I got a Nikon Camera...........

[Chris French]

Yes and no.

Sure it's fun, and can get you better photos.

But sometimes it's nice just to pick up the camera and take a photo knowing that the camera will probably do a decent job of it

[Cursitor Doom]

You might be onto something with that idea...

[Tim Streater]

This presupposes that you have a "phone", whatever that may be.

[Huge]

The batteries can go in the space previously occupied by the film canister.

Written by a moron who's never seen a removable back on a 35mm SLR.

[Johnny B Good]

And, that's just the start of a long list of developments which make techniques considered too complex (DSP of the camera's shutter/wind on mechanism noises, including ultrasonics to control a basic frame capture task, possibly including detecting iso metering settings for some models) just a decade ago a much more viable proposition today.

The die shrinks mean that most of the 'Film Canister' body can house a decent watt hour LiPO battery to allow thousands of 50Mpxel RAW image stills to be recorded on a tiny fingernail sized 32/64GB flash ram card, notwhithstanding that the camera's own frame counter 'end stops' at 42 or so frames.

As for bluetooth/WiFi, there may be a problem in regard of the screening of these signals in spite of mounting a 'module' on the back or side of the camera body itself to keep the range to an absolute minimum. However, I deliberately used the word "kit" in this context to get around the 'obvious issues' with the 'drop-in-digital-cartridge' concept that everyone seems so fixated upon.

I'm sure a lot of such objections will, if not entirely disappear, be relegated to 'minor downsides' if such digitisation kits are presented in the same form as the classic 'Polaroid Backs' of yore. The kits can be sold in two forms whereby a complete 'digital back' replaces the existing film back as a straight swap out option and a more customisable form whereby the buyer can do a DIY conversion of his existing film back using a kit of parts designed to create such a conversion (along with a modicum of drilling and filing of metalwork required to execute the adaptation).

Anybody wishing to create an SLR digital conversion kit would be wise not to bother with anything less than a full frame sensor, even if it means using much larger pixels to keep the count down to a more manageable 8 to 12 Mpxels whereby the gain becomes one of low noise at high ISO ratings (imagine an 8Mpxel sensor set to 12800 ISO no more noisy than a 12Mpx P&S at 80 ISO!).

Even the concept of a drop-in 'digital film canister' has its merit but only when full frame sensors become more commoditised. The whole concept rests on the full frame sensor being used. Anything smaller is guaranteed to be a non-starter in this market, such as it is.

We may have to wait a few more years yet before this can become a reality. I suspect the market for such kits or devices is probably a lot larger than one might suppose by the lack of use of old fashioned film SLR cameras.

Just because keen amateur and semi professional and professional photographers have been forced to 'move over to the digital side', doesn't mean they've thrown all those expensive and lovingly crafted SLR camera bodies away. It's very easy to consider that more such kit is simply gathering dust in an attic storage box (or wherever such heirlooms are kept) than have gone to land-fill.

Admittedly, the nay-sayers do have a very good point when they suggest that rather than spend a lot of good money trying to revive an excellent film SLR and lens kit when you can achieve "So Much More" with a modern mass produced commoditised DSLR.

However, only by virtue of the fact that digitisation of photography has merely widened the market to include a class of non-photographer consumer which swamps the relatively smaller number of photographers with a clue who would really appreciate the real benefit of digital improvement to the quality of their work rather than the digital benefit to the 'bottom line of the manufacturers concerned, many of whom have no right to be in the business of photography at all (cough-Sony!).

It would be nice to see the power of digital being used for Good rather than, as seems the case today, for Evil. Such digital camera backs would a nice example of such a 'turn around', imho. :-)

[Cursitor Doom]

?? I'm guessing you're one of those people that believes CDs give a superior sound compared to vinyl.

[Johnny B Good]

There may well be usage cases where using such a technique may not be appropriate or quite possibly fail to capture what the photographer intended.

Even back in the seventies, 35mm SLR lenses could outperform the linear resolution of even low speed high contrast monochrome film by about an order of magnitude (50 line pairs per mm versus 500 line pairs of a good quality standard lens at F1.4 or F2).

To put this in context, it would be fair to say that a full frame

200Mpxel sensor wouldn't be wasted on such a fixed focal length lens (zoom lenses of the day, otoh, might well disappoint, but that's zoom lenses of the day, taking advantage of the limits of film).

[Tim Streater]

I just put 5 lenses and 2 bodies on ebay (FiL's old Olly OM System stuff). I bet neither of the bodies sells.

Your first question is, which SLR is this going to be aimed at? While SLR bodies all function more or less the same, mechanically they will differ somewhat between models and vendors. So which one will they aim at? Seems to me that's crucial because their market will consist of those examples of that body which haven't made it to landfill. And I expect more and more are going to landfill every day.

[dennis]

No but you can get 196k audio disks that are better.

I'm guessing you don't have a decent digital camera to compare your crappy old film photos to.

[Andy Burns]

Huge wrote

Even if you half-fill that volume with Li-ion and cram the electronics and memory card into the rest, you're asking a lot.

But then you're making a range of model specific data backs, rather than a generic "35mm canister plus sensor tongue" that fits any 35mm camera, sure you can use magnets or bluetooth or whatever to add external controls, but such a device is never going to have the economies of scale of a dSLR or MILC camera. Who's going to buy an overpriced device with shortcomings?

[The Natural Philosopher]

The problem is that the advantages of 'digitala' are not just replacing the film. And indeed a 35mm sized CCD has been a huge challenge as well.

The advantages are all to do with metering and focussing by analysing the digital signal.

Although its taken a long time to get that simpler - my D200X has no less than 27 possible ways to autofocus... and a lot of ways to merter as well.

Finally the digits are starting to be a help, not a hindrance.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I don't believe it, I have tested it and I know it for a fact.

And indeed yes, modern lenses are better than older ones. I've got two top of the range zooms from 15 years ago, total cost then well over a thousand. Outperformed by a pair of 150 quid plastic jobbies of today.

[fred]

Or wait a year to use up the 36 exposures

[Hank]

Like hell you do.

[fred]

Lots of newer cameras have an 'idiot' button which resets everything to its normal mode. Can be useful if in a hurry to grab a shot and don't have time to check the settings.

[whisky-dave]

but at least they're smiling in the pictures.

[dennis]

All my cameras live on idiot mode. Any family member can pick one up and take a shoot that will work 99% of the time. Its pretty silly leaving a camera on manual, its like leaving one without film. The extra seconds can cost you an unrepeatable picture. You can always switch to a more creative mode if the subject is still there and needs something else.

[whisky-dave]

Replace the wife :-)

[Cursitor Doom]

I was of course referring to the *prime* lenses of the time. Anyway, we'll see how well your cheap "plastic jobbies" are working in 30 or 40 years from now...

[Cursitor Doom]

Sounds like a truly KING-SIZED PITA to me!