Similar to Pentax, there are still many Nikon fans supporting the Nikon manual gear. The following is some discussion from a egroup for the possible impact of Nikon digital development on manual users. Any opinion from you??
******************************************** Message: 3 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 10:31:03 -0500 Subject: OT: DX Lenses and other Digital Stuff There's been a lot of "digital traffic" on the list lately, and some of it needs comment. > Well, I heard an opinion worth to consider (the guy used to be a member of the list, I don't know if he's around). As CMOS's are not, and might not ever will be, up (or down) to the resolution of photographic film, it would be a waste of money, time and effort for any manufacturer to design a lens with improved resolution compared to old designs. I guess Nikon is wasting money, then. Nikon is claiming that the new DX lenses are actually designed to a higher resolution standard (200 lppm) than the 35mm lenses. As for the rest of the "guy's" statements, well, let's just be friendly and say that they are naive. CCD resolution would top out at about the 1 micron level under current designs, but any smaller would have diffraction issues to deal with. CCD resolution will likely always be a little bit different than film resolution due to the overlap vs non-overlap designs, but I think you need to define "resolution." Digital camera/printer already exceeds what I was able to achieve with slides and wet process darkroom printing, and it's fast approaching slides scanned with drum scan and printed digitally. Curiously, the "Bible" of photographic information, The Manual of Photography 9th Edition, has an interesting aside in it where it is stated that digital has already equaled film in terms of the amount of "information" that can be stored. > Is the DX lens development bad news to film photographers? Probably. At least at the wide angle end. Nikon has limited development and production capability. The development of DX wide angles comes at the expense of potential new 35mm wide angle lenses. Moreover, as digital production heats up, we'll see more discontinuance of current "marginal" lenses, and the MF lineup is certainly one of the possibilities to stop production on. > On the other hand, it says nothing about whether Nikon is developing a full-frame DSLR. Perhaps Nikon is covering all it's bases. Perhaps, but I made a written prediction back in September that Nikon would likely continue with APS-sized sensors on digital SLRs. The DX lens line seems to support this, especially when you consider that the statement tells us that the DX lens is designed for at least 3x the line pair resolution the current digital bodies are capable of. > The sensor in the D1X is really 4018 X 1312, a very odd shape. Not anywhere near the typical 3/2 format of the 35mm frame. Just to be clear, the 4018x1312 doesn't define the shape, as the photosites are not square. Moreover, there's "space" between photosites, so knowing the size, number and orientation of the photosites doesn't tell you much about the aspect ratio of the frame. > I don't think it's fair to claim the D1X is a 10MP camera just because you can use digital manipulation...but the final resolution that the image from the camera contains is a maximum of 3008 x 1960 pixels in any format...You can't honestly claim you can increase the ultimate resolution by changing the decoding algorithms in an outboard program to interpolate to a bigger image by adding pixels that weren't in the original image as the camera would have decoded it. Actually, the camera "manipulates" data in ANY format it's capable of saving in. With a D1x there simply is no one-to-one correspondence between photosite and pixel, period. Thus, the 10MP interpretation pioneered by Bibble and QImage is just as valid as the downsize/upsize JPG interpretation the camera does. Short of the Foveon-based Sigma SD9, no current digital SLR can be said to have a "native" RGB resolution (well, okay, technically the small JPEG out of the S2 Pro has a one-to-one correspondence between four photosites and a pixel). Rather than continue to polluting the MF list with digital talk, I suggest that, if you're interested in continuing the digital side of this discussion you visit the NikonSLR forum at dpreview.com, where these topics and more have been discussed to death. I do think the original query was quite on the mark for this list, though, and I'll repeat my answer: yes, the DX lens introduction probably has implications on 35mm lenses. Reading both between the lines of the press release and Nikon's recent patent activity, wide angle activity at Nikon is centered on DX designs. That's a shame, as there are several 35mm WA lenses that could use a redesign (18mm f/2.8 is one of them). Message: 5 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 09:26:45 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: OT: DX Lenses and other Digital Stuff Hi Thom, Yet again i find myself drawn into this digital dilemma business. I still think concerning state of the art "pro" SLR's of the digital ilk, that y'all should go to Kodaks' site and check out the ultra-spendy Kodak Pro DCS14n, expected to be released next month. With a custom built body by Nikon, and a full frame 24x36mm sensor, this 13+megapixel machine promises to be the closest yet to what we traditionalists are used to. Anyway, I thought this was supposed to be a Nikon MF group.... so why do we keep going there? Message: 6 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 12:43:13 -0500 Subject: Re: New "DX" Nikkor concept - bad news for NikonMF'ers?... "I doubt seriosly that Nikon will leave us hanging. The one exception being the trend towards autofocus. Look at how many folks still shoot large format cameras, and there seems no lack of equipment for them, and the consumer market for point and shoot 35's is still growing by leaps and bounds." Not that many people use large format cameras. One of the hottest cameras right now sold 500 copies in its first few _years_, for about what an F5 sells for. And as for there being no lack of equipment for us, one of my lenses is uncoated and 80 years old this year. There is no modern equivalent; the closest new lens costs 18 times as much and weighs about 10 times as much. If the mass market abondons film, be prepared for just this kind of economic reality in the 35mm world. Bringing out DX-series Nikkors simply mean that Nikon is ensuring its current digital user base of support, the same way that rabbit ears on AIS lenses supported people with Photomics. And who knows if this is such a "new" lens. Remember that APS and the current D1 digital sensor are about the same size. A 12-24mm zoom would have been a great APS superwide, and Nikon may just be trying to make a buck off of an aborted lens. I boldly predict that future DX lenses will spec out identically to the IX-Nikkors. Message: 8 Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 16:18:06 -0600 Subject: Re: New "DX" Nikkor concept - bad news for NikonMF'ers?... >Bringing out DX-series Nikkors simply mean that Nikon is ensuring its >current digital user base of support, the same way that rabbit ears on AIS >lenses supported people with Photomics. And who knows if this is such a >"new" lens. Remember that APS and the current D1 digital sensor are about >the same size. A 12-24mm zoom would have been a great APS superwide, and >Nikon may just be trying to make a buck off of an aborted lens. I boldly >predict that future DX lenses will spec out identically to the IX-Nikkors. With respect to Series IX lenses, I speculated to a similar effect in the NikonD100 group here on Yahoo yesterday, so I agree. However, any 12-24mm would have to have been an "aborted" one, as you say, because the APS Series IX lenses actually issued were only three: a 30-60mm f/4-5.6, a 20-60mm f/3.5-5.6, and a 60-180 f/4.5-5.6 - The APS format requires almost identical coverage as the current Nikon Digital SLR CCD's. _____________________________________________________________ Weight Loss products, Herbal Viagra, and much more!http://www.VitaDepot.com _____________________________________________________________ Select your own custom email address for FREE! Get [EMAIL PROTECTED] w/No Ads, 6MB, POP & more! http://www.everyone.net/selectmail?campaign=tag
