The Longevity of dSLRs

[Tom Cross]

The problem will eventually be availability of parts

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

My Canon 5DII works as well as it did when new, but my Wireless File Transmitter (WFT-E4IIA) for that body is experiencing obsolesence. It has a USB port for GPS devices and writing to external drives. It's convenient to be able to back up to a flash drive, or write in two different formats to the card in the camera and to an external flash drive, but it only can write to such devices formatted as FAT32, and Windows--even old versions of Windows that have been kept up to date--will format USB flash drives to exFAT, which the Canon WFT doesn't understand. So I keep a couple of old USB drives just for the Canon and hope I don't have to reformat them at some point. I doubt there's any chance of a firmware update for something that's 7 years old, but I've written to Canon about it.

100+ year old American Optical 11x14" camera still running fine.

Canon stuck with the business model of planned obsolescence and suggested getting an old XP machine for formatting my USB drives to FAT32. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't been planning obsolescence at the same rate as Canon, so older versions of Windows auto-update to format flash drives to exFAT like Win10.

Fortunately, I found a utility from Verbatim that should format any flash media to FAT32. It's not only cameras that have this problem, but any older device that uses flash media like flat-screen televisions, DVD players, cable boxes, gaming systems, car audio systems, and such. If you are having this issue, try:

http://www.verbatim.com/index/search.php?words=fat32+tool

 

[mrred]

My previous digital was a D200 and about 5 years ago some thief made off with it, along with a prised lens. I decided not to replace it and moved on. Last april I was in Vegas and shot about 20 films and carried to much weight bouncing around with a F6. On my return I made 2 desissions... 1: make a film processor and 2: get a DSLR..... at least for vacations....it ain't all art.

Bringing this altogether to a point: I bought a slightly used D7000...16MP. Circa 2012ish. Still shooting fine. Images are sharp and has years to go. I have images shout from my D70 days and the quality compares. It is always about the glass.

I still have a Olympus C8080 8mp pre DSLR...fixed lens. Circa 2004. I bought it new....like $1200. The images are still razor sharp. Tilted live-view back screen, digital viewfinder and a bunch of other features just coming on line with the major players now. It still works. I can only use 4gb (or smaller) CF. As long as anyone can handle the really slow focusing and F8 being the smallest aperture, it will last forever.

Like my film shooters, it's hard to predict how long things will last. Just use it and take care of it.

 

[mrred]

......Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't been planning obsolescence at the same rate as Canon, so older versions of Windows auto-update to format flash drives to exFAT like Win10

That was all about M$ patents running out. The most common M$ leverage they have is the use of FAT anything. Remember the TomTom suit a few years ago? They are linux based.....but used fat on the SD card. Pay the man. Patents run out and M$ changes the design enough to keep them their own.

 

[keyofnight]

We are getting to the point with dslrs that even the latest models are only a modest improvement from their predecessors. There are limits to what we actually need and what is physically possible/economically viable and I think only in the next 10 years or so will we start seeing just how well made these cameras really are.

I think this is a crucial point.

Our digital images outstrip both the dynamic range and the resolution of even higher resolution displays. I've been perfectly happy with how my film scans look on the latest hi-dpi ("retina") displays, and it looks like I'll be happy for many years to come. I'm starting to feel that kind of satisfaction with digital cameras too. Now I'm confident that most of us (and not just some of us) can easily be happy with the same digital camera for 5-10 years. Since I last chimed in on this thread, I got myself a new digital camera: a Fuji X100F. I love this thing. I've only had it for 4 months, but I can easily see myself using this camera for 10 years or more. I don't think it will last that long, but I think some digital cameras are finally beginning to emerge that could, in fact, last as long as their film counterparts. Leica's M10 truly looks simple, durable, and timeless. We will see, however, how long it'll last.

 

[Pioneer]

I think this is a crucial point.

Our digital images outstrip both the dynamic range and the resolution of even higher resolution displays. I've been perfectly happy with how my film scans look on the latest hi-dpi ("retina") displays, and it looks like I'll be happy for many years to come. I'm starting to feel that kind of satisfaction with digital cameras too. Now I'm confident that most of us (and not just some of us) can easily be happy with the same digital camera for 5-10 years. Since I last chimed in on this thread, I got myself a new digital camera: a Fuji X100F. I love this thing. I've only had it for 4 months, but I can easily see myself using this camera for 10 years or more. I don't think it will last that long, but I think some digital cameras are finally beginning to emerge that could, in fact, last as long as their film counterparts. Leica's M10 truly looks simple, durable, and timeless. We will see, however, how long it'll last.

I'm not too sure that these developments will have time to play out. I really believe that digital photography is morphing into something else that doesn't really resemble the older film models that digital has been based on to this point. Digital is not just hardware but also software, and that software is quickly becoming capable of producing amazing photographic results from tiny pieces of hardware that have been appearing in our phones and will likely continue to change into other photographic tools that will not even vaguely resemble the old film camera models. The real promise of digital is not too resemble what we recognize from our past but to continue to push the boundaries of image making.

Film and digital technology will separate from each other even more than they do now. Groups of young people will continue to migrate to film because it offers an entirely different experience. While digital moves further and further away from film by allowing software to make more and more post processing decisions, film will become more and more the domain of the craftsman and the artist.

 

[blockend]

I'm not too sure that these developments will have time to play out. I really believe that digital photography is morphing into something else that doesn't really resemble the older film models that digital has been based on to this point. Digital is not just hardware but also software, and that software is quickly becoming capable of producing amazing photographic results from tiny pieces of hardware that have been appearing in our phones and will likely continue to change into other photographic tools that will not even vaguely resemble the old film camera models. The real promise of digital is not too resemble what we recognize from our past but to continue to push the boundaries of image making.

Film and digital technology will separate from each other even more than they do now. Groups of young people will continue to migrate to film because it offers an entirely different experience. While digital moves further and further away from film by allowing software to make more and more post processing decisions, film will become more and more the domain of the craftsman and the artist.

I agree. The sale of image recording devices that resemble cameras is plummeting. New DSLRs announced to a unanimous fanfare show test results that look like every other digital camera from the last ten years, unless enlarged to unlikely dimensions. For those of us raised on camera shaped objects and the seeing power of great glass, acknowledging the most innovative work is produced on a telephone with a lens smaller than pea is a bitter pill to swallow!

 

[wiltw]

I agree. The sale of image recording devices that resemble cameras is plummeting. New DSLRs announced to a unanimous fanfare show test results that look like every other digital camera from the last ten years, unless enlarged to unlikely dimensions. For those of us raised on camera shaped objects and the seeing power of great glass, acknowledging the most innovative work is produced on a telephone with a lens smaller than pea is a bitter pill to swallow!

It proves the point that a Stradavarius in the hands of the average 5 year old makes as horrible of sounds as a $50 practice violin in the hands of the same 5 year old.
It also proves the point that a Stradavarius in the hands of the master makes nicer sounds but fundamentally the same tunes as a $50 practice violin in the hands of the same master.

A dSLR enables photos to be taken in a far wider set of circumstances than the smartphone, but a lot of the impact of the photo is in the hands of the person who holds the device.

 

[blockend]

A dSLR enables photos to be taken in a far wider set of circumstances than the smartphone, but a lot of the impact of the photo is in the hands of the person who holds the device.

The smartphone camera is a natural evolution of all handheld cameras, which moved the medium away from formal portrait and landscape photography, to candid, on the hoof shooting. The smartphone has the added advantage that it is a socially ubiquitous object, removing much of the stigma "real" cameras have come to represent for such photography. The disadvantage, for me at least, is not their technical shortcomings but the ergonomic deficiencies of a phone for photography. Holding a wafer of plastic and metal is one of the least enabling objects with which to negotiate a fast moving, volatile environment. Holding one in horizontal portrait position, doubly so. However for screen to screen media it's impossible to argue against the smartphone as a tool, and much of the recent "innovation" in digital cameras has been emulating the connectivity and in-camera processing of the phone.

My wife's best iPhone photographs of this summer's holiday were superior to my 35mm and DSLR shots, to the extent that I wonder why I carried all the gear when I had a phone in my pocket anyway. The difference is she's an instinctive phone user, texting, browsing and photographing as a default means having a phone permanently to hand, whereas I have to dig the phone out of a bag or zipped pocket, by which time the moment has gone.

 

[wiltw]

1. When you zoom a smartphone, you merely decimate pixels and lose image quality.
2. And you have the inferiority of the poorly supported camera held out from the body at arm's length.
3. Our oldest daughter has just suffered the poor ergonomics of a phone as a camera...handed to a passerby to shoot a photo, they dropped the phone while shooting photos and now she has a $150 cost -- with insurance coverage! -- to replace it.

 

[Cholentpot]

The smartphone camera is a natural evolution of all handheld cameras, which moved the medium away from formal portrait and landscape photography, to candid, on the hoof shooting. The smartphone has the added advantage that it is a socially ubiquitous object, removing much of the stigma "real" cameras have come to represent for such photography. The disadvantage, for me at least, is not their technical shortcomings but the ergonomic deficiencies of a phone for photography. Holding a wafer of plastic and metal is one of the least enabling objects with which to negotiate a fast moving, volatile environment. Holding one in horizontal portrait position, doubly so. However for screen to screen media it's impossible to argue against the smartphone as a tool, and much of the recent "innovation" in digital cameras has been emulating the connectivity and in-camera processing of the phone.

My wife's best iPhone photographs of this summer's holiday were superior to my 35mm and DSLR shots, to the extent that I wonder why I carried all the gear when I had a phone in my pocket anyway. The difference is she's an instinctive phone user, texting, browsing and photographing as a default means having a phone permanently to hand, whereas I have to dig the phone out of a bag or zipped pocket, by which time the moment has gone.

My extended family ribs me about carrying around a camera, digital or analog until they need a good photo. Then they ask me where my camera is. For landscapes and things that stay still I can't really beat a phone unless I drag out the 6x6 and a bag of lenses. For portraits, shallow DOF and most else I'll knock it dead with scrappy film and a 50mm. Don't even need a zoom.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Purchased open box Canon 500D in 2008. It still works and takes pictures for me weekly. Still with original battery.

Smartphone is too slow to get it ready. And my nine years old DSLR pictures are way better than my newer iPhone pictures.

 

[blockend]

1. When you zoom a smartphone, you merely decimate pixels and lose image quality.
2. And you have the inferiority of the poorly supported camera held out from the body at arm's length.
3. Our oldest daughter has just suffered the poor ergonomics of a phone as a camera...handed to a passerby to shoot a photo, they dropped the phone while shooting photos and now she has a $150 cost -- with insurance coverage! -- to replace it.

People managed with a 35mm lens on their compact camera long before the advent of the smartphone, and never felt the need to zoom. Photojournalists and street photographers often kept the same focal length.
I agree the phone is ergonomically compromised, but the position is not so different from point and shoot cameras that only have a rear screen, even upmarket ones like the Ricoh GR and Fuji X70.
Technically, smartphones are good and getting better all the time, and their development teams are in advance of camera companies, who have spent years copying them. Peoples' expectation of a camera have shrunk, in the 1970s an SLR for general photography was unremarkable. Now film and older digital SLRs are cheap, while compact cameras with similar specifications have risen in price.
Last year I put together a book of images shot at a sensitive religious site, all taken on an iPhone. It was possible to get within inches of people without them being aware I was photographing them, in a way no camera could allow for. Even in a large book the black and white images were pin sharp. Clearly, a phone camera is not as versatile as a DSLR, but it's the superior tool for some requirements.

 

[Tom Cross]

My dad told me a story about how he bought his first 35mm camera from the chemist, he took it home and his father (my grandfather) could not see the point in having such small negatives!

I now have that camera (a Praktica) and my grandfathers first camera (a Brownie). I can't remember which brownie it is as it's in the loft but they both still work, one is from around 1935 the other from
1975. I very much doubt my kids will be bragging about how their dads 5D4 is still working in 40 or 80 years!

 

[Diapositivo]

Canon stuck with the business model of planned obsolescence and suggested getting an old XP machine for formatting my USB drives to FAT32. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't been planning obsolescence at the same rate as Canon, so older versions of Windows auto-update to format flash drives to exFAT like Win10.

Fortunately, I found a utility from Verbatim that should format any flash media to FAT32. It's not only cameras that have this problem, but any older device that uses flash media like flat-screen televisions, DVD players, cable boxes, gaming systems, car audio systems, and such. If you are having this issue, try:

http://www.verbatim.com/index/search.php?words=fat32+tool

Besides the Verbatim solution, all those televisions, DVD Players, cable boxes, gaming systems etc. should be able to format a USB drive in the filesystem they use, so if they use FAT32 they should be able to format to it, in case the Verbatim solution is not practicable for some reason.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Besides the Verbatim solution, all those televisions, DVD Players, cable boxes, gaming systems etc. should be able to format a USB drive in the filesystem they use, so if they use FAT32 they should be able to format to it, in case the Verbatim solution is not practicable for some reason.

That's what I would have thought as well, but in the case of my Canon 5DII, I have the option of formatting the card in the camera, but not external media. I haven't tried it with my cable box, TV, or Blu-Ray player.

 

[BrianVS]

kodak_front by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Will be 25 years old soon. Not much to go wrong. If the 80MByte internal SCSI drive fails, I have a spare.
Just a point of pride to keep it running. You are looking at a $12,400 camera body- first IR camera delivered by Kodak for the DCS series.

 

[Paul Howell]

There were wedding and portrait folks who only gave up their full frames Kodak bodies when they could no long source parts, the old Kodak CCD full frame sensors had really good color, they did not need the speed of a CMOS sensor.

 

[BrianVS]

The Kodak Full-frame cameras used a CMOS sensor made by the company that later became CMOSIS. This was an early CMOS sensor that had analog output and off-chip A/D. I have the data sheet.

The last Kodak DCS camera to use a CCD was the DCS760, a 1.3x crop factor.

 

[Paul Howell]

I always thought they used a CCD sensor, based on the same sensor Pentax 645 used before using Sony.

 

[BrianVS]

Fillfactory- later acquired by Cypress semiconductor.

http://www.cypress.com/file/100941/download

 

[removed account4]

d100 i bought around 2000still running strong
and a d200 i got a few years later, still running strong...

 

[wiltw]

People managed with a 35mm lens on their compact camera long before the advent of the smartphone, and never felt the need to zoom. Photojournalists and street photographers often kept the same focal length.
I agree the phone is ergonomically compromised, but the position is not so different from point and shoot cameras that only have a rear screen, even upmarket ones like the Ricoh GR and Fuji X70.
Technically, smartphones are good and getting better all the time, and their development teams are in advance of camera companies, who have spent years copying them. Peoples' expectation of a camera have shrunk, in the 1970s an SLR for general photography was unremarkable. Now film and older digital SLRs are cheap, while compact cameras with similar specifications have risen in price.
Last year I put together a book of images shot at a sensitive religious site, all taken on an iPhone. It was possible to get within inches of people without them being aware I was photographing them, in a way no camera could allow for. Even in a large book the black and white images were pin sharp. Clearly, a phone camera is not as versatile as a DSLR, but it's the superior tool for some requirements.

But 135 format cameras with 35mm FL see a not-very-wide FOV for the format that MANY photographers used as their 'normal', with 40mm pancake lenses often provided as 'normal' FL...I just compared the vertical FOV of 35mm and I had to mount 26mm in order to see as tall a FOV as seen with the standard (wide) FOV of my smartphone! Few people like perpetual 24mm or 28mm FL on their 135 cameras!

I cannot imagine carrying around a 135 format camera with 26mm permanently afixed, and then having to use pixel decimation (cropping) for every narrower FOV photo you want (what every smarlphone effectively forces you to do)!