Click Click Click

About the same, but street price of the 5D MkII is not really available yet. Here is one of those notorius "on yeah we've 'em in stock" type liar sellers: http://www.digitalrev.com/en/canon-eos-5d-mark-ii-dslr-camera-body-4425.html

A two thousand dollar premium to be first on their "waiting list"? I don't think so!

Well, after about a decade of waiting, I've purchased my first DSLR - the Pentax K200D. Great thing is, it works will all my old lenses from my K1000! So far, I like it, and I may have a hard time shooting film again (not having ready access to a darkroom seriously curtailed my photography after high school...)

damn! http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/2008/09/20/something-very-interesting-is-comingboth-to-this-blog-and-to-our-industry/

He's jumping way ahead of himself. The reality is that the next gen XL2 will probably feature the same guts. The vid capacity for the SLR is just for spot-news photogs who want to augment their stills with some vid. The challenges of cinmatic motion, zooming, panning, dollying, etc. are too much for the T-shape-stuck-to-the-face configuration DSLRs were designed for.

The XL2 II (XL3?) will be the game-changer he's talking about, and Red had better start getting nervous.

Oh, the DMC-LX3 is fantastic. Really fantastic camera for much much less. Yeah, a very different beast, but I dare say that a better pocketable point and shoot has never been made. HD video too!

DMC-LX3. Why? Not being rhetorical or argumentative. Just trying to find out what you think makes it so different.

My take on the Vincent Laforet's hyper-enthusiasm in regard to the 5dmkII is in regards to three areas:

#1 is the low light sensitivity -- he is a Pulitizer Prize winning photo journalist and knows that many times he has been able to see things that he could not capture with the camera/film he was carrying. Canon has gone further than anyone else in destroying that barrier. The images he has posted are RIGHT OUT OF THE CAMERA and have no visible defects of any kind in terribly challenging light.

#2 is the capability of having 35mm film/ HD quality in the same package as normal SLR. Partly this is the sensisitivity thing, but more than that it means that ALL the glass that guys like him own/have access to can be used to make a moving image. This has never really been possible before. Just look at any movie shoot or TV event and you are seeing hundreds of thousands of lenses and specialized film really being a whole separate arena of expression. Not saying every still shoot will go out and BE a moving pic shooter, but if they do then basically EVERY FRAME is going to have the same awesome look as a still for a fraction of the cost/complexity that this would have entailed prior tot he 5dmkII. I completely agree that this is NOT the optimal package for a DEDICATED motion shoot, Canon will no doubt have a dedicated HD Video camera out that will work with the Steadicam and other such devices that modern film makers need, but the unification of "publication quality" stills and "HD broadcast motion" will erase a line in many areas that will make profound changes.

#3 is the ease of both -- while the dedicated hobbyist has always been capable of superior technical enhancement in a darkroom or with Photoshop (or maybe even "professional gear" like the Red) the evolution that Canon has fostered has made the 'necessity ' of that sort of tech largely unneeded for huge portions of shooting. In my view this is the goal of pretty much all "image" companies. This camera is likely to be available at Best Buy! I remember when I was a high school newspaper shooter and I first covered a basketball game with Ilford 1600 B&W (that I had to get from a speciality camera shop...) -- I could shoot strobeless shots of the game, develop 'em and send to the printer with no special processing. After that I would burn through about 4-6 rolls per game to be sure to get everything. Of course a lot of shots were poorly composed, but from a technical basis probably 90% were printable.

I agree with Baha to some extent that the DMC-LX3 is largely capable of removing many of the "technical limits" that compact cameras have had. The target is somewhat similar -- people who know/understand that technology can make certain kinds of shooting much easier. The Panasonic is going to be the kind of camera that one carries with them whenver the potential to grad a cool shot may present itself , while the 5DmkII will be still be the kind of tool that one takes out for shooting, but in the case of both the LIMITATIONS that have existed in getting light recorded have largely been innovated out of existence...

Both cameras look absolutely fantastic and while the Canon is way out of reach financially I would have no use for it. I still have a XM2/GL2 laying around that doesn't get much exercise since the ex left. That Panasonic camera looks mighty interesting Baha, although the Lumix G1 does too.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0809/08092208olympus_micro_four_thirds.asp

Can't wait to get a sense of this little pup.

yeah, the micro-four thirds/lumix g1 is very interesting to me. i may have to have. :)

why dmc-lx3, bruce?

because you get a truly pocketable camera with decent glass (not much chromatic aberration, unlike similarly sized canons), relatively low noise, admirable HD video (if limited to 10 minutes in length), and RAW output. oh flash hot shoe!

look you can easily publish shots from the dmc-lx2 in art books if you want. the dmc-lx3 ups that quality and allows you to take indoor shoots which the dmc-lx2 did not. i love it.

i have a canon g9 and it's a hands down loser to the dmc-lx3. hands down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2008 07:56PM by bahamut.

Quote

T-shape-stuck-to-the-face configuration

the 5dmkII has live view so you dont have to be looking through the view finder when shooting video. or stills for that matter.

really like both Oly and Pani compact 4/3rds systems on the hook. Also like the K2000D just introduced by Pentax. Its got plenty of innovation hiding under that price tag. Now to see what they do with the K2D!

All I can say is, I'm really drooling for the 5DMkII -- wow.

Anybody got a spare $45K??? http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/22/leica-debuts-s-system-37-megapixel-flagship-s2-camera/

Funny, the thing is so big that a regular camera could not contain the whole image {joke}...

So Canon just announced the SD990IS a 14.7 MP camera with a 3.7 optical zoom. I was really interested in getting it but then I got to thinking... wouldn't the Canon SD890IS be a better choice (IXUS 890 in other countries) since it has a 10MP CCD with a 5x optical zoom?

Opinions?

The 990 has a faster lens and DIGIC 4 vs III, I'd trade that for less zoom reach any day.

Cool. That's the kind of answer I was looking for. But I thought that a better optical zoom capacity would make for cleaner photos. The only problem I really had with my 800IS was that it had a horrible fisheye problem. I'd call that a lens issue not a CCD issue. Is that true?

P.S. My SD800IS was stolen in Kauai at the Famous Footwear. I put it down and well... it was my fault. But someone decided it was legally theirs then. Jerks.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2008 09:48AM by Madaracs.

The REACH of the zoom is greater meaning that you can put a more enlarged image on the sensor. That may sound like a good thing, but it is a pretty small part of the equation.

I dunno that I'd always go with the longest telephoto -- the quality of the lens involves more than just reach. Speed of the glass (as expressed in f/ratio) is a big factor. Don't forget that the effects of a longer lens on shake and sensitivity are generally negative too, even with optical stabilization and other features.

Fisheye and/or barrel distortion (as well as the related pin cushion) are trade offs with inexpensive glass -- for any focal length the truly high-end glass will do the best job of keeping images true to life. http://www.mediachance.com/pbrush/help/barrel.html

The digital trend means that as sensor gets larger, with less noise, the ability to use digital enhancements to blow-up the desired portion of the image is greatly facilitated, though with a compact camera there are still some serious limitations to such enhancements in camera.

Of course the likelihood of using Photoshop (or similar) is something that you have to decide for yourself.

Your "rule of thumb" for the best "optical zoom" is still much more important for motion cams, as the amount of "post shoot" processing all but the hard core prosumers would ever do is just about nil...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2008 11:39AM by stan adams.

I get crrrraaaazy wit da fotoshop.

I'm very unimpressed with Canon and am unlikely to buy again except at the SLR level in which, with mixed feelings, I have too much "invested." Apart from a small collection of digitial elph powershots from the early part of the decade, all of which had insanely bad noise and broke rapidly, I recently purchased a g9. Within a month this top-of-the-line point and shoot got a dust speck. WTF? How? It's sealed! Apparently this is a known problem. Very disappointed. The quality is ok, but for a larger camera, it is nothing like my panasonic dmc-lx3 which i dearly love (yes that is a newer generaton). We're having multiple images from DMC-LX2s published in high end books and magazines, full bleed, full page. That's how good that model was too. I could never imagine that from the g9.

So it is.