Re: slightly OT - lenses and closeup

THank you Ryuki,

Are you saying then that some of the new digital technology has been carried
over to analogue camera manufacture? And that 35mm analogue cameras are now
being made with digital chips to create more flexible (zoom in particular)
lenses able to focus very close up? Or have manufacturers decided to widen
the appeal of 35mm and that close up focus, through an extended barrel,
could have been a function of any lens previously?

It seemed to me from my recent excursion to a camera shop, that medium
priced 35mm analogue cameras now have lots of bells and whistles previously
not available, (such as facility for double exposure, changing point of
focus in autofocus, digital readout of everything etc etc) which suggested
to me - rightly or wrongly - that film camera manufacturers had stepped it
up in order to compete with digital cameras. In effect, Canon, for example,
is competing with itself over 2 forms of photography.

Or perhaps, as a very manual, medium format user, it's apparent that I
haven't been to a camera store in a long time and I've missed out on quite a
bit...

thanks and best
Catherine

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryuji Suzuki"
> Lenses can focus at any close distance you want as long as the lens
> barrel can extend enough. The required extension is determined by the
> focal length of the lens and the distance. As the photosensitive image
> transducer size shrunk from 35mm to digital (most consumer digital
> cameras have image sensors smaller than the image size of 35mm
> format), required focal length to achieve the same angle of view is
> much reduced. This in turn reduced the required lens extension
> required to focus on a close subject, thereby allowing greater closeup
> focusing capability with a limited physical dimension. It's more
> analogous to the fact that 35mm cameras can usually focus at objects
> much closer than what 8x10 cameras are capable of, rather than
> advancement of optical technology.
>
> --
> Ryuji Suzuki
> "Reality has always had too many heads." (Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound,
1997)
>
Received on Mon Dec 8 16:11:07 2003