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Rangefinder
Magazine
February 2003
Digital Photography:
by John Rettie
New Olympus Camera, Canon Scanner and a New Digital Lens Series
Anyone who has been following the development of digital cameras based
on 35mm camera bodies will know there are various compromises caused by
trying to adapt film cameras and lens systems to digital. Until now the
disadvantages have not been too bothersome as users have been willing
to work around them in order to garner the benefits of digital. But as
manufacturers improve the quality of digital images there is an increasing
need to address some of the problems.
Specifically, there are two major issues confronting digital camera users
intending to use current lenses designed for 35mm film cameras. First,
there is the multiplier effect caused by the size of the image capture
device, whether a CCD or CMOS chip, being much smaller than the frame
size of 35mm film. Secondly, there is the ongoing debate that lenses designed
for the full-size 35mm format don’t provide the right optical path
for digital image capturing chips. It’s not been a problem so far
as only the center of a lens is being used on the smaller chips. But once
full size (35mm) chips are used it becomes a potential problem.
At Photokina, Olympus in conjunction with Kodak announced plans to launch
a new standardized camera body and lens system optimized to work with
smaller CCDs. Skeptics derided the proposal suggesting that chips were
being designed to take care of the problem with 35mm lenses and that it
was not so serious a problem. In addition, the move to fill size chips
by Kodak and Canon would allow regular super wide-angle lenses to provide
the coverage and the multiplier effect would disappear.
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| Olympus’ C-5050 camera has an LCD screen on
the back that can be partially turned for convenience. |
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It was therefore quite a surprise when Nikon announced just before Christmas
that it was introducing a new range of lenses specially made to only work
on its D-series of digital cameras. The first lens in the DX series as
it’s being called is a 12–24mm zoom, which is comparable to
an 18–36mm lens on a 35mm camera. It will be a boon for users of
these cameras who need wide-angle capabilities. The current 17–35mm
Nikon wide-angle zoom works fine on digital cameras except that it becomes
equivalent to a 26–52mm lens because of the multiplier effect.
The news from Nikon has been met with mixed emotions. The problem is
that the DX lenses will be useless on 35mm film cameras and on digital
cameras with full-frame (35mm size) image capture devices, because they
will not provide enough coverage. This is fine if a user sticks with a
D-series camera body, but it does make the lenses incompatible with all
Nikon film cameras.
Everyone has presumed that Nikon will be producing a digital camera body
with a full frame sensor in order to compete with Kodak and Canon. If
Nikon does introduce such a camera it will be incompatible with these
new lenses, which will be confusing for buyers. Nikon will have two lines
of digital camera bodies and two lines of lenses. Presumably the full-frame
cameras will be more expensive and aimed only at professionals while the
D-series will be less costly.
Another scenario says that Nikon will not introduce a full frame digital
camera!
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| The C-5050 has two slots—one for Compact Flash
Type I or II cards and the other for SmartMedia or the new xD picturecard. |
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After all, there is nothing sacrosanct about the size of a 35mm frame.
It was created by the movie industry and adopted by Leica for still cameras
many years ago. Reality is that a smaller image capture device such as
in the current D-series camera may be sufficiently large enough to eventually
provide image quality better than from 35mm film. After all it’s
worth remembering that a 6 MP chip, such as the one currently in the D100,
has the same number of pixels per square inch as a 14 MP full frame sensor.
Just think back 20 years ago. Professionals almost exclusively used medium
format cameras, as 35mm film did not provide high enough quality. Nowadays
a majority of professionals are more than happy with 35mm. Perhaps the
same will be true with digital. The majority of professional users will
be able to get by with cameras with the current smaller chip size along
with new lenses optimized for the format and for digital capture. These
cameras and lenses will also be lighter and may eventually be less costly.
Nikon has not tipped its hand at this time. It has given no public indication
of what sort of camera it will be launching next.
The annual PMA show is being held in Las Vegas at the beginning of March.
Rumors are beginning to surface that Nikon will have a new camera that
will surprise everyone. If they’d waited until then to announce
this new range of DX lenses that would have been the surprise. Just what
the company has in store remains to be seen.
Whatever happens it does throw a big question mark into the upgrade path
Nikon users need to take. For example, should one buy this new 12–24mm
DX zoom or wait for a new full-frame 14MP camera that can use the current
17–35mm zoom? Let’s hope Nikon clears the air in March with
some firm information on its future products.
Olympus C-5050 camera
Olympus might have lost ground over the years in the film market but it
has consistently been among the leaders in digital cameras. It seems to
introduce new point and shoot cameras every few months. Most of them are
upgrades on current models rather than all new cameras, which is not a
bad thing as the company has been producing well designed cameras that
don’t need much more than upgrading of resolution and electronics.
The Camedia C-5050 is just such a camera. It is directly derived from
the original C-2020 but as its name suggests this camera has a 5MP CCD
compared to just 2MP in the original model.
It is a well made camera that produces 2560x1920 resolution images with
excellent quality. The metal body is finished in a nice black crackled
finish and is large enough to feel substantial yet light enough to carry
around at all times. It has a fast f/1.8 zoom lens that’s equivalent
to 35–105mm on a 35mm camera. I won’t go into full details
as it was covered in a first exposure article in the November issue of
Rangefinder.
I was in a lull in photography during the time I tried the camera so I
did not experience its full capabilities but suffice to say it has plenty
of options to meet most discerning needs in terms of exposure controls,
etc. For example, it has a hot-shoe for external flash but no PC connection.
Overall, I liked the camera, not as a main unit but as a secondary camera.
It still suffers from the dreaded shutter lag that is the bane of all
consumer digital cameras. It takes a full second between pushing the shutter
button and the picture being captured, making it pretty painful to use
for capturing moving subjects such as kids. It also takes four seconds
to turn on from cold, mainly because the lens has to zoom out of the body.
If the lens cap is left on it makes a horrible noise and beeps loudly
to warn you of the error of your ways. At least it doesn’t freeze
or turn off. On the whole I’d rather have a camera where the lens
does not have to move out of the body as it also makes it less bulky when
in use.
The other shortcoming in my opinion is the rear LCD screen. It has limited
positions. It can be twisted up 90 degrees so it can be used as waist
level viewfinder but it only turns down 20 degrees so it is not much use
for overhead shooting. Other cameras such as the Canon G3 use a rear screen
that can revolve through 180 degrees. I am using this function all the
time on my Coolpix camera with its revolving body. I think it would be
good for Olympus to do the same in a future version, as it would not require
much more engineering.
If you still haven’t got started in digital photography or just
need a point and shoot camera for the times when you don’t want
to lug around a full size camera, the C-5050 is well worth considering,
especially as the price is just $699. A lot less than the cost of the
2MP C-2020 when it came out several years ago.
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| The CanoScan D2400UF scanner can be adapted
for scanning slides as well as flat art. |
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Canon Scanner
Most amateur photographers find flatbed scanners ideal for their requirements
as they are invariably scanning prints. Professionals on the other hand
are much more comfortable using a film scanner for best quality. I certainly
fall in that camp. I have a flatbed scanner that sits on my desk buried
under paperwork, as it hasn’t even been turned on in more than two
years.
Last time I reviewed a flatbed scanner it cost $2500, as it was a high-end
unit that could also scan slides. While I was impressed by its ability
to get great scans of artwork and prints it was pretty useless for scanning
film or slides less than 4x5 in size.
For many months now I have had a CanoScan D-2400UF on loan for review.
My sons have used the 2400x4800 dpi scanner several times on their PCs
for school homework and it’s worked just fine. I resisted using
it on my Mac, however as I wanted to try it under OS X. Canon kept promising
to deliver a driver last fall. Finally, just before Christmas an OS X
driver was posted on their website. I downloaded it and within minutes
I got the USB scanner working on my Mac.
I scanned a page (it can scan a maximum area of 8.5x11.7 ins.) from a
magazine with one of my photo features that I needed copying. It worked
fine and within a few minutes I’d printed out a copy on my Epson
1280 inkjet printer that was as good as that produced on any color photocopier.
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| The D2400UF film scanning software is
intelligent enough to know where the slides are positioned for scanning. |
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I then tried out the optional slide/film scanning capabilities expecting
to be highly disappointed. I wasn’t. It’s interesting how
easy it is to convert the machine from a flatbed to a film scanner. One
removes a pad under the lid to reveal a light source that covers an area
of about 5 by 6 inches. A black plastic frame is then placed on the glass
bed to mask the area to be scanned. There are two adapters for uncut 35mm
film, mounted slides, 2 1/4 and 4x5 film. Once changes in the preferences
are set in the Photoshop plug-in the scanner automatically turns into
a film scanner. Amazingly it knows where the slides are located and correctly
sets the crop marks. It also incorporates a dust and scratch removing
feature, called FARE (Film Automatic Retouching and Enhancement).
The test scan I made compared quite favorably to one scanned on my 4000
dpi Nikon Coolscan 4000 and a on a high-end Howtek scanner. Okay it’s
not as good but it’s acceptable for many uses. However, I still
would not recommend a flatbed for scanning film regularly, but if you
mainly scan prints or flat artwork and only occasionally need to scan
film this scanner will get the job done admirably. Naturally the bigger
the film size the better quality the scan will be. For this reason I reckon
I’ll use this $500 scanner when I have to scan in my relatively
small collection of 21⁄4 square trannies I shot over two decades
ago.
John Rettie is a photojournalist who resides in Santa Barbara, CA.
He has been using a camera as a professional for 33 years, a computer
for 23 years, and has combined his knowledge of both for the past ten
years. Readers can contact him by e-mail at john@johnrettie.com or by
snail-mail c/o Rangefinder.
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