New Sony camera

[Mystic]

Sony in the next few months is going to introduce a 10.2 mp camera apparently for something like $900.00! Compare that with the Nikon D200 which uses a Sony sensor and costs $1700.00 without a lens! Competition-real competition-is coming to the digital camera field. Someday digital cameras will be both powerful and affordable. The competition is going to lower the prices.

That new Sony camera will be tempting. Apparently you will be able to buy it with a lens for $1000.00. You will have performance comparable to the current Nikon D200 for about half the price.

 

[ScottB]

Not likely. MP is not the only thing to take into account for great pix.
The Canons are top-notch, and extremely hard to beat for quality.

 

[JHZR2]

where do you get info on the nikon D200 having a Sony sensor?

Do you know what kind of sensor the D70s has?

I bought a D70s and I love it. I almost bought the D200, as that is what my fiancee's father has, but it was too much camera for me. He had a D100, but it couldnt take fast enough shots (continuous shooting), and didnt do everything that he needed for taking pictures of marlin fishing. Last thanksgiving, he was on the verge of going to canon, as their stuff was a notch up in perofrmance... but he found the D200, and it apparently does just what he wants/needs it to do, and he has been really happy.

If the sensor is quite good, but the other settings arent as plentiful or complete, is there any real benefit? I suppose it depends on if you use it for point and shoot or for taking more custom shots. It will be interesting to see how the whole package compares to the D200.

Sure is a good price!

JMH

 

[jsharp]

The Nikon D50, D70, D100, D200, all use CCD sensors built by Sony. There's a lot more to a camera than the number of pixels and who built the sensor.

If there weren't we'd all be shooting 14mp Kodak digtal SLR's...

 

[moribundman]

The pixel count is only part of the equation. By the way, a 35 mm negative or positive holds information (based on resolving power) equal to about 20 million pixels.

 

[rjundi]

I am beyond happy with my Nikon D50 (entry level SLR) that I purchased for $700 with lens. The lens is nothing to write home about but great for my usage. My only future upgrade is a decent lens which will cost significantly more than the camera itself. Interestingly it has some internals better than the upper model D70 since it was designed later.

 

[JHZR2]

do you know if the d70s gets the upgraded internals that the d50 has?

Im super happy with my d70s, and I agree with jsharp - the 18-70 kit lens is a very good lens. Not good for everything, but definitely very useful for most shots that I ever need to take - and it gives great quality.

Some samples are in the photo section:

D70S pics of the USVI

JMH

 

[UncleS2]

You can argue about details until the cows come home, but the fact is that across the board, the price of megapixels continues to drop- & that's a *very* good thing for us all.

(Well- Unless you make film for Kodak in Rochester...

)

 

[Pablo]

Gotta agree with the MP crowd, but I want optics TOO.

My Olympus 10X optical zoom cost me $199. Great deal.....

Someday I want a real digital SLR. Get the price under $500 and I'm interested. 10.2MP? huh? You better have a Mac

 

[Mystic]

It is very likely that the 10.2 mp sensor used in the Nikon D200 is the same or a very similar sensor as the 10.2 mp sensor that will be used in the Sony camera. Sony makes the 10.2 mp sensor used by Nikon. If so, it is interesting that Sony feels they can sell their camera for about half the price of the Nikon. The Nikon may be superior in some other ways, but not $1000.00 superior.

Digital sensors for cameras are expensive to make but I have felt for a long time that the prices were really inflated.

Various tests have indicated that a quality 35 mm film camera, mounted on a tripod, using high quality film, equipped with a high quality lens, and with mirror lockup and outstanding seeing conditions can achieve what would be 50 mp in a digital camera. In is hard to really compare film and digital cameras. Under more normal conditions a 35 mm film camera can probably achieve something like 14 to 20 mp. A 35 mm film camera in terms of mathemathics has slightly superior resolution then the 16.7 mp Canon camera. But in terms of apparent resolution the film camera is negatively affected by film grain. The Canon 16.7 mp must use top quality lenses or there will be noise affecting the quality of its images. A medium format film camera can probably achieve 200 mp and a large format camera 500 mp. What really counts in the end is how large a print can be. The large format film camera could produce a print covering an entire wall. It probably would not be a good idea trying that with even many of the best digital cameras. It takes 7.2 mp to produce an 8 by 10 print. Any good scan of a 35 mm negative or positive can easily produce a quality 12 by 18 print. A quality 8 mp camera is easily good enough if you never print beyond 8 by 10 or 8.5 by 11.

More important then the resolution are highlights. Digital cameras blow out highlight details. There is a way of correcting for this using 32 bit processing in Photoshop CS2 and taking multiple images of the same photograph using different exposure setups.

 

[jsharp]

rjundi, I don't know what lens you currently have but the 18-70mm "kit lens" is a real bargin. It's a great lens for not much $$.

 

[lyle]

Doesn't Sony already have a 10MP digicam for sale now called the R1 for about $900? If you're speaking of their new A-100 DSLR, then I think you are correct that Sony is starting to bring high-end digital photography to point-and-shoot price points. Nothing bad can come from their purchase of Konica-Minolta assets. I am too casual of a photographer to even want to carry around all that glass, so it only interests me a little, but I hope some of that technology filters down to their everyday p&s offerings. I love my Sony H1 and Panasonic TZ1.

 

[rjundi]

I believe the D70s got the updates. The D70>D50 but the D50 is about 85% of the Camera. My lens is the kit lens, 18-55mm supplied by Nikon.

I wonder if Sony has gotten away from their ridiculous non-standard memory format that is $$$ compared to equivalent standard formats.

 

[jsharp]

There's a reason people will continue to pay more for a Nikon or Canon - lenses and accessories. If you already happen to own another brand those items aren't compatible with the Sony's Minolta style lens mount. Same with flash units and other accessories. They're brand unique if you want full functionality.

This camera announcement is a good thing though. Maybe some of the people who want to have a DSLR will buy these instead of a Nikon and the price of D200s will drop so I can finally pick one up...

Here's an article about the Sony - http://www.dpreview.com/articles/sonydslra100/

 

[1sttruck]

In one comparison a few months back between a higher end Canon didital SLR and a Canon shooting 200 speed film, the film still had slightly better detail, so 20 megapixels sounds about right. Kodachrome 25 needs 20 to 25 megapixels to duplicate from what I can recall.

I've been looking at the Nikon digital SLRs as I have some manual Nikkor lenses that I couldn't justify replacing, but I'd prefer a very basic digital 'film back' that I could use with my mechanical shutter Nikon SLRs. I bought into Nikon for the lenses and the affordable bodies, but in digital SLRs they seem to have turned it the othe rway around. I also don't like the feel of AF lenses.

 

[Schmoe]

10 megapixel cameras eat LOTS of memory and take forever to download.

 

[Razl]

I'm all for technology but the camera's CCD is deminished without a quality lens. I know this was more true for film SLR cameras but I usually don't go bigger than 8x10 either so for me, lens is still the biggest factor.

 

[jsharp]

quote:

---

Originally posted by 1sttruck:
In one comparison a few months back between a higher end Canon didital SLR and a Canon shooting 200 speed film, the film still had slightly better detail, so 20 megapixels sounds about right. Kodachrome 25 needs 20 to 25 megapixels to duplicate from what I can recall.

I've been looking at the Nikon digital SLRs as I have some manual Nikkor lenses that I couldn't justify replacing, but I'd prefer a very basic digital 'film back' that I could use with my mechanical shutter Nikon SLRs. I bought into Nikon for the lenses and the affordable bodies, but in digital SLRs they seem to have turned it the othe rway around. I also don't like the feel of AF lenses.

---

Your numbers on resolution are pretty close I think. And digital still doesn't have the tonal range. It looks artificial to me, especially when compared to a good B&W print. It'll be a while before I stop shooting T-MAX

I jumped to a Nikon digital from my old OM manual focus film cameras when my eyes started having problems with slow lenses in low light. There AF is an advantage. But I recently bought some medium format film gear too so it'll be long time before digital replaces film 100% for me...

 

[Mystic]

It is considered very unlikely that digital photography will be able to replace medium format film and large format film anytime soon unless there are some really awesome advances in the quality and power of digital sensors (and the affordability of those sensors).

I have taken a lot of photographs both with digital cameras and film cameras. But as for film I never really got into positive film (slide film) much. I recently shot some professional quality slide film and I was amazed at the quality when I scanned the film in a dedicated film scanner. But if you are going to have prints made negative film is better.

Film is far superior to digital for large size prints. People are going digital so fast nowadays many of them have totally no idea how high quality film really is. Medium format film and large format film can be scanned by an Epson V700 and produce very high quality large prints. If an expensive drum scanner is available film (even 35 mm film) can produce awesome results. But few people print beyond about 8 by 10 and a 8 mp digital camera is fine for them.

Film will disappear into history and few people other than professional landscape photographers will even realize what has been lost.