the future of dSLR

I think there is a zone of older optics that are worth getting - if they are optically good originally. But not everything. There was a time, especially at the dawn of AF and at the dawn of zooms, where a lot of lenses were pretty awful even when they were new. Cannot imagine them aging to being any better to be fair.

Especially "some" of the earliest zooms. Not all of them. Some of them. Yes some of the old zooms are nice. Some of them. Not many though.

Pentax have some radioactive primes that are still considered worth using. And might have just been ported to their dSLR (minus the radioactive elements).
Same too some specialist Nikkor gear. I've never owned or touched a manual focus Minolta camera or any of the lenses but at the time when Canon/Nikon ruled the world of photography Pentax, Minolta, and Olympus were certainly respected (optically).

Having seen a few used manual focus lenses still playing pass-the-parcel on eBay it is clear some were built to last. But a lot have obviously ghosted and gone bad. Even some of Nikon's 'cheap E line' (MF) appear to have survived. Cannot really imagine a belt driven AF lens would make it to the same age though. Rubber bands or whatever magic inside them is gonna fail at some point (see cassette decks for reference, cleaning project anyone). Plus there is a bunch of electronics in there waiting for a failure (requiring a donor for parts could get expensive). Contrast to that a manual focus lens made of metal and glass (and plastic) I know which will still be 'useable'.

Then there is the purple/green fringing thing which I think is mainly due to optical design and coating (not always correctable in post) ... and that leaves the ancient lenses (Leica's own primes included) as a risky business. I had a couple of optically excellent Voigtländer M-mount primes in the final days before film died. They were super optics until they were mounted on an adaptor and shown to a digital camera. If soft focus is your jam - bring it on. Nice to hold and play with though (but useless as a photographic tool).

Decent medium format kit was never a volume thing though. They were proper expensive and pretty much aimed at professionals. So availability will be a tough one. Hasselblad will have a brand following ... but the Bronica square stuff appears to be priced fairly for those that haven't realized film is dead yet.

The problem with Sony cameras with (wide) M-mount lenses is that the Sony sensors have too thick glass on the sensor. There is a company called Kolari that changes the glass filters on Sony (Canon, Nikon, Panasonic) cameras. Leica even uses off-set micro lenses on their sensors.

The problem with your Voigtländer lenses wasn't the lenses, but the camera.

I do not worry that much about colour fringing in general. A little is fine. If you do not like it, it is easy to correct in post processing or use the lens just for black and white.

There are two importantt reasons why modern lenses are much better in most respects then old ones: computer aided design and modern production technologies. Buy old lenses for their look, do not pixelpeep.

waldo_posth wrote: dCap wrote: ... but the Bronica square stuff appears to be priced fairly for those that haven't realized film is dead yet. Please show me where I can get a Bronica RF645 for the price it sold one year ago. The same holds for the Mamiya 6 - prices have gone through the roof!

I have no idea what they cost a year ago - just did an eBay search on Bronica SQ and then Bronica ET... (and it auto suggested a bunch of search terms like ETRS) ... filtered to UK and saw 34 items / complete kits / bodies / backs. Seemed to be enough to satisfy a very niche hobby.

Bronica square is harder to search for SQB SQ-B SQA SQ-A - I had an SL2A which pre-dated the two SQ lines (B was manual/no power - and A was electronic/battery, I think?). One of my other cameras was a Mamiya RB67 - they were never 'cheap' and the prices seem fair to a bit over the top (without reading the specs for condition). Not looking to buy as I already have three (too many) paperweights.

I've never heard of an RF645 until today. Mamiya 6 I know about ... fragile plastic cameras (looks like they are 5x the price of the metal SLRs). Madness. Plastic bodies are fragile and plastic is gonna break.

Nostalgia is perhaps an expensive hobby. Thankfully I'm allergic to it.

waldo_posth wrote: dCap wrote: ... but the Bronica square stuff appears to be priced fairly for those that haven't realized film is dead yet. Please show me where I can get a Bronica RF645 for the price it sold one year ago. The same holds for the Mamiya 6 - prices have gone through the roof!

one day when the hipsters find out that using chemicals (shock!) to make and develop film is a really daft thing to do ... and then when they start cancelling each other for being environmental criminals ... the used market will then be flooded with their former hipster apparel (at low prices) ... and back into the hands of collectors looking to complete their set of shiny things to put in a display case

You heard it here first.

In November maybe I dived in and acquired an A99 and a brace of MinO lenses to go with. This has made me as happy as many clams since it was not an expensive exercise and I've made the jump to ff as well as the other quantum leaps in performance from the A700. Only the 17-35G remains stupidly expensive and I bought the KM version instead which seems to work well enough. When the A mount Zeiss lenses become affordable I'll have a pair of them too.

I did test for CA, flare and so forth, all manageable and at the prices I paid, not even worth worrying about. How about a 28-70G for $300?

It was just going to cost way too much to go E mount I'm afraid and I like the look of the images the venerable glass provides, warts and all. Did I mention how little I spent? All win.

High end or basic? Not the same...
We had a basic FE camera in the A7 and though it sold quite well, most of us now go for something with more features ...

What I'd like to see is an A7 model with the best A-mount PDAF system (or even just the one from LA-EA4) built in and the sensor moved right back in the body to accommodate it. I don't care what they call it but A00 sounds good to me