Is it time for a digital TLR?

davewaine

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14 Mar 2011 - 1:15 PM

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No, I haven't taken leave of my senses. There is a point to this thread. Like many who subscribe to this organ, I take my photographs these days with a digital single lens reflex camera and my darkroom is a computer. That was not always the case. During my film days, I was never happier than when working in medium format, having owned a Mamiya 645, C330S and Minolta Autocord (all bought second-hand for knock-down prices) at various times. You could do that in those days without taking out a second mortgage.

Since the switch to digital, however, all but the richest amateurs have been priced out of the medium format market. The cheapest model I have found (Mamiya DM22) still tips the scales at over eight grand and it is quite easy to spend three or four times that much. This is largely down to the ferocious cost of large digital sensors and the fact that the cameras are aimed at pros and built like tanks. Furthermore, since digital took a lot longer to establish itself in professional circles than it did in the mass market, there won't be a flourishing second-hand market for quite a while yet.

Which brings me to my point. Why not introduce a digital twin lens reflex for us mere mortals? The humble TLR was actually one of the most brilliant strokes of lateral thinking ever applied to photography. By splitting the focusing and taking responsibilities between two lenses, it retained the chief advantage of the SLR (seeing through the lens) while avoiding the inherent complexities of SLR construction. The cameras were so simple that they could be made both cheaply and well. Consequently, although TLRs were limited in terms of what they could do, compared with SLRs, they delivered pictorial quality in spades! Furthermore, because there was so little to go wrong, they were utterly reliable. Many turned in decades of dedicated service as back-up cameras in professional studios. Back in the 1950s, the usual press camera at a football match wasn't a Nikon with a big lens on the front, it was a Rolleiflex Twin Lens, which just goes to show that you don't necessarily need all the bells and whistles to do good action photography.

Obviously, if they did bring them back, they would have to be affordable, which rules out the latest sensors, but what about previous generation sensors that never found their way into SLRs and are currently gathering dust? Might this not be a good use for them? They wouldn't have the absolute quality of what goes into a modern medium format DSLR, but they could comfortably outperform the so-called '35mm' (actually more like half-frame) SLRs that most of us use now. What does anyone think (and are you reading this, Mamiya?)

User_Removed

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14 Mar 2011 - 2:49 PM

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A DTLR is just not feasible.

The MF market who use TLR is a tiny %. Making a sensor that large in such a thin body will pose massive heat issues, and such digital noise.

TLR's are silent because they use leaf shutters, this means no DOF preview and no speed above 1/200 or 1/500 if you are lucky.

Double all lens costs, perhaps even triple for the specialised prism needed for AF/E systems on top lens and still be confined to primes. Quadruple them if you want to have DOF preview.

We have digital 4/3, Half frame, full frame, MF and LF... By their very nature they *cant* be simplistic mechanically.

A cheap compact is far easier to produce / use / recycle and give better results. So you will find that the "digital TLR" is in fact more closely related to point and shoots.

timbo

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14 Mar 2011 - 4:34 PM

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I think minox made a miniature rollei tlr a while back but i never saw one.
I just sold my beloved Mamaya c330s as it was gathering dust but if digital had never been invented i would still be using it.
There was something reassuring about an all mechanical camera and the bellows focusing was a dream.

LeftForum

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14 Mar 2011 - 6:58 PM

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Quote: ...given my current DSLR will match or better many medium format cameras in image quality.

Dave

Pardon???

We are still a long way from the day when a dSLR will remotely match the image quality of even a 35mm film camera, never mind a medium format.

If I was to (very unscientifically) set the image quality obtainable from scanning a 6x7 colour negative from my Mamiya RB67 at 100, then a scan from a 35mm colour negative from my Nikon FM2n would be about 60 and a processed Raw file from my Nikon D3s would be around 40. (i.e. I am suggesting that a full frame digital Raw image has the potential for about 40% of the quality of a medium format film image).

Image quality from a dSLR will, eventually, match film and might even match medium format film - but that is perhaps 10 or 20 years down the line.

Of course, such quality issues are largely academic for normal photographic use. I can crop one of my digital images to 50% of the frame area, print it to A3+ and, to all intents and purposes, it is wholly satisfactory. So who needs the superior image quality of film?

To be frank with you, I only use film for fun and medium format for even more fun. If I was trying to make money from photography, a wee digital beastie would meet all of my needs all of the time. Where a dSLR scores hands-down every time is in ease of use, flexibility, running costs and sheer convenience. But certainly not (yet) image quality.

.

keith selmes

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14 Mar 2011 - 8:47 PM

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Almost from 2005 http://www.ephotozine.com/article/minox-digital-rollei-tlr-added-to-digital-clas...

joshwa (ePHOTOzine Staff)

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14 Mar 2011 - 10:13 PM

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It was a miniature camera with a CMOS sensor (back when they were a budget choice of sensor), much like the miniature replica cameras they still make. See http://www.minox.com/index.php?id=1290&L=1, and http://www.minox.com/index.php?id=1358&L=1

keithh

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15 Mar 2011 - 8:22 AM

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Quote: We are still a long way from the day when a dSLR will remotely match the image quality of even a 35mm film camera, never mind a medium format.

Haven't read the whole thread but is it an old one that someone has dragged out of hibernation?

lobsterboy (Site Moderator)

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15 Mar 2011 - 8:33 AM

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I thought the rules had been established ages ago:
When I started on here 7 years ago it was "Digital is no match for 35mm"
After 3 or 4 years it became " Digital is no match for medium format"
last year it became "Digital is no match for large format".

not sure where its going to go after that