Popular Photography entry-level DSLR rankings

In the March 2006 issue;
The categories were:
-Image quality (sharpness, colour, noise, resolution)
-Ease of use
-Control (how adjustable)
-System flexibility

(Standard "kit" lenses used)

Overall: 1 being best

1. Canon Rebel XT
2. Olympus E-500
3. Nikon D50
4. Konica Minolta 5D
5. Pentax (Samsung) *ist DS2

Breakdowns:
Image Quality
1. Canon Rebel XT
2. Olympus E-500
3. Nikon D50
4. Konica Minolta 5D
5. Pentax *ist DS2

Control:
1. Olympus E-500
2. Canon Rebel XT
3. Nikon D50
4. Konica Minolta 5D
5. Pentax *ist DS2

Ease of Use:
1. Konica Minolta 5D
2. Canon Rebel XT
3. Pentax *ist DS2
4. Nikon D50
5. Olympus E-500

System Flexibility:
1. Canon Rebel XT/Nikon D50 Tie
3. Konica Minolta 5D
4. Pentax *ist DS2
5. Olympus E-500

Notable Comments (Positive)
Rebel XT: Most detailed, best tonality
Olympus E-500: Most advanced when it comes to creative control, even
has a vignetting eliminator and of course, anti dust sensor cleaner.
Nikon D50: Lowest noise level, fastest AF, better than it's D70
brother.
Konica Minolta 5D: Easiest to use, anti-shake, fastest AF, and good
noise control.
Pentax *ist DS2: Low noise, good in low light, cheap.

Notable comments (Negative)
Rebel XT: No spotmeter, noise at 1600 unacceptable.
Olympus E-500: Exposure latitude narrower than other cameras, small
optical array, thanks in-part to poor aftermarket support.
Nikon D50: Somewhat difficult to use, not as high resolution as the
Rebel and E-500 (6 meg versus 8)
Konica Minolta 5D: Slightly high contrast and lower shadow detail
than the Nikon.
Pentax *ist DS2: Worst image quality of group, sharpness and detail
lowest. Minimalist control capability.

I think the most surprising thing of all was the noise ratings of
the Canon Rebel XT versus the Olympus E-500

Rebel XT:
400 ISO: Moderately low
800 ISO: Moderate
1600 ISO: Unacceptable

E-500:
400 ISO: Moderately low
800 ISO: Moderately low
1600 ISO: Moderate

 

I have the Pentax *istDS and I would have to agree with most of what
the article said about the *istDS2 even though it is a different
camera. I bought my pentax because it is tiny but sometimes I can tell
it isn't the best camera. I think the N50 results are interesting
because it is a lowend camera.
Gordon
http://www.gordonphoto.net

 

The Pentax *ist DL is a later model than the DS and has improved image
quality. You can upgrade your DS's firmware to improve its
performance to something approaching that of the DL. The Pentax USA
web site has details. The upgrade is free of charge, and is easily
done at home.

The Nikon D50 (not N50, that's a film SLR) has remarkably good image
quality from virtually the same Sony sensor that is used in the Nikon
D100, D70 and D70s - also the Pentax *ist D, DS, DS2 and DL and the
Konica Minolta 7D and 5D. The later Pentax models come close, as does
the Nikon D70s, and the earlier Pentax models with the firmware
upgrades, but the Konica Minolta models and the Nikon D100 lag far
behind.

It is well known that Konica Minolta were very short of cash following
their merger and this clearly affected development of the K-M DSLRs,
resulting in poor imaging performance and - eventually - the demise of
the company as a manufacturer of photo gear.

 

In message <>,

Why is that surprising? How many reviewers are capable of
distinguishing lack of noise from aggressive noise (and image)
reduction?
--

 

What you should realize about PopPhoto is that it never reviewed a product
from an advertiser in a negative fashion. Why would it bite the hand that
feeds it?
That is why there is a high rating for some aspect of every camera in this
"round-up." Something for everybody. PopPhoto, any enthusiast magazine, also
would not want to offend readers who have plunked down significant chunks of
their income on less than stellar gear.
I have been reading this magazine for decades and at this point the only
part of the magazine that I really enjoy is the Time Capsule.
If you were to look up issues from 25 years ago you would find favorable
reviews for cameras and lenses that are now recognized as paragons of poor
design and manufacture.
The most recent example of this would be the PP review of the Nikon 55-200.
If this is a worthwhile lens then I guess I have been looking through the
wrong end of the camera all these years.

 

Why?

 

Perhaps he's a fan of Herbert Keppler.

 

Come on Stacey....

You know we all need SOME comedy in our lives....

I read it regularly..its good for as many laughs as theo old "MAD"
magazine used to be.

Larry Lynch
Mystic, CT

 

Tony Polson wrote:

Those of us who actually shoot photos with the 7D, and know what it
does, say different.

We know who you're trying to bait, we're laughing our ass off at you Polson.

Why don't you put up your Paris Match cover? Or the best 5 photos from
your many years of shooting "50 rolls per average *week*"?

Anything, in any case, that's better than your recent train photos.

;-)

 

I have the Pentax *istDS and I would have to agree with most of what

I don't know that any of the firmware updates affect image quality
except in a few rare isolated cases - bug fixes invovling noise
reduction on long exposures, I think. Was there really any change to
the default image processing algorithms?

However, it is worth noting that the issues Popular Photography had with
the DS image quality came down to one thing and one thing only, as I
recall: JPEG's produced using the default settings are rather soft
compared to the competition. This is a fairly common observation in
other reviews of the DS as well. Popular Photography attributes this
softness to the DS's attempts to reduce noise even when not specifically
using the optional noise reduction that applies only to long exposures.
I don't know how much truth there is in that, but most other reviews go
on to note that if you capture in RAW mode instead of JPEG on the DS,
you get the same sharpness as everyone else (not surprisingly in the
case of comparison to Nikon, as they use the same sensor). Some reviews
cast a positive spin on these same observations, noting that the DS, in
not attempting to apply aggressive sharpening in its JPG's, manages to
avoid the somewhat harsh colors and artifacts that one sometimes sees in
other consumer-model digital cameras (including, allegedly, other low
end DSLR's). It seems most photographers using the DS use the "Natural"
mode instead of the default "Bright" mode for in-camera image
processing, which results in a somewhat sharper image to my eyes - but
also even less of the artificially harsh color one associates with cheap
digital cameras.

Anyhow, most serious reviews spend long enough with the cameras to
address these issues and consider the tradeoffs. Popular Photography
apparently did not, hence their blanket statement on low image quality.

---------------
Marc Sabatella


Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/

 

In message <>,

Not to sound pedantic, but all of your pluralized acronyms in this post
use apostrophes, but those apostrophes don't belong there. Apostrophes
are for possession and contraction; not for plurality. When I read your
apostrophied plurals, I keep thinking possession, and the sentences are
hard to read.

These are plurals:
DSLRs
JPEGs
TIFFs
JPGs

"DSLR's" means "of the DSLR".
"DSLRs'" means "of the DSLRs".
--

 

Most of the people here (including me) are sloppy usenet writers. So
you have to have to develop on-the-fly edit while reading skills.

(And remove the "Not" and ", but" above...)

;-)

 

JPEG's

Actually, different style guides give different rules on this matter.
The style guide we used in school called for apostrophes to be used for
plurals of numbers, inidividual letters, abbreviations, and symbols -
basically, anything that wasn't a word. I believe this is the Oxford
standard, whereas the MLA, Chicago, and other style guides suggest more
limited usage of apostrophes (such as advocating it to pluralize single
letters only, as in "mind your p's and q's"). To me, JPEGs looks as
wrong and confusing to (I wonder what the "s" stands for, since it is
apparently partof the acronym?) as JPEG's does to you.

---------------
Marc Sabatella


Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/

 

In message <>,

I have heard that the one exception often granted is when using capital
letter in signs, small esses can be used for plurals because no small
esses are available, or for aesthetic pruposes. To me, using
apostrophes for plurals is just one way of diluting language into
meaninglessness. Somebody in charge must be making a lot of kickback
money on miscommunication.

Why? The 's' isn't capitalized.
--

 

http://www.apostrophe.fsnet.co.uk/

 

Why do you read this drivel?

More to the point -- after reading it, why do you insist on coming here and
posting about it? Most of the people in this group know more about photography
than anyone at that crappy magazine ever will, and most of us know how
seriously their "reviews" deserve to be taken.

 

One man's opinion; no more valid than a Usenet post.

Another man's opinion - possibly more respected generally - goes like this:

" The ordinary purpose of inserting an apostrophe before
a final _s_ is to show that the _s_ is possessive, not plural;
it originally indicated the omission of the _e_ from from the
possessive inflexion _es_. It may occasionally be used before
a plural _s_ as a device for avoiding confusion...
...We may reasonably write _dot your i's and cross your t's_ "

Fowler's Modern English Usage
1926 (reprinted 1965)

English evolves. Americans drop the letter u and even spell elements such as
aluminium as abbreviations.
Ever read Shakespeare as he was writ? Or (God forbid) Chaucer?

Get used to it. Pedantry cannot win in the fight against common usage, even
when defending aesthetic pruposes.
80 years ago Fowler acknowleged _'s_ for plurals *in some cases* - i.e.
where confusion is avoided, not for plurals such as cat's and dog's.

 

And the horse's you rode in on...

 

In message <43f7b32d$0$7191$>,

That's what I would call "dissolving", not "evolving". Eveolution would
imply increased clarity, not chaos.
--

 

Neither's the i in NiMH, but it still stands for something, though,
admittedly, it's not specifically an acronym.