Why I don't have a DSLR

Glaskowsky taking a picture of himself, his camera, and an unnamed woman at SeaWorld

(Credit: Peter N. Glaskowsky)

A few days before Apple started selling the iPhone, I decided I wasn't going to buy one, and I said so here. I still don't have an iPhone, but my Treo is increasingly flaky; I may end up needing to replace it before improved iPhones show up.

But sometimes I make up my mind even farther in advance of a buying opportunity. In 1996, I saw the writing on the wall for film cameras; digital photography was going to wipe out that market eventually. I was in the market for a high-quality camera to supplement the point-and-shoot models I used to carry around, but I decided I wasn't going to buy a 35mm SLR. I also knew I didn't want to wait for affordable digital SLRs.

See, at that point, Apple had been selling the QuickTake family for a couple of years, and I knew how to run the Moore's Law calculations as well as anyone. The QuickTake cameras had about 0.3 megapixels, and the math said that number would double every two years or so. Indeed, they have, though more recently some of the semiconductor complexity has been used to improve per-pixel quality rather than merely increasing the pixel count.

The standard of comparison, the 35mm film SLR, had somewhere around 10 or 12 megapixels of equivalent resolution under ideal real-world conditions. Moore's Law said I'd have to wait until 2004 to get that kind of quality from a DSLR, and I just didn't want to wait that long.

So I bought a film camera--but not a 35mm. I wanted something that would hold its quality advantage over digital cameras for at least 10 years. I started out thinking about getting a Hasselblad setup, but those cameras--even used--were outside my price range.

After considerable research and hand-wringing, I got a Pentax 67 medium-format camera. (And, later, a series of digital point-and-shoots, from the Nikon Coolpix 900 to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3, my current "everyday" camera.)

The "67" refers to the size of the Pentax's negative in centimeters. The film is 60mm (2.3 inches) tall, and a single frame is 70mm wide. (Actually, the imaged area is 56mm x 69.5mm because of the edge markings on the film and the space between adjacent images.)

It's a huge thing; the usual description is "a 35mm SLR on steroids." You can see pictures of the 67 on photoethnography.com. Mine has the wooden grip, which makes it quite practical as a handheld camera.

Here's one of my favorite pictures, a self-referential shot from SeaWorld in Orlando, Fla. (To answer the most common questions, I don't know the woman who was sitting beside me, and the color bands are scanning artifacts from the ShamuVision display.) You can see how large the camera is.

The 67 was also an expensive camera, but wow, it took great pictures. The lenses were excellent, and with negatives that large--like the palm of a man's hand--every bit of detail available was recorded faithfully. My favorite lens was a 45mm wide-angle lens. Yes, with a medium-format camera, 45mm is a wide angle-- roughly comparable to a 22mm lens on a 35mm camera. I also bought a few other lenses, scaling up to a 300mm telephoto and a 2x tele-extender; that combination was impressively large but tough to hold steady.

Anyway... why am I bringing up all of this now? Because finally there are digital SLRs that are better in every way than my Pentax, and I'm thinking about buying one. Several new models from Canon and Nikon are all over the news this week.

From Canon, there's the EOS-1Ds Mark III and EOS 40D (see the CNET photo gallery here). Nikon introduced the D3 and the D300 (CNET photos here).

This won't be an easy decision. My Pentax lenses won't fit any of these cameras (although I'd be tempted to design a shift adapter for the 45mm lens for architectural photography), and my friends are on both sides of the fence, so I have no particular preference for either brand.

A full kit won't be cheap, but hey, it's been over 10 years since I bought the Pentax. It's about time to upgrade.

Please consider this an official invitation to try to influence my decision. Let me know why I should choose Canon over Nikon, or Nikon over Canon, and whether it's worth buying the more expensive model in each of those pairs-- or whether it'd be smarter to buy one of the previous-generation models, sure to be on sale this fall. I'd appreciate the advice. And if anyone wants to buy my Pentax 67 setup--it's still in great shape--please consider this a for-sale ad!

[Updated to remove a totally brain-dead reference to sprocket holes! Sorry. --png]

[mrbdm99]

You could always wait for this...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/21/pentax-busts-out-hasselbladian-31-6-megapixel-645-digital/

Shouldn't be too much longer before it is out. I know that report says 31.6 megapixels, but there is also this, older I know: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0503/05031502pentax645digital.asp

I hate to see someone leave Pentax for Canon or Nikon (or any other brand for that matter when we are talking about DSLR's, point and shoot, I could understand).

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Holy smokes

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Holy smokes

(Er, apparently "enter" on the subject line submits the form. Hmm.)

Anyway, wow, that looks awesome. But I bet that camera alone is worth more
than my car, and I'd still have to buy new lenses...

. png

[Andy Kowalczyk]

Anti Shake

I voted with my wallet on a Pentax K100D.

I find in-camera Anti-Shake to be a compelling feature.

I also find AA batteries as a power source to be oddly comforting if you get off the grid for any length of time( a set of Lithiums lasted through several months of thrice weekly snap-shotting in a K100D).

Given your Medium Format habit you may find the Pentax K10D more to your liking.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Those do look pretty good

But with Canon or Nikon, I'd get some degree of commonality with friends.

That means I could probably afford to get one or two of the less-common
lenses-- a super-wide angle or a perspective-shift type, given my usual
habits-- in place of more common lenses that I could borrow if needed. And
my friends might be interested in borrowing the weird lenses from time to
time.

It's tough to be the third-most successful competitor in any industry, even if
your products are a better deal than those from the bigger guys...

Thanks for the advice, though, and I will take the time to check out those
cameras in more detail before I make any buying decisions.

. png

[frankwick]

"Why most people don't NEED a DSLR"

Perhaps you should also write an article on why the majority of the population doesn't need an SLR. My wife is a professional photographer and I too am accomplished and assist her on weekend weddings, etc.... It blows me away to see so many people walking around with $1500 rigs set to automatic. People are always asking me why their expensive camera doesn't take great pictures like the professionals get. It's like golf clubs: You can buy expensive sticks, they look good, but they will not turn you into Tiger Woods.

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Good point

Actually I'm very happy with my Lumix, in spite of some minor
shortcomings-- the movie mode is very badly implemented, for example, and
the SD card slot sometimes fails to connect with the card the first time it's
inserted (it never seems to shake loose, though, so I'm not sure what's going
on).

Although it's a fairly small and affordable camera, it has a 10:1 optical zoom
and a reasonable feature set. But if I was going to go out wandering in some
foreign city to do some serious photography, it wouldn't be adequate-- no
manual controls, for example.

I think you're basically right, though. Most people will never really take
advantage of interchangeable lenses and manual settings, the things that
distinguish good DSLRs from the good all-in-one automatics, so the extra
cost of a DSLR may be money wasted.

On the other hand, a DSLR certainly is more capable. No all-in-one can match
the combined zoom range of multiple lenses, and DSLRs tend to offer both
larger sensors and wider-aperture lenses. So some kinds of photography are
easier with DSLRs, even in automatic mode. If someone's willing to pay for
these incremental advantages, I can't really second-guess their choice.

[Alternadoc]

Pentax- a little shaky

The K10 is a great camera, but no one knows what will happen to Pentax after Hoya completes their buyout. Nikon is on a serious roll over the last year; for the price the quality of their bodies is better than Canon's until you get to the ultra high end. Look for the D300 from Nikon in November.