Camera system
A camera system is a combination of a photographic camera , the system camera , and the system accessories that are compatible with it . The use of the term is no longer consistent in photography today; sometimes even simple compact cameras with a handful of separately purchased accessories are marketed as camera systems , but this contradicts the actual meaning of the term. With the increasing integration of more and more components in cameras, the original term of the camera system has been weakened. Many cameras today have built-in flashes, a motorized film transport instead of an attachable film transport motor, and standard back panels with data imprinting instead of exchangeable data back panels. Interchangeable viewfinders and film magazines have completely disappeared in the 35mm field.
features
The following features characterize typical camera systems, although not all criteria have to be met at the same time:
- Continuity . A camera system is maintained and developed by the manufacturer over a number of years, if not decades.
- Modularity . A camera system consists of various components that are interchangeable within the system.
- Housing . Within a camera system, housings are offered for different requirements, not just a single model.
- Lenses . A camera system is characterized by the presence of interchangeable lenses for different areas of application.
- Accessories . In addition to camera housings and lenses, a range of accessories is offered whose compatibility with the system camera is guaranteed by the manufacturer. Accessories in this sense include, for example, flash units , remote controls, in particular components of the cameras that can be exchanged for function optimization , such as exchangeable viewfinders and exchangeable focusing screens , exchangeable magazines or camera back panels , or motor drives .
Borderline cases
- Some established camera systems ( Contax , Hasselblad , Rollei ) always use interchangeable lenses from third-party suppliers ( Carl Zeiss , Schneider Kreuznach ).
- In the case of digital camera systems, there are of course no providers with decades of experience; here one can only differentiate between a more or less early market entry.
- Only a few providers calculate and manufacture their interchangeable lenses themselves - but there are also exceptions to these, for example some "consumer grade" Minolta lenses were manufactured by Tamron and Cosina . Leica has lenses manufactured by other suppliers (for example by Sigma and Kyocera / Contax ), in the past also by Minolta . The autonomy of manufacturers is disappearing particularly strongly in the field of digital cameras, where only a handful of suppliers manufacture the basic components that almost all market participants install.
- Some product lines have a strong system character, but due to the system do not have interchangeable lenses, for example the Nikon digital cameras of the E series ( Coolpix ) or the Minolta digital cameras of the Dimage series.
Segments
System cameras are offered in different market segments, for example there are camera systems for small format cameras, medium format cameras and digital cameras.
The following providers are active in the different segments:
- Small picture : In the KB SLR area, Nikon, Canon, Minolta (continued by Sony) and Leica offer complete camera systems; there are also other providers with a smaller market share such as Pentax, Olympus (formerly with the OM system , today with Four Thirds ) and Contax (until 2005). KB viewfinder cameras with interchangeable lenses are now quite exotic; Leica with the cameras of the M series and Cosina under the brand name Voigtländer are of particular importance here .
- Medium format : Camera systems for medium format are mainly offered by Hasselblad, Rollei (manufactured by Franke and Heidecke since 2006), Mamiya and Pentax.
- APS : System cameras tend to be the exception in this segment; Nikon and Minolta (V-bayonet) are arguably the most important suppliers, but Minolta has stopped manufacturing cameras.
- Digital SLR cameras : Digital system cameras that are affordable for amateur photographers and the so-called prosumers have only appeared on the market since mid- 2003 ; Canon, Nikon, Olympus and Minolta are once again in the professional sector (housing beyond about 2000 EUR); Kodak does not offer a stand-alone system, but uses interchangeable lenses and system accessories from Nikon and Canon; Fujifilm practices similar things. Some of the systems are based on professional or semi-professional KB-SLR cameras (Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Fujifilm), while Olympus, after discontinuing the OM series a long time ago, introduced a completely new SLR camera system in the " Four Thirds " standard (because licensable). Minolta, however, oriented itself to the in-house APS system (digital cameras with V-bayonet) before selling it to Sony. At the end of 2006 Sony released a DSLR (α100) based on Konica Minolta technology with a Minolta lens mount.
- Micro Four Thirds Standard : At the beginning of August 2008, Olympus and Panasonic announced a new standard for a very compact camera system. Due to the small back focus , corresponding system cameras are equipped without oscillating mirrors and reflex viewfinders and instead with viewfinder monitors and / or electronic viewfinders.
Concrete examples
A few concrete examples are intended to shed light on the concept of the camera system.
- The housings of the Olympus OM series were all the same size, so that the same motor drives could be attached to all of them.
- The viewfinders of the Hasselblad cameras are interchangeable and even compatible with those of the Kiev 88.
- For decades, Nikon used the same type of three-pin connector to connect cable releases and power supplies before it was replaced by a new ten-pin connector that has also been in use for decades. There's even an adapter between the two plugs.
- Nikon FE, FM, FA, FE2, FM2 and FM3A form a relatively homogeneous camera group with various compatible components.
- Alpa medium format cameras have a screw connection with two threads on the top, to which various accessories such as adapters, viewfinders, spirit levels, etc. can be attached.