The Compact DSLR System: Part 1

It's the summer of 1977, and the Konica Autoreflex TC had been introduced the previous year. I'm 16 and standing in a little camera store on University Ave., in Lubbock, Texas looking into a glass case, much like this one at the object of my desire. Things are just so intense in your teenage years. So much so that you can often get a ghost of it when some certain song plays, or you smell something in the air..... I often talk to my Psychology classes about how our memory and how it works....., but of course, they are teens themselves, so they look at me like I've "lost it". Anyway, I remember this camera so clearly that years later, when I'm standing in the space that store had been at, which would become ironically a maker of awards and momentos, called Paddle Tramps, that I can completely bring back the sense of that time. ...... Anyway; I had settled on wanting this camera because 

1. I wanted what every other camera buyer of the time did, a compact system SLR, and 
2. I didn't have any idea that the Canon A-1 was about to be released!

Why compact, and why, the TC? Five years before that, in Cologne, Germany at that years Photokina show, Olympus had set the SLR world on it's collective ear with the introduction of the M-1, later renamed the OM-1 due to Leica's protests over some unimportant model that they had previously used that designation for...... Anyway, all that aside, this not only propels Olympus from respected outsider to the wunderkind of the camera world. 

Every since it's introduction 13 years before, this had been the face of the now dominant Japanese photographic industry! This represented what was then new: combat photography from the jungles of SE Asia, student protest on college campuses, California counter-culture, and moon rockets! All gone in one fell-swoop! Big, old, heavy, dusty and out-of-step! The OM-1 and later the OM-2 sent every camera company in the world scrambling to get something put together that was going to be competitive. Good grief; even professionals were trying out the new camera (although they would mostly return to the Nikon F-2/3, and Canon F-1 soon enough). However, in that space of time between about 1973 and 1977, everybody was going small. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford small. Actually, I couldn't afford Olympus. The Olympus was almost as expensive as the pro Nikons and clearly out of the range of a teenager with part-time jobs.....which left me with the Konica TC. It was a system, and most importantly, it had shutter-priority automation, where you set the shutter speed and the cameras set the aperture. This is what every aspiring photojournalist wanted (or so I believed anyway), because you could be certain that the shutter speed could stop the action. Let those who shoot flowers use Aperture priority! Of course, most importantly, it was cool, small and did I say cool!?!

Fast forward 30 years, and we have gone from film to digital, and oddly, we also went through the whole growth in size path to compact dimensions.....again. Understandably, in the early days of DSLRs, the electronics were still relatively large, so the cameras needed to be bigger. Subsequently, like anything electronic, the successive generations have brought the components down in size as more and more powerful processors and integrated circuits have come into use. The last two major barriers being the elimination of the focusing motor from the body of the camera by using "ring-motors" inside the lenses themselves and the removal of the top info panel on all-but high-end cameras in favor of a larger control LCD on the back of the camera itself. I know what you are thinking: I'm not going to get into the whole "mirrorless" issue today, since I'm classifying those cameras as different than the DSLRs that we're talking about. Not worse, not better, just different.

For this, we have to go back to 2003, and the camera that started the DSLR revolution (at least as far as the consumer market is concerned), the Canon EOS 300D (or Digital Rebel on this side of the pond). It and it's successor, the 350D (built on the same chassis) was and still is the yard stick that all future compact DSLR are measured against. See the layout? The grip, control wheel, the mode dial on the left of the penta-prism? The lack of major controls on the right side of the body? If it looks familiar, huh; that's because, every manufacturer has copied this layout in the last 10 years! 

This change is pretty much the only reason for the major difference in size from the D50 to the D40. Yes, the removal of the focusing motor cuts a bit of height, but not enough to be a difference maker. No; the change from the CF card to SD, makes no difference. They only did that because the expected market for this type of camera is an up-grader from "compact digital" cameras to "beginner" DSLRs. And not having to buy a new card makes it easier for them. Don't believe me, go find a picture of an Olympus E-410/420. It's tiny! It uses a CF card. 

Where am I going with this? It's that the major sea-change originating from the Olympus back in 1972 has finally settled in to the digital realm as well....if you are careful. When Olympus originally made the design changes that they did, it wasn't just cosmetic. It was a change in philosophy. It wasn't just the camera either, they literally redesigned everything in the system to fit the new camera. Eventually it would effect the entire industry. I came to understand what that meant when I put my small (18-70mm f.3.5-4.5) zoom on the D40 and realized that even that lens was a little big. However, when I grabbed my "old" glass made in the late 70's after all the manufacturers redesigned everything, that I found the correct fit. 

 

The Tamron 300mm f/5.6 and my Vivitar 70-150mm f/3.8 fits the D40 like they were designed for it. That's because that they don't have motors built in to them, are made of brass and engineered from the very beginning to work with the Olympus OM-1s and Pentax MXs of the world. As you can see, after the Canon 350D, other cameras have come along and gotten even smaller. Left to right, you have the Olympus E-420, the Pentax K-x, then the Nikon D40. 

The lower end Nikons and Canons have grown a little since the 300D and D40, but last month, Canon released the EOS SL1, which puts them "back in the game". What I'm saying is, that it doesn't have to stop at that 40mm "Pancake" lens (I'm all too aware that BOTH Canon and Pentax "pancakes" in their line-up now). 

I clearly remember every month when my issue of Modern Photography arrived, I'd go right over to the great Herbert Keppler's column and read his thoughts. Quite often, he would be extolling the virtues of a lightweight, compact camera matched with high-performing, but equally lightweight lenses. From those articles, I learned the basics of how to create a traveling kit. You add all this together with a nicely performing compact DSLR, then you have the modern version of what Y. Maitani envisioned 40+ years ago.