[Tan68]

Minolta? That’s not Sony... they bought that...

Mavica is Sony
I’m thinking late-90s digital with floppy-based storage...

-Eric

True enough, Mavica
Someone else in the thread thinks Sony and thinks Hi-Fi
I think Sony and think root kit

I am a snob in that I enjoy the traditional camera company names :^)

I recently bought a heavily discounted Panasonic ?? (I am looking at the camera now and can't find the model..) to replace an Olympus EPL6. I am a little okay with Panasonic; I liked my 2005 Panasonic bridge camera. My first real camera choice was between Canon & Olympus. My first digital was Olympus. And the EPL6 sure is prettier [and costs more] than the Panasonic ?? black box. The Olympus looks less like a digital device and more like a ..camera :^)

+ Panasonic model is only on the bottom tag with FDA warning
Low key little black thing other than LUMIX in largish white letters

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Last edited by Tan68; 02-01-2019 at 03:32 PM.

[BigMackCam]

Minolta? That’s not Sony... they bought that...

Of course they did... Sony just continued what Minolta was already working on, and developed it from there. But it's those Minolta roots influence the Sony camera and lens products today. Indeed, some of the current lenses are re-branded updates of Minolta glass

Similarly, Hoya bought Pentax in 2007, and Ricoh bought it from Hoya in 2011. The only difference is, Hoya and Ricoh chose to retain the Pentax brand name

[wkraus]

Not the lens, OK maybe some film like Velvia gets up to 16-18MP.

That's ridiculous. Digital and film resolution are hard to compare, but 50MP for Velvia is definitely closer to the truth. The problem is you have to take the grain too.

[Tan68]

Of course they did... Sony just continued what Minolta was already working on, and developed it from there. But it's those Minolta roots influence the Sony camera and lens products today. Indeed, some of the current lenses are re-branded updates of Minolta glass

Similarly, Hoya bought Pentax in 2007, and Ricoh bought it from Hoya in 2011. The only difference is, Hoya and Ricoh chose to retain the Pentax brand name

Possible he means Mavica is what Sony managed on its own before the experience it bought with Minolta.

Minolta always makes me think of Minos and that makes me think of Minotaur and that is pretty close to Minolta...
Mavica makes me think of Mickey Mouse being the magician :^)

[reh321]

That's ridiculous. Digital and film resolution are hard to compare, but 50MP for Velvia is definitely closer to the truth. The problem is you have to take the grain too.

Where do you get this from?

When I got a professional to scan some Kodachrome 35mm slides for me, 6mp scans got every bit of detail present. I really doubt Velvia was that much better.

[nocturnal]

K-70 is a superb camera, I didn't know how good it was upgrading from K-30 until I got it. It impresses me more than getting my first DSLR, the K-30 and I am not one that is easily impressed.

I glad I have a range of good lenses already, Limiteds and *, I see beginners settling on the 18-135 kit lens but it is a waste of a superb sensor.

So Sony is Minolta then? That makes sense, pity they didn't buy Pentax instead of Hoya and Ricoh. I'm thinking Pentax was a bigger camera brand than Minolta back in the day, or at least on par.

If Sony bought Pentax they would actually have WR cameras and Pentax colours which apparently Sony users lust after... and we would have AF that worked :P

[RonHendriks1966]

What kind of cameras?

More than two decades?

Sony was the first....

Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) was a brand of Sony cameras which used removable disks as the main recording medium. In August 1981, Sony unveiled a prototype of the Sony Mavica as the world's first electronic still camera.

[BigMackCam]

Possible he means Mavica is what Sony managed on its own before the experience it bought with Minolta.

That's probably the case... Of course, RIcoh also had plenty of its own-brand presence in the market before it bought Pentax. I'd like to think it did a better job than Sony with the Mavic cameras... but the similarity in corporate acquisition and product development models is pretty clear to see

[TwoUptons]

Of course they did... Sony just continued what Minolta was already working on, and developed it from there. But it's those Minolta roots influence the Sony camera and lens products today. Indeed, some of the current lenses are re-branded updates of Minolta glass

I think of Sony a lot like I think of Honda. Honda has always been an engine company. That they make motorcycles, cars and airplanes is just to give them somewhere to put their engines. That some of those things are really good is just because they don’t want to do it halfway...

Sony is the same kind of thing. They make electronics, including sensors. They bought Minolta to put their sensors in (and give them a lens ecosystem). The fact that their cameras are actually pretty good is because they don’t want to do it halfway...

No doubt there’s a bit of Minolta DNA in every Sony camera, but when I see a modern Sony, I don’t think Dynax 5000, I think PlayStation... Pentax seems to have kept more of its “genetics “ intact, despite Hoya’s best efforts... maybe that’s because Pentax has never made the sensor...

-Eric

[nocturnal]

That's ridiculous. Digital and film resolution are hard to compare, but 50MP for Velvia is definitely closer to the truth. The problem is you have to take the grain too.

50MP for 35mm film... no chance, where do you get your info from? 50MP from Pentax 67 system is possible, is that what you mean?

Pentax 67 has nearly 5x film surface as 35mm

[RonHendriks1966]

Sony does deserve some credit in digital camera development.

Sony Mavica - Wikipedia

Some years ago on Photokina (or Salon de la Photo) there was an exhibition on the history of camera development and Sony had it's place there.

[TwoUptons]

50MP for 35mm film... no chance, where do you get your info from? 50MP from Pentax 67 system is possible, is that what you mean?

Pentax 67 has nearly 5x film surface as 35mm

One of the reasons I like HP5 and Fuji 400 C41 is that I don’t feel I’m throwing much away with a commercial 6Mp scan.

When I shoot Ektar, there’s more there than the scan gets, but nowhere near 50Mp.

Someone back in the thread a bit said 10-12... that seems about right to me. Velvia or One of the really slow films may do better, but not a bunch...

-Eric

[BigMackCam]

No doubt there’s a bit of Minolta DNA in every Sony camera, but when I see a modern Sony, I don’t think Dynax 5000, I think PlayStation... Pentax seems to have kept more of its “genetics “ intact, despite Hoya’s best efforts... maybe that’s because Pentax has never made the sensor...

I wonder how much Pentax DNA you and other folks think is in the K-3II, KP and K-1II, besides the mount and the brand name? Let's be honest, our current batch of cameras has little to do with the Pentax of old. There are some lenses in the current line-up that are based on older glass... but the cameras are entirely different products. We like to think of Pentax as a brand with great continuity, but most of that continuity - since 2007, at least - is from the user community, and backward compatibility with old glass.

When I think of Pentax cameras, I don't think of photocopiers just because Ricoh was and is still big in that area. That's a different division. So it is with Sony... The folks designing and developing Playstation products have nothing to do with the photography division

[Wheatfield]

I am seeing full frame getting cheaper with new generations hitting the market. The Sony A7 II is available under a thousand grey import. Still very capable cameras. If a small player like Ricoh is able to make a full frame dslr under $2000, then mechanically simpler almost fully electronic mirrorless camera's should not be too expensive to make. Basically they are computers so they will largely benefit from the general progress of computing capabilities. Sensor tech is being driven by smart phones, industrial applications and traffic sensor tech. This will also find application in camera's. Camera companies that neglect the entry level will eventually disappear because others will jump in.

The entry level is sort of dying. There is a slow, creeping cancer called cell phones that is eating away at the entry level, killing it by degrees with every new release from Samsung, Huawei and Apple.

[reh321]

I see beginners settling on the 18-135 kit lens but it is a waste of a superb sensor.

I am extremely pleased with how the 18-135 works on my KP {I purchased my first Pentax in 1979)