A camera that has it all? Well, almost

Sony's approach to innovation has produced the R1, a camera that shatters a longstanding law of digital photography and takes spectacular photos.
The New York Times

The story "A camera that has it all? Well, almost" published December 11, 2005 at 6:00 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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I had to read

all the way through to the second page, to find "Lost Perk No. 1 has to do with the lens: the R1's is permanently attached. It's a heck of a good lens, but you can't remove it and swap in a telephoto, macro or even wider-angle lens, as you can with a true SLR.".<br /><br />End of story. I'm not the worlds greatest photographer - still don't make a living at it. But if I can't switch my half a dozen lenses - what good is it ?<br /><br />It's still just a point &#38; shoot idiot camera, if I can't put my Sigma 170-500 lense on, perhaps with a 2X converter &#38; shoot wilflife, without disturbing it. <br /><br />If I can't put on one of my wide angle Sigma for wide-open landscapes, it's no good for me.<br /><br />The only qualifier - sometimes the new technology, which is introduced on low-end camera gets improved until it works right - that's when I'll look for it on an SLR.

[ewelch]

A reason for not having interchangablelenses

One reason it doesn't have interchangeable lenses, most likely, <br />is that when they're charged up, they attract dust. And so every <br />time one changes a lens dust enters. And when the sensor <br />charges up, the motes are attracted to the sensor, and each <br />piece of dust covers pixels.<br /><br />Also, this sensor may be "massive" in terms of comparing it to <br />PHD (push here dummy) cameras, but it's still smaller than the <br />full-frame DSLR sensors that are at the same megapixel size as <br />this camera, which means they will produce much better photos <br />in terms of sharpness and lack of noise. Still, they cost at least <br />thee times to eight times as much as this camera.<br /><br />It looks like a great compromise camera. But that's also it's <br />weakness. Still, for many people, it's the perfect comromise.

[iamotaku]

Here's what I want.

A small camera with a sensor that is bigger than the tiny <br />fingernail sensor enclosed in all the small digitals. I long for the <br />days of a little rangefinder tucked in my pocket. My Canon 1D <br />Mark II cameras are incredible, don't get me wrong, I can make <br />them perform magic and jump through hoops I could never <br />jump through with film, but they are huge. Try being descreet <br />with one or two of these things hanging off of you. The minute <br />you walk into a room, you are the center of attention.<br />So here's what I want. Take the Contax G2 and put the Leica <br />brightline viewfinder in it so I can get it to my eye and compose <br />quickly. It must have quiet auto focus as well as the ability to <br />manually focus with realtime feedback in the viewfinder. Next, <br />jam a chip in there that will let me get a clean 100-400 iso/asa <br />and maybe even 800 if need be, but I'd settle for 400. Little or <br />no shutter lag is a must. I need three options for exposure/<br />metering choices- manual, aperture priority and shutter priority. <br />The lens would ideally be say 24-105 f2.8. It can be a fixed <br />mount. If I need the big glass, I've got the big cameras. I just <br />want a quick, quiet and discreet tool to stick in my pocket for <br />those fleeting, decisive moments that we've all been chasing <br />ever since Bresson coined the term so many years ago. <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://" target="_newWindow">http://</a><br />www.henricartierbresson.org/hcb/home_en.htm

[eldsasser]

good point

I agree with you

[golfzilla]

Got one

I just bought one of these. I already have a Canon 10D and a <br />handful of lenses. I have discovered that for the way I shoot, I use <br />one lens (Sigma 18-55) about 75% of the time. This equates to <br />~28-88mm. I wanted more pixels and the extra range at both <br />ends are a bonus.<br /><br />The R1 is a wonderful package for me. There is a braindead design <br />problem with the size of RAW file and the macro capabilities could <br />be improved, but this will not be leaving my bag for quite a while.

[AndrewRich]

Sony

Aren't we boycotting Sony because of the CD rootkit? Or was that yesterday? Today I guess we're in awe of them again.

[heystoopid]

Sony?

Why buy anything SONY?, since the company has extremely poor to non existent product support! <br />Further , from the prices I have seen, most if not all SONY products are overpriced anyway!

[squished]

No Wireless or IS

Given the title of the article I hoped wireless transfer or image stabilization would be included. Kudos to the engineers for sensor innovation but that's all this model really has going for it.

[bradleyland]

Yes but....

what kind of rootkit does it come with?

Sony's SPYWARE forgotten already? ROOTKIT in this camera too?

Have we all forgotten about Sony's despicable actions already?<br /><br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html</a><br /><br />I, for one, will not easily forget the DRM farce. And I will make sure that others remember, too.

[Christopher Hall]

You, for one...

You, for one, do not represent the populace at large. The vast majority of consumers simply didn't care about the whole rootkit fiasco. You have to take into account that the tech community represents a minute microcosm of the big picture. The big picture has moved on. I recommend we stop kicking the dead horse.

[theSaj]

Feature is NOT new. Just an uninformed reporter!

"Unfortunately, that design also deprives you of a great joy and advantage of digital photography: framing your shots using the camera's screen."<br /><br />"move along folks...nothing new to see here"<br /><br />Just an uninformed reporter, posting about what he doesn't know. This feature is available in a few DSLRs out there.<br /><br /><br />Olympus' E-10/E-20 fixed lens DSLR allowed for the using of the LCD screen to frame a shot. I know, I owned one and on more than one occasion held the unit upside down over my head to get above crowds at concerts. (Sure, it's not quite as big a sensor as the new batch of DSLRs but that's because those are 4 yr old models. So you're touting a 4 yr old feature as new.)<br /><br />Canon's 20Da also allows you to do the same thing. This is a modified variant of their 20D with a focus on Astrophotography. Thus they allow the LCD to display what is seen.<br /><br />- Saj

[markdoiron]

You're Right, But ...

as an amateur astronomer i also knew about the canon 20da. i was going to mention it, but you beat me. one point worth mentioning--the 20da does this by locking up the mirror while the display is showing the image. <br /><br />as for why pro's/serious amateurs prefer to use a viewfinder: it helps to steady the camera, adding a "third leg" to the tripod that braces a handheld camera (two hands and the face). in addition, it doesn't usually suffer from wash-out on bright, daylit scenes that make it difficult to compose the desired image. <br /><br />mark d.<br /><a class="jive-link-external" href="http://members.cox.net/mddoiron" target="_newWindow">http://members.cox.net/mddoiron</a>

[grey_eminence]

Programmable Refracting OLED Lens, ,Future ?

For hundreds of years light amplification has been done thru glass refracting lenses of various curvatures, lengths and material densities. A new concept for a reprogrammble lens allows both positive and negative refraction to be programmed within our molecular film, thereby allowing the objective image to be changed at the virtual image focal point.<br /><br /> <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://colossalstorage.net/home_display_lens.htm" target="_newWindow">http://colossalstorage.net/home_display_lens.htm</a>

[Razzl]

Phony baloney explanation

Well, that was a poor con job of a technical explanation. Here's the real dope--<br />SLR stands for "single lens reflex", meaning you view the scene through the lens by way of a mirrored pentaprism. The SLR was the king of 35mm film formats because professional photographers could switch off dozens of specialty lenses, from super-wide angles to super-telephotos to macros, etc., to achieve the effect they wanted. When digital came along the makers of sensors were reluctant to offer sensors large enough to fill the same space as a 35mm photo frame, and so real camera companies held back from the market while photocopier makers dabbled in producing little pocket digital cameras. The large ones with fixed lenses, like this particular Sony we're talking about, were labelled "ZLR's"--"Zoom lense reflex".<br /><br />After a while real camera makers were able to obtain sensors that almost filled up the 35mm frame size, meaning real camera companies could take all of the hardware they had developed for interchangeable lense photography and make it work for digital, usually with a little bit of size conversion (i.e., some loss of wide-angle capability and gain of telephoto for the same lense). At the present moment while the author of this article sits in his dreamland you can go to the local Best Buy and find DSLR's from Canon, Nikon, and Olympus that have the lcd screen on the back (and have had for a few years) as well as the option of looking directly through the lense in the viewfinder. Real artists and photographers know the value of interchangeable lense systems and how to use them, which is why traditional lense/body SLR's (even SLR's that display digital images rather than letting you look through the lense) are here to stay.<br /><br />Though it's nice that Sony is offering up a new ZLR for the market that lets you take high-resolution images, resolution is not the defining technical characteristic of an SLR--lense/viewer architecture and lense families are--so all of the "technical" explanation here was hocus-pocus from someone who doesn't really know...

[shadowself]

Still find the resolution wanting

I still find the resolution of all but the very top end digital cameras wanting. The print outs from all but the very top systems is poorer than that from film. If I can see the difference (and I wear bifocals and may need to move to trifocals in the next year or so) then why can't eveyone else? Is it just that people don't care?

[Mendz]

Version 1; wait for the next...

The selling technology is the power and heat savings. I can wait for the technology to mature to model/version 3 or so... For $1000, I really wish the R1 has it all already...

[AimsAlpha]

stupidest idea I've ever heard...

This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard. I'm a pretty amateur photographer working on a film Canon K2, and even I can tell that this is a pointless piece of crap. 1,000 dollars for something that I can get for 200 is a waste. The LCD is worthless in a SLR. Thats why it's called a SINGLE LENS REFLECTING, lol!! And to add to the pile of trash, you can't remove the lens ^_^... why would I buy a SLR and not be able to remove the lens!? Sure the picture is great, but honestly the Canon Digital Rebel is a much better choice for the money. You can get one for about 200 less as well.<br /><br />Anyway... this has been more of a rant than a comment, but the point is if your buying this thing, then you don't have a clue about what your doing. In the world of photography, there really isn't any middle ground.<br /><br />^a10

[ArbitraryThinker]

A bad version of the Kodak 880

This looks like a poor implementation of the "SLR Like" concepts implemented in the Kodak 850 &#38; 880. Who wants a great big heavy camera with a fixed lens?

[eldsasser]

the lens is worth the $1000 bucks

Of course if you would rather spend $800 on a Rebel body and then another $800 on a lens like the fixed lens that is permenantly attached to the Sony Camera - more power to you. Check out the specs on that thing.