The Online Photographer

Those who follow camera introductions already know that Canon has just announced a successor for its S90, which itself is only a year old. The S90 has been an extremely popular product this past year, and for good reason. The new S95, according to Canon, "...has been enhanced with 720p HD video capability and in-camera HDR scene mode. For macro-photography enthusiasts, Canon has built its Hybrid IS technology into the PowerShot S95 camera to compensate for angular and shift camera shake, making it the first PowerShot model to feature Hybrid IS technology." It has a wide and fast lens and retains its predecessor's distinctive (and pleasing) lens-ring control, to which various functions can be assigned.

The monumentalizing effect of a closeup photograph of the camera like the one above masks the fact that the camera is amazingly small and compact. It's a triumph of miniaturization, really, even in this age of miniaturization. Not that other cameras aren't just as tiny, but you really have to see it and hold it to appreciate just how tiny it is.

I mention the following probably just because I have Leicas on the brain after the past couple of days, but it strikes me that the S90 and S95 might be the up to the minute analog of the original Leica—the so-called "Barnack camera." It's capable but stealthy, as tiny as it can reasonably be, supremely portable and able to be carried virtually anywhere, suitable for visual note-taking and catching life on the fly...all of which could have been said of the Barnack camera in 1924. Just as the Barnack camera couldn't compete with a 4x5 press camera for image quality, you sacrifice some image quality with a pocket digicam compared to the best digital devices available—and yet (just like the Leica) its IQ is very good, eminently "good enough" in most situations, once you familiarize yourself with its strengths and weaknesses.

The S95 is due to begin shipping at the end of August—i.e., in a mere matter of days—and can be pre-ordered from Amazon now. I'm sure B&H will have it in a few days. Price, $400. It's a good thing I don't have a spare $400 in my pocket, because I'd be sorely tempted to convert it to one of these.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Hugh: "You've hit it exactly: I've a Leica CL sitting unused and a S90 in constant use. It's tiny, quiet, and the IS works. High ISO black and white looks quite film-like as well. The ability to use the front ring to set focal length equivalents is what makes the camera magic: mine is set on "35mm" nearly all the time, so I know what'll be in the frame. Set the shutter on 'program' and use the other rotary button for +/- exposure compensation, and you've only got one control to think about. Shutter lag is acceptable, everything else is near perfect."

Featured Comment by Don Parsons: "To me, the Panasonic LX5 will be more usable. 24–90mm-e ƒ/2 Leica lens, four selectable formats with all the rest the Canon offers. Only its MSRP scares me."

An outfit consisting of a new 40-MP Pentax 645D body and DFA-645 55mm ƒ/2.8 lens—a.k.a. the poor man's Leica S2—is being offered by Breguet Camera on Ebay. The price is $11,188, which breaks down to $10k for the body and $1,188 for the lens. I think we've already established that the menus are available in English, but don't forget that Pentax USA doesn't warranty this camera.

The 55mm DFA lens is weatherproof and is the equivalent on the larger format of Pentax's famous 43mm Limited.

I checked with Pentax USA, and there still no word on possible plans to import this camera here to the U.S.

Coincidentally, Breguet Camera happens to be the outfit that sold me my new Minolta 35mm ƒ/2 RS the other day. I can't speak for them generally, but my lens arrived from Hong Kong lickety-split, very well packed, and exactly as advertised. Just sayin'.

Mike
(Thanks to latent_image)

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Featured Comment by Kent: "$10k for the body. Hmm...the lowest current price here in Japan is ¥757,800, which converts to about $8,825 at the current exchange rate.

"Who's it for? The same people who've always needed a larger-than-35mm format. Commercial photographers whose work might end up really big somewhere: posters, outdoor signage, store displays, the side of a bus, etc. And of course landscape or fine art photographers who sell large prints. And...me, if I could afford it. Just 'cause I want one. Fortunately (or not), not only can I not afford it, but that pesky little thing called 'reason' keeps telling me that very little of my work is likely to end up on the side of a bus.

"But if I win the lottery, watch out...."

Featured Comment by Tregix: "I had the chance to play with a 645D yesterday. It gave me a very very positive feeling.

• It is surprisingly comfortable to hold, more comfortable than a D3 or a 1D to me.
• It is big but not that heavy (again compared to a D3 or 1D). It can get out of the studio easily.
• The autofocus is quite fast (with the 55mm ƒ/2.8 SDM).
• The view finder is, well, whoa.
• I felt that the shutter was less noisy than a D700…but I dislike the D700 shutter sound.

It looks like Pentax is changing the MF game.

B&H Photo has just put up a page of refurbished Nikons, including D90's for only $750 (normally $870).

Mike

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Here's the link to B&H's page.

To order the same thing from Amazon, here are Amazon's fine-print instructions, with the links:

Free DMW-LVF1 Viewfinder with the Panasonic Lumix GF1 Snap up the Panasonic Lumix GF1 and get a free Panasonic DMW-LVF1 External Live Viewfinder—a $150 value—with combined purchase from Amazon.com. Simply add the GF1 and viewfinder to your Shopping Cart, and we'll automatically apply the discount at checkout. Offer good while supplies last; applies only to purchases of products sold by Amazon.com and does not apply to products sold by third-party merchants and other sellers through the Amazon.com site.

I don't have the viewfinder for my GF1, so I can't comment on it, other than to say it's necessary if you want to shoot outdoors in bright sunlight, where the live view viewing screen of the plain GF1 runs the gamut from "less than ideal" to "utterly useless." In some kinds of light I cannot see the LCD at all, and basically end up guessing at what I'm pointing the camera at. In other words, you need the viewfinder....

Mike
(Thanks to Ken Bennett)

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Featured Comment by james wilson: "The Hoodman loupe is still the best viewfinder for a P&S camera. It is a real SLR type experience. A little bulky perhaps but I keep it hanging around my neck and deploy it as needed."

Response by Edward Taylor: "I concur on the Hoodman loupe. It is bulkier, but much better than the viewfinder. Another plus is that I can use it on any camera to see the LCD clearly in bright light—even if I am just checking the histogram, composition or focus post exposure. Zacuto makes a more expensive one as well."

Response by Kirk Tuck: "I disagree with James about the Hoodman. I find the electronic viewfinder for the Olympus EP2 and EPL cameras [there's also a black one that's out of stock at the moment —Ed.] to be much more usable. I don't have to do a two hand shuffle to use the camera and the view is wonderful. Also much smaller than a Hoodman Loupe. I do use the Hoodman Loupe when doing video on DSLR's but only out of necessity."

When I put up that quote from Michael Reichmann yesterday, a number of people used it as a touching-off point for the familiar old disputation between old film cameras and new digital ones. "Semilog," for example, wrote a characteristically eloquent comment that I enjoyed, and that you should read. 

...Except that it's really not a film vs. digital thing at all. Don't get me wrong; it's a good debate, and people had interesting things to say. It's just that there were "molded polycarbonate containers for electronic components" in the film era (I hated the Canon A2*, for example, before anything pixel-related was a gleam in my eye, and I recall loathing a certain hyper-gadgety Minolta a decade earlier than that—and that's just to name two), and there are at least a few digital cameras that have simplicity and grace.

I had lunch with a local photographer and TOP reader named Jack Macdonough the other day (who makes a good income selling prints, but that's a topic for another post), and as we were leaving he fished around in his camera bag and brought out the new Leica S2, the first one I've ever seen in the wild.

What an utterly beautiful device. It is truly what Ettore Bugatti called "le pur sang"—a thoroughbred. And you know why? It is beautifully, elegantly simple. It's just breathtaking in that regard. All business. Simple, straightforward, direct. Everything about it is concertedly directed at getting the picture. Not all pictures, even, but the kind of pictures it's the correct camera for. Ergonomic shape—big, beautiful, uncluttered viewfinder—quick, quiet, efficient autofocus—great shutter feel. Few buttons, zero gimmicks—no bells, whistles, flashing lights—or, at least, none that wet-fished me in the face when I picked the thing up and held it to my eye.

Here's Jack taken with his S2. I apologize for the woeful snapshot—I was really only listening to the shutter (nice and quiet). This doesn't even rise to the status of a test shot. I clicked the shutter twice. Next time I see him I'll ask him if I can borrow the S2, use up about eight minutes of his life, and make a portrait of him his wife might like.

If you know me, you know I've always been brutally honest about my opinions about Leica products. I'm no gushy, squishy Leica fanboy, never have been. And I only had Jack's S2 in my hands for ninety seconds—we were in the parking lot about to get into our cars, and talking about other things.

But I was mighty impressed all the same. The S2 struck me forcefully as a supremely confident camera design. Who but Leica, conceiving its flagship camera, could so resolutely eschew gee-whizzery? Sony earns a passing mention here for the straightforwardness of the A900/A850, but that's only relatively—relative to the competition. The S2 is is another league in this regard. No other camera maker would have—no other camera maker could have—the utter confidence to make a camera that does the important things well and just says no to all the rest to the same extent the S2 does.

I'll never own an S2. I'm not in the demographic. But if I want a Leica to daydream about, I know which one it will be. The S2 embodies the simplicity, directness, competence and responsiveness I've been advocating in all types of cameras for years. And it's the hardest thing in the whole world of cameras to pull off. The. Hardest. Thing.

Be not confused
But getting back to the original point about Michael R.'s quotation: there's simply nothing at all inherent in "film camera" that means the camera has to be a pleasing device—the number of flat-out dog cameras from the film era was legion. And there's nothing at all that says a camera can't give you all "the satisfaction of owning and using a high quality mechanical and optical device" just because it's digital. It's just not a film vs. digital issue at all, this time. Not at all.

Mike
(Thanks to Jack)

*The first camera I ever encountered that creaked when I squeezed it. Ugh.

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Featured Comment by Pak-Ming Wan: "I've read the this and the previous post and have a couple of comments about materials and the Canon A2 in particular (I owned one!).

"I was working in the mechanical engineering department of a university in IT support whilst I was a student, and I commented to a professor that the hinge on his laptop screen was getting loose and probably was just a cost-cutting undersight. His response was: 'It was probably designed that way as something that gives a little is probably going to last longer than a body that is rigid—at least for a system under dynamic load. But yes, it does look a little disturbing!' (If you notice, the only part of the unibody MacBook Pro line that is plastic is the hinge. And on my MacBook Pro, it's cracked a little: but better this than say the main board or screen itself.)

"For the A2 you were talking about, I owned the rest-of-world equivalent, the EOS 5, and when the command dial died, I decided to perform a strip down of it: Here's visual confirmation of what you say.

"The failing part which caused me to stop using this camera? A 5¢ spring in the command dial.

"I'd say however, like a chef chooses his knives, the main thing I look for now is heft. I can't stand a camera that is too heavy, but I do want a camera to feel considerable for it's size in my hand. And I want to know that when I accidentally drop it or hit it—it will survive. All of this I think just adds up to giving you the confidence that if you ever need an excuse when you take a bad photograph, it isn't going to be the machine, but the idiot looking through it."

Featured Comment by Zalman Stern: "(Disclaimer: I work for Adobe.)

"The S2 produces DNG format for its raw files, as do the M-series digitals and the X1. Thus the camera is usable with a very wide variety of raw conversion software, including all Adobe products, Phase One's Capture One, Apple's Aperture, Silkypix, etc. DNG publicly documented descriptive camera profiling information, including extended color profiles, lens correction profiles, and the generalized opcode mechanism. Adobe and Leica work together to produce high quality profiles for Leica cameras. Over time, the profiles are improved and extended and new profiles developed in the future can be used with existing cameras and previously taken photographs.

"(Adobe also provides free tools for photographers or dedicated professionals to create their own color profiles and lens profiles. And since the formats are open and well documented, there is a third party market for tools to create this information.)

"Jeff Grant wrote, 'No dedicated software to get the best out of the image.' Leica includes Lightroom, which many photographers consider to produce best in class image quality with the most productive workflow available. However if you prefer something else, there are many alternatives because Leica has chosen a very open approach to the file format. 'The best' from a digital file is open to interpretation, but it is still a moving target as conversion technology improves. One of the advantages of Leica's approach is it will have great access to future improvements as well.

"I've never understood why some photographers go out of their way to support and defend vendor lock-in on software and file formats. This approach was never lauded in the film world. The DIY beginnings of chemical photography, the vast infrastructure required, a penchant for alternative processes and approaches, the physical nature of the discipline, etc. resulted in a very open field where products from different companies were routinely mixed and matched to produce an end result. (Obviously the bulk of film was developed and printed using mass market techniques. But even there, the companies doing the backend work requested a degree of openness from their suppliers that is rare in proprietary digital formats.)

"Today as chemical-based photography is moving to a much smaller market, the ability of small companies and dedicated enthusiasts to make required components is vital. Part of that ability is because the discipline was well documented and open in certain ways.

"Leica has chosen to store images from their M, S, and X series cameras in a publicly documented, widely supported file format. This is truly in the best interest of photographers and a great feature of the products."

Our friend (and frequent TOP contributor) Gordon Lewis, of Shutterfinger fame, has authored, for Canon, a set of carry-along quick reference guides for your camera bag. Gordon refers to them as "cheatsheets" in his write-up about the project at Shutterfinger; Canon calls them "QuickGuides." They're free for download from the Canon Learning Center, and they're formatted so you can print them out, fold them up, and take them with you. If you shoot Canon, check 'em out.

Mike

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TOP's Man in Croatia, Editor-at-Large Vlatko Juric-Kokic, attends the Croatian press launch of the new Sony mirrorless cameras.

You really cannot go in depth about a camera if you had it in your hands for only a couple of hours, but you can tell what it is about. And Sony NEX cameras are all about consumer photography. I know that some might consider that term an oxymoron, but we are talking about the kind of photography that doesn't really care about capturing the perfect composition, that doesn't really care about technique, and even less about the intricate technical details of cameras. The people who commit consumer photography care about capturing the emotional content of their lives—the easier they can do that, the better.

Sony Alpha NEX-5

Sony is very clearly targeting just such people with NEX-3 and NEX-5. Even the presentation for journalists I attended was done like not a single one of us knows anything about cameras or photography. They talked about "creative defocusing," decreased noise, number of frames per second, the small size of the camera, the highness of its ISO and similar easily shown number-oriented features, as well as the ability to capture 3D pictures to display on Sony TV sets. In other words, typical consumer-marketing strategy, as if they were talking about a compact camera.

Buttoning up
Before you start thinking I'm seriously condemning both Sony and their new cameras, let's check how the camera operates. Note that I'm using singular: most of the journalists were handed the NEX-5. Sony positions it as the higher of the two models, but the differences are not big. The NEX-5 is slightly smaller, has magnesium alloy housing, and can capture video in 1080p resolution AVCHD. The rest is about the same. And the NEX-5 is really small, by the way. In spite of the size, it's quite comfortable to hold, due to its grip, but I would still recommend not holding it like a DSLR. On the other hand, the size meant that I accidentally pressed the menu button and dial quite often. (More often than on my Olympus Pen, which is bigger.)

Size comparison: Sony NEX-5 with 16mm pancake vs. Olympus E-P1 with OM Zuiko 28mm ƒ/2.8 via adapter. (Photo by Vlatko Juric-Kokic.)

The buttons are my main reason for irritation with the NEX cameras. They are designed like true compacts. That is, no direct fiddling with values. If you want to change the EV compensation, you have to go to the menu and then to Camera Settings. After you've done that, you have to stay with that value until you decide you want to change the EV compensation again. The same thing happens if you want to change ISO value—in that case you have to go to Brightness menu. I would say this different placing is just great for people who don't think that image parameters should be grouped together or don't care about it, but for photographers, at least, most of probably won't be welcome. Yes, I know you can adjust to the placement of the settings as well as to the work through the menus, but then, we can adjust to almost anything.

Seriously, though
In spite of the awkward way of working, NEX-5 is quite a nicely responsive little camera. Menus fairly zip by and the reviewing of captured photos goes quickly as well. Focusing also seems quite fast and the camera seems to lock on subjects properly. Provided, of course, you didn't let the camera decide where to focus, like your garden-variety compact user most probably would. Centre-point seems to be the most "serious" way of automatic focusing, but of course you have to recompose later. The only problem with the speed of the processor came after I shot an in-camera panorama or used the high-speed burst. The camera would obediently and quickly take the photos and then choke while writing them on the card. That might go better with a faster card (we had Group 4 SD cards), but given that the panorama is written only as JPEG, I'm inclined to doubt it. It takes time to process many photos.

The Slovene Miss Universe runner-up. Kit lens at 55mm, ƒ/5.6, ISO 1600.
(Photo by Vlatko Juric-Kokic.)

There is also a difference between the two lenses we could try—the 18–55mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 kit zoom and the 16mm ƒ/2.8 pancake. The kit zoom is a kit zoom. The photos taken with it look nicely sharp, although its slowness could be the main reason why more enthusiastic photographers won't warm to it.

The pancake
The pancake is yet another story. I'm not among those who think that ƒ/2.8 is a tragedy. Of course, something like ƒ/1.7 or even ƒ/2 would be more than welcome, but ƒ/2.8 is quite usable. The fact that it's wide-angle seems to be more problematic in use. Naturally, you can shoot with a wide-angle lens in lots of situations but it forces you to use a particular way of shooting. Sony recommends the use of digital zoom for those who are not familiar with wide angle lenses. One word: ewwww. Then there's typical wide-angle distortion when close to the subject which seems to be greater if the camera is in portrait orientation. On the other hand, I simply cannot decide what is the reason for softness on quite a lot of photos I took with the pancake—whether it was caused by the low shutter speed and camera shake, model movement, misfocus, the combination of any of the above...or that I say the lens is simply slightly soft wide open and be done with it. It would need more photos taken with the lens to be certain*.

A Slovene Playboy Playmate of the Month. 16mm pancake, wide open at ƒ/2.8, ISO 200. (Photo by Vlatko Juric-Kokic.)

Unlike the kit zoom, the pancake doesn't have the optical stabilisation. (And you turn the stabilisation for the zoom through the cumbersome menus.) When I asked why Sony abandoned their in-body stabilisation, I was told that it was because the stabilisation module from Alphas couldn't fit into such small bodies.

What certainly comes next is a super-zoom lens finely tuned for video work, with silent focusing. There apparently won't be an even wider lens than the pancake because Sony has already manufactured a fisheye converter for it.

A member of the Croatian National Swimming Team. 16mm pancake,
wide open at ƒ/2.8, ISO 200. (Photo by Vlatko Juric-Kokic.)

It's also certain that there will be new bodies, too. They didn't want to specify anything for the future bodies but I was told that they didn't just throw these two cameras in the market and that their engineers are already working on new models.

In the meantime, what we've got is two cameras firmly oriented towards consumers and people who want to step up from their compacts. For that part of the market the two NEX cameras seems to be very nice, but photography enthusiasts will probably have to either wait or take up with the competition.

Vlatko

*The softness of the 16mm is now a "known bug" and Sony has stated they didn't really mean it. That will give them a chance to figure out what's wrong and make it right.  —Ed.

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Video by Perpetual Radio Network, "your source for Canadian-made technology content."

Mike
(Thanks to Tom Kaszuba)

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Featured Comment by Sea Sun Wind: "And some images."

Sony NEX3. See cnet for more pictures.

It appears that the nex big camera introduction is Sony's entry into the digital electronic-viewfinder interchangeable-lens (DEVIL) category. cnet has a brief article about the NEX3 with some pictures of the camera, and a hands-on appraisal of the NEX5 with a video and some image samples (showing what appears to be good ISO 1600 performance. Scant evidence from which to draw conclusions, I admit, but still). cnet Senior Editor Lori Grunin's conclusion in her introductory video of the NEX5: "More than any other interchangeable-lens camera I've seen, the NEX5 seems optimized for the point-and-shoot upgrader—not necessarily because it's easier to use than any other, or that it's priced particularly low, but because it's full of constraints that will probably bother enthusiasts a lot more than snapshooters."

Meanwhile, TOP's indefatigable Official Roving Editor-At-Large, our man in Croatia, Vlatko Juric-Kokic, will be attending the Croatian launch of the Sony cameras nex week. He'll report*.

Mike

*Hopefully without Yr. Hmbl. Editor's gratuitous, lame, and obvious attempts at puns.

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I thought this might be kind of fun for a Saturday, although it's taken me so long to put it together that Saturday's half over already. The other day when I was writing the "Most Overpriced Camera in the World" post, it just occurred to me (I'm not even sure quite why) that I'm always taking price and value into account when I consider cameras. But there's not really a need to do that all the time. It got me to thinking—what are the most desirable cameras, price no object? It seems to me there are five, but don't let that stop you from disagreeing.

My picks, in no particular order:

• Nikon D700. It took Nikon nine years to make a digital analog (heh—sorry) of the F100, but they sure did it. Not quite Nikon's very best image quality, but the best 12 megapixels anybody could reasonably want. Overall a highly refined and flexible camera that's right in line with Nikon's age-old reputation for providing highly practical workhorse cameras with eminently sensible ergonomics. Could be 20% smaller if you ask me, but that's just me.

• Canon 5D Mark II. That famous and inimitable Canon CMOS image quality in push-the-envelope format—full frame, lots of size*, with outstanding high ISO capabilities. And decently portable, not like carrying around a calculus textbook. One test of a camera is when people still like it after they've owned it for a while and all the glow of newness (and self-congratulation) has worn off. This one, like four of my five here, qualifies with flying colors. And as a bonus, the best digital B&W I see consistently comes from Canon 5D's, old and new.

The business end of the all-business A900.

• Sony A900. It's true, you can buy the slightly de-tuned A850 for  $700 less and be 98% as happy, and no, the slight refinements and almost imperceptibly better build of the A900 are probably not objectively worth the difference in price. (The A850 was supposed to complement an A950, which fell victim to the global economic slump.) But we're talking most desirable here, and the A900 still has that over its slightly younger brother. I love the no-nonsense, pared-down nature of this camera—it's the Porsche 911 GT3 of cameras. My favorite of the bunch, at least until I see the Pentax. If I do.

• Leica M9. Not really my cuppa—it's a replicam—but people do desire the M9, of that there can be no dispute. Photographers clamored for just this very camera, and, if you overlook a bit of a false start (*cough* M8 *cough*), Leica delivered—making users very happy. Unlike the M8, no excuses necessary; unlike the M8, no problems with familiarity breeding contempt. The vast and stellar lens possibilities is a plus, as is the fact that you can't even fit a zoom. To own an M9 is to love it, if the reports that reach me are true.

• Pentax 645D. This list originally just had four cameras on it. I had to add this one—forced to—even though it's not out yet and isn't planned be exported to Europe and America in any case. This body style and its wonderful controls have been burnished to perfection over several generations, and, assuming the sensor measures up, this thing on paper looks like the coolest camera ever made. Anyway the key word in this post is "desirable," and I want one.

A few words of explanation: I rank the various "pro" cameras as a little less desirable than the four 35mm-style DSLRs above because they're too big and heavy. Plus, if you're just carrying around a camera to take an occasional snap with, like a normal person, they can make you look like a bit of a poseur if you're not careful. The big beasts don't appeal to me quite as much as the camera-sized cameras.

And much as I like little cameras, they're still, well, little. Their littleness is their big appeal. When you get right down to it there's no little camera that does as competently what a big one will.

And you'll note that even though we're going for ultimates here, I'm still being practical in the sense that these are all eminently usable and practical cameras. Even the "most desirable" cameras are still tools to take pictures with.

An Honorable Mention
The Most Desirable Lens Line on the Planet: The Olympus Zuiko Digital Super High Grade line. There are only six of them; two are primes, but both primes are extreme telephotos. But I think they're the finest lenses for photography money can buy at this point. We'll be posting a user report on the two best Zuiko Digital Super High Grades on Monday.

So: your turn. Agree with my Five? Disagree? Or do you just desire something not mentioned more? I'm all ears**.

Mike

*Pixels.
**But we're just having fun here. Nothing we say has any real effect on anything.

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Featured Comment by ER: "What—no Leica S2???"

Featured Comment by Kent: "The funny thing about this post is that everyone who owns one of the cameras mentioned will agree, and everyone who doesn't won't. Moi? D700 user. I agree totally! (That was easy.)"

Featured Comment by El Inglés: "I'd have to find room for the Nikon F6, the ultimate 35mm SLR in more than one sense."

Featured Comment by Isaac Crawford: "Eh, Richard Ritter's 8x10 is the only one that tempts me these days. I still don't like using cameras I have to turn on...."

Mike replies: I'd agree with that, except my Mamiya 7 has an on-off switch....

Featured Comment by hugh crawford: "The 'Most Desirable Cameras on the Planet' are the ones they don't make yet. Everybody knows that."

Even reviewers were never really privy to truly inside information about the camera industry—at least not in the English-speaking world. But I had it on pretty good authority a number of years ago that as a general rule of thumb, the cost basis of a camera is approximately 1/4th of its street price. The rest goes to overhead, middlemen, advertising, and support and service. That would mean a Sony A900 has a unit cost of $675 to manufacture and a Canon S90 costs a bit less than a hundred bucks to make. Sounds about right, if you take as Kentucky windage the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

When we say a camera is overpriced, what we mean would be a camera that sells for a higher multiple of its cost basis than 4. There are a couple of "situation normals" here: it would make sense that unpopular cameras and cameras that are about to be discontinued sell for closer to their unit cost, and popular cameras have more margin built in. We're all aware that new cameras often have a healthier price than the same camera will when it's a year or two old and its shimmer of newness is gone. Although, of course, the cost to manufacture might well go down over the lifetime of a successful product.

You might think that I'd name the most expensive cameras on the current market as the most overpriced, but I wouldn't. True, the Nikon D3x costs $7,470, and that's 3.7X the cost of the Sony A850 which has the same sensor. But I'd never call the D3x overpriced. It really does offer features and build that justify its cost. Or you might think I'd call out the Leica S2. Again, no. It's a unique offering and part of an all-new system, from a company that no doubt had to invest deeply in its development. I have no problem believing that it's selling for 4x what it costs to manufacture. Well, maybe 6X—I don't know—but nothing so terrible.

We can't really count rare collectibles or auction items, since those things are essentially sold for what the market will bear—more than anything else, they sell for exactly the right price. Boutique cameras such as Leica "collectibles" (I've gotten great mileage over the years ridiculing the "King Bhumiphol" M6, but it actually had actual value added to it—its gold plating—and proceeds from its sale actually did go to a good cause) might be priced at, oh, say, ten times their cost to manufacture, so you might think they're the overpriced champs...

...But not even close. No, nothing in the world comes close to this, the Diana Mini—nothing except other very similar cameras. Now, I've got nothing against the Diana or its aesthetic. I've seen great work done with them and I've even done some myself. But let's face it—even for a piece of sh•t, this is a piece of sh•t! I simply can't imagine that it costs more than a dollar to manufacture, and it might actually be some fraction of a dollar. In Oak Park, Illinois, there's a toy store called Pumpkin Moon that is chock full of cheap '50s-era style toys, and they've got buckets of things on sale for 25¢ or 50¢ or a dollar that seem just as well made to me as the Diana Mini. Diana cameras in my day—the 120 ones—cost $5, and might have been overpriced at that, compared to the markup multiple on, oh, say, an Olympus E-30, a camera that strikes me as particularly well made relative to its selling price. I once interviewed a photographer in Boston called Mary Kocol who made a body of work that consisted of very large prints made from color negatives shot with a camera called a "Sun Pet." The price of the Sun Pet? $2.98 and five "Bazooka Joe" comics. And somebody somewhere was making a profit on that, bless 'em.

In fact I'd love to see a really well-made plastic camera come on the market. I have no doubt that a decent modern plastics fabricator using good modern plastics could and would run rings around the ancient, shoddy Dianas. Of course, the question of why you'd do such a thing could preoccupy philosophers; but I can think of one really good reason. Imagine if a top-flight model manufacturer such as Tamiya were to make a model camera kit. Any half competent designer could come up with a kit camera that would run rings round the Dianas of the world. And I'd love to see such a camera model packaged with everything a kid would need to expose a roll of 120 rollfilm and take it to the proofing stage. If there were any market for it at all, I'll bet you could do all that for less than the $55 now being asked for a Diana Mini. I picture legions of future photo fans who'd carry fond childhood memories of such a thing into old age.

And would you be tempted to build one? I'm not sure I'd be able to resist. But then, I've been certified as certifiable about such things.

But in any event, I think the Diana Mini takes the "overpriced" prize going away. Without knowing what it costs to make, I simply can't imagine that its current price represents anything less than 20X its unit cost to manufacture. And the real multiple could conceivably be as high as 100X!

Either way, it puts even the King Bhumiphol Leica squarely in the dust.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Jim Mooney: "Tamiya Camera Kit? I'd build it for sure. Not that I need it or can't already take a roll of 120 from package to proof with what I have on the shelf in the basement, but I would totally build one just because it sounds really cool and would be a blast."

Featured [partial] Comment by Kelvin: "Blame the funky hipsters...."

Featured Comment by Paul Amyes: "The kit has already been made by Otona no Kagaku magazine and is available from Japan Exposures. I do agree with you about toy cameras. Here in Oz the local distributer for Holga sells them at $120 AUD, they can be bought of off Ebay for $25 and I got one in China for $5. I'd be very surprised if they cost more than $1 to make."

Featured Comment by Luke: "Tamiya story: Long ago I assembled a very detailed Tamiya model of a Formula 1 Ferrari. I was disappointed when two body panels fit poorly, with a crude overlap, especially since the rest of the kit was so perfectly detailed. Several years later, I saw the actual car at a vintage racing event. The same two body panels had the exact same crude overlap."

According to rumors, Sony's competitors in the mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera segment will be announced on May 11th. They'll allegedly be called the Nex3 and Nex5, supposedly the only difference being in their respective video capabilities.

Really a pity that Sony, like Samsung, opted not to follow the Micro 4/3 standard. Wouldn't it be nice to have a number of manufacturers all providing options in the same system? But Sony has a long history of trying to make all its products proprietary. (If you didn't remember that, I'm happy to whack you with the, um, memory stick.)

We'll report the news once it's actually news.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Will Frostmill: "I for one, welcome our new...oh heck, I don't have the heart to complain about Sony yet. I'll wait for the hands-on reviews to complain bitterly about some way they have let me down. The camera I really want is unlikely to be produced before 2013 anyway, so it seems pointless to complain that any company isn't delivering it right now, darn it.

"Oh, what do I want? Something pocketable, with a noise-free ISO 1600. Also, fast AF, and 9 stops of dynamic range, and a pony.

"Or 15 stops of dynamic range at a noiseless ISO 6400 and a unicorn. Can you tell I want to take pictures at 1/60th in EV 0 conditions?"

The Pentax K-x broke new ground by being made available in Japan in a broad spectrum of body colors. Until now, U.S. K-x's were available in black, white, red, and navy blue—more colors than most cameras come in, but far short of what's available in Japan. The colors have been a surprisingly popular option both there and here, however, so Pentax USA is now importing four more color options—I guess I don't have to write this in English, assuming you can see the picture above, but the new colors are green, orange, purple, and bright blue.

The new colors are available exclusively (for the time being, anyway) at the Pentax webstore, sold with the compact 18–55mm kit lens for the nice price of $649.95.

The K-x has been a very good seller, even to Pentax aficionados who also have higher-end DSLRs.

Mike

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I noticed that the not-yet-three-year-old Sony A700 has been definitely discontinued, distinctly dispensed with, definitively dropped, but that nothing has come along to replace it yet. Is there anything known to the cloud-mind about this? An A701 out there where the sky meets the earth? Do we have moles at Sony? Any loose-lipped pros under bendable NDAs? Is there a "Sony rumors" site? That's a pretty big hole between the $850 A550 and the $2k A850. Not to mention a gap of 300 A's...I'm just sayin'.

Mike, a-wonderin'

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Featured Comment by James McDermott: "Sony's ultimate aim is to have a bespoke DSLR model for every customer. There appear to be approximately two million A200, A300, A400 and A500 variants out there at the moment. The A700 was bought by a Mr. Wayne Kopalski of Akron, Ohio; having reached its production target of one, the model was discontinued immediately thereafter."

ADDENDUM: More seriously, I'd just like to say that I consider this a major stumble on Sony's part. Not a critical mistake—just a stumble, like a politician making a bad gaffe.

Sony is still new to this market—the DSLR end of the camera business—and for it to leave this critical segment of the product spectrum vacant is akin to a TV station broadcasting dead air. (I've never worked at a television station, but I imagine that few things set the crews scrambling like dead air.) It's not like an overdue update where the old model is getting long in the tooth and overly familiar (or simply obsolescent—Olympus's long E-1—>E-3 gap is still the paradigm stumble of that type). It's that the old one is gone, as in NLA, and if there are customers standing at the counter waving $1100-$1400 in cash in their hands, there's nothing there for them to buy. Not good. 

I can't imagine giant Sony would even hear what I have to say, much less pay any attention to it, but in my humble opinion it's time for a concrete announcement and a commitment to a firm release date, if possible.

I've been a fan of Sony cameras for a long time, and I'm a big cheerleader of the A850/A900 duo (see also here...and here, about three-quarters the way down). So I'm hardly anti-Sony. But I gotta call it like I see it. Amateur prognosticators all over the internet love to opine that "so-and-so is going to lose market share," and I hardly ever say that. But I know the enthusiast market if I know my name, and in this case my opinion is that Sony really is taking a chance on losing some customers. —MJ

Well, Jeff Ascough has come clean that his elaborate (and very popular) rumor about testing a new rangefinder was an April 1 hoax, as many suspected. (Hey, saves me having to concoct my own April Fool's joke.)

The far-flung response and interest in his tantalizing fraud seem to reveal one thing for sure, though—there seems to be a massive pent-up desire for one of the bigs—or, at least, somebody other than Leica—to build a digital rangefinder.

I'm skeptical, myself. My thesis—empirical, as usual—is that the Leica rangefinder is popular because it's a Leica, not because it's a rangefinder. People don't actually like rangefinders much. (We will now here from many of those who do. Can we just stipulate that "we know you're out there"? We will also hear from everybody who thinks the Voigtländer Bessas have been "popular." Okay—but that's just relatively. In terms of hard numbers, no.)

Can I also just point out here that people often say they want something that they would not actually buy if indeed they could?

People say they want Canon or Nikon to make a digital rangefinder. I heard an insider rumor a year or two ago that a big manufacturer was fairly far along with plans for just such a camera, but that Leica went to them and begged them not to do it, saying it would be the death of Leica. Leica is revered in Japan, and, according to my source, this Japanese company acquiesced, and shelved its plans. What that means—if there's any truth to that story—is that if you really want a cheaper M-mount digital rangefinder, your best bet is to be rooting for Leica to go out of business, because that's what it would take to clear the way for the camera you say you want. Is that what you want?

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Featured Comment by Voltz: "It wasn't a rumour; I tested an alpha prototype. I hadn't heard that it was Leica that killed it, only that development had been stopped. I blamed the global financial crisis."