Best digital camera for 4x5 preview?

[Mary Parisi]

I'm close to buying my first digital camera to take snapshots and to send photos over the web. I don't intend to do my fine art work with it but it does occur to me that it might be a useful tool to preview shots when I'm out shooting a large format camera. I suspect that others might be doing this and I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a digital camera that is well suited for this purpose.

A camera with a large LCD that is easy to see in sunlight would be the first requirement. My favorite large format lens is a 110 mm so a wide angle zoom lens would also make sense. Perhaps too some of you have tried this and found it was a waste of time, anyway I would like to know what others think.

[Moe_4073]

I think Polaroids are a better way to go. Unless you buy a high end digital camera that gives you complete manual control, display of the shutter speed and aperture, and a histogram display of scene brightness (and even these digital cameras only stop down to f8-f9.5 or so), a digital camera may be too "point and shoot" to be of great use. I am also interested in the comments of others who have tried this. Regards,

[Brian Ellis]

There was an article about using a digital camera for this purpose in Photo Techniques magazine a year or so ago. They sell back issues if you're really interested. Seems like a good idea to me. I think it would be particularly useful for black and white photographers with a digital camera that has a black and white setting.

[Matt Miller]

I use my digicam for this purpose & find that it helps tremendously. My main purpose for using it is to aid in finding a better composition without having to set up the 8x10 & keep moving it around. I set the zoom lens (28-200) just under 50mm (I use a 12" lens in 8x10) to get a similar field of view. I set my camera on B&W, which helps me judge tonal characteristics. I don't pay attention to meter readings or dynamic range at this point, as digital & film are quite different in these respects. The A2 has a bitchin electronic view finder, which is what I use to compose 99% of the time, so bright sunny days are not as bothersome as they are for those who compose with the LCD.

[Frank Petronio]

The article I read mentions an older Canon P&S digicam, as they have Histrogram displays. But I like using a larger, but easier to manipulate DSLR - a Nikon D70. A Canon digital Rebel, Olympus E-10, or one of the other "prosumer" $1000 cameras would be suitable. They have decent LCDs and easy to access manual controls. The tiny P&S make changing ASA, speed and aperture more of a challenge - and the larger DSLRs are excellent cameras in their own right.

I gave up with the small, carry-everywhere digital cameras - if I want a tiny picture, I use my phone! But if I had money to burn, I'd get a Sony T1 - it has a very large, high pixel density LCD display. Simply getting a larger LCD isn't an advantage if it doesn't have more pixels.

[Leonard Evens]

I use a Nikon D70, which I got for other reasons, to scout out pictures before going out with my view camera. It works reasonably well, but of course it is not the same. The main problem is that without rise/fall and shifts, you can't really compose the picture the same way. I can compensate to some extent by pointing the camera in the right direction and correcting perspective digitally, but it is never exactly the same. You can estimate the focal length you are using with a DSLR lens, such as the kit 18-70 mm lens, because it has markings on the lens. (You can also examine the exif data when viewing an image after taking it on the LCD screen.) I usually use a divisor of between 5 and 6 in figuring the equivalent 4 x 5 focal length, depending on how I'm framing the picture. But the aspect ratio is different, so you have to exercise care. I also divide the f-number I would expect to use with 4 x 5 by that same divisor to approximate the right depth of field when using the D70.

[Tony Galt]

I also use a Minolta A2, which has an 8 mp sensor in it, for travel and general photography. I have found myself looking a photos I've shot with it and then going back to reshoot them with my Shen Hao 4x5. In 35mm terms zoom runs from 28mm to 200mm so that covers the range of lf lenses I have pretty well (except for my 75mm). One, of course, has to mentally adjust for a different frame proportion, but that can be done on the computer. The eyelevel finder is perhaps the clearest of the electronic finders. It is light and extremely portable and capable of a descent 11x14 print, especially if used in raw mode and with post-processing of the file.

[Harley Goldman]

I use a Canon S45 for that very purpose. I just take a bunch of different shots and look at the little screen to see which composition strikes me. I only use it in those questionable situations, but it does help a lot. Also, in really tough lighting, you can use the histogram to help with your metering. Again, you don't need it all the time, but it does come in handy. I also use occasional Polaroids, but once you own the digicam, the shots are free. Polaroids aren't.

[Stpephen Willlard]

I started using a small digital P&S about two years ago, and gave up using Polaroid.
I have gone through two generations of cameras to get the features I want. The camera
I settled on is a Sony MVC-CD350. It is a clunker, a 3.2mp camera, and writes to a mini CD
so it is slow as hell.

Money was no object for my selection. Here is why I use it. It has got the largest 2.5" LCD on the
market. This allows me to easily critique the composition. It has the best LCD shade on the market. I can easily
see the LCD no matter how bright the ambient light is. As you zoom in and out the zoom fact is displayed
on the screen. I have made a chart that allows me to quickly select the appropriate lens to use based on
the zoom factor shown on my Sony. I have 9 lenses to choose from ranging from 75mm to 720mm. It comes
with a big hunken battery that runs for about 160 minutes of hard shooting. I also have Sony's high grade 0.5
converted lens so that I can approximate the range of all my lenses.

I used the camera for a solid 3 months this year in the high alpine country of Colorado. It has been rain on, snowed
on, sat on, dropped, and left in blistering sun. It has always worked. However, I have bought a backup just in case it fails.

My digital solution is fast and quick allowing me to hone in with little effort. It is a lot easier to use then Polaroid and a lot
cheaper. I also GPS all my compositions, and record everything you can think of about each composition on my T3 Palm. The database
I use is Filemaker Pro 7 Mobile. When I get home I upload and merge everything into Filemaker Pro 7 on my desktop. The GPS
coordinates are loaded into the database and my map software so that I can see them on the maps. This gives me a
complete record of every composition I stumbled on in the field.

In most cases, I only get to shoot about 20% of the comps I find in a basin. Now that I have a complete record I will be able to easily revisit
the comp in the future when the light is more appropriate. I have been working on some comps for over 5 years. This digital solution has
exceeding my expectations on all levels, and I believe over time it will triple my yields in the field.