The Online Photographer

Lowest-Priced DSLR Ever?

Every morning, as part of my routine, I check Amazon's "Deal of the Day" to see if it happens to be photographically relevant. Today, after a near-endless parade of DVDs of TV shows, it is. Finally. On offer is a really quite responsive and highly capable 10-megapixel Canon Digital Rebel Xs DSLR with 18-55mm IS lens for $409. [Note: link removed 12/21; sale's over. Today's deal is a DVD of a TV series called "Torchwood," so we're back to normal. —Ed.]

It made me wonder. Is this the cheapest DSLR and lens I've ever seen for sale? I really can't claim to follow such things all that closely. Two landmarks in the history of the emergence of digital photography that I remember vividly were the advent of the Canon D30 [sic], a 3-megapixel camera introduced in the Spring of 2000 for the then-breakthrough price of less than $3,000 (just), and the original Canon Digital Rebel, a 6-megapixel camera announced in the summer of aught-three for less than a thousand dollars, which was equally remarkable. If not a little more so. I saw many very fine pictures come out of that appealing little camera, and I'm sure many people reading this have fond memories of one or the other of those two now-quaint devices. We thought both those prices were wondrous, at the time.

And now look where we are. A quick check doesn't uncover any cheaper DSLR-and-lens combo available just at the moment. And if this isn't the cheapest ever, what was? I'd like to see someone write a history of digital camera prices. I'm not sure I have the stamina myself, but someone who likes numbers and charts would find chewy stuff to feast on, I'm guessin'.

Mike

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TechRestore Matte Screens for Macs

By Steve Rosenblum

I've used Macs since 1985 or so and have long valued their intelligent design, thoughtful software integration, advanced OS, instant color management, and ease of use for photo editing. I even raised an Apple computer engineer! I am very knowledgeable about Windows-based computers, which I use extensively at work, but once I get home and turn on my Mac I heave a heartfelt sigh of relief.

In my humble opinion, Apple's one major misfire from a hardware standpoint in recent years has been their near-universal adoption of shiny, reflective monitor screens on both their laptop and iMac computer lines. These displays are absolute glare kings, so high in contrast and brightness that they are difficult to use for even semi-serious photo editing. I think Apple went to these screens because they make video and photos "pop," which probably helps them move computers in their brightly lit Apple Stores. However, they've been a disaster for us photographers.

I solved this problem for my desktop computer by buying a Mac Mini and the last-generation matte Apple Cinema Display. The Mini has plenty of horsepower for my style of photo editing, and the display is accurate and beautiful. Last year when I finally handed my trusty 13-inch G4 Powerbook over to my wife, I purchased one of the the 13-inch plastic-bodied Intel-based MacBooks. This computer does everything that I want it to do with speed and aplomb. But it has that cursed shiny screen! I put up with it for a year—not working on any photo files until I got home from vacation and could transfer files to my Mini—trying to find the one seat in a cafe without tremendous screen glare—scrunching down in my chair to find the one angle without reflections, etc. But last month I finally reached the end of my rope. I was going to sell the MacBook at a loss and buy a new 15-inch MacBook Pro, the one Apple laptop that you can order with an anti-glare screen from the online Apple Store.

Then, I came across an online story about a company called TechRestore that offers a service whereby you send them your shiny-screen laptop and they replace it with a matte screen display of equal specification and ship it back to you.

Otherwise identical MacBooks with and without the TechRestore matte screen

Intrigued, I Googled this and found that it won "Best in Show" at the 2009 Macworld Expo. Satisfied by what I found, I backed up my hard drive and shipped the MacBook off the TechRestore.

The cost for doing this swap for my Macbook was $169 with free ground shipping. They have a number of shipping options, all with a fair pricing structure.

I got the computer back a few weeks ago and it is exactly what I had hoped for: the MacBook that I wanted in the first place. The screen displays an accurate, beautiful image. I had no trouble calibrating it with my ColorEyes Display Pro. It displays a very usable range of grays for photo editing. Two thumbs up from me!

Before people start chiming in on this one, several observations:

1. Yes, Apple should just make this option available on all of its laptops.

2. If you are shopping for a new computer and want a Mac, you should just order the 15-inch MacBook Pro with a Matte screen—the TechRestore swap is mostly worth considering if you already have a shiny-screen MacBook or MacBook Pro.

3. TechRestore claims that this modification will not nullify your AppleCare warranty except on the new screen, which they warranty themselves. They say they are a certified Apple repair shop and will handle it for you with Apple. I have not tried that out myself and cannot testify to its legitimacy.

4. Last, but not least, I have no connection, financial or otherwise, with these guys. Just a satisfied customer!

Steve

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'The Three Things You Need'

I was talking to a friend yesterday when the conversation reminded me of something I heard long ago. When I took over at the magazine I used to edit, the previous editor spent several days training me and explaining his vision of the magazine. One of the things he said—I am by necessity paraphrasing, since I can seldom remember exact wordings—"The three things a reader really needs in order to participate fully in the life of this magazine are a spot meter, a densitometer, and a sheet film camera."

Of course, he left out a fourth necessity—"a darkroom"—probably because he was taking that for granted. It was a darkroom magazine, after all.

I'm guessing not many people reading these words would consider those three things to be essential to their photography! (But does anybody?)

Thinking of the same question, I started wondering what three things a reader most needs to fully participate in photography the way I most enjoy it. Without much thought, and I guess somewhat flippantly, I blurted out, "an internet connection, a pigment inkjet printer, and a bookcase." (Leaving out a fourth because I take it for granted—some way to create original photographic images in digitized form, whether that's a digital camera or a film camera and a scanner.) 

Trouble is, it's been 24 hours, and I haven't improved on that list.

So my open-ended question (this is not a quiz, and there will be no test): What three things do you most need to enjoy or participate in photography the way you practice it?

I can stand some few flippant or humorous answers (I'm pretty sure I won't have a choice about that!) but I'm anxious to hear a few serious answers too because I'm actually sincerely curious....

Mike

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Deals o' the Day

Amazon's daily 24-hour sale today is for a photo-related product (finally! I've been checking these every day), the Canon PIXMA MX860 all-in-one wireless scanner / copier / printer / fax machine. List $199.97, normal price $148.04, today's price $109.99. As usual for such products, consumables costs are significant (~$12.99 each for the four color dye ink cartridges, and ~$14.90 for the pigment-based black ink—actual prices vary). The unit is reportedly a best-seller and gets pretty good reviews.

B&H Photo is offering the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS25, a 12-megapixel digital point-and-shoot with a Leica-branded lens (and image stabilization, dammit Gumby!), normally $229.95, on sale for $174.95.

I haven't used either of these products so I can't recommend them personally. Just passing along the deals in the event the info might be useful.

Mike

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Featured Comment by William Porter: "The Panasonic DMC-FS25 is even cheaper on Amazon as of this moment (11-11-2009 3:19PM in Texas): $168.32. Price war!

Settling Down (Redux)

Somewhat to his surprise, Ctein found he had nothing to add to the comments to his "Settling Down...or Not" post of the other day. He felt peoples' comments were covering all the angles and he didn't have a lot more to add. With due humility, however, I'd like to register a few of my own thoughts. I'm just chiming in. Consider this just another comment to Ctein's thread.

I say "with due humility" because where this topic is concerned, I'm really just like most readers. I have a history with cameras; I have tastes and preferences and needs; I have a particular budget, and a fairly stable ongoing relationship to money (which in my case is that I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford decent cameras but not wealthy enough that the choice is easy or trivial); and I suffer from certain bugbears that conspire to keep me from being totally satisfied.

A few random thoughts, in no particular order:

• It's worthwhile highlighting at the outset that disaffection with cameras is usually a consequence of not working hard enough on your photographic projects. People who are deeply involved in working tend to adapt to their equipment, learn their equipment thoroughly, and learn to work around whatever flaws and idiosyncrasies the equipment presents to them—sometimes, they even learn to love their camera's particular foibles. The best "cure" for equipment angst, therefore, is to get to work, or work harder.

• The converse of this is that sometimes people focus on equipment shortcomings as a way of avoiding getting to grips with photographic problems or activities they don't really want to get to grips with. "I can't start building a portfolio until I find the right camera." "I can't start doing portraits for pay until I can afford a good camera." Et cetera. They use the perceived shortcomings of the camera as a means of procrastination, in effect.

• The notion of "value" is highly mutable. It depends on many things, including your relationship to money, how much money you have or don't have, how much use you get out of a product, how much you can earn with the product, even how much pleasure you get from shopping for it, buying it, or owning it.  

• The notion of "clarity" is very helpful. That is, if you get clear about what you're really doing and why, you're likely to be much happier. (A warning, though: what you're really doing might not be "being a photographer." I gave a lecture a long time ago in which I was describing the photography scene in Washington, D.C., where I lived, and I presented a diagram that looked something like this:

Where green was professional or commercial photography, orange was editorial photography or photojournalism, and blue was art photography and academic photography. A hand immediately shot up from the back of the room: "And what kind of photographer are you?" Without thinking, I replied, "I'm a writer." What can I say? Clarity.)

• Empiricism helps. Actually looking at things for yourself will clear away a lot of the fanaticism, obfuscation, and cant* that clouds public discussion of cameras and technical issues. Of course, this is concomitant to the degree to which you've achieved the aforementioned clarity about what you're doing; it doesn't help to "see for yourself" if you don't know what you own standards or goals are.

All that said, my personal experience with digital cameras echoes what Ed Hawco said, in the featured comment to Ctein's post: two of the four digital cameras I've purchased ended up totaled. That is, they broke, and would have cost more to fix than they would have been worth once fixed. Their value went from a lot to zero, and I had to throw them away (well, one of them—the other I haven't been able to bring myself to actually add to the landfill).

So, thus far, anyway, I'd have to say that for me, settling down isn't an option, because digital cameras are akin to electronic appliances like computer peripherals, with finite lives. Other considerations don't enter in. They're not able to, given my track record so far.

Of course, that's just "so far." Things could change as digital photography matures. (As Ctein pointed out.)

Mike

*And fanboyism, and flaming, and put-downs, and....

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Settling Down...or Not, as the Case May Be

By Ctein

My columns two and three back talked about a couple of logical fallacies that insinuate themselves into discussions of digital camera buying as more-or-less inevitabilities. Namely, that people would be looking for a camera that would last a lifetime (theirs, not the camera's) and that frequent upgrading of digital cameras followed from the way people used film. As I explained, those might hold for some people, but they didn't represent the historical norm and so they certainly weren't obligatory.

As a number of astute readers pointed out, those were entirely descriptive columns; they didn't discuss why and how it might be desirable to follow or ignore a particular course of action.

I meant to do that. Really. I wanted you all to think about what you need, not to react to pronouncements from me. Best way to let that happen? Don't pronounce.

This column, I'll be a bit more prescriptive, via retrospect.

I started out with Polaroid. As I've often said, it's what made me a serious photographer, and I rapidly moved through three model of camera and got into color, high-speed, and infrared film. After a few years of semi-professional Polaroid use, I got a 35mm camera. Worked exclusively in B&W for a year or so, then tried my hand at color printing. Loved it. Hated the films. Color print quality sucked in the late '60s. Felt I absolutely had to move to larger format, and so I did, acquiring a Pentax 67 only a few years after I started in 35mm.

I lucked out. The Pentax 67 proved to be my life's camera, despite the fact that I incorrectly expected to make a career as a photojournalist and to become enamored of view camera-type photography. Neither proved true, but the Pentax was still the right camera. I toyed with the idea of a 'Blad for a short time, but I had no serious interest.

Thing is, I didn't know enough at the time to be sure of making the right choice; I was too new at all of this. It was impossible to make a fully informed decision. As I said, I lucked out.

Digital cameras present some of the same problems. Despite the technology having over a 35 year history (leastwise, I've been working with it longer than that), equipment that we would consider remotely modern didn't start appearing until the 1990s, and most of us have a much shorter time of hands-on experience with it than that. And, by "us" I don't just mean end-users; I'm including the camera designers and manufacturers in that group. Collectively we're not a lot different from what I was in college—not inexperienced but far from having the mature knowledge that lets us know what we really want to be doing with a semi-novel medium.

We are mostly still figuring it out. Until we do, it's not going to be too surprising to see lots of manufacturers and people rapidly changing gear. That's just the way it works when, collectively, we're noobs.

Ctein

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Featured Comment by Ed Hawco: "Speaking only in terms of the obsolescence of equipment, I still think there is a difference between how we outgrow digital and how we outgrew film cameras. The main difference is that back in the day when we felt we had outgrown that K1000 or whatever, the camera itself remained a perfectly good instrument. We'd sell it and move on to something else because our interests changed, not because the technology was obsolete. In the meantime, whoever we sold the equipment to could continue using it happily.

"With digital, we're more inclined to change equipment because the equipment has become obsolete. If we do manage to sell the old stuff, it's because some sap doesn't know it's a piece of hardware near the end of its life, or maybe they just want a cheap camera that they don't mind losing.

"The point being that in the old days the equipment was still good and usable when we were done with it, whereas nowadays cameras lose their value after only a few years, and then they become landfill.

"But like you say, we're still figuring this thing out."

Featured Comment by Oleg Volk: "Equipment upgrades are warranted when the cost of lost opportunities exceeds the upgrade cost. For example, I can get 95% sharp portrait images with 5D2 and USM 100mm macro vs. 10–15% with 10D and non-USM 100mm macro—upgrading is a pretty self-evident course of action. Keeping up with the industry demands is also necessary—stock photo sites or freelance clients won't take 3MP images as they need higher pixel count for print and even some web uses.

"P.S.: I put up a few photos of Ctein at work."

Open Mike: Albatross Update

This post is actually on-topic—it's just woefully unseasonable, that's all. Except for those of you in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and South America.*

As you can see, Gruesome got her albatross bars since I first mentioned them last Sunday. I like them a lot, too—they suit me much better than flat mountain-bike bars. These came off the back of one of Grant's tandems (thanks again, Grant).

Here's another view. It's a good thing I didn't try to install them myself, because all the cables had to be lengthened. Anyway, to paraphrase the old Groucho Marx joke, I wouldn't want to ride any bike that had me for a mechanic.

Notice the black plastic bracket in the middle? That's what makes this post on-topic rather than off. The bracket is for a thing called a Topeak TourGuide Handle Bar Bag...

...Or, as we would call it, a camera bag. Here's the bag on the bike. It has a rain cover in case I get caught in the rain. The shiny thing on top is a map-holder. It's removable.

The bag holds an SLR with ease...

...And even a 2 1/4 camera (here a Bronica SQ-A). It will hold my Bronica rangefinder as well, and my DSLR with a prime lens. Of course it holds the Panasonic GF1 with plenty of room to spare.

The bag unclips from the bike easily so you can carry it with you when you lock up and leave the bike.

And, finally, for you North Americans and Europeans: I promise to try to link back to this post next Spring, when you might actually care! 

Mike

*See! Sometimes I do remember that Summer's coming down under.

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Why I Love Micro Four-Thirds

By Christopher Lane

I’ll begin by admitting that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Nikon guy, and Leica wannabe. I love my D700. I have strayed to Canon and Pentax, but when the chips were down I always returned to the Nikon fold.

I've also owned several Leicas, but always wound up selling them. Most of the problems that plagued my M8 have been solved, but these days it’s hard for me to justify spending $4,000 on a camera...especially with a college-bound daughter. So, no Leica for moi at the moment.

Now, don’t misunderstand me—the D700 is perhaps the best DSLR available. But it’s big and heavy, and, for the most part, F-mount lenses are too. It would be wonderful to be able to throw a small, light camera over my shoulder, slip a second lens into my pocket, and go.

Even so, when Micro 4/3 was announced, I paid no attention to it. I was settled on Nikon and Leica, after all. It wasn’t until a friend kept talking it up that I discovered that it was indeed a very exciting development. I've been paying attention ever since.

'One Camera, Our Lenses'
At first I was drawn to Micro 4/3 because it had the potential to be my "Poor Man’s Leica" or the elusive DMD. While possibly true, this was a very narrow-minded view of the new format. Like many of you, I have a tendency to seize on one idea or get lost in technical specifications or reviews. Sometimes I simply fail to see the forest for the trees. It wasn’t until just recently that I realized that Micro 4/3 is not just exciting: it is revolutionary.

Here’s why. One Nikon DSLR is pretty much like another. Some Nikon DSLRs are full frame and most are not. Some are bigger and some are smaller. Some are expensive and some are cheap. Some are faster and some are slower. The company makes a digital single lens reflex camera. the bells and whistles vary, but at its essence each Nikon DSLR is pretty much just a variation on the same theme. The same goes for Canon, Pentax and Sony. A Leica M has looked pretty much the same since the dawn of 35mm photography, almost to the point of absurdity (witness the location of the M8’s SD card slot).

Only when one starts considering lenses does that picture change. The variety of glass available to the modern photographer is awe-inspiring, from super-tele behemoths to jewel-like pancakes. Unfortunately, each manufacturer has taken a slightly different approach to lens design and construction. For its consumer grade lenses, Canon favors ƒ/4 while Nikon uses ƒ/3.5–ƒ/5.6. Pentax has a wide selection of pancake primes, while Nikon has none. Panasonic and Olympus have lenses in focal lengths tailored to 4/3. And then there are those wonderful lenses from Leica. Each manufacturer has developed its own proprietary lens mount, further limiting your choices. F mount, K mount, M mount, R mount, 4/3 mount.

I call this the "One Camera, Our Lenses" approach. Nearly every market player uses it. They make one basic camera type and give you a choice of the lenses they think you want.

This is where Micro 4/3 is truly revolutionary. As Micro 4/3 is developed, it will take a "Many Cameras, Many Lenses" approach not tied to any specific lensmaker or camera design. So far, Micro 4/3 has given us the DSLR-like Panasonic Lumix G cameras and the Leica-sized Olympus E-P1, and now Panasonic's GF1 has been announced. That’s just the beginning. Doubtless there are many other designs possible, some of them likely to hit the market in the next few years.

Therefore, investing in a Micro 4/3 system does not mean tying yourself to one specific camera body type from one specific manufacturer. You can mount the same Micro 4/3 lens on an SLR-like EVF camera one day and a compact the next.

As the English say, "simply brilliant."

Micro 4/3 and more and more
Then there is the true implication of the "Many Lenses" part. I have long held that, in the digital age, your first and biggest investment should be your lenses. To a certain extent a digital camera's shelf life is limited, but the shelf life of a good lens is not. As I write, there are Micro 4/3 adapters available from reputable manufacturers for lenses in the following mounts: Four Thirds, Leica/Zeiss/Voigtländer M, Leica R, Nikon F, and Pentax K, and probably some others that I’m not aware of. There are sure to be others to come, but that’s already quite enough for me and my pocketbook. So now I can mount any lens from any manufacturer I like. How much I want to spend is the only limiting factor.

I remains to be seen if other manufacturers will take the "Many Cameras, Many Lenses" approach. Neither Canon nor Nikon seem inclined to innovate in this area. Even if they do, Panasonic and Olympus have a big lead, and each year there will be more of the Micro 4/3 "Many Cameras" and "Many Lenses." If they can partner with others to develop lenses for the Micro 4/3 mount, so much the better. Leica has clearly stated that they have no intention of developing a Micro 4/3 camera, but it will produce lenses with the Micro 4/3 mount, the first one being the newly announced 45mm Macro.

So hooray for two of the smaller players, Panasonic and Olympus, for breaking the "One camera, Our Lenses" mold. As I see it, that's a real breath of fresh air and a truly revolutionary approach to camera design and development. I’m excited to see what’s around the next corner.

Chris

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Featured Comment by Andrew: "My favorite lens on my E-P1 is the Zeiss C Sonnar 50/1.5."

The Digimat

A friend the other day said I'm a "rock star," which made me giggle. He was referencing the formidable reach of my influence and the broad sweep of TOP's popularity, not the fact that I wear my bathrobe until noon.

And he's right, in a way. I mean, look what just happened: I wrote an article about a type of camera I felt was needed, and BAM! A mere three years and ten months later, a manufacturer comes right out with a slick new camera that sorta comes fairly close to fulfilling my design brief, kinda. I think that proves beyond a doubt that the camera manufacturers are hanging on my every word, don't you?

Well, anyway. It's not like I know anything about what'll sell.

I thought I'd share with you another set of idle musings—not about something that I think we need, this time, just something I've been thinking about.

I started off by accepting the self-evident truth that DSLRs now come packed with ever more features and capabilities, with no end in sight, and simply wondering what a DSLR would be like if it had as few features as possible.

Y'see, I don't really like features. The more a camera can do, the less I figure I'm going to like it. What I want is for it to be really good at one thing—what I need it to do—and not distract me with anything else. Cameras are little computers these days. But I don't like computers. I like cameras.

Before we go any further, let me just say that a) I know this would never sell and b) I know no manufacturer will ever make anything like this. I know. You don't have to tell me.

I also know that you might want lots of features. Lots of people do. (Plus, not everybody will want just the features I happen to want.)

But this is my daydream, Gumby, dammit. Let's build an imaginary camera.

Pickin' an' choosin'
First of all, I'd start with a size and shape about like the Pentax LX (picture here. You might have to refresh your browser to see it). All things considered, I think the LX with its little hand grip is the most comfortable camera to hold and look through and use that I know of.

We'd make it full-frame. Let's give it a viewfinder as good as the one in the Sony A900.

We'd make it weatherproof. Remember that great picture of the Oympus E-1 being held under a running faucet? I can't find it, but I remember it. Like that.

While I'm talking about the E-1, let's give it the E-1's shutter sound, too. Quiet and smooth. Or the E-P1's—that has a nice shutter sound. (I'm not sure that's technically feasible with a full-size mirror.) I'd spend a good deal of time on the feel of the shutter button. Let's reference the old Contax RTS II for that.

For my money, body-integral image stabilization. I like Konica-Minolta > Sony's implementation of that feature best.

Here's where you'll laugh at me: I'm going to say...6 megapixels. Okay, maybe as many as 8 or 10. But the best possible quality pixels...the greatest color depth, the best possible DR, no compromises for low noise at silly ISOs. IQ über alles.

Speaking of ISO, I'd have just two settings, 200 and 1600, set with a sliding switch on the upper left of the camera back. (In fact the principle of having one analog control for one function and one function only would have to be given great weight.)

The camera would only shoot raw. The only JPEG processing would be what's needed for review on the viewing screen. It would have live view, though.

All "real" manual exposure controls of f-stop and shutter speed, with the three basic AE modes of course—shutter priority, aperture priority, and program. And full manual. I'd give it one quirky exposure feature, this one lifted more or less from the admirable Olympus OM-4T: a button that combined spot metering with exposure lock. Except instead of a middle value reading, it would put the spot-metered area 5 or 10% from the right side of the histogram. You could hit the button once for single-shot AE-lock, twice to leave it engaged until you turned it off. Okay, this is a feature, I'll admit.

Another feature I'd indulge would be a flip-up viewing screen like the one in the Sony A550 (picture here), so you could use it like a waist-level finder. (If you didn't have that, you could get away without the live view.)

I haven't decided if it should be autofocus or not. Maybe manual focus with focus confirmation.

I don't suppose I could get away with not giving it a hot shoe. I don't use them flash thingys, but I hear other people do. But no pop-up flash.

Naturally, a camera built to be as feature-free as possible would be notable for what it wouldn't have: not only no pop-up flash and no JPEG modes, no scene modes of course, but also no continuous shooting, no video. Could we get away with no menu?

Could we get away with no color? No, that's crazy.

In every parameter of responsiveness, it would have to be blazingly fast. Of course we've given it so little to do that speed in the few remaining parameters shouldn't be that hard to provide.

Finally, it would need a name. Back in the days of Chivalry, Nikon augmented its full-battle-dress F with a simple, basic, but very well made secondary camera that a lot of pros chose because it was more affordable and just as tough. So let's call my low-feature DSLR a "Digimat," in honor of the Nikkormat.

Rock on
You gotta admit, this is a radical idea. Completely impractical, arguably insane, but radical. I rock, don't I?

I do. In fact, I will say that except for the girls, the drugs, the money, the fame and renown, the sense of style, the devil-may-care lifestyle and personal charm, and the musical talent, I am a rock star.

...Just one without any features, that's all.

Mike

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'Wunderplastik'

John Camp thinks the new Sony A850 "looks like it fell out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down..."

Photo: Imaging-Resource

This isn't its best angle. Read on.

...Which made me laugh, as usual. But it brings up two questions. First, is the A850 ugly? I think it's handsome. But that's probably because I'm thinking about unlocking the bank vault and getting one, assuming I can get the money to stop sticking to my hands. Second, does it matter what a camera looks like?

Just speaking personally, I haven't really cared much what "35mm-style" cameras have looked like since the advent of Wunderplastik. Bill Pierce coined the term "Wunderplastik," for big, blobby, black cameras made mostly of polycarbonate and stuffed full of circuit boards, in the late 1980s.

Quintessential early Wunderplastik: The Canon T90, 1986

Polycarbonate and its many cousins are great materials for making cameras out of. Light, tough, stable, cheap. But I can't say as how cameras made with those materials look any good. Beauty is as beauty does?

The Sony reminds me of the design gestalt of most Mercedes-Benzes since forever: ugly shapes so well built and detailed that they fool you into thinking they look sleek and purposeful. Like a fat gangster in a really nice suit.

Excessive, unsubtle, unproportional, but gorgeously attired: ugly...yet cool

The D700 and the 5D Mark II both handle great and work great. But does anybody think they look really good? Anybody at all? One person? No. I don't think that matters much to their fans, partisans, or owners. The Sony—unusually, for this day and age—has maybe 40% of the "fine-object" quality of great cameras, while most Wunderplastik has 4%. That counts towards beauty for me. Or towards non-ugly.

Besides, as I said about the A900, it's the view through it that really matters most. From the driver's seat, as it were. That's the angle you'll see it from most of the time. And how it looks best.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Calvin Amari: "I'm not saying that I'd conjoin with it in carnal riot, but, when looking at the A850, think tall brunette movie star of the 1950s sporting a cantilevered bust, a bit of sass, and a skirt split to her third rib. Those who don't like it are welcome to the camera equivalent of one of those cutsie-poo anorexic blonde valley-girl starlets: a white E-P1."

Featured Comment by JK @ Studio Hatyai: "I was living in Japan and working as a freelancer for Canon among other clients when the T90 was developed. They called in the famed designer Luigi Colani, who came up with some ideas that would look radically futuristic even today. They then folded his ideas into those of their usual design team. So the T90 'Tank' was a bit of a mongrel: half revolutionary, half conservative. But what a remarkably influential design it turned out to be."