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.  

My Life In Cameras

My days of camera love began here. Strange isn't it? Of course, being a child of the 60's and 70's, it should be no surprise given the dominance of Kodak in those days. I don't remember where it came from or what the circumstances were surrounding this 126 cartridge loading Instamatic. I just remember it being around the house when I was young. It was heavy. Everything had a weight to it back in those days when most anything even remotely substantial was made of metal. Anyway, I also remember that I never could get it to work right so I took most of my pictures on this.....

I know, I know... these were barely cameras. But hey, it was cheap (mowing lawns didn't pay a lot), and the film was cheap to buy and have processed. Plus it was very small and portable. I mostly went everywhere on my Sears "Free Spirit" 10-Speed, so something that fit in my overly-tight bluejeans pocket was perfect. Only super geeks wore backpacks and no self-respecting teenage boy had a luggage rack, much less a basket on his bike! On a regular basis, I road down to the train depot, took pictures of the passing freight engines and chatted with the station master. Little did I know that it was the last of those days as well. Both station and master are long gone now from little towns in the Texas panhandle like Abernathy. On the way back, I'd swing by the library and pick up some "Rick Brant Electronic Adventures" or "Hardy Boys Mysteries" that I'd already read several times.You know; I still read to books for relaxation.

Real photography came in this form. My dad's Voigtlander Bessamatic Deluxe. I can't imagine a better camera on which to learn photography. It had one lens, a 50mm f/2.8 Color-Skopar. It had a coupled "match-needle" selenium meter visible in the viewfinder. This "deluxe" version had a reflecting mirror system which gave the ability to see the aperture and shutter speed in the finder. The Synchro-Compur leaf shutter allowed flash synchronization at all shutter speeds. For a late 60's and early 70's kid, I was photographically spoiled. I got to use this camera under the supervision of my father on our seemingly annual summer trips into mountains of northern New Mexico and Colorado. For those of you who have been up there in the summer time, you won't be surprised that experience helped me learn to handle rapidly changing lighting conditions. I sometimes tell people that I "cut my photographic teeth" on that camera. Although I had loan of it any time I wanted; of course this wasn't my camera. That would come later.

In a dusty little West Texas town like ours, there were very few kids who grew up handling a SLR (single lens reflex), so I supposed it shouldn't surprise anyone that I landed the post of "Annual Staff Photographer" my Freshman year of high school. The school owned a Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL, along with the requisite 50mm f/1.8 and 135mm f/2.8 lens, as well as a Yashica Mat 124G twin lens reflex. My 14 year-old self though, turned up his nose at them, and continued to use my dad's Voigtlander instead. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have jumped all over that 1000DTL with it's built-in spot metering. The whole time though, I was pining away for the latest and the greatest from the "land of the rising sun". This was the later part of the 70's and the electronic revolution was sweeping the photographic industry. It had begun almost a decade before with cameras like the Pentax ES, and Nikkormat EL, but after the middle part of the decade when Olympus turned every other company on it's ear with the M-1 (OM-1, Olympus Model 1) with it's compact size and every feature under the sun, the handwriting was on the wall. Everyone needed to get smaller, lighter and more electronic! In April of 1976, Canon took things to the "next level" with the AE-1. Relatively small, light, and electronically advanced, with the ability to take most of the professional grade Canon system. However it's real secret was really the construction technology which jumped to a different level entirely with polycarbonate body components! Canon didn't invent these things. They're just the ones that combined it all together. This completely shifted the SLR market from typically doctors, engineers, scientist and such to include the everyday common man/woman. They invented today's DSLR-toting soccer moms. Although, I was able to talk the school into this camera the following fall, it wasn't my camera either. What I wanted came along in the Spring of '78. The great Canon A-1. Although, it shot film; this camera can be considered the progenitor of today's DSLRs. All electronic, with the now familiar PASM shooting modes, controlled by a control wheel for every function. Yes; you are correct, that the Minolta XD-11 of 1977 came first, but it's functional layout for controls was traditional and it never dominated the top end of what would later become know as the "pro-sumer" market like the Canon. The A-1 was the camera I had to have. After a lot of scraping and scrounging from working part-time jobs and the participation of my brother who was also fascinated by the camera, I bought it during the summer of 1978. I actually shot with it for less than 2 years, it had a major impact on my Psyche. 

Although, the A-1 was the camera that I remember so completely it seems that it was around longer than it really was; it was this camera that changed me as a photographer. The Canon 7s, introduced in 1961! If the A-1 was the "bombshell cheerleader" dream-date that makes everybody stare and drool everywhere you go (make no mistake: when I went anywhere shooting yearbook photos with it, every other yearbook photographer wanted to talk about it!), then this was the girl next door. One the eye-catching (with the blond Farrah Fawcett hair-do), the other the slender brunette with her hair pulled back in a pony-tail and no make-up. It was a little angular, with very few controls, but everything operated smoothly and quietly (almost silently). The summer after I graduated before heading off to college, I worked in the booming metropolis of Lubbock, at a photo studio long since gone called Reeves Photography, as the "black and white" technician. When I wasn't standing in the darkroom over a Dektol tray or prowling the basement full of old equipment, I haunted the camera shops all over town....both of them. One day, as I was hanging around in Plains Camera on 34th St., I spotted it; the Canon 7s in a glass case. It was mounted with the 50mm f/1.2 lens. I think I went back every day for a week to look at that camera. In the end, I cut a deal with my brother, where he help me buy it, and we'd split the cameras up when I went to college in the fall. I kept the 7s and he got the A-1. Shooting with this camera was at once, both work and joy. You had to know the light in your head and set the controls accordingly. When you knew what you were doing, this camera became a part of you. When you didn't, the results weren't very good. Unlike the A-1 with all the automation, there was no safety net. At this point, I might have been the best photographer that I ever was or will be. No, really; I'm just being honest. I've always had a "good eye", but at that point, I hadn't yet over developed my left-brain with the abundance of Masters Degree analytics followed by decades of classroom and administrative work.

Speaking of classroom. I eventually got out of college.... twice. By the late 80's, ensconced in a paying position as a teacher and coach, I was finally in a position take my old hobby back up. In case you haven't heard, photography can be a little expensive! Although I wanted to take up where I left off, it's not as easy as that. A decade before, in the last years of high school, I was as close as I ever would be to professional photography. I was in the darkroom every day, and shot lots of photos, especially model portfolio regularly. After a decade hiatus; it doesn't just all come back. On top of that, I was a teacher, a coach, and a student again, pursuing his Master's Degree..... all at the same time. One of things I learned at that time is that a rangefinder camera, is not something you just kind of pick up randomly and get good results. You have to kind of become "one" with the camera. Besides which, I wasn't shooting much (if any) portraiture and that bit of "softness" from the Canon was unneeded and unwanted for what I was doing. What I needed and wanted was a relatively "up-to-date" system SLR that was quick to use and had some basic metering capability. So I made the decision to sell the Canon 7s, which made me sad (then and now). Around this time, I had found a little camera shop on the outskirts of town that dealt exclusively in used equipment. There was a lot of that in those "Mind of Minolta", and "EOS Rebel" (remember those Agassi commercials?) days. People were dumping older non-auto-focusing/non-automatic exposure cameras right and left! I knew I didn't have the money for the Nikon FM/FM2 that I wanted. Well, actually, I did have the money for the camera and a lens, but not for any other Nikon lenses. After all; what's the point of owning a Nikon if you don't put Nikon glass on it! Small, light camera with a good system and had excellent glass: not surprisingly, it came down to Olympus (OM-1n, OM-2n), or Pentax (MX, ME-Super). I bought an MX in nice condition with a SMC-M 50mm f/1.4 for $140. Later I traded it for an almost identical black-bodied version, then came the ME-Super and eventually about 12 lenses, ranging from 24mm to 200mm, plus various zooms. This went on happily for almost 2 decades.

Then came digital. In an early post, I had talked about my progression beginning with a Kodak DC4800. I'll at least hit the high points here. I was working at the University of Illinois at the time as the Area Coordinator for IT. Under my purview was all items digital, including the cameras. No one was an expert photographer in our department so we used the fairly nice performing Kodak DC cameras of that time to shoot photos of events that we could use in our literature and website. Of course, since I was in charge of them, I had access. I soon found that the only photos I ever did anything with were the ones that were digital. So, I started doing research. I learned the the 3Mp was the break point where you just generally couldn't tell the difference between film and digital. The DSLR market at that time was still over the $2000 per, so that was out. Almost all the other cameras were completely automated and really not suited for a photographer (vs. a snap-shooter). So, I got a DC4800 and shot digital increasingly as my film use decreased over the next several years. My detour into the compact "super-zoom" cameras in the form of the Nikon CoolPix 8800 has been previously covered enough so I won't get into that again other than to say that I did manage to catch my mistake quickly enough to land on my feet and purchase the Nikon D70. Although, I've moved on from that model, it sure fired-off my continued affection for 6 megapixel DSLRs though!

The first 5 or 10 post of this blog details how I went from the 8800 to the D70, then on to this camera, the D200. I probably consider this my first real Nikon. Not that the D70 was deficient in any way. It was just that this magnesium bodied "pro-sumer" camera embodied the sense of what I always felt using a Nikon was all about. That came through in every Nikon I've touched ranging from my friend Eric's mom's "F", to the "FM" that I owned for a while a few years ago. I'll probably always consider this model to be my first "big boy" Nikon. 

Today, I have these to use. The D300 (successor to the D200) and the newly acquired "walk-around" camera, the D40. It's been a long road to get here over these last 45 years or so. It's been an enjoyable hobby, as much for the equipment as the photography. This last Saturday, I met a father who had come with his daughter to buy the "plastic fantastic" D50. I had a good time just sitting with them and watching her hold and try that camera out then nodding to her dad when she had decided that it "was the one". I pegged her at somewhere between 18 and 20. She was excited and her dad was happy that she was happy. I'm just glad that the camera went to somebody that had to scrape and work to get it, just like all those cameras have been a part of my life these last 45 years.