What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

Those are engineering innovations, I guess I meant (the more meaningful) design innovations

; )

So... how it feels in the hand is more important than the photos it can take and the number of situations it will take a great photo.

Yup... this is an Amey take ;)

I don't think there is much reward for design innovations, Pentax for example have tried a few funky non radical designs and they just get slapped down as qwerky and not serious

In the end ergonomics is going to be what decides best design and I guess that has been settled

Yup... this is an Amey take ;)

Absolutely !

Lens sharpness is irrelevant concept too IMO.

Yeah sigma quattro and zeiss zx1

In the end ergonomics is going to be what decides best design and I guess that has been settled

Yeah... majority of cameras are settled on the same design, the equivalent of a bicycle made of two triangles.

Hard to see how the form factor can change as most people would reject new and different and it would be a commercial failure. Very much how the QWERTY keyboard really isn't the best layout, but it's the one that everyone knows. There can be, and are, provably better layouts - but people reject them instantly.

Any recommend a good all round (to some degree) lens for a A6500

Been looking at the Sony E PZ 18-105mm and wondering if this would be my best bet. Be great if someone has experience in this too.

Doing some wedding photography for my bro in law's wedding so not wanting to lug too much about

the only recent innovation has been advanced mirrorless cameras. that was hardly revolutionary. these cameras are still clunky and have notable issues. heat management and poor viewfinder UX being the most common.

mirrorless tech has enabled some new features such as face-detect AF which can be helpful in certain conditions.

PF lenses are a great forward development that most people have slept on.

everything else cranks along very incrementally, of course. if you read about diffraction you will understand certain constraints on sensor/camera/lens design better.

computational photography is just a posh word for automatic settings on an iPhone being more agressive than before. people who are "into" photography don't tend to like it but the people buying the phones do.

the great innovation of the late 2000s was HD video in DSLRs, most notably in the 5D MkII, which by vastly lowering the price point of entry helped launch many young cinematographers' careers. this was far more revolutionary than anything we've seen recently.

computational photography is just a posh word for automatic settings on an iPhone being more agressive than before. people who are "into" photography don't tend to like it but the people buying the phones do.

That's not completely true is it? If you look at the computational photography that something like the OM-1 now does with focus bracketing for macro, you can achieve amazing results hand held that previously you'd of been faffing about with bellows to achieve. Same with simulated ND filter or pixel shift for HHHD images. Again Procapture and bird eye detection is a massive improvement for birds in flight compared to a decade or two ago.

A lot of these are niche features for specific forms of photography and if you just use your camera as a point and shoot for documenting life won't add anything over a phone but if they are your niche they can have a big improvement in your hit rate.

A (very superficial) look at a phone and a DSLR released 15 years ago. Even when taking ergonomics into account, one is definitely entrenched style-wise. (DLSR's are Dead :p.)

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That's only going to raise the big question of whether ergonomics and usability are improved by touchscreens or not.

Touchscreens where buttons should be... UGH.

Reminds me yesterday I was at a Softplay with my kid. Their kitchen menu was on a screen that rotated with various ads and other info. So it was only on display for about a 1/3 of the time. Absolutely mental decision.

This recent video from MKBHD is a really interesting discussion about computational photography in mobile phones (it gets into technical stuff in the second half) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88kd9tVwkH8

I think the improvement in the last 15 years is the best widely available commercially produced lenses are machine ground and where film benefitted from a slight separation in focusing of different colours sensors and lenses have been engineered for better synergy.

I notice you didn't have much to say about mirrorless but wouldn't it be tough to argue Leica hadn't been doing that for decades?

amey's nightmare.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/technology/digital-cameras-olympus-canon.html

I notice you didn't have much to say about mirrorless but wouldn't it be tough to argue Leica hadn't been doing that for decades?

Digital mirrorless Leica have not being doing for decades. Digital stuff in Leica comes predominantly from their partners.

There of course have been mirrorless before, but yet it never impacted the industry like it has in the last 15 years. Digital mirrorless + sensor density and variety is what makes mirrorless so different and innovative now.

I have owned Leica digital from M8 onwards!

You touted mirrorless as an innovation. It's not an innovation, it's just become practical because of sensor power consumption and heat. Most of the innovation has come in sensors.

Mirrorless was the default and SLR's changed that for a while.

If you want to discuss it why not start with sensor microlenses and lenses that are adapted for the flat plane of sensors where earlier designs were adapted to the tiny difference in distance between the back of the lens and the colour layers of film?

Digital stuff in Leica comes predominantly from their partners.

This is not really true. Although they've not made a sensor.

You lot are hilarious.

@Velocio is right, mirrorless is an innovation, because of what it enables, which is a hell of a lot of more innovation.

Whilst we’re on the subject, Leica = Rapha of photography.

Leica and Leitz have been on the leading edge of lens design for decades.

I must be missing something if you think mirrorless is new. As a description for cameras it might be trendy but mirrorless cameras are not new, they precede digital.

I would say you can't just appropriate the term to represent modern digital mirrorless cameras and claim that's innovation.

all the great lenses are relatively recent

I don’t know much about modern lenses but a lot of vintage lenses have shot up in price in the last decade or so. Amazing prices for some Dallemeyer & Taylor hobson cooke lenses.

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Buying a vintage lens is like buying a Lomo.

You're consciously choosing a lens that adds imperfections and colour of it's own.

It is like arguing mechanical watches are better than quartz, valve amps better than solid state, internal combustion better than electric.

It's a romanticised idea, not a technical quality.

I can understand it, modern lens and a digital mirrorless could be considered too accurate, clinical, precise. To some extent modern hardware is so good it demands more from the photographer. Yet using old hardware imbues the result with imperfections that resonates on an emotional level because of how we relate to photos from our youth/past.

Just because the price is high it really doesn't make them better in any way at all.

Modern lenses are frankly incredible.

^This guy shoots.

@Airhead okay if I have to be clear. Mirrorless cameras with removable lens.... I thought that's what we are talking about. And they - mirrorless cameras with removable lens - have benefitted with lots of innovation in recent times.

Mirrorless cameras with removable lens

A Leica M style camera then dating back to 1954. There were other mounts on mirrorless cameras before that.

What is your differentiation? That they have a sensor not film?

On lenses Leitz and Leica hold patents on the chemistry of some types of glass that were chosen for their different refractive qualities. They also made the 50 f2 in the last 10 years which is sharp from edge to edge, corner to corner. There are not many 50mm lens like that.

I think shooting a Lomo or out of date film is largely a terrible thing to do!

I wasn’t saying vintage lenses are better, obviously some people think they are great & pay big money for rare old lenses so I don’t think it’s fair to say all the great lenses are modern lenses & no doubt modern lens are shaper etc then a 60-70 year old lens.

As you alluded to it’s really subjective some photographers may not like the results of modern lenses for whatever reason too clinical etc & prefer the look/feel of vintage lenses (often shot using a digital camera body) but surely that’s still a technical quality of the lens?

I think your totally right in that whatever camera/lens set up you go with the results it produces should resonates on an emotional level & supports what your trying to say even if a lot of this is actually done after exporting the file to lightroom / photoshop. ✌️