Is there a camera which stands out over the other? ... a Perfect 10!

I browse through a number of camera reviews in the net, or in photo/
camera magazines. I do not see a camera which has a perfect 10, and
blows out the others from the scale. It appears that all cameras have
mediocre image quality. Some known camera reviews gives image quality
on top DSLR camera either an 8 or 8.5 out of 10 (Do they reserve a 9
and 10 for future camera which may never exist?) . When I visited
their galleries showing photos taken from the various DSLR, I could
not find any one brand that stands out over the others. So... the
bottom line is whether there is a camera which blows away the
competition? When the ISO is pushed up... all images generally grainy
and lost its colours and sharpness. I looked at photos taken by a
D200, D80, D40, D40x, Xt, Xti, 5D, 30D, K100D, K10D, L1, E410, E-500
or otherr... in comparison shots, and no one camera stands out over
the others. Is there really a perfect 10 out there? or, I am just
being too picky? Or is it just my eyes that I like to see photos that
sharp and very colourful? Some photo comparisons from a review website
show that most of them have very dull colour.... no colourful ones.
Thanks for the comments

 

Yes, there really is a perfect 10, but it's not one of the cameras
that you listed. The camera that meets your criteria can only be
Canon's 16mp EOS-1Ds Mark II. Back in early 2005 Canon placed a
number of ads in various Camera/Photo magazines, and one entire side
of their 16" x 20" insert was a photo of Bo Derek. With or without
Bo, it's a great camera that few can afford. Here's a very limited
sampling from DPReview's Conclusion page showing that this camera,
if not a perfect 10, really comes close.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/CanonEOS1DsMkII/page26.asp

 

The camera you are using is the one that's going to give you the results you
are the photographer and depends on how well you use the tool.

Duncan

 

If they all look dull Its because you monitor is set that way.

 

Get a medium format camera and a good scanner if you want the best image
quality.

 

Can't you buy 10x8 sheet film in your neck of the woods?

 

It's amusing hearing the claim that "maximum image quality"
is the prime, overriding, consideration (espoused
in various different ways).

If that had been true in the silver-film era,
we'd ALL have been using 10x8 view cameras.

And yet, for some reason, we weren't.

Hmm. Perhaps there are other factors

BugBear

 

Hear-hear! APPLAUSE!

I just bought a Rolleicord Va and the 16 shot kit for it, it will do 6x6cm and 6x4.5cm frames
on 120 roll film. I have always been a firm believer in film_to_digital using scanners because
there are things film can still do that digital cannot, such as "artistic beauty" rather than rigid
digital_computer_perfection. A great way to go. And that Schneider Xenar lens is second to
none! Same lens in the Rolleicord Vb, these obviously are scanned images, see if you have a
problem with this:
http://www.pbase.com/cameras/rollei/rolleicord_vb

You'd need a flatbed scanner with a light lid, Microtek or Umax. I recommend the Microtek
for the quality of their native software and digital ice.

 

I have similar arguments with a friend who is an audiophile over vinyl
versus CD (him being the vinyl nut)

I own a Rolleicord also and remember once doing some wedding work for
another photographer. These were rather low budget affairs and he'd
give me three rolls of 120 film to do the job. He'd expect 34 saleable
shots, and he'd get them too.. Often I don't think it's the fact that
film is any better than digital. Rather, the more expensive the format,
the more care you are going to take in getting that shot right.

 

Hurrah! I've been saying that for years but the digerati repeat their mantra
that they can take a thousand crap photos a day and magically get better.

Hah!

 

I had a Roleicord Vb and never really thought it that wonderful a camera.

It certainly did well enough, but there were many TLR's made that
did as well or better.

As for digital photographs, yes they will technicaly get better as time
goes on, but what really matters is the quality of the photographer,
not the camera.

Earlier in the thread someone said that he could take 36 shots with
a Roleicord and get 34 saleable ones. I'd bet that he could do the
same with a digital camera too.

The differnce you are seeing is IMHO that the average photographer can afford
to take a thousand photos a day, crap or not with a digital camera, but
how many people can afford to take that many on film?

It's the law of averages. If you take one good shot in 100 then you get
10 with a digitial camera that takes 1000 on a memory card.

If you did that on 35mm, you would need three rolls of film to get one
and on 6x6, 9 rolls.

Geoff.

 

Yeah true. I learned to take photos using film when I was young and therefore
skint. So I had to learn to get a higher percentage of good shots because it
was costly to throw 90% away. Getting a 20% hit rate made a significant
difference to my productivity or good pictures per pound spent.

I improved because there were financial constraints forcing me to.

Had I been using digital then (if it was available in the late '80s) I'd
probably have got bored as I would not have been paying as much attention to
what made the good ones good.

Now I recommend digital to anyone, and I'd buy digital if it didn't mean a
complete outfit for many pounds, pounds I don't have spare. I just think that
there is an important learning process that is borne from a high cost per shot.

Rich

 

There certainly is, but not yet. We'll know it when it arrives because
it will score 11. I recommend that you wait for it and not waste your
money on today's inferior cameras.

 

The learning process is a result of discipline.

That discipline can be imposed from outside. Your high film cost was
a perfect example of that. Wasting a shot was anathema, so you made
the effort to make each and every shot count.

In my case, the discipline was imposed by my grandfather who was an
able photographer, with many pictures published over a period of 50
years. He was a hard taskmaster, and very demanding.

As a student I shot Saturday weddings as an assistant but the pro
photographer liked a drink on Friday night and often didn't turn up.
So I had to ensure that my shots were up to scratch, and I quickly
learnt to raise my game - another example of external discipline.

A further example of external discipline is critique. However,
finding good critique is like finding a needle in a haystack. Plenty
of mediocre shooters will pass comment, but their opinions are worth
squat if they cannot shoot a good image themselves.

The worst of all critique comes from the average camera club, where
the paragons of mediocrity ensure that everyone stays at or below the
same level of incompetence and any attempt to improve is firmly
deterred. Some camera clubs don't fit this mould but they are very
hard to find.

The best form of discipline is of course self-discipline. That
self-discipline is notably absent from the people who shoot thousands
of crap shots (your words from another posting) and don't learn
anything from them, so they never improve.

There is a lot to be said for applying the "high cost discipline" of
film to digital photography, by making every shot count, rather than
shooting many shots in the hope that one or two will be acceptable.

If digital shooters discipline themselves to analyse every single
shot, learning from their mistakes and noting what factors can turn
their ordinary shots into great images, they can acheieve remarkable
things. Without such discipline, they are just trusting to luck, and
the chance that they will make a fine image quite by accident.

And then there is Photoshop, which some people believe can be used to
turn their mediocre images into masterpieces. Let's not go there ...

;-)

 

That's why I learned to bulk load 35mm film by hand and how to judge
how a negative would look when printed.

My first roll of bulk film was a 10m roll of Adox KB-14 which I paid $6 for.
That was in the days that hamberger joints sold a burger, fries and
a shake for $.45.

I could not afford a bulk loader, I loaded film in a windowless bathroom.
In those days there were plenty of reloadable casettes around.

Geoff.

 

Best advice yet to aniramca. ;-)

 

Tony Polson wrote:

<snip>
I have been a member of only one camera club, about 30 years ago. Some
of the members were adventuresome, but the majority was not necessarily
mediocre, but stuck in past; also there was a great deal of
misinformation floating around. As an example, one of the founding
members (there long before I arrived) said in a meeting that closeup
lenses required exposure compensation but extension tubes did not. I
started trying to explain that the reverse was true, but he wouldn't
listen, insisting that he was right. His own pictures disproved his
argument, but he couldn't see it.

On the general topic of film vs. digital, one of the major differences
is the learning curve. People may criticize the ability to pop off
dozens of exposures on digital instead of two or three on film, but with
digital one can see one's mistakes instantly. Ad an analogy, let's say
you put your hand on a red-hot stove: you would immediately associate
the pain with the stove and pull your hand back, but if the pain didn't
appear until perhaps a few days later would you immediately associate it
with that stove incident?

As for Rolleis and other TLRs: Yes, they are great cameras for certain
purposes, but the list of purposes doesn't include close-ups, where
parallax rears its ugly head. I also had a problem following action
while looking down into the hood.

Allen

 

But with pain it is difficult not to react. With photography it is very easy
not to see the mistakes in the beginning. So it's a bit dark. So what?

Thierry

 

Now all digital is "snapped"...
http://findatlantis.com/wiki/index.php/Keeping_it_Sharp

BugBear

 

If you really want to improve your photography, possibly the best
course is to leave a camera club, not to join one. Perhaps there is a
use for clubs in teaching the basics, but even then I'm not too sure.
In film days, a big plus point was the use of a darkroom, but no-one
really needs that now.

I disagree. To learn from your mistakes you have to spend time
looking at the shots you have taken, analysing them, and identifying
their strengths and weaknesses.

Too many digital shooters tend to take far more shots than they can
ever hope to analyse and learn from. Instead, they get uploaded to a
PC and sit there for ever.

Obviously, there is a minority of digital shooters who really want to
learn, but the key word is *small*. The rest just see "imaging" as an
extension of their PC, the camera as just another peripheral.

The focus on electronics and digital capture and editing means that
"art" no longer features in "photography".