Would you buy expensive "Digital Only" lenses

Canon's putting out new EF-S lenses, Tamron's selling the "Di" series
and Sigma's out with the "DC" series. Are you going to invest $$$ in
these lenses or will you stick to the full-frame (35mm) compatible
lenses if the lens is very expensive?

I'd put my money of lenses that work on both, film as well as digital
in the hope that full-frame sensors based dSLRs become affordable in
the next 2-3 years. And I'd be damn pissed if /Canon tried to oust the
current set of lens mount with the new EF-S mount.

- Siddhartha

 

Impossible, as the pro DSLRs use larger sensors (1.3x & full frame). So
even if the EF-S mount does become the standard on the Rebel & 20D line, the
EF mount will remain.

Mark

 

Film is dead as far as I and most photographers I know are concerned. Only
dinosaurs insist that film is still better than digital.

While I still own some film gear, it will be going out with the garbage very
soon. ;-)

 

Dinosaurs and those making large prints, which still can't be done using
digital at a price that competes with medium format/at all.

 

Film is NOT dead (not yet anyway).


Many people who post to the usenet digital camera newsgroups are doing
digital only, but they only represent a small group and dont amount to even a
blip on the statistical radar.

Many pro photographers are using digital, but FEW of them are shooting
digital only.

Going digital only before the technology matures would be stupid for a Pro.
There are still many things that work well on film that either aren't as easy
with digital or simply dont work well (yet).

Film wont die until you cant get it at the camera store, or order it from
your supplier, and that time is a while off.

Personally, I dont shoot much film myself any more, but I dont consider it
dead, not by a long shot.

I wouldn't buy a "digital only" lens, unless there was something REALLY
SPECIAL and LUCRATIVE about the camera.

IOW not unless I was going to make some money with it (enough money to cover
the cost of the lens and then some). OTOH I would no longer buy a lens that
is for "film only".

I had considered the OLY E-volt (which uses a lens that ONLY fits digital
4/3) because it has the ultra-sonic cleaner, and I probably could make up the
cost of the camera and a good lens in 2 weekends shooting with it. Then I
tried the camera... NO THANKS... I dont care how clean the sensor stays, it
doesn't have the capabilities of other, less restrictive hardware.. Like the
new DRebel (or even the OLD DRebel for that matter).

Some of the film lenses I have cant be used on Digital cameras that I can
afford, and some CAN.

I havent yet bought a good DSLR, but that hasn't stopped me from giving the
lens issue a LONG HARD THINK...

I have some very nice fully manual lenses for Yashica cameras circa 1970..
and I no longer own a working Yashica or Contax body.. That hasn't caused me
to throw away the lenses.

Someone that I forgot to thank posted a URL where I could get adapter mounts
for those lenses, so I may use them digital yet!

I was given a suitcase of Canon lenses that probably represents 15 to 20
thousand dollars when they were new (I havent even gone through them yet).

If I sell those lenses, I'll sell them to someone who is shooting film, and
there are a lot of those people around.

Joe sixpack may well have gone "pocket digital" but the whole world hasn't
done it yet.

 

Op Tue, 22 Feb 2005 11:51:12 GMT schreef Chris Brown

Aren't it the dinosaurs who made the largest (foot)prints?

Bart
you can send email to me using
mendelson-at-mendelson-dot-nl
www.mendelson.nl

 

I would never buy another slr, even digital, I was bored carrying my Nikon
FM-2 around with all the equipment, the better of mine photos were made with
point and shoots,SLRs are too bulky, and you have to have a large zoom lens,
separate flash unit etc.
(I have now the Kodak CX 7300 which makes excellent photos, without the fuss
of adjusting focus, aperture and shutter speed while trying to find the
right angle to photo the subject.)

 

I wont touch ef-s lens, I would rather an ef lens
You lost your money on a few Canon bodies.
Your ef-s wont work on full frame sensors :+(

 

How big prints are you talking about?

Film is DEAD, Agfa and Ilford are both in the equivalent of Chapter 11,
Kodak is dropping a lot of different films. Medium Format is dead, look at
Bronica. Mamiya and Hasselblad are building digital product. I work in a
large busy camera shop in Ottawa, I haven't shown or sold a 35mm SLR since
September 2004.

 

any medium format print from something as small as a 6 x 4.5 will blow away
the best money can by digital print. film may be dead for 35mm, but to
suggest film is dead is just plain ignorant.

 

Well our store hasn't sold a 35mm film SLR since September 2004, effectively
Ilford and Agfa are gone, Kodak discontinues various films at will. Hate to
say it but film is dead, about half our lab business is digital files.

 

Canon is unlikely to make consumer level cameras in full-frame. Witness the
EF-S line of lenses.

 

....though not all of them are limited to small-sensor DLSRs.

This is a bloody fine lens:

http://www.photo.net/equipment/tamron/28_75_Di/

In a word, no. Part of the "digital" or "APS-C" only attraction is that
they are cheaper.

That being said, I *did* pop for the 10-22, which is around $800USD. It
was completely unique at the time, though, and I don't really regret it,
as the lens has turned out to be an unexpectedly good performer.

We're never really going to have a choice of full-frame on the very short
end, it looks like. The shortest full-frame zoom lens so far is Sigma's
Popeye, at 12mm. The difference between it and the APS-C 10MMs is
amazing.

Hopefully the newly-announced Sigma 10-20 will be in the inexspensive
range and of the same quality as the Canon offering. Allegedly, it *will*
work on bigger-sensor or film bodies, though with terrible vignetting.
Cheaper plus at least works on your other cameras means less pain in
deciding to buy.

I'm not sure why you'd be worried about this. Canon is probably going to
get their brains beaten out trying to compete with Sigma and Tamron at
the low and medium end. I'm hoping Canon marketing will realize this and
we'll see the return of super-premiums such as f/1.0 primes and f/1.2
zooms in the near future.

 

But the EF mount lenses work on the larger sensored digital bodies, the 1D
mkII and 1Ds mkII, and the EF-S lenses don't, so film isn't the issue here.

 

Please correct me if I am wrong but one of the advantages of using a
sub-35mm sensor, as I understand, was that the lenses would be smaller,
lighter and most importantly - faster in terms of aperture. The newer
P&S cameras often have fixed aperture or f2.8-3.5/4 throughout the zoom
range (3x - upto 12x). But the EF-S series doesn't seem to be any
faster than the EF series, for the same price.

- Siddhartha

 

here.

Right. My bad. I mixed up 35mm sensor/film vs sub-35mm with film vs
digital. That wasn't the intention.

- Siddhartha

 

A3 and up. My 10D A3 prints look OK, until I put them next to a similarly
sized print from my Mamiya 7, then they look like utter crap. It's all
relative.

MF is far from dead, it's just having a little shakeout as it moves from
being a primarilly professional-photographer dominated field, to one where
the bulk of users are amateur photographers doing it for the enjoyment.
Expect to see a lot of the more "businesslike" Mf SLR setups get
discontinued, but the sort of stuff that appeals to amateur photographers
will most licontinue to be made for a long time, but on more of a "cottage
industry" scale, rather like large format view cameras have for years.

After all, you can still buy a brand new Rolleiflex TLR - they're still
made.

There is money to be made selling film cameras and equipment, otherwise
people like Wista and film like Agfa Scala simply wouldn't exist. The
large-scale film industry as it has existed, however, is probably a thing of
the past.

35mm SLRs are rapdily becoming white-elephants as DSLRs that use the same
lenses become more and more affordable. IOW, DSLRs are a direct replacement
for them, more or less.

But if the pursuit of the best image quality is your game,the amount of
money you have to spend on digital to even get close to what is possible
with a second hand Rolleiflex that can be picked up on ebay for $not_much is
prohibitive.

 

You are dead wrong, and demonstrably so. The difference between 8mp and
6x4.5 is so slight as to need sophisticated measuring devices or an overly
critical eye to mark it, the difference is not apparent to the casual
observer. As far as state of the art 35mm type digital, 16mp is fully
competitive with up to 6x6, and maybe even 6x7. Then you have the 22mp and
32mp backs for MF bodies. The latter rivals 4x5. A sweeping comment like
"something as small as 6 x 4.5 will blow away the best money can by (sic)
digital print" shows the ignorance of which you accuse others. And you can
add scanning backs, since those would fall under the heading of "the best
money can by (sic).
Film isn't "dead", it has become a specialized niche within photography.
For more info, see:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout.shtml

 

Not a chance. Buying lenses that cover less than full frame only
encourages them. At some point we're going to need the larger frame
size, and if we go too far into the APS-size valley it will never
happen.

I can only hope that the manufacturers interpret slow sales of
digital-only lenses correctly. Instead of "I guess people wanted
full-coverage lenses", they may well decide they have to make the
APS-size lenses even cheaper.

 

Artists are getting badly squeezed here, because they don't generally
have the volumes to really benefit financially from digital. For a
commercial studio, even the high-end medium format backs pay for
themselves in saved lab charges fairly quickly.