September 28, 2011
Tiny Cameras, Big Tricks
By DAVID POGUE
Why doesnt everyone buy an S.U.V.? So much space, so much power!
Why doesnt everyone wear steel-toed work boots? So rugged, so protective!
And why doesnt everyone buy S.L.R. cameras? Gorgeous photos, sensational low-light shots, interchangeable lenses, no shutter lag!
This is a rhetorical exercise, of course. You know very well why everybody does not buy those things: For most people, theyre excessive, huge and unwieldy.
But what if they werent? For example, what if you could carry an S.L.R. in your pocket?
Thats the engineering challenge thats been keeping camera engineers awake at night for two years now. What makes an S.L.R.s photos so great is a huge sensor inside, which generally requires a huge lens and a huge body. So designing a compact S.L.R. involves wrestling with some infuriating laws of physics. But if someone could succeed, theres a fortune to be made.
Panasonic and Olympus took the first step with a format called Micro Four Thirds. These cameras shrink everything proportionally camera body, lenses and, alas, sensor. Sonys NEX camera bodies are even smaller easily pants-pocketable yet contain a real S.L.R.-size sensor, for incredible pictures. The drawback is that the lenses arent much smaller than regular S.L.R. lenses.
This month, two more big-name camera makers join the fray, Nikon and Pentax. Their new cameras are insanely, ridiculously, jaw-droppingly small.
The Pentax Q, for example, is the smallest interchangeable-lens camera in the world. It looks like a prop from Honey, I Shrunk the Camera. The body is only 3.9 by 2.3 by 1.2 inches. When you see it next to a real S.L.R., it looks like something Barbie and Ken might use.
Yet incredibly, this camera is completely usable and its loaded. Time-lapse movies. Scene modes. Full manual controls. Multiple exposure. Hi-def video. In-camera editing and cropping. RAW format. HDMI output to a hi-def television. A hotshoe for accessories.
Theres even a remarkable flash. It seems at first as if its built into the camera. Yet when you push a switch, the flash shoots up on an scissorlike extension arm way, way up, nearly a full camera height up. When its that high, your lens wont cast a shadow, and theres no possibility of red eye. (Red eye is that reflective red-pupil effect. It occurs when the flash and the lens are roughly in line with each other.)
The Qs screen is a three-incher, which leaves only a narrow strip of camera back to contain the nine buttons there. But at least you have real physical controls, including a control knob on the top back, a mode dial on the top front and a Quick dial next to the lens. Its a customizable, five-position knob that you can program to change photo proportions, apply a special effect, bolster the color and so on.
The camera comes with a nonzooming, very flat lens that provides a luscious blurry-background effect. With this pancake lens installed, the camera is no bigger than a $200 compact.
But you can also buy a 3X zoom lens or a couple of plastic toy lenses one wide, one telephoto that are supposedly intended more for fun than photo quality.
In other words, when it comes to design, features and usability, Pentax has knocked one out of the park. There are, however, four drawbacks.
First, the price: $800 for the camera and flat lens, $300 more for the zoom lens. Thats outlandishly expensive. For that, you could buy an extremely nice S.L.R. and a couple of lenses.
Second, the wisp of a battery allows only 250 shots on a charge. A real S.L.R. goes three or four times as long.
Third, theres no dedicated movie button, and you cant change focus once youre filming.
The real heartbreaker, though, is the sensor inside; its doll-size, too. At 0.43 inch diagonal, its about the same size you get in a cheapo pocket camera.
The photos are remarkably good for such a tiny sensor. Theyre far better than a compact camera could produce, but nowhere close to what a Micro Four Thirds or Sony NEX can take.
The Nikon 1 is bigger than the Pentax Q what isnt? but strikes a better balance in the complex price/size/features/sensor size equation.
Its available in two models: the J1, intended for the general user (available in white, black, silver, red or pink for $650 with a 3X zoom lens); and the V1, intended for advanced hobbyists (black, $900 with 3X lens). The V1 adds an electronic eyepiece viewfinder and a few more perks.
The headline here is speed. These cameras are tricked out with enough computing power to launch a rocket. They can perform stunts like taking 10 shots a second, refocusing all the way, or 60 shots a second without refocusing.
They focus faster than any camera Nikon has ever made. They easily create slow-motion video, containing as many as 1,200 frames a second, although at a tiny frame size.
Get this: You can even snap a full-resolution still photo while youre recording video, without leaving a blink or a gap in the movie. Nikon believes, as do I, that thats a first in the history of consumer cameras, and its unbelievably useful.
The sensor inside is a new design. At 0.62 inch, its much bigger than a pocket cameras, but not as big as the sensor in a Micro Four Thirds camera (0.89 inch), let alone a real S.L.R. (1.2 inches or larger).
The photos are generally very good, but you can easily tell they didnt come from an S.L.R. For example, the Nikon 1 too easily blows out the brightest parts of the scene, and muddies up the darkest parts.
That would still present an irresistible tradeoff if it werent for a couple of truly idiotic design elements. First, the mode dial has only four positions Auto, Movie, Best Shot and Motion Snapshot and two of them are wasted.
The Best Shot mode takes 20 photos in one second, then throws away all but what it considers the best five, based on focus, blur and so on. The Motion Snapshot mode captures a one-second slow-motion movie and adds cheesy music to it.
But dedicating two of the mode dials precious four positions to these rarely used gimmicks is a criminal splurge. Meanwhile, if you want to adjust the shutter speed or aperture, you have to dive deeply into the labyrinth of on-screen menus. Bring bread crumbs.
And another thing. Theres a dedicated movie start/stop button, but it doesnt work except in Movie mode! Whats the point of a Movie button if you have to change modes to use it?
Three lenses are already available for the Nikon 1 an f/2.8 nonzooming pancake lens, the 3X zoom (the film equivalent of a 27-71 mm lens) and a telephoto lens (81-297 mm equivalent). Theres also an enormous 10X zoom intended for video.
The Nikon 1s 1080p videos are spectacular in general (it smoothly refocuses and re-exposes while filming); but when you add the 10X lens and its smooth power zoom button, your Nikon 1 becomes an actual camcorder.
Nikon will also offer an adapter that lets you use any existing F-mount Nikon lens with your camera. It might look a little silly on such a tiny body, but itll work.
Both the Pentax Q and the Nikon 1 are important experiments. Both demonstrate that the camera industry has, at last, given up the meaningless race to cram more megapixels onto a sensor and moved into more important pursuits, like better photos and smaller cameras.
Unfortunately, both cameras are also flawed in their own special ways. Yes, the worlds camera engineers have finally brought us the pocket S.L.R. But perfection continues to elude them.
E-mail:
pogue@nytimes.com
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