E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Discuss Nikon E2, E3 (incl. Fujix DS-505, 515 and 56x models), the original Nikon D1 and other discontinued Nikon DSLRs. Ask questions, post general comments, anecdotes, reviews and user tips.
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Ross_Alford
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E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Post by Ross_Alford »

This just occurred to me yesterday, and I don't know for certain that it's correct, maybe I'm missing something.

It seems to me that the Nikon/Fujix E series, specifically I guess the E2, but in a sense the whole series, were really the absolute first DSLRs that were designed from the ground up to be such. Contemporary and preceding models from Kodak and Minolta/Agfa, anyway, were really adaptations of nondigital bodies. I can't think of any other from-the-ground-up DSLR until the D1?

Somehow this seems to me to make the whole series even more significant. It's also surprising, since it seems to mean that Nikon and Fuji had the field to themselves to some extent for about 7 years.

I'll wait for someone to point out whatever obvious thing I have missed.

Cheers,
Ross
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Re: E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Post by NikonWeb »

Hi Ross,

I believe you're right. As far as I can tell, Nikon was the only company making their own, custom built DSLRs until Canon released their EOS-30D in 2000. Five years after the first generation E-series cameras, and a year after the revolutionary Nikon D1.

Jarle
Stan Disbrow
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Re: E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Post by Stan Disbrow »

Hi,

I can't think of anything before the E-series that could be considered a still-image, digital output, SLR camera in design.

There were various industrial, scientific and medical digital output cameras that were around well before the E-series, but they couldn't be considered SLR cameras. Some were out there that approached the SLR design point, but weren't digital output, being modified analog video cameras with an analog output.

One fact, though, is that they did not work all that well. Kodak's approach worked better once they leveraged the sensor size to where it was close in size to the size of the film it was replacing.

Of course, the successor to the E-series, the D-series, followed the same approach, as has everything since. I do believe that it was the Nikon/Fuji E-series that woke the rest of the camera world up to the idea that the DSLR idea was a good one. :)

Later!

Stan
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Re: E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Post by nikonnl »

Hi, read 'Digital War Reporting' by Donald Matheson & Stuart Allan (ISBN-978-0-7456-4275-8), especially the last chapters, about digital reporting the Kosovo war. I was in Albania those days but haven't seen photographers with digital SLR's. Even worse :-) I have never seen reporters using the early D-SLR's as they were too big, too heavy and gave too much power problems. I used (mechanical) Nikkormats and FM2's.
Regards,
Nico

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D1/D1X/D1H/D2H/D2X etc.
Ashley_Pomeroy
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Re: E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Post by Ashley_Pomeroy »

Google Books has a few excerpts from Digital War Reporting - based on the ever-shrinking size of the cases that journalists have to carry, I suspect that in a few months they will be issued with an iPhone and that will be their video capture / editing / uploading / text entry do-everything device. I assume that some journalists already do this; I've seen pictures of Tunisian and Egyptian civilians taking shots of burning cars etc with their mobile phones, a photojournalist thus equipped would blend right in. I surmise without a big SLR and a camera crew the biggest problem will be credibly establishing that the photojournalist is indeed who he says he is, and not a spy or random passer-by. Not that credentials seem to stop journalists getting shot.

Or some kind of tablet that has a camera and a microphone. I often wonder if still news photography is dying out; people don't read newspapers as much as they did, and internet news is usually video-enabled. People don't mind if the footage is tablet-sized as long as it's vivid.
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Re: E series -- very first purpose-built DSLRs?

Post by NikonWeb »

Ashley_Pomeroy wrote:I often wonder if still news photography is dying out; people don't read newspapers as much as they did, and internet news is usually video-enabled.
It's not dying, but it's definitely changing. Many, if not most, still photographers are already required to shoot video for web use.

iPhones? http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/20 ... alism.html

Jarle
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