Calling Them Names

 

What kind of camera is it ?  I was recently visiting with family. One person got a beaut new white Nikon 1 V2 camera with a 10-100mm superzoom lens for her birthday. She loved it. And it was stolen a few days later. Ouch.

Anyway, back to my story........Another family member asked  "What Kind of camera is that ?"  Is it a DSLR ?  .....Well....no.....it's one of those other ones....It's a ...............oh,  heck........... it's a nice white one................good for the boys' soccer.................

The Importance of Naming  Ideas, principles, medical conditions and devices all need a name. Until the idea or thing has a name it has not yet acquired a recognisable identity. People cannot identify it, ask about it or conduct a discussion about it. Something without a name hardly exists.

Names of Camera Types  The names of established cameras have historical roots. So we have the "View Camera" so named because you directly view an  image of the subject on the focussing screen.  Then someone invented the "Twin Lens Reflex" [TLR] camera, which made it possible to preview the subject without having to look through the taking lens and without requiring the dark cloth. The "Rangefinder" camera was so named because it had a ........yes you guessed it......an optical rangefinder (messsucher with 3 s's in German) for estimating focus.  The Single Lens Reflex [SLR] camera found a way to eliminate the upper lens of a TLR and was perhaps the best camera idea of the 20th Century. Small film cameras with a simple optical viewfinder and mainly automatic controls were called "Compact", for obvious reasons.

Fast forward to the 21st Century and things have become a bit more complicated. Compacts are still compact so they keep the name. SLR's got digital sensors so they become DSLR's.

But now we have this new (well, new since 2008 anyway)  type of camera with interchangeable lenses but which is not a DSLR. And so far there has been no general agreement as to what we should call it.

Let us review some of the contenders for naming.

CSC, Compact System Camera. This was initially adopted by several groups but has not  gained universal acceptance.  I think this is because the name does not really convey a sense of the nature of the device. Any such camera might or might not be "Compact" but so might any other kind of camera. "System" is a bit non specific. Any particular camera of this type may or may not be part of a recognisable camera/lens/accessory system.

DSLM,  Digital Single Lens Mirrorless is Panasonic's recent attempt to name the beast, but has not been well accepted even in Panasonic World. I notice on various Panasonic National websites MILC, ILC and CSC also being used. Calling a digital camera "Digital" in a world where 99% of cameras are digital is just redundant. Calling it "Single Lens" in a world with no new "Twin Lens" cameras is meaningless.  

ILC, Interchangeable Lens Camera.  Some of Sony's recent model releases have been advertised with this prefix. Some of the same cameras have also attracted different prefixes so I think you could say things are in a state of flux at Sony, or maybe total confusion.

MILC, Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera.  Much as I dislike naming something for a component which it lacks, this name conveys several things  meaningful about the nature of the device. One day when interchangeable lens cameras with a mirror (DSLR's) have become a minor or absent player in the camera world, we can drop the M and just call them ILC's.

So, MILC is my preferred name for the reasons given.

Bridge Cameras  Several manufacturers brought these onto the market about ten years ago.    Presumably they did not sell very well because they slipped into the background until recently. Sony is trying to revive the type with it's RX10 "all in one" camera.  The name "Bridge" was a reference to the idea that this camera type might be a bridge between compacts and DSLR's.
Recent improvements in the performance of small sensors and mass production of aspheric lenses have made these cameras more viable than they were previously. I think they could suit many photographers very well. But we can't keep calling them bridge cameras because they are not really a bridge from somewhere to somewhere else. If well executed one of these cameras could be all many photographers ever need.  So we need a meaningful name for them.  "All in one" sounds like some kind of kitchen appliance.
After some doodling on the back of an envelope I came up with HPZ,  High Performance Zoom.  I think this encapsulates some of the characteristics of the type.

Sensor Sizes  Once upon a time, way back in the good old days we had film sizes. There was 4x5 inch large format, various kinds of medium format and the ubiquitous 35millimeter double sprocket size which was actually based on  movie film. There was a bit of confusion with medium format film sizes and there were some "Half Frame" sizes on 35mm film but I think most camera users understood their film sizes pretty well.

Fast forward to the early part of the 21st Century and we now have a profusion of sensor sizes.  Various naming attempts have arisen in haphazard fashion. Some are named for the cathode ray tube diameter which in 1950 might have been needed to deliver that particular size of light sensitive device. I could hardly think of a less relevant way of naming sensor size 60 years later but that is the basis of the Nikon 1 and Four Thirds/Micro Four Thirds sensor size names  The 24x36mm size which used to be known as "Miniature" is now called "Full Frame".

Fortunately there is a simple, useful and consistent way to describe sensor sizes. That is by measuring and quoting the diagonal of the sensor. Easy. The table below gives the most common ones.

Lens Angles of View  Once upon a time, when lots of photographers used 35mm cameras there was widespread understanding that a "28mm" lens was a wide angle lens and a "24mm lens" was even wider. A 600mm was a real super telephoto. Today very few people learn photography (if they ever learn it) on a camera with a sensor measuring 24x36mm. Most cameras have a  much smaller sensor.  But camera makers and reviewers persist in referring to the angle of view of the lens in terms of focal lengths which would give the same angle of view on a camera with 24x36mm sensor.  In fact some even inscribe "Equivalent" focal lengths on the data panel of compact camera lenses.     This is totally irrational and confusing to absolutely everybody.

Thankfully, as with sensor sizes there is a simple and  robust solution to this problem. In fact it is so simple I am at a loss to understand why it has not already been widely adopted.

The answer is to quote the diagonal angle of view of the lens and in the case of zooms the maximum and minimum diagonal angles of view.  You can see some of these in the table below.

In this table I have given some focal length equivalents for 43mm and 21.5mm sensors.

If this convention was promoted by photo websites,  publications and manufacturers I think it would  be accepted readily. I think camera users will easily be able to visualise an angle of view stated numerically together with a one or two word verbal description of the angle of view.