Inflexibility of DSLR vs compact: split from 20D lenses

[RonFrank]

I dunno i made a 20x30 print from my Fuji 810. Looks pretty good. You might be right with selling prints i have no idea on that but modern P&S cameras have enough megapixels and nice enough sensors to make large prints that looks nice. YMMV

Chris

Acceptable quality is very subjective. I shoot with an S70 which is a 7mpix PnS, and with a D1x which is a 5.5 mpix DSLR, but it uses some strange compression and produces 10MB RAW files.

The S70 is good to about 11x14 IF I've shot it perfectly, do little or no cropping. After that there is noticable loss of quality, and the tones and smoothness of the PnS print don't match the DSLR even in small prints.

The DSLR OTOH can do prints to 16x20 before things start falling apart a bit. This is due to the better optics of the DSLR, the much larger sensor (more than 600% larger), low noise, better anti-alising filters, and just the much smoother tonality of the high end processing engine. The tones and color transations in the DSLR prints are much smoother vs. the PnS. So this is a huge example of mpix are not everything.

Another big factor is noise. I do not hesitate to shoot my D1x at ISO 800. I don't bother to shoot the S70 if I need more than ISO 200. Even at ISO 50 the noise of the PnS is worst vs. ISO 200 on the DSLR. This is a direct result of the size of each pixel.

I would not want to be the photographer selling 16x20 prints out of a PnS camera sitting side by side with someone selling the same sized prints out of a DSLR as the quality difference is quite pronounced.

 

[victor]

I agree being able to save in raw format is much better, however then file size is an issue. Needs a microdrive to store enough pictures.
I would love to be able to charge the battery and upload the pictures without opening the casing. I suspect there is no technical reason why this could not be done. A possibility would be IR through the casing for the link. It does not really matter how slow it is as you could upload over a few hours. As for charging the battery, a plug may be necessary but some form of induction might be possible.
Imagine getting your camera sealed and pressure tested before your holiday and unload it when you come home.
The dslr will have to wait for a while. Maybe when I get my own house reef.

Well, I am looking at a C-8080 at present, any words of warning?

 

[RonFrank]

Well, I am looking at a C-8080 at present, any words of warning?

It's big. There are a few C-8080 owners on SB. You should look at the OLY forum, and see what people have to say.

What the heck is a house reef? Sounds like illegal drugs to me :14:

 

[Diver Dennis]

I agree being able to save in raw format is much better, however then file size is an issue. Needs a microdrive to store enough pictures.
I would love to be able to charge the battery and upload the pictures without opening the casing. I suspect there is no technical reason why this could not be done. A possibility would be IR through the casing for the link. It does not really matter how slow it is as you could upload over a few hours. As for charging the battery, a plug may be necessary but some form of induction might be possible.
Imagine getting your camera sealed and pressure tested before your holiday and unload it when you come home.
The dslr will have to wait for a while. Maybe when I get my own house reef.

Well, I am looking at a C-8080 at present, any words of warning?

Actually I use a 2 or 4GB card for my DSLR. I don't trust micro-drives. In fact I would get 138 raw files onto my former card, a 1GB.

 

[victor]

Ron
Diving in Bonaire, reef 50 yards or less from the front door. Thats a house reef.
Unlimited shore diving, only the computer and the duration of my holiday limiting my dives.
I hope to move somewhere I can dive at my convienence rather than restricted to short and expensive holidays.

However Bonaire and illegal drugs, there may be some connection after all.

 

[victor]

Looks like the 8080 rig is not going to be that much smaller than a DSLR. A reported 10lb with 1 strobe. From the reports in the oly forum it looks like I will need a focus spot to insure quick autofocus time. Well I did think that I would give up my hand luggage to the cameras again.
How many pics should I expect to get on a 1 gb card?

 

[alcina]

I don't like the 8080 from what I have read, heard and seen first hand, but YMMV and you should talk to people who have it and use it regularly. There are some using it that like it. Again, you can't go too far wrong with most of the major players in compact digitals.

How many images per card depends on your camera. On my dslr I can get about 110ish on my 1GB. I don't use microdrives. I think a 2GB would be the minimum you'd want for the type of diving you are talking about....I know I want a 2GB or bigger for some of the dives I do, but at the moment I simply change cards.

I store my wet mate lenses for the Oly system two ways uw. The macros slide inside the front of my wetsuit (front zip). They are safe from loss and scratches and bumps there. The WA lives in a reel pouch I bought at a fishing tackle store. The pouch gets clipped to the inside clip in my bcd pocket. The pouch is padded. No muss, no fuss. Easy access, secure and out of the way when I wiggle in those tight places.

I use a single Inon 220s strobe with all my systems.

 

[RonFrank]

Actually I use a 2 or 4GB card for my DSLR. I don't trust micro-drives. In fact I would get 138 raw files onto my former card, a 1GB.

Micro-drives were popular when storage was expensive. When I purchased my D1x about 3+ years ago, storage media was about a buck a MB. So a 512MB card was over $500. Micro-drives were type I CF compliant, and were about $.50 a MB if memory serves.

They are much more prone to failure vs. the flash type media which can get run over by a truck and retain the data.

 

[Gilligan]

Good call on the leash .... don't currently have one on mine,
but my brain is humming on ways to rig a small bungee cord onto it.

Any homemade leash tips ?

Look at the leash that comes with the GBUndersea lens dock. You can make one with the right type of zip tie and some fishing tackle gear.

 

[Warren_L]

I dunno i made a 20x30 print from my Fuji 810. Looks pretty good. You might be right with selling prints i have no idea on that but modern P&S cameras have enough megapixels and nice enough sensors to make large prints that looks nice. YMMV

Chris

Megapixels can be a confusing thing to gauge image quality by. I think it is perhaps misunderstood and an over-rated way of judging what quality of image a camera will produce. Possibly because it is seemingly easy to quantify and understand. But you need to understand what exactly the number of megapixels means. Think for a moment, lenses are round. Sensors are rectilinear. So in the end, you are attempting to capture a round image on a square sensor. It's kind of like fitting a rectangular peg into a round hole.

So when a camera specifies a certain number of megapixels in the sensor, there may be zones in the sensor that are unused because of the how the image through the lens hits the sensor (hence effective megapixels). This brings up the issue of crop factor, which is a whole other discussion. Additionally, there are pixels that are not exposed to light which are used as calibration pixels to establish a baseline for what is black in the image. Are these counted in the megapixel count, even though they do not contribute to the image?

What is probably more important IMHO is the dynamic range that the sensor delivers and the low noise quality. The major difference you will notice with high quality sensors you might find in dSLRs is a higher dynamic range (i.e. the range of light intensity measured in f stops which, on the low end gives detail and on the high end, is not blown out) and lower noise. Dynamic range typically decreases with higher ISO (as well as proprotionate increase in noise levels). Comparing typical P&S sensors versus dSLR sensors, you can have comparable levels in both dynamic range and noise levels, but the major difference seems to be in the ISOs at which similar dynamic range and noise levels are achieved. A good dSLR sensor at ISO 200 might have similar dynamic range and noise characteristics as a comparable P&S sensor at ISO 50. The advantage, of course, is to be able to shoot similar quality on the dSLR at ISO 200.

There's much more to consider than just megapixels. Too long to discuss in a post.