fotolopithecus

They started building cameras cheesier back during the film days except for their higher end models. Plastic, and stamped pieces of metal joined together. Now it's even worse because the manufacturers are spitting out new models every couple of years with more, and more useless features that add nothing to photography but at the cost of build quality. At one time you could expect a new camera every five years or so with film. Anyway, there's nothing you can do about it because a new generation is being catered to, and they like nothing more than a camera that will do everything but scratch their posterior.

So the cameras assessment of the amount of charge left is fairly accurate I guess. It kind of surprises me how much charge simply dissipates from a little clock in the camera. I would think there was little internal backup battery in the camera, because what happens if you store your camera without the battery in it, or it runs out completely. I worked in a place where we had walkie talkies radios that had to be taken once a week down to hq to be drained completely on some machine otherwise they wouldn't hold their charge for a full shift. Don't remember what kind of batteries they were, but they might have been similar.

Interesting. I think I've noted that if you leave the battery unused inside the camera for a period of time, an lets say its down to 80% it seems to lose charge quite rapidly once you do start using it relative to being fully charged. I've just charged a new battery to 100% and put it in a drawer which I plan to check in a month to see where it is. What got me wondering about all this is that I believe I put a nearly fully charged battery in a camera for a couple of months unused and it was nearly drained after two months. Maybe down to 10% or something like that.

I'm curious if anyone knows how long a fully charged Sony NP-FZ100 battery will last unused outside of the camera before it starts losing its charge? How long will it last inside the camera with the camera off, and unused? Where does the charge go?

The time of year can have a lot to do with it. In fact, there's something called seasonal affective disorder which is caused by the lack of light this time of year, and manifests itself as a kind of malaise, and depression. The Covid thing might have a little to do with it as governments worldwide are milking the epidemic for all it's worth to get their populations accustomed to authoritarian rule. In any event I would suggest doing indoor still life's during these months just to stay in the photographic game.

A similar thing happened at Popular Photography a few several years ago. Little by little repairs weren't made, and owners were seen less, and less, until they finally folded their tent. Same deal at the photo corner. Sadly I think this place is also probably going the way of the Dodo.

I'm fully invested in Sony at this point, but I love retro controls, and still have a place in my heart for Nikon, so I may get it if mostly for sentimental reasons.

Yeah, the writing has been on the wall for some time now. When you think of it a dslr kind of seems a little like a Rube Goldberg contraption compared with Mirrorless. Overly complex mouse running on a wheel type thing.

Very weird, looks almost like the Carter's are hand puppets, like Jeff Dunham's Walter.

That sounds a bit philosophical, but I'm speaking more of the limit in physics. In any event I don't see a future time when a tiny sensor beats or equals a larger one given the same technology.

I don't think phones are destined to take over the world, except for (excuse the terminology, no looking down the nose intended) Snap shooters. There are limits to what can be done with a tiny sensor

The Nikon D300 was a nice camera with good highlight dynamic range as I recall, but........yeah, why did you do that.

I'm just curious how many people have sold photographic gear they later wished they hadn't. I once owned a Zeiss 34-70 f/3.4 zoom back in the eighties for a Contax camera I had. The camera company went bust so I changed back to Nikon. In any event I sold off the Zeiss, and have regretted it ever since. It probably could have been adapted to What I have now. To this day I miss the look that lens gave to scenes, and how different the lens coating colors were when I looked down into the barrel under a light. Any similar regrets from some of you?

Well a few people care about my photography within a small group of friends, and family, but that's about it. I do photography because it's always been a relaxing activity, almost therapeutic in nature, and I enjoy the gear aspects, tech talk etc. It also nicely supplements my other hobby which is history, for documenting historic structures, places, etc. My attitude is kind of like a funny tv ad I saw about some medical product recently wherein a retired gentleman is playing golf badly, but gets to do so because of whatever the med is he's taking. He say's he plays golf badly, and he intends to go on playing golf badly for years to come. So, while I'd like to think I'm at least a competent photographer, in truth I really don't care what others think because it's other reasons I do it. I suppose if I had made a living out of it I'd care a lot more.

Gobo, or maybe an edgier name like Scrim.

Should have told her if it's not art just go there, take your own picture, then come back and we'll compare.

Good point, but I guess a lot of people like having the latest, and greatest even if a particular improvement doesn't apply directly to what they shoot. To your point, I didn't upgrade from the Sony A7RIII to the A7RIV which I normally would have done because practically speaking I felt I would have been losing some of the things I liked about the A7RIII. Nonetheless, the larger body, and higher res evf would have been nice.

One of the things that's irritated me about digital is how frequently they need to be upgraded if you want to stay on the cutting edge. With the old film cameras new iterations were about every five years, and all you needed to stay on the cutting edge was the latest film formulation. Add to that the cameras were subjectively more attractive. A workable digital back for some of the older cameras would be a very nice thing for some of us old farts that loved their slr film cameras. People have noted that it's impractical, and that may be true, because I can't think of any other reason why they wouldn't do it, considering there's still a lot of us dinosaur's left that haven't turned into fossils yet.

I'm sure you're right, but all the same you might expect some favorite film bodies from the past to be competitive with modern dslr bodies.

Yeah, I've heard about that digital back or attachment for film cameras for probably as long as digital has been a thing. I can't understand why it doesn't happen, because if it did I'd like one for a Nikon F100. That in my estimation was one nice camera.

That's interesting, prognostication at it's finest.

That's a fair amount of customization Dieter, but it sounds purpose built. I like the D500, and almost got one because I liked the body, but then I don't do your type of photography, so speed isn't that important for me. You know that has me thinking why there aren't companies around specifically for customizing cameras like there are for cars. I bet there's money in it for some guys that got laid off from some of the shrinking camera companies.

Occasionally I think about the perfect camera for me, as per me, and it's changed a bit over the years. Right now what seems ideal is the Sony A7RIV, with the A7RIII's sensor in it. In that situation, I would have the better evf, and bigger body of the A7RIV, but retain the better iso, and more than enough resolution (at least for me) of the A7RIII. Next, I would get rid of at least 50% of the features, and buttons on the body, and weather seal it a bit better. I'd call it "tsunami proofing" for photographers prone to being caught in downpours, and being struck by lightening. I'd be interested in anyone else's notion of the ideal camera custom made for themselves, must have features, looks, the whole deal.

I think some of you are missing the point which is that it's light weight, small, and will be perfectly proportioned for a Sony A7RIV, A7RIII, or A7III. When you add to that, optical quality, weather sealing, and a zoom range that while limited covers most circumstances for a walk around, I see it doing well. The main downside as some have mentioned is that it's slow, and wont be any good if bokeh is your thing, but every lens has it's compromises no?