The changing field of professional cameras

[skieur]

Carl Zeiss Quality - Made by Cosina

Yes, for Nikon manual lenses.

skieur

 

[skieur]

"ZEISS lenses for Sony digital cameras are developed by lens designers at the Carl Zeiss plant in Oberkochen, Germany. This includes all required quality assurance measures (test methods, test criteria, test devices, test procedures, lens performance target values, etc.) The lenses are then made in a lens production facility jointly chosen by Sony and Carl Zeiss. Quality assurance specialists from the Carl Zeiss plant in Oberkochen implement the ZEISS quality assurance system in the chosen facility. Many ZEISS optic measuring systems are installed. Carl Zeiss audits the lens production areas on a regular basis"

skieur.

 

[skieur]

I don't know much about Sony glass but aren't Zeiss lenses supposed to be good?

Yeah, just like Pizza is supposed to be a vegetable.

 

[mjhoward]

With design changes more pixels can be better and they are changing the design.

skieur

That's nice and all but the sensor is only half the equation. You can have a super high res sensor with the best specs imaginable but unless you've got glass in front of it that is capable of resolving those smaller spots and preserving the contrast... who cares?

Yes, and the Zeiss, Sony G lenses, and Minolta lenses do that.

skieur

Your response indicates that you think it is as cut and dry as either 'they do' or 'they don't'... which is not the case. I suggest you read a little more about optics and the modulation transfer function.

 

[Derrel]

"Carl Zeiss audits the lens production areas on a regular basis"

skieur.

Oh, thank goodness they send some people around with a clipboard on a regular basis!!

I know Minolta was famous as a lens maker...they used to make the, uh, the, uh...50mm f/1.7 Rokkor-X...it had multi-coating!!!

 

[unpopular]

Oh Derrel. You're getting all stupid again.

 

[greybeard38 10]

Zeiss Lenses.

The thought of 36MP density on a full frame sensor would make one wonder if the optics will be up to it. I do have a camera that has roughly the same pixel density on the sensor with a Zeiss Lens. It's a Sony F828. It comes with a Zeiss T* 7X zoom. It has a 8MP, 2/3" type (8.8 x 6.6 mm) RGBE color filter array 2.7 µm pixel pitch sensor. If my math is correct the pixel density should be close to that of a 36MP full frame sensor. My point is that the Zeiss Lens on my camera is more than up to the task. I also have a Nikon d5100 and with both cameras set at ISO100 and roughly 8MP, the Sony has the edge in sharpness and contrast when the Nikon is using the 18-55mm kit Nikkor kit lens. Comparing it with a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 then the Nikon has the edge but, not by all that much. In this case, Zeiss can more than handle the resolution needed for 36MP. The big problem my F828 has is high ISO noise. It's fine at 64-100, usable at 200 and 400-800 really suck. Hopefully Sony has solved the problem of high noise with small pixels.

 

[skieur]

"Carl Zeiss audits the lens production areas on a regular basis"

skieur.

Oh, thank goodness they send some people around with a clipboard on a regular basis!!

I know Minolta was famous as a lens maker...they used to make the, uh, the, uh...50mm f/1.7 Rokkor-X...it had multi-coating!!!

Yes, and Minolta used to make lenses with better sharpness results in the lab, than Nikon according to Popular Photography tests.

skieur

 

[skieur]

Zeiss Lenses.

The thought of 36MP density on a full frame sensor would make one wonder if the optics will be up to it. I do have a camera that has roughly the same pixel density on the sensor with a Zeiss Lens. It's a Sony F828. It comes with a Zeiss T* 7X zoom. It has a 8MP, 2/3" type (8.8 x 6.6 mm) RGBE color filter array 2.7 µm pixel pitch sensor. If my math is correct the pixel density should be close to that of a 36MP full frame sensor. My point is that the Zeiss Lens on my camera is more than up to the task. I also have a Nikon d5100 and with both cameras set at ISO100 and roughly 8MP, the Sony has the edge in sharpness and contrast when the Nikon is using the 18-55mm kit Nikkor kit lens. Comparing it with a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 then the Nikon has the edge but, not by all that much. In this case, Zeiss can more than handle the resolution needed for 36MP. The big problem my F828 has is high ISO noise. It's fine at 64-100, usable at 200 and 400-800 really suck. Hopefully Sony has solved the problem of high noise with small pixels.

There are different kinds of noise. Sony has solved the random noise problem with their twilight mode. Thermal noise is solvable by reducing the heat. The small pixel problem can be solved by increasing the space which by the way does not require a bigger sensor. A multi-level sensor will handle that issue quite well.

skieur

 

[Derrel]

I'm old enough to remember the Pop and Modern Photography tests. Minolta might indeed have had a lens or two that out-resolved a Nikkor lens. It's too bad that Minolta's cameras, accessories,and flash systems were never good enough to elevate them above the amateur market, where they slowly faded from mild relevance to total,utter irrelevance. When autofocus was introduced, Minolta's Maxxum 7000 was a nice camera, but Minolta lost out to the then-new Canon EOS system, and Nikon, with its backward-compatible lens mount. Then, when digital SLR's came onto the scene, Minolta was unable to produce a camera that could compete against the Nikon, Canon, and FujiFilm, and Kodak cameras that totally dominated the professional and high-end enthusiast market.

The real truth of the matter is that Minolta is now a dead camera maker. Their products never could compete. They have NEVER, as in NEVER, made a successful "professional camera" that sold and was used to professionals in any significant number. That is what you seem to be missing in this thread skieur--a professional camera is one that professionals actually buy, and use. "The changing field of professional cameras" is still a field in which Canon and Nikon totally dominate all other small-camera brands. Simple as that.

 

[skieur]

Worldwide Digital Camera Market Shares by Vendor
====================================================
Vendor 2010 2009
----------------------------------------------------
Canon 19 19
Sony 17.9 16.9
Nikon 12.6 11.1
Samsung 11.1 10.9
Kodak 7.4 8.8
Panasonic 7.6 7.6
Olympus 6.1 6.2
Fuji 4.9 5.4
Casio 4 4.7
PENTAX 1.5 1.7
Vivitar 1.2 0.7
Other 6.7 7


It seems that your so-called "not a real camera" DERREL has overtaken Nikon in marketshare. Perhaps you should be talking about Nikon as the dying camera maker instead of Sony.

skieur

 

[Derrel]

Sony does sell a loooooooot of "digital cameras", for sure. They make a lot of point and shoots. And video cameras. And some fine television sets. And some so-so computers. They make a mean Discman, and some awesome headphones as well!! Sony is a consumer electronics company with a lot of leverage over retail shelf space, world-wide.

Market share is nice for Sony. Of course, in terms of sheer numbers, feces is the leading food for maggots. I mean, 100 billion flies cannot possibly be wrong, can they? And Ernest and Julio Gallo is America's best-selling wine brand, sold mostly in 1/2 and 1-gallon jugs. And WalMart is the best retail store in America. And McDonald's is a top,top restaurant! Kraft individually-wrapped processed cheese slices are the #1 cheese product. Big, big numbers can be deceptive, or as in your case, totally,totally IRRELEVANT to the subject at hand, which is "professional cameras."

Mercedes and BMW do quite well with less than 1.5 percent of the worldwide car market. I would dearly love to read about a successful SONY professional camera in use for say, newspaper sports. I watched last night's BCS championship game like a hawk, and all along the sidelines were all these silly Nikon and Canon shooters...I didn't see a single Sony A77 "professional camera" in use...huh...those guys from the AP and Sports Illustrated must not know what gold they are missing by not shooting a Sony pro-cam,eh?

The title of this thread is "The changing field of professional cameras". So far, it seems like you're the only one who wants, and very badly I might add, to claim that the A77 is a professional camera. I'm glad Sony's worldwide digital camera sales figures are so high...but until they make a camera that is widely adopted by professionals, then I do not think they have a "professional camera". See, the marketplace decides what is a professional camera, and so far, only Canon and Nikon cameras and lenses have won that title...it's a title that can NOT be bought by launching a magazine called Sony Style [Sony Style Magazine Covers], and selling it at hipster supermarkets. Or by flooding Best Buy and Target stores with cheap digital cameras and d-slrs spaced $149 apart in a line that extends from cheap-o to $1499...ie flooding the market, Sony-style.

 

[mjhoward]

It seems that your so-called "not a real camera" DERREL has overtaken Nikon in marketshare. Perhaps you should be talking about Nikon as the dying camera maker instead of Sony.

skieur

Is this how you conduct all your research??? No wonder you're clueless. You might as well include the PS3 in those figures as they have nothing to do with 'professional' or even enthusiast level photography products.

Sony, Nikon Narrow Gap to Canon With New Digital Camera Models - Bloomberg

"In the market for cameras with interchangeable lens, or single lens reflex cameras, Canon controlled 44.5 percent of the market, followed by Nikon with 29.8 percent and Sony with 11.9 percent, according to the data."

So to make it easy for you, sales for DSLR's:
Canon - 44.5%
Nikon - 29.8%
Sony - 11.9%

The 'dying' camera maker has almost 3x the market share for DSLR's over your obsession. I bet if these figures were only for Full Frame DSLR's... the gap would be even much larger.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

And Sony's market share is irrelevant. Unless topic changes to The Changing field of Consumer Cameras.

Bestbuy and Facebook DSLR stats don't count for much in this thread.

 

[unpopular]

I win

NIKON - D4 16.2-Megapixel Digital SLR Camera (Body Only) - Black - D4