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The decline and fall of Reflex.

JeffS7444

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not much improvement in the best glass.
This isn't your dad's vintage 50mm f/1.2 Leica Noctilux or Noct-Nikkor:
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JeffGB

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Which cameras do you own?

My Z replaced my DSLRs mostly due to productivity increases. I can take great images with either, but there are differences in ease of use, accuracy of focus, and size and weight, and they all favor the mirrorless camera.
I'm sorry. I was trying (poorly) at humour. I have a wooden 8x10 field camera like Ansel Adams used, a 4x5 Linhof Technica and a Fuji GSW690II, which was a 6x9cm film size rangefinder. All mirrorless and all slow :).
 

audio2design

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This isn't your dad's vintage 50mm f/1.2 Leica Noctilux or Noct-Nikkor:
View attachment 133473

Lenses of that complexity existed 5-7 years ago. I just looked up the Nikon 18-300 which was released in 2014. I has 19 lens elements, the same as the Olympus. The closer back distance in mirrorless allows more compact lenses. Point and Shoot super zooms have been using quite complex lenses for some time too.
 
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rdenney

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I'm sorry. I was trying (poorly) at humour. I have a wooden 8x10 field camera like Ansel Adams used, a 4x5 Linhof Technica and a Fuji GSW690II, which was a 6x9cm film size rangefinder. All mirrorless and all slow :).

Ah...a Texas Leica!

I always wanted a Fuji rangefinder until I handled and ran a couple of rolls through it. It was fine, but I missed an actual focus screen. Seemed a mere toy compared to my Pentax 67, but 6x9...

Rick “who has four 4x5 cameras—does that add up to one 8x10?” Denney
 

JeffS7444

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Lenses of that complexity existed 5-7 years ago. I just looked up the Nikon 18-300 which was released in 2014. I has 19 lens elements, the same as the Olympus. The closer back distance in mirrorless allows more compact lenses. Point and Shoot super zooms have been using quite complex lenses for some time too.
Gosh no, the lens depicted in #81 is not a zoom, super- or otherwise: It's the 25/1.2 Olympus Zuiko Pro for M43; A normal lens in other words. If you want an example of a very recent, very complex zoom, look at the Olympus M.Zuiko 150-400 f/4.5. I have not sampled that one, and at it's current $7K+ price tag, it's going to remain out of my reach for awhile longer. The 25/1.2 Zuiko Pro typically sells for a more down to earth ~1200 USD or so.
 
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FrantzM

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I am slowly getting back to photography and now, video. The Sony A7Siii seems to be the answer. I was a Nikon fanboy and hope them the best but things are getting hard for them IME. They were late to the mirrorless/video game and they seem to be getting beat by Sony, Canon and Fuji. We'll see

I wonder at times how Ansel Adams and the other Zone System people would have dealt with those HDR (Digital of course) cameras for which 15 stops is of dynamic range is trivial...

@rdenney

For the longest time I dreamt of a view camera, I almost bought a Wista 45 but ... money was scarce and I was doing a stint for Construction Progress Photography, I bought an Hasselblad SWC with its 38 mm Biogon lens.. Didn't regret it , it made me some needed money :D... That was my mirrorless at the time ;):D. My first mirrorless was a Canon Canonet GL Q17, a gift from my dad... a rangefinder 35 mm with a Selenium meter.. Automatic to boot.

Edit: it was a Canon Canonet 19. I
 
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audio2design

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Sony seems to focused on the high end, and that has allowed Canon to grow considerable market share there. The 6100 was the last release into th 6xxx series, and they really have not refreshed the bottom end where people tend to get into a product family and grow from there. I am sure it is good for short term profitability, but you don't generate enough new users. Canon has more aggressively gone after all segments of mirrorless. Nikon's entry point for mirrorless is for many people too far out there, starting at 2x their DSLR entry point. People new to higher end cameras are going to gravitate to mirrorless. Their first one is not likely to be expensive. Their second and 3rd one may be.
 

Chromatischism

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I am slowly getting back to photography and now, video. The Sony A7Siii seems to be the answer. I was a Nikon fanboy and hope them the best but things are getting hard for them IME. They were late to the mirrorless/video game and they seem to be getting beat by Sony, Canon and Fuji. We'll see
What type of shooting do you do? I would say right now, for "mirrorless" full-frame:

Landscape: Nikon (image quality, build quality/weather sealing, features, controls)
Astro: Nikon (image sensor, build quality/weather sealing, features, controls)
Portrait: Nikon for image quality, and face/eye detection is now very good and certainly enough for this job. Sony and Canon have issues with skin tones.
Action, Sports and Wildlife: Sony or Canon, or Olympus

While there are many examples of amazing images from the Nikon Z in the last category, there are currently better options for those use cases with the monstrous AF systems in the Sony A9, A1, and Canon R5. Watch the Nikon Z 9 closely though.
 
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Chromatischism

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Nikon's entry point for mirrorless is for many people too far out there, starting at 2x their DSLR entry point.
Nikon launched the D610 in 2013 with the 24-85mm for $2500. Is there a lower-end FF Nikon than that?

And while all of these companies are ceding the low ground due to vanishing sales from the encroachment of smartphones, Nikon did make a lower priced APS-C line.
 

blueone

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My guess is that the R&D expenditures of the mobile phone industry just for cameras significantly exceeds the total R&D of all dedicated still photo camera makers.
 

audio2design

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Nikon launched the D610 in 2013 with the 24-85mm for $2500. Is there a lower-end FF Nikon than that?

And while all of these companies are ceding the low ground due to vanishing sales from the encroachment of smartphones, Nikon did make a lower priced APS-C line.

They did for DSLR, but their entry point for APS-C mirrorless is about $1,200 for a kit versus <$500 for their DSLR offering and about $600 for Canon mirroless, and $700 for Sony mirrorless. I have no doubt the margin especially on lenses is way better for FF, but you have to feed the funnel with new consumers.
 

audio2design

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My guess is that the R&D expenditures of the mobile phone industry just for cameras significantly exceeds the total R&D of all dedicated still photo camera makers.

There is a lot of overlap on sensor design, so it really comes down to processing at this point and on that note, I would totally agree with you. Give me Google Night Sight with an APS-C and I am a very happy camper.
 

blueone

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There is a lot of overlap on sensor design, so it really comes down to processing at this point and on that note, I would totally agree with you. Give me Google Night Sight with an APS-C and I am a very happy camper.

I was including the software development for focusing, image enhancement, multiple lens strategies, and pretty much anything else that relates to creating the photo in the phone. Given the huge R&D investments, it makes me wonder if Google, Apple, and Samsung, especially Apple, should be producing a dedicated camera line that gets tethered to their phones.
 

Wes

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I guess you ruled out the Hasselblad due to the costs rel. to the Pentax 645Z?

How do you like the way the focus falls off with distance in med. format compared to FF or smaller sensors?
 

Wes

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Lenses of that complexity existed 5-7 years ago. I just looked up the Nikon 18-300 which was released in 2014. I has 19 lens elements, the same as the Olympus. The closer back distance in mirrorless allows more compact lenses. Point and Shoot super zooms have been using quite complex lenses for some time too.

It isn't the complexity or 'design' at issue so much as it is control of aberrations. I don't know if modern lenses for digital cameras are better than the best lenses made in 2000 or 2010 but they are certainly better than the ones before the 1980s (despite my penchant for, and continued use of, some old Nikon Ai glass just for the rendering).

Then there is AF speed and the ability to quickly communicate information to the body.
 

rdenney

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...@rdenney

For the longest time I dreamt of a view camera, I almost bought a Wista 45 but ... money was scarce and I was doing a stint for Construction Progress Photography, I bought an Hasselblad SWC with its 38 mm Biogon lens.. Didn't regret it , it made me some needed money :D... That was my mirrorless at the time ;):D. My first mirrorless was a Canon Canonet GL Q17, a gift from my dad... a rangefinder 35 mm with a Selenium meter.. Automatic to boot.

Edit: it was a Canon Canonet 19. I

I had a Canonet 28--a great little camera for snapshots. That's the sort of camera that is utterly displaced by cell phones, and it's a shame in some ways--color slides from that Canonet could be projected alongside slides made using my Canon F-1 without embarrassment (and without anyone noticing).

My first view-camera experience was with a Linhof Kardan Color owned by the architecture school where I was studying at the time. Beautifully made, but a beast and even then rather out of date (if a view camera can be out of date). After college, I no longer had access, and I also had no money. But I found a Newton NueView--a truly dreadful camera of no redeeming value whatsoever. That was one of my first lessons in requirements-driven engineering--know your requirements before spending money. I soon replaced that with a Calumet CC-400, which was a big improvement. That was replaced with a Cambo SC--my first really modular view camera and that's what confirmed me as a monorail guy and not a field-camera guy. I bought my first Sinar in the modern era (maybe 15 years ago)--a Sinar F2. I have since added a Sinar P to that.

And then there's the usual junque that people like me seem to attract--a Speed Graphic, a couple of Travelwides, etc.

And then there's the freezer full of 4x5 film.

The Biogon used in the SWC was a true Biogon--approximately symmetrical opposing reversed telephotos. That's why it was mirrorless--the lens had to get pretty close to the film. The Jupiter 9, made in the Soviet Union, was the back half of that design, so it got really close to the film and could only work in one of their Leica or Contax-ripoff Feds, Kievs, or Zorkis. All wide-field large-format lenses--Super Angulons, Grandagons, Nikkor-SW, etc.--followed in the footsteps of that original Biogon.

I never thought of cameras-for-pay-gigs in the same way as cameras-for-hobby-photography. My pay-gig camera (and it was my main side hustle in college for several years) was a Mamiya C-3 (precursor to the C-330). A superb camera for commercial work in its day. I shot a number of weddings with it, among many other diverse assignments ranging from catalog photos to fancy report covers.

But SLRs are emotional for me, and we all have such. My first 35mm camera was a Yashica Lynx 5000, a nice fixed-lens rangefinder. But I dreamed every waking moment of getting an SLR--that was just the camera to have. That took me through a succession--a Mamiya 1000DTL, a Pentax KX (the first one in the film era), and finally to the Canon F-1. I've felt most at home for portable work with SLRs with optical viewing ever since.

Rick "nostalgia is a wonderful drug, but like all drugs, the effects don't last" Denney
 

devopsprodude

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I have a ton of DSLR gear but in the last couple years I've found myself using my cell phone camera almost exclusively since its 'good enough' most of the time. Lugging a DSLR kit with a few lenses in a backpack gets really old really quick for an extended day. The camera I use for product photography here is mirrorless but I still can't get used to not having the clarity of image from my DSLR's optical viewfinder.
Yeah, I sold off all my camera gear last year and got a new set of pots and pans instead. As you said, smart phones are now good enough for 95% of situations.
 
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Ron Texas

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One of my annoyances is it's likely we will never see another F-Mount lens. I would love a revised 24-120, even as a 24-105. I haven't seen much from third party manufacturers either.
 

Wes

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Gosh no, the lens depicted in #81 is not a zoom, super- or otherwise: It's the 25/1.2 Olympus Zuiko Pro for M43; A normal lens in other words. If you want an example of a very recent, very complex zoom, look at the Olympus M.Zuiko 150-400 f/4.5. I have not sampled that one, and at it's current $7K+ price tag, it's going to remain out of my reach for awhile longer. The 25/1.2 Zuiko Pro typically sells for a more down to earth ~1200 USD or so.

Their Pro line is really xlnt. There is a range of 3 lenses in the Pro line that are often called the Bokeh Master lenses. Oly sez they not only have ultr-smooth bokeh, but also have a smooth fall off of bokeh - or something like that....

I use the Panny Leica lenses on my Panny m43 bodies, but want the Oly Pro short tele for portraits.
 
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