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6+
Megapixel
SLRs
In recent months, single-lens reflex cameras have been announced/
released offering a staggering 6+ megapixel resolution. They’re
claimed, for all intents and purposes, to offer “film” quality. Do they?
32 Silicon Chip
www.siliconchip.com.au
Here’s what you get in
the EOS D60 kit for your
not inconsiderable
amount of money:
the Canon EOS D60
body, shoulder strap,
charger, Li-Ion rechargeable battery, various
input/output cables and two
CDs of PC/Mac photo manipulation software, including
Photoshop LE. Notice what’s
NOT there? That’s right – a lens!
J
ust how far can digital camera
technology go? And just how good
can they get? Recently we had a
(very!) short opportunity to have
a look at one of the new breed of high
resolution digital cameras.
We’re talking serious product here,
not your run-of-the-mill digitals which
are fast reaching the “free in every
packet of cornflakes” stage. OK, slight
exaggeration – but you get the drift.
While we’ve lusted after several
digital cameras in the past year or so,
they have been in the 3-4 megapixel
range and most have been so-called
“compact digitals” – more intended
for consumer happy snaps, blown up
to no more than postcard size, than
for serious users (eg, very keen amateurs, or professionals such as media
photographers, wedding/function/PR
photographers, and so on).
And while 3 or 4 megapixels can
give good results, by-and-large they
have not been capable of competing
with the results from most SLR (single-lens reflex) 35mm film cameras
– even relatively inexpensive ones.
When you wanted to make a big enlargement, or crop a small section of
the image, film has won every time.
Then back in March, I heard about
three new digital cameras about to
come onto the market – the Nikon
D100, Fuji S2 and the Canon EOS
D60 – which could change all that.
All offered more than 6 megapixel
resolution, in a physical format akin
to the SLRs we’ve used for decades.
In fact, like most SLRs, they featured
a wide range of interchangeable lenses,
either from their own stable or from a
myriad of after-market lens suppliers.
As it happens, the Nikon and Fuji
are based on essentially the same
platform and use the same lenses.
The Nikon was scheduled for release
in July but no firm release date could
be obtained for the Fuji. The Canon
was first released around March but
was in extremely short supply. There
was little point in talking to Fuji but
we asked both Nikon and Canon to
make a review model available. Nikon
promised, Canon delivered.
So in this brief look at the state-ofthe-art in digital cameras, we only
look at the Canon EOS D60. The other
two, at least from our research, will be
quite similar.
The Canon has a slight edge on
the other two in resolution – 6.3
mega-pixels effective, versus the Fuji
and Nikon’s 6.1 megapixels effective.
The sensors in digital cameras have
more pixels than actually used – 6.52
in the case of the Canon. There are
limitations, mainly optical, on how
much of the sensor can be used to
produce an image.
Affordable?
Right from the outset, we have to
say that the new high resolution dig-
ital SLRs are not for everybody. They
are expensive (some might say very!)
– and their attachments are expensive.
The body kit (as pictured above) for
the Canon EOS D60 will set you back
more than five thousand dollars. That
does NOT include a lens. A zoom lens
from Canon’s “EF” family (16-35mm;
f2.8) another three grand. Add an
electronic flash and you’re nudging
the ten thousand dollar mark.
That’s serious money – and for that,
you have to be a serious photographer.
Having said that, there are many
serious photographers! Stocks of the
EOS D60 are in such short supply
world-wide that you’ll almost certainly go on a waiting list. (Lucky, that – it
gives you time to save up!).
We said before that these cameras
were aimed at serious amateurs or
professionals. A typical example is
sports photography, especially press
sports photography.
With a camera such as this, a
photographer can take his pictures,
down-load to a notebook computer
and email a selection via mobile phone
to anywhere in the world within a few
minutes of the action.
During the Sydney Olympic Games,
there were some reports of photos taken during an event, printed in newspapers and delivered back to Homebush
Bay before the spectators had left the
First look/review by SILICON CHIP photographer, Ross Tester
www.siliconchip.com.au
October 2002 33
Top and rear views of the camera, showing the
myriad of controls. The dial at far left (in the
normal film rewind position) controls the exposure
modes, the thumb dial on the right is for exposure
speed. The rather confusing two on/off switches
above control either camera power (top left) or the
quick control dial (centre) immediately underneath.
stadium for that event!
That’s only possible via the digital
route. Just think of the time taken to
get the roll(s) of film to a processor
(even on site), processing time itself,
selection, scanning and despatch to
the paper – and you can see why digital
is the way to go!
That sort of flexibility and speed is
worth its weight in gold to a newspaper. Small wonder then that Canon has
been showing off the D60 to most, if
not all, of the nation’s media groups.
Speaking of the Olympic Games,
I was one of those 42,000 “vollies”.
At the first event, the Triathlon, I was
assigned to media access control,
checking the passes of press people
wanting to enter restricted areas. We
had the photographers “corralled” in
a holding area for a short while (much
to their angst!) and I was able to have
a good look (drool!) at their gear.
Even then, a full two years ago,
I marvelled at the range of digital
cameras (and digital backs for conventional cameras) which many of the
world’s leading photographers sported. Sure made my 35mm equipment
look sick!
Back then, three or four megapixels
was pretty much the limit. And back
then, I can’t recall any of this class of
camera available for less than $10,000
(the top-of-the-line models where
somewhere up in the stratosphere!)
Imagine how much those photographers would give to get their hands on
six megapixels at $5000-ish!
Incidentally, the EOS D60 easily
34 Silicon Chip
beats Canon’s own “flagship” professional camera, the EOS 1 D, at four
megapixels. Admittedly, that is one
v-e-r-y tricked up camera with many
more professional-type features than
the D60. But at more than ten grand
for the body alone, it would want to
be!
Incidentally, some of those long
lenses you see used by sports photographers cost many, many times
more than the camera itself. The topof-the-range Canon EF lens, which can
do an admirable “head & shoulders”
from more than a kilometre away, will
cost you more than a house. (There is
only one such lens in Australia, by
the way!).
We have, until now, been concentrating on that six megapixel resolution. But of course resolution is only a
part of the story. Let’s now have a look
at the D60 in detail.
What you get
Ignoring the fact that there is no film
nor film transport mechanism, the EOS
Some of the detail available in the
LCD screen on top of the camera. It
doesn’t all come on at once . . .
D60 is in most senses a “traditional”
SLR camera. It has a focal-plane shutter, a flip-up mirror, variable shutter
speeds, variable exposure settings . . .
everything you’d expect to find. Well,
with the possible exception of the lens:
that’s an option, so you can purchase
the one(s) that suit(s) your needs best.
(Of course, many purchasers will
already have their own selection of
lenses).
But wait, there’s more!
Being totally electronic, there is a
whole lot more. First of all, as well as a
TTL (through the lens) viewfinder with
integral camera data display, there’s
a 1.8-inch TFT colour monitor built
in. There’s a large LCD panel on the
top of the camera which gives a huge
range of information in four languages
(more on this later). There’s an array of
pushbuttons on the rear of the camera
along with a quick control dial (there’s
also another main dial on the top of
the camera).
The one thing you can’t do is open
up the back of the camera – there’s
no need, of course, because there’s no
film. One thing this does do is make
the body that much more rigid than a
standard 35mm.
I was intrigued to note the O symbol
engraved on the body, which in a film
camera shows the exact position of the
film for extreme macro photography.
Except there’s no film! (Obviously, this
symbol in a digital shows the position
of the CMOS sensor).
A small built-in flash is provided but
www.siliconchip.com.au
The ZoomBrowser
utility is very nice
and easy to use.
It’s a whole lot
quicker to select
shots using this
utility than
opening them in,
say, Photoshop.
You can instantly
enlarge each pic
to view it on this
“monitor screen.”
even more impressive is the camera’s
“evaluative through-the-lens” (E-TTL)
exposure control when using this
flash or one of the Canon Speedlite
flash guns.
In the time between you pressing the
shutter release and when the mirror
goes up, the camera fires a brief preflash, evaluates the ambient light and
reflected illumination, and calculates
the exact flash output needed. Now
that’s clever!
This pre-flash is also part of the
red-eye reduction mechanism. (Redeye occurs when flash light reflects
off the blood-filled vessels behind the
retina at the back of the eye when the
eye’s iris is wide open [ie, in low light
situations]. The pre-flash causes the
iris to briefly close down, minimising
reflected red light).
As far as storage is concerned, the
EOS D60 accepts Type 1 or Type II
CompactFlash cards or even a high
capacity Microdrive.
With a 128MB CompactFlash card,
you can get around 15 shots in RAW
format (3072 x 2048; 7.4MB picture
size), 48 shots in large, fine format
(also 3072 x 2048 but compressed
to 2.5MB picture size) and as many
as 255 shots in small (1536 x 1024;
0.5MB picture size). RAW format, by
the way, is “as she is shot” – a 16-bit
RGB-TIFF, for maximum image quality
and content.
Put in a Microdrive and well, the sky
is (almost) the limit, especially with
the capacity of Microdrives increasing
almost exponentially these days.
How big a pic?
Our argument against digital cameras has been on the basis of resolution/
enlargement.
Let’s look a little more closely at
those digital formats and what you
can do with them.
We said at the outset that these digital cameras were “near film quality”.
But what does that mean?
At the highest camera resolution,
it’s claimed that you could print an
A3 size image (420 x 297mm) on
photographic paper and it would be
very difficult (if not impossible for
most observers) to tell the difference
between it and the same scene on an
A3 print from 35mm film.
In fact, with the processing power
available to you in digital format, it
could be much better: sharpening,
colour correction, special effects, etc
are all dramatically easier in digital
format.
Incidentally, a copy of Adobe
Photoshop LE, the “lite” version of
the industry-standard image editing
program, is included with the box of
goodies you get with the camera. We’ll
look at the other goodies shortly.
Above A3 and the film starts to
take over. But then again, how often
do you need to enlarge a 35mm negative (or positive) to greater than A3
(that’s about a 16x12 in oldspeak)?
Anyone, especially a pro, wanting
this type of end result would almost
certainly turn to a medium-format
film camera.
But for your typical postcard-size
prints or even 10x8s (250x200mm) or
12x10s (300x250mm), the convenience and flexibility of the hi-res digital
wins hands down.
Control of your pictures
We cannot hope to tell you
We know these aren’t particularly exciting shots but they do prove a point! Video monitors and TV screens (left) usually
take a fair bit of mucking around to get just right. This shot was taken hand held – I just aimed the camera, zoomed in and
pressed the shutter. The D60 did everything else – and did it right! Likewise, the closeup of the brochure at right; again
handheld, point and shoot. Auto focus, auto exposure, auto everything. This could be used for archiving purposes.
www.siliconchip.com.au
October 2002 35
everything about the EOS D60 in this
brief review – we didn’t discover them
all ourselves in the week or so we had
it. Briefly, though, we’ll summarise
some of the more important functions:
Autofocus: a 3-point autofocus system
is built in – you can choose which
of the three points you use or let
the camera make the decisions for
you. Of course, you can also turn
AF off and drive the focus yourself.
In the past, there has been some
criticism of the amount of battery
consumed by autofocus. We didn’t
find this a problem; we did run the
batteries flat by forgetting to turn
the camera off, though. (Changing
one of the inbuilt settings to auto
turn-off after a fixed, settable,
time fixed this).
Metering: a triple metering system is
at your disposal. The camera can
use a 35-zone evaluative metering
system, partial metering or centre-weighted metering. You can also
override the metering system by ±2
stops in half-stop or one-third-stop
increments. Or you can have the
camera automatically bracket under,
normal and over exposure shots for
you. Without film to worry about
wasting, why not?
Shooting modes: there are 11 shooting
modes programmed in, set from
a single dial. Along with a fully
manual mode, you can choose from
a fully automatic programmed
(AE) mode, shutter priority AE
for fast-moving scenes, aperture
priority AE when you’re worried
about depth of field – and then
there are five modes set by dialling
up a pictogram: portraits, close-ups,
landscapes, sports and night scenes.
That might be thought of as shooting
for dummies. Maybe so, but gee
it’s easy!
Shutter speeds: from 1/4000s to 30s
plus bulb.
Drive modes: you have the choice of
a conventional single frame (one
frame per shutter release) or continuous shooting (á lá a motor drive
– up to eight frames at three frames
per second). And there’s a self-timer
built in for good measure.
White balance: once again, manual
control where you make the white
point decisions, or seven modes of
automatic/preset. Pictograms again
make it easy – daylight, overcast,
tungsten light, fluorescent light,
external flash and a custom mode
36 Silicon Chip
Canon’s “PhotoStitch” utility: Not perfect but gee, it’s not bad!
We just had to show you this nifty utility which is on the Canon CD. It allows you to join
two pics (digital, scanned, downloaded, etc) in a “panorama” mode. It’s very quick and
easy to use and while it’s not perfect, it does a commendably good job – almost as if shot
with a very wide angle lens! You could in theory keep adding photo after photo after photo!
We started with these two building pics, shot from exactly the same spot.
Here’s what they would have looked like merely superimposed one on the other. . .
And here’s how PhotoStitch joined them. Perspective is a bit strange but otherwise,
not a real bad result in smoothing the building lines out. The join is barely visible.
plus a fully automatic mode which
allows the camera to react to changing lighting conditions during the
shoot.
LCD Panel
The LCD panel on the top of the
camera, in conjunction with information in the viewfinder, gives even
the most demanding photographer
every piece of information they could
ever want.
Of course there are the things you’d
expect: shutter speed, ISO speed,
aperture and so on – but there is so
much more that we’ve reproduced the
manual graphic to show you.
It’ll tell you when your battery is
low, the mode you’re in, how many
shots you’ve taken/have left, exposure
info, drive mode . . . there is very little
it doesn’t tell you and that is almost
certainly taken care of via the rear
screen.
Viewfinder
Much of this information, especially the vital stuff, is repeated in the
20mm viewfinder so you don’t need
to take your eye away from the action
to see what the camera is doing. The
viewfinder has a –3.0 to +1.0 dioptre
adjustment to cater for most eyesight.
Software
We’ve already mentioned Photo-shop Lite – but there are other goodies. Whether you work in Windows or
Mac, there is software to make your
life easy:
ZoomBrowser EX (Win) or Image-Browser (Mac) allow you to
download, catalog and print your
digital pictures.
www.siliconchip.com.au
How much resolution do you need?
We've been extolling the virtues of
6+ megapixel resolution – but obviously that comes at a (significant) price.
Resolution determines image
quality – the higher the resolution,
the better the final print.
It should be fairly obvious that
higher resolution packs more detail
into the image than lower resolution.
The higher the number of megapixels,
the higher the resolution.
First of all, let’s look at that term,
megapixels. Mega means, naturally,
millions of, and pixel is an abbreviation
for “picture element”.
In the camera, the image sensor
doesn’t work as a single unit. Instead,
it’s divided into (usually) millions of
individual sensors, each able to react
independently to changes in light level
(shades) and colours (hues).
Each one of these is called a pixel
– and the more pixels in that image
sensor, the better the resolution, because more information is provided
in the image.
How can you work out what reso-
lution you really need?
To produce a very good (photo-quality) print, you generally need around
300ppi (pixels per inch – yes, it's usually
expressed in imperial measurement).
You can get away with less (sometimes 200ppi is used) but quality drops
away quite quickly.
It’s not too difficult to work out how
many megapixels you need.
Once again, we need to work in
inches. And all this assumes you are
using the total area of the sensor for
your enlargement. If you are cropping
(choosing only a certain section of the
image to enlarge and discarding the
rest) these figures get blown right out
of the water!
Say you want a high quality, 10x8
print, so you’d choose 300ppi resolution.
Multiply both dimensions of the print by
300: 10 x 300= 3000, 8 x 300= 2400.
Therefore, your camera needs to produce an image 3000x2400 pixels. Can it?
Multiply the 3000 by 2400 and you come
up with 7,200,000 or 7.2 megapixels –
even beyond the 6.3 megapixel Canon.
Of course, if you are prepared to
settle for 200ppi in the final print, the
equation becomes 2000 x 1600 or
3.2megapixels.
Perhaps now you can understand
why many of those “point'n'shoot”
cameras with only a few hundred
kilopixels or so produce less-than-satisfactory prints – at virtually any
size!
So how does the claim for 16x12
inch from 6.3Mp work out? Theoretically, even at 200ppi that’s 3200 x
2400 or 7.7Mp. The answer is in the
processing – either within the camera
itself, the output device (the digital
printer at your local processor’s) or
in your computer.
Many cameras and most photo-manipulation software have the capacity
to “interpolate”, manufacturing information from the pixels around it and
sort-of “filling in the gaps” with similar
information.
It’s not perfect, but these days is
capable of surprisingly good results
if you don’t push it too far.
PhotoStitch lets you merge several
images together to form one continuous panoramic photo. This software
isn’t limited to the digital pics from
the D60 – it will work with files from
any source (even document scans).
useful for the large RAW files. It also
lets you remotely control the camera
(with your PC) to shoot single frame,
timer and interval timer (eg, time
lapse or unattended). But would you
leave your D60 unattended? I know I
wouldn’t!
The package also includes the cables you’re going to need such as a
USB port connector, video out (did
we mention that the D60 can output
to a video monitor?) and power adaptor.
RemoteCapture
You can save images direct to
your computer rather than the Compact-Flash or Microdrive. This is really
Just for comparison, the same setup done under our Balcar studio flash with the
D60 (left) and my trusty old (very old!) Minolta SRT-101 using Fuji Sensia 35mm
film, f16, 1/60sec. Shadowing is more pronounced on the Canon.
www.siliconchip.com.au
Power
A rechargeable lithium-ion battery
pack is included which is claimed
will give a capacity of between 400
and 620 frames, depending on the
temperature and whether or not the
flash is used.
With the review sample, a battery
grip was supplied which takes a second battery, doubling the number of
shots. The grip also makes handling
the camera in vertical mode much
easier. But it will set you back another
$280 or so.
One thing we didn’t like: with the
battery grip in place and the 16-28mm
lens fitted, the camera was front-heavy
and always fell forward onto the front
edge of the lens. Not a big problem,
just something to keep in mind. And
while on the subject of gripes, the lens
cap could not be made captive in any
way – and with a lens of this value,
you don’t want to lose the lens cap.
OK, let’s cut to the chase
We’ve told you all about the camera
and what it will do. About the only
October 2002 37
In most cases, the 8 or 16 megabyte (MB) card that came with your camera won’t
cut it. Get the highest capacity removable storage card within your budget. For most
occasions, a 128MB card will suffice. Rapidly falling prices are making these cards
very affordable – having more capacity than you think you’ll need lets you concentrate
on taking pictures and not filling up the card.
thing we haven’t talked about is what
it did for us!
In one word, everything. Everything
that we wanted it to do, it did.
We put it through its paces in various
modes – as a studio camera (attached
to the same Balcar studio flash we use
for all our 35mm film photography);
as a portrait camera (with flash and
without); as a function/event camera
(I shot my surf club presentation night
with it!); even as a happy snap camera
taking various scenes outdoors.
I was tempted to take it along to the
State of Origin league match but wiser
counsel prevailed . . .
Just for the hell of it, we even shot
things like a computer monitor and a
printed page in extreme close-up to see
how the autofocus and auto-exposure
coped (it did!). And we also took it to
one of our advertisers who had some
bits and pieces he wanted us to see
in a very dimly-lit room. No dramas!
Now all this of course only scratched
the surface as far as the capabilities of
the D60 are concerned. We would have
loved to have it for another month (or
50!) to really play with it – but what it
did do more than convinced us that it
was more than capable of being a very,
very versatile workhorse.
Our verdict: more than acceptable.
It’s a not-so-little ripper, even if you
almost have to mortgage the farm to
buy it. We said it wasn’t the camera
for everyone.
But for serious users who want to
go the digital route, spec-wise the
Canon outperforms the Nikon and
Fuji “equivalents”; practically, there
does-n’t appear to be too much between them (even though we haven’t
played with the others) and, looking
at reported/likely street pricing, the
Canon is a little more keenly priced.
Not much – but it could be a couple
of hundred in your pocket.
By the way, if you are interested
in seeing the D60 stacked up against
other cameras, Google EOS D60 (and/
or Nikon D100/Fuji S2) and you’ll be
swamped.
SC
10. Get an external card reader.
More info:
Digital Camera Tips from SanDisk*
While the basic principles of photography still apply, digital cameras have their own
unique characteristics that differ from traditional film cameras.
To compile this advice, SanDisk enlisted the help of Rick Sammon, host of the Digital
Photography Workshop on the US DIY Television Network, photography instructor at
leading photo learning workshops around the US and author of 21 books on photography.
Here are Rick’s 10 tips for taking better pictures with a digital camera:
1: Move in closer.
Most pictures will benefit if you take a few steps forward. Having your subject fill most
the frame helps your viewer understand your photo and provides details that are often
more interesting than an overall view. To get the clearest picture, use the camera’s
optical zoom if you can’t move closer to your subject.
2: Use your viewfinder, not the LCD
A digital camera’s LCD screen uses lots of battery power so to maximize battery life,
use the camera’s viewfinder.
3: Anticipate the moment.
Most point-and-shoot digital cameras have an inherent delay between pressing the
shutter button and when the camera takes the picture. Try to anticipate the action and
always be ready to shoot.
4: Use available light when possible.
Indoors, the mood created by natural light is lost with a flash. Whenever possible,
position a subject by a door or window and avoid using the on-camera flash.
5.Shoot at the highest resolution available.
If you want to print your images or enlarge a part of the image, you’ll get the best
results from a larger file. You can always decrease the resolution of the image on your
computer to email them but starting off with a low-resolution image does not give you
the flexibility to print your picture.
6.Take as many pictures as possible.
The more images you take, the better your chances are of getting that special shot.
Because you don’t incur any costs until you print your images, take as many shots
as you can.
7.Delete unwanted images ‘on-the-fly.’
Immediately deleting images you don’t want minimises the task of deleting images
because you’re running out of storage capacity. When in doubt, save the image until
you can view it on your computer monitor.
8. Use rechargeable batteries.
Digital cameras are notorious for consuming batteries. Consider investing in an extra
rechargeable battery. You can continue to take pictures while the other set is charging.
9.Think big.
One of the easiest and fastest ways to transfer images between the camera and computer
is to use a card reader. This is often faster than using the transfer cable included with
your camera. In addition, if your camera does not have a docking/recharging station,
the card readers avoid tying up your camera and draining its batteries when it is left
on for long periods of time while transferring images.
* SanDisk (www.sandisk.com) is the world leader in removable storage media used
in digital cameras, including the “CompactFlash” used in the Canon EOS D60.
38 Silicon Chip
www.canon.com.au
Acknowledgement:
Our thanks to Alan Brightman of Canon
Australia for his assistance in supplying
the review EOS D60 (and also a 5-minute ogle at the EOS-1D!).
Also thanks to SanDisk for the use of
their Digital Photography Guide.
www.siliconchip.com.au
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