Modern all whether/situation Nikon FM2 ?

[BelaMolnar]

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<p align="justify"> I find this article, attached below, in italics.</p>

<p align="justify"> Digital FM2 . . . ? . . . or half Digital. Winding and Focus Mechanical. And with winding, you generate enough current to charge the battery, for the digital imaging part. Keep the old but superior FM shutter mechanism / part of the body, maybe the simple center weighted light meter, and add the electrical p.c. board and sensor and here we go. Not long ago, we shoot on film and a light meter only, and most of our shoots was right on, even with the slide films. What happening to us. We forgot to use our brains? We giving a way our brain to the machines/robots? "You don't us it, you loss it!"</p>

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<p align="justify"><em>" I read Thom's article, and thot it was at odds with what I considered a new-age FM2 would be as well. My take: battery-less operation. Something like a Bay-gen mechanism to power the sensor and processor. Maybe a mechanically timed shutter like the Epson Rd-1 to reduce the amount of current necessary to power the camera.</em><em> You won't be able to 'store' a lot of shots on a full charge, but the film advance lever makes a </em><em>convenient</em><em> electrical </em><em>generator</em><em> pump handle as well.</em></p>

<p align="justify"><em>It would have to be usable if you spent long periods of time away from an electrical outlet....say in the woods or on a safari. Then it would be genius."</em></p>

 

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[hjoseph7]

<p>If they can make solar powered calculators why not invent a solar powered sensor. Yes the light meter on the FM2 was very good indeed. I could remember exposing 90% of my shots correctly with the FM2 which is even higher than my DSLR. </p>

[BelaMolnar]

<p>With todays technology, it would be very easy to produce such a camera, keeping the old and very reliable mechanical body, and just add a back with the sensor and P.C. board and connection. Build to gather with the MD-12 to supply the electrical part for electricity, or what ever, and use the winding mechanic to power the charger. Any idea out there? Yess! You right! as you said Harry, "95% of my images was always right exposed". To day, 80% is exposed with the super digital cameras. Yes! O.K. you had a chance to erase it right a way, so, when you go home, and downloaded you have 95% correctly exposed images. Or not!? I know, I know, it is all business!</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Digital sensors shoehorned into film bodies were tried over a decade ago. Look at old copies of Pop Photo, Shutterbug or other magazines from 1996. Most of the dSLRs were cobbled together from film bodies with digital sensors and the related processing and storage components added on. They didn't function as well as dSLRs designed from the ground up to be digital cameras. But if you'd like to step back in time to an awkward era you can probably buy one of those early dSLRs very cheaply.</p>

<p>Adding a digital sensor and related components to a 35mm film body would be a project that would appeal to very few people other than tinkerers, engineers and well heeled dilettantes. It would be about as successful as the Polaroid backs were for 35mm cameras.</p>

<p>The allure of the good ol' days of mechanical cameras and freedom from electronics seems nice but once you wipe away the romantic mist the realities set in. I have a BayGen Freeplay radio. It's fair for FM and AM (MW or broadcast band), miserable for shortwave and useful only for emergencies. For routine use I'll take a Sony ICF-2010 any day over a hand-cranked mediocre performer. The notion of a hand-cranked generator to power a digital camera sounds like something only Rube Goldberg could have invented.</p>

[BelaMolnar]

<p>Hi Lex. I chuckle a lot of your reply/comments. Well. I didn't mean exactly like that. But! What do you doing, if you happen in an assignment, a trip, in a Jungle, up North, a Mountains in Nepal or Mongolia, 100km from a village, where the only light coming is from a kerosene lamp, a place out for a couple of days or a month. I know, many of National Geography photographers carry a film body and shoot film. With the opening posting, I just wanted to provoke some discussion in that mater. But! again! With all this automatization, WE getting lazier and lazier, using our brains ( this little shrinking grey mater) less and less time, relaying on artificial intelligent more and more to the point of no return. And what is the fun, if we, with the supper clever machines, can,t make a mistake, all the images just perfect technically.? Or! It is all ready Philosophy and nothing to do with photography? Canvass is still a canvass, and paint is still a paint and the brash is still a brash, and because of this, if we had a good artist, we highly appreciate this form of art work.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>True, if I was a photographer in the wilderness or on assignment where it might be difficult to find a reliable power source, sure, I'd be concerned about the practicality of digital. But in actual practice many photojournalists, travel and documentary photographers have managed to solve this problem. Unfortunately this does sometimes include carrying solar chargers and more equipment to solve a problem that didn't exist at all with all-mechanical film cameras. But there are solutions and have been for several years.</p>

<p>With my own dSLR (Nikon D2H) I experimented back in 2005-2006 to see how long I could go without access to supplemental power. I managed to go about a month on three EN-EL4 batteries, taking thousands of photos. I chimped very sparingly to conserve power, and disabled VR on my one VR Nikkor. Two sets of 4 AA NiMH batteries were adequate for my SB-800 flash during that time. My only cheat was to occasionally transfer photos from my four 1 GB media cards to a computer. But if CF cards had been cheaper back then (they were $75-$100 each in 2005) I could have gone without access to a computer at all for a month.</p>

<p>The main drawback to relying solely on batteries is that rechargeables tend to lose their charge after about a month. See even without use a fully charged battery may not last long after two or three months. And as my Nikon EN-EL4 batteries have aged they self discharge quicker, so I doubt I'd get a full month's use from the same set of three now. And my NiMH AA's also exhaust quicker and self discharge quicker.</p>

<p>But it is possible to go a few weeks without supplemental power, with careful management of available resources. In that respect it's not much worse than the good ol' film days, where extended exposure to high humidity could cause the emulsion to stick together, break in extreme cold or be ruined by exposure to X-rays if left in checked baggage. Just a different set of challenges.</p>

[sasvata__shash__chatterjee]

<p>I can definitely understand the allure of a battery-less camera that you can wind-up to get powered. But, if your main concern was powering the camera in remote areas, then photovoltaic chargers are available today. A quick search brought <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/7-portable-solar-laptop-chargers-worth-considering.php">this up</a> , and <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/09/20_solar_panel.php">this</a> . Of course if you were in a remote area without enough light, you'd be without luck again....</p>

[conrad_hoffman]

<p>Everything great about modern digitals takes power and lots of it. I want VR and a nice bright LCD display. I want a high frame rate. I want a focus assist LED. I want my electronically activated DOF preview. Oh, I also want data to move at high speed from the sensor to where ever it needs to. One of the big ways to conserve power in electronics is to slow things down. No thanks. You'd wear your thumb out trying to crank a generator to run all that stuff. If there's no access to mains power, a large area solar charger is the next best thing.</p>