Point and shoot DSLR

I found this collocation on dpreview about the Nikon D40 and made me stare

speechless at the monitor.<p>How do you define a P&S camera? For me, this is

ridiculous! I thought that P&S cameras are all these consumer`s cameras, but

since even a DSLR can be considered a P&S...<p>Let me put it this way. A point

and shoot camera can be even the almighty Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II if you set it

for the automatic mode and just... point and shoot. Similarly, a small and

cheap Canon Powershot A410 can be a "non-point and shoot" camera if you try

for instance to make an exposure bracketing manually, using a tripod.

Oh boy, another oxymoron, just what the world needs. Add that to the list, right under "graduate student," "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence."

 

I'm with Darius, referring to the D40 as a point-and-shoot DSLR is ludicrous, I don't care how easy it is to use.

I think that is exactly what the marketing department at Nikon wants. Define the D40 as a

high-end, point and shoot camera. It is really quite easy to see it in that light, don't you

think?

That's the way it is. Market needs revolutions, and it's not necessary to bring more functions - D40 is kinda "reverse" baby, a Nikon's rebel. How about dropping the price? Oh yes!

 

It might be good if you don't really know DO YOU actually love photography? For years, it isn't a good investiment.

 

Nonetheless, in my opinion, the old D70 is better; they've cut too much (along with price, though): focusing, status display, AE bracketing... more important, no AF compatibility with the fullframe-designed lenses.

 

The P&S camera means usage of "Auto" mode as a default (imho) - no M, Av, Tv modes offered (or S / A on some cameras). Before the 30D, I used the "p&s" camera Olympus C-60Z - a simple one, which however has these "creative modes" - whereas a lot of later tough suerslim cameras do not.

 

Making cameras easy to operate is great; and D40 is a true rebel in that regard. I'm not against such cameras... I just don't think it's quite reasonable to purchase that - even for saving money in a long run.

 

Thanks, Ali

Scoff as you may, the reality is that at the bottom end of the market few purchasers ever add to the kit lens that comes with a camera. The D40 scores by providing good quality jpeg images without the need for extensive post processing and without unnecessarily clogging your hard drive with large file sizes designed for bigger prints than target users will make. Having read a comparative review against the Rebel XTi, which is capable of better results when used with RAW, but produces less satisfactory jpegs directly as illustrated by the reviewer, I can see that this camera has a strong market. For the occasional user, the interface design provided with lots of built in help will be an advantage. It may not be the camera you or I would buy, but it is extremely well aimed at a large group of buyers.

People called dslrs "pro" until affordable ones arrived. Then they started calling some of them "pro-sumer," a rather pejorative term previously applied to digicams. The D40 and it's counterparts will often be used inpoint and shoot modes as are may current dslrs. Who cares?

I think you guys are missing the point. Previously, "point & shoot" has been a term that represented a certain type of camera, and DSLR another type. Now, unless you'd like to come up with some other term that we can use when discussing those consumer-grade, non-DSLR cameras (the ones we used to call "point & shoot" and everybody knew what we meant), then a camera is either a P&S or a DSLR but not both.

Hmmm..... this isn't really anything new.

 

My very first 35mm slr was the Canon T50 back in the early to mid 1980's. The only Mode available was P as in Program. Needless to say as I began to move forward in my skills, I was somewhat disappointed in the fact that everything was automated.

 

As far as I can tell the D40 is indeed a very simplistic camera. So while I would agree with you that the D40 is close to being a P&S disguised in a DSLR body..... there is a market for it believe it or not.

Have you ever heared about a MEDIUM FORMAT point'n shoot?

 

There's one:

Holga 120N. Fix focus, big film, kinda cool... just perfect!

The problem is "point & shoot" is both a technique and a pejorative applied by gear elitists. Shoot or snoot?

I didn't check back to the website so I don't know whether this phrase was coined by Nikon or dpreview, but anyway it's just a brief, punchy descriptor designed to spark a little interest. If you're interested, you can follow up, go and handle the camera, see if the phrase is accurate in your opinion. If you're not interested (like me) you can just move on.

You have to read the specs, not the labels. After all an SLR could be a Graflex or an Olympus Pen F.

My first camera was a medium format point and shoot, called the Agfa Click 4, which was available in India in the late '70s. It had one shutter speed of 1/30s, two aperture settings of f/11 and f/16. I made nice looking little 6cm x 6cm contact prints with 120 format Agfa 400 ASA b&w film.

 

But hey why can't an SLR be P&S? To me it just means fully automated, which all of today's DSLR's are.

What is the point in using the term? If both consumer`s and DLSR`s can be P&S?

"The problem is "point & shoot" is both a technique and a pejorative applied by gear elitists."

 

Not at all. It's a label for a class/type of camera, universally accepted as the term to collectively refer to PowerShots, Elphs, etc. True, the term was born out of the fact that those types of cameras are generally simple to use and dates back to an age when SLRs were not (which is no longer the case), but that is the term we all accepted, and now suddenly the term isn't acceptable and only "gear elitists" use the label. If that's the case, do you have another term then for collectively describing PowerShots, Elphs, etc.?

 

It's not unlike the term "Native American". Fact is, technically, I'm a native American since I was born in the United States; that's what "native" actually means, that you were born there. But the term has instead been adopted to describe a specific group of people, those who are not only native to these shores but indiginous to them. Thus I cannot go around claiming to be "Native American" without instilling an incorrect assumption in other people's minds, as they have come to understand it's meaning as something more specific. Likewise, even if a DSLR can function as simple as "point and shoot", that doesn't change the fact that the term has been adopted to have a more specific meaning than that.

I`ve seen cheap consumer`s cameras hard to use, but they are still P&S. I don`t think that a camera becomes a P&S just because it is easy to use. Like I`ve said before, even the almighty Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II if you set it for the automatic mode would be easy to use. Does that make it a P&S? I don`t think so.<p>Now, about the D40. It has manual settings like exposure, aperture etc, you can mount on it a lens with manual zoom and focus etc. But it is still a P&S DSLR?... It is like saying "race family car", or "economic sports car". I just don`t get it. Maybe it`s me. Maybe I`m just stupidly smart.

Any DSLR can be placed in auto mode - the distinction is more complicated than that. Let me try...

 

A "Pro" DSLR is a camera where most of the effort is expended preparing the camera to take a picture (years of experience counts as "effort"). A point-and-shoot is a camera where most of the effort is in defeating the actions pre-programmed into the camera ;-)

"Who cares?"

 

Pea Dance ;*)

With a good camera, point and shoot is a mode(s). With a point and shooter, that is all you get. Sound like the D40 bridges the two. Doesn't that make it a bridge camera?

The attitude that anything without interchangeable lenses is a P&S (rhymes with PoS) has bothered me for a long time. Back in the day, my carry-everywhere camera - and my wide backup when I had a long lens on my SLR - was an Olympus XA. With manual rangefinder focus and aperture priority AE, I still don't consider it point & shoot. Now I have a Canon S70 backing up my 20D and going where it doesn't.

 

Point and Shoot is a technique. A point and shoot camera is one that only offers P&S mode. There are a capable non-P&S cameras that fit in shirt pockets, and a lot of DSLRs that are never taken out of P&S mode. Instead of confusing the issue by labeling all non-SLRs as P&Ss and being shocked when someone points out that an SLR can be a point&shoot, let's find a term that describes a compact camera as what it is (I prefer digicam) and keep P&S to describe an operating mode or a truly crippled camera.

All the answers here are educated, but there is one thing nobody addressed. The point and shoot cameras are basically different in technical specifications than DSLRs. Point & Shoot is just a commercial jargon which fails to accurately paint a picture to describe differences

between these two classes of cameras. A digital DSLR even when set on the preconfigured programs can't be called point and shoot. first of all, point and shoot cameras are equipped mostly with very small image sensors (1/2.5", 1/1.8", and the like). Have you ever seen a DSLR with these image sensor dimensions ? The lens of a P&S is not changeable, and there is no real viewer to accurately compose. They are merely equipped with a separate lens which moves in conjunction with the lens, but the usage of which is marred by Paralex error, so if the squabble is on the commercial jargon, then this debate is useless since language is too flawed to enter this debate. It's just like the word AIRCRAFT. the dictionary definition is " whatever travels in the air", so our definition covers even a balloon or helicopter, but how many times have you referred to a helicopter as aircraft. It's true that we can POINT and SHOOT a digital SLR, but that doesn't mean it's a "point and shoot" camera. A word or jargon finds its place in language when a number of environmental issues such as what most people use it for and when it is used are defined no matter what we can creatively reason personally, so if a helicopter travels in the air doesn't mean I can explain to a child that what he is watching is an aircraft because the majority still call it Helicopter, for majority of people aircraft is airplane which is an accurate description of what it is in actuality even if this usage is seen as deviation from what dictionary suggests. For most people, a P&S camera is the one which can be tucked into pocket, does all the adjustments by itself, and is probably way cheaper than a DSLR.