Digital Camera Wish List
- Large Aperture
Because digital camera imaging sensors are smaller,
it is easier to make lenses with large aperture.
- natural light shooting in low light
- fast shutter speed for action
- low sensitivity mode for low noise
- shallow depth of field for subject emphasis
- sharp diffraction on high resolution small CCD
- large area flash
- burst mode flash
- fast auto focus
E.g.,
- f/1.8-2.6:
- f/2.0-2.4:
- f/2.0-2.5:
I wish to see f/1.4.
- Telephoto
Because of the small size of CCD, it is easy to make long lens.
E.g., a 50mm lens on a digital camera may be equivalent to a 300mm on 35mm format.
In 35mm equivalent:
High quality tele converters:
I wish to see 400mm f/2.
- Wide Angle
It is difficult to make short lens for small imager.
High quality WA converters:
- Macro
Digital camera imaging sensors are small, e.g., 1/5 the size of 35mm film.
So it is easier to capture small objects.
E.g.,
Nikon 4500
can capture an area of 20mm wide.
This is about 1:3 with the CCD size of 7mm.
To capture the same area with 35mm film, it would need to go beyond 1:1 to about 2:1.
High quality macro converters:
I wish to see 1:2 macro at tele.
- High Sensitivity
High sensitivity mode can use fast shutter speed in low light,
can use small aperture for sharp lens imaging.
I wish to see clean ISO400.
- Low Sensitivity
Low sensitivity mode can produce low noise,
can use slow shutter speed for motion effects,
can use large aperture for sharp diffraction,
can eliminate neutral density filter to improve optical path.
I wish to see ISO 25.
- Burst Mode
Fast continuous shooting is important for action.
- TeleScope
Because of small imager and lens,
digital camera can shoot through optical instruments designed for human eye,
e.g., telescope, microscope, etc.
- Auto Focus
Focus Speed
Focus Lock
-
Nikon 4500
AF Lock button can be seperate from shutter release
Focus Point
- Manual Focus
SLR optical view finder with focus screen:
- CCD-Raw
TIFF is 3 times the size of CCD-Raw, with no extra information.
A 3 times compressed JPEG is the same size as CCD-Raw, with some information lost.
A 6 times compressed JPEG is half the size of CCD-Raw, with noticeable degrading sometimes.
So CCD-Raw provides both the highest quality and small size.
Further more, because it does not need to do interpolation and JPEG compression,
CCD-Raw can also be fast.
- Infra-Red
CCD is sensitive to infrared.
-
Some camera's IR block filter is not strong.
E.g., with an opaque 780nm filter,
Olympus C-2020
can capture infrared at ISO100 f/2.8 1/30s under sunlight.
-
Sony F717
has a removable IR block filter. But the exposure is limited to f/2 1/60s.
- Bulb Shutter
Bulb shutter controls when to close shutter,
not just a beforehand guess of number of seconds.
This is important for fireworks, etc.
- Compact
Digital cameras' imagers are small, and lenses can be small.
Digital cameras do not have large film cartridges and film driving motors.
Digital cameras can be small. E.g.:
- Movie
There are not many camcorders that can do 640x480x30fps and use 1M-pixel for video.
Some still cameras can do movie, e.g.:
- Monitor
- Charger
Control the charging of each cell individually:
- External Flash
With external flash it is possible to do bounce to get soft light.
- TTL Flash:
The camera automatically controls the flash duration according to the aperture and sensitivity.
Nikon dedicated flash:
- E-TTL, A-TTL:
Pre-flash to measure exposure. Eyes might close after the pre-flash.
- Automatic Flash:
You need to manually set sensitivity and aperture on both the camera and the flash.
Then the flash automatically controls the duration according to the subject reflection.
-
Metz 54 MZ
| GN | 177 ft @ | 105 mm
|
| GN | 151 ft @ | 85 mm
|
| GN | 144 ft @ | 70 mm
|
| GN | 131 ft @ | 50 mm
|
| GN | 112 ft @ | 35 mm
|
| GN | 102 ft @ | 28 mm
|
| GN | 92 ft @ | 24 mm
|
-
Vivitar 285
| GN 140 ft @ | 105 mm
|
| GN 120 ft @ | 50 mm
|
| GN 100 ft @ | 35 mm
|
-
Vivitar 283
-
Sunpak 383
- Canon E-TTL
-
Canon 580EX
| Focal Length (mm) | 105 | 80 | 70 | 50 | 35 | 28 | 24
|
| Guide Number (ft) | 190 | 174 | 164 | 139 | 119 | 99 | 92
|
-
Canon 550EX
| Focal Length (mm) | 105 | 80 | 70 | 50 | 35 | 28 | 24
|
| Guide Number (ft) | 182 | 165 | 152 | 139 | 119 | 99 | 92
|
-
Metz 54 AF
| Focal Length (mm) | 105 | 85 | 70 | 50 | 35 | 28 | 24
|
| Guide Number (ft) | 177 | 151 | 144 | 131 | 112 | 102 | 92
|
-
Sigma EF 500 DG
| Focal Length (mm) | 105 | 85 | 70 | 50 | 35 | 28
|
| Guide Number (ft) | 165 | 157 | 151 | 132 | 115 | 98
|
- 35mm SLR
- To use 35mm lenses, the digital sensor size must be close to 35mm film.
This is much larger than other digital sensors.
The resulting per pixel area is 10 times larger.
So the sensitivity can be 10 times higher.
I wish to see clean ISO800.
- Prime Lens: Large Aperture, Low Flare, High Contrast, Fine Resolution
- Fast Auto Focus: Phase Detection
- Slow Flash Sync: Focal Plane Shutter
- Canon
-
Canon 350D: 8MP
-
EF-S
-
Variable Aperture Zoom
-
Small Aperture Zoom
-
Large Aperture Zoom
-
Small Aperture Prime
-
Medium Aperture Prime
-
Large Aperture Prime
-
Canon 1.4x
-
Canon 2x
- Nikon
-
Nikon D50: 1/500s X Sync
-
DX
-
Small Aperture Prime
-
Large Aperture Prime
- Minolta
- Pentax
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