that offers the best quality/cost ratio. To me, going backward is flawed, and there's no reason why we need to stick to the 35mm sensor size. What's more important to me is to get the sensor quality up in terms of sharpness and contrast.
As for CMOS and CCD, the main reason for CMOS is for low noise. But CCD progression is now at the same point as CMOS in high ISO noise.
http://www.sd-graphix.com/Photo_D80/iso-hi7/
here's a night shot on the D80 with CCD sensor at hi7, which is roughly 2500 ISO. Start drooling.
I don't know what the holy grail of sensors is going to be in the future, but I'm sure it's not going to be any of the current gen sensors.
Edit: Interrupted in the middle of typing by manager, lost train of thought, had to fix typo.
Since time began (or thereabouts), it's been 35mm and medium format... So I would think the natural progression for CCD/CMOS sensors would be towards those two formats... I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but the most pragmatic. I can't believe that any of the camera makers are going to stick out their necks and try to set some kind of new format standard and risk crashing and burning in this highly competetive market.
I'm biased here, but I'm a firm believer that CMOS sensors are the next step beyond CCDs: they can be produced more cheaply, and the submicron technologies used allow the packing of the amplifier circuits alongside the photosites themselves, reducing noise.
Well, the Foveon sensor're used in the Sigma D-SLRS, and from the shots taken on DPReview, the sharpness is just amazing, but long exposure just blows. As for Super CCD, I just don't know what they're trying to do.
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