XPost: rec.photo.digital 
 From: alan.browne@FreeLunchVideotron.ca 
  
 edward ohare wrote: 
  
 > Years ago, the 35mm SLR crowd hauled around mutiple non-zoom lenses 
 > because zooms weren't very good.  Zooms got better.  Oh, but they were 
 > variable aperature, and that wasn't good enough.  Finally, years 
 > later, guess what?  SLR people are hauling around multiple zooms. 
 > Often with variable aperature.  And now the argument is anything with 
 > single zoom isn't good enough.  Since the community has eventually 
 > adopted what it once claimed was intolerable, wouldn't it be expected 
 > to eventually figure a single zoom was OK?  (Well, no, of course not, 
 > history is no predictor of the future, eh?) 
  
 Hmm.  There is some truth there, but certainly not the whole 
 truth.  I would never use my zooms for portraits, macro, most 
 sport and landscape work.  I use primes (or: fixed focal length 
 lenses if you prefer).  I do use my two high quality, 
 non-variable-aperture zooms for some sports, for hiking, fairs, 
 parties and other less structured work.  There's no hard line 
 here, but usually the right lenses for the job. 
  
 Having said that, when Minolta come out with their D7D, I will 
 consider ordering it with the 28-105 (var aperture) lens as it is 
 very good as zooms go, and very appropriate to the camera. 
 However, there are another lenses with higher priorities on my 
 list, inlcuding at least 2 primes and one (non-var aperture) zoom. 
  
 There remain in the SLR world people who swear by fixed-focal and 
 those who accept the quality limitations of zooms.  One point is 
 that as the optics have improved for the zooms, they have 
 likewise improved for the better primes as well... so the primes 
 always come out ahead if that is important to the photog. 
  
 The "high quality" zooms rarely have a zoom ratio of more than 
 about 2.8:1  at that, most exhibit some quality limitations at 
 wide angle, fully open. 
  
 17-35 f/2.8, 28-80 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 are the three 
 "professional" zooms you are likely to see carted around by pj's 
 and other folks with narrow time constraints on their work. 
 There is no "super zoom" that is regarded as having sufficient 
 optical quality for most professional work. 
  
 Could a pj use a super zoom?  Probably, except for the limitation 
 in aperture (although the realtively noiseless high ISO help), 
 the mtf quality he's expected to deliver for a newspaper is not 
 exceedingly high... but I've seen no pj's to date with less than 
 the top end glass ... as recently as a few weeks ago at a sports 
 event. 
  
 Will there one day be a 28-300 f/2.8?  Or better?  I don't know. 
   One way is to make the sensor even smaller than on cameras like 
 the G3, but with higher res ---and--- lower noise.  Quite an 
 objective .  In fact this is part of Olympus' approach with 
 the E-1... smaller sensor means smaller lens systems, and fast 
 apertures for the same FOV as a larger sensor... lower costs for 
 the best lenses.  But are they breaking the zoom ratio wider? 
 Well so far ...almost, but all are var-aperture (ref: Oly site). 
  
 Back to the G3 (or other SLR-like cameras) ... are they any good? 
   Certainly.  Do they meet the needs of people who are trying to 
 achieve specific results?  Only if the specific results are 
 within the capability of the camera.  Hence the G3 is limited. 
  
  
 > Occasionally man will stumble over the truth.  Usually, he will pick 
 > himself up and carry on. -- Winston Churchill 
  
 "It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read a book of 
 quotations." 
     --Winston Churchill 
  
  
  
 -- 
 -- rec.photo.equipment.35mm user resource: 
 -- http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm 
 -- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.-- 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)