digital or film??

[muldoonthief]

Craigus once bubbled...
Hi, Beeman:

A couple of folks have suggested the Olympus C-5050. You might also check out the Canon S50. They're both 5mpxl cameras, so you'll get great shots with them. Both manufacturers make a relatively cost effective u/w housing for them. The Olympus with housing would run you about $750 while the Canon with u/w housing would run about $50 less. I'm not as familiar with the Olympus as I am with the Canon (I own an S50) - and the S50 is full featured - so you can just set it on auto and have a ball - and then when you're ready, you can begin to expore all the full featured possibilities.

Whatever you do, have a blast!
Let's get wet!! :tree: :tree: :tree:
Eric.

Actually you can get the S50 and housing for under $600. www.newegg.com $419 for the camera, $159 for the housing.

 

[TedJ]

I couldn't find the camera on newegg, but the housing is down to $139 with free fedex shipping!

 

[-hh]

bandit_TX once bubbled...
TIFF is TIFF.

Um, just _which_ TIFF format are you referring to?

Specifically, the Aldus v6.0, the TIFF/IT P1, or the TIFF/IT P2?


And with ANSI's CGATS sub-committee working on the vectorized and compressed "encapsulated in PDF" TIFF format, are you considering converting all of your files to this TIFF format when its standard is approved?


-hh

 

[toni_al]

I am sorry to say the mathematics, physical laws and lense characteristics do not support the resolution of the CCD sensors.

Lets take the OLY 5050 or 5060 , resolution 2592 x 1944 and a CCD of 7.18 x 5.32 that is 361 pixels per mm on the CCD. Now thebest lenses you can buy have an MTF of around 0.5 at 50 lines per mm (on film or ccd side) that is the the contrast difference between white (which now is light grey) and black (which is now dark grey) is 50% of the contrast of say line pairs at 1mm spacing

Therefore this 5MB image hype is just to satisy the market (selling gimmik) and is not a quality improvement - John Public only nows 5MB must be better than 3MB and 5MB is one better than the Jones who only have 3MB. I will take any bet - put a CCD of 1300 x 900 which is 1,35MB and you will not see the difference, it might even be an improvement as there would be less noise generated by the CCD as there is more area to convert light to electricity.

Digital will only be compareable to film once we have full frame 35 X 24 mm sensors which has an area 21 times the OLY 5050 CCD

This is why I am staying with film

 

[-hh]

Dee once bubbled...
Things I'm sure alot of folks never thought of.

Since I don't entend to go back to film just for archival reasons, and I'm sure I'm not alone, what do you suggest we do to save our digital photos? Other than copying the CD's periodically?

My #1 suggestion is to read Clifford Stohl's book ("Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway"). It's less than $20 on Amazon.


Next, you have to accept the fact that the rate of change in computers is such that digital archiving is for lack of a better term "High Maintenance" for probably at least the next ten years. As such, you need to be not only willing to dedicate the amount of time necessary to prevent loss through simple mistakes, but to actually do it!

Pragmatically, what this means is:

- Faithful backups. Always.

- A dedicated block of time ...at least annually... for general verification.

- Knowing EXACTLY what file formats you're using, and what Appliations.

- Keeping the files ... all of them ... in at least two (2) non-lossy file formats, at full original resolution.

- Having a process to identify and to upgrade your of older file formats and older media that you've chosen to transition off of.

- keeping at least three (3) copies of everything: one on your HD for general use, and two on backup media. Big Business makes it a point to keep their backups at two different physical locations in case of fire, etc, and a very simple/easy way to do this for yourself is to keep one copy at home, and take the second copy to work and lock it in your office desk (BTW, anyone who impliments this owes me a $1/year licence fee for use of this idea ).

- NOT embracing new storage medias and formats early. Let the marketplace sort out the mess and prove what's going to stick around or not. For example, consider the following:

8" SS floppy (150K): dead
8" DS floppy (1.6MB): dead
5.25" Apple floppy (125K): dead
5.25" SS floppy (360K): dead
5.25" DS floppy (I forget): dead
5.25" HD floppy (1.2M): almost dead
3.5" SS PC floppy (720K): dead
3.5" SS Mac floppy (400K): dead
3.5" DS Mac floppy (800K): dead
3.5" DS PC floppy (1.4M): almost dead
Clik! (40M): dead
3.5" LS-120 SuperDisk (120M): dead
SyQuest (44MB): dead
SyQuest (88MB): dead
ZIP 100: nearly dead
ZIP 250: going to die soon
ZIP 750: stillborn
JAZ (1GB, 2GB): dead, dead
MO (128 MB, 230MB, and two over 1 GB): dead, dead, dead, dead
Exabyte Tape (5GB):
CD: multiple formats; despite its warts, the current "Best Bet"
DVD: which format? Some formats will die.

I'm sure that many of us can look at this list and find several formats that we've used (my personal count is 15).

Overall, I wouldn't worry too much about the "10 year" lifespan of CD's: the odds are pretty high that you're going to need to burn a new CD because of some other change before the media becomes problemmatic.

Currently, I'm only burning onto CD-R's (no CD-RW's), as I know that the different medias do have different shelf life. I also need to go look up exactly which kinds ("colors") of CD pigments have the longer (or shorter) shelf life: if I recall correctly, the green ones are the really bad ones. But also keep in mind that I still have the actual 35mm slide/negative as my "Ultimate Backup".

If I had to summarize this all in one word, I'd say the word is "paranoid". When it comes to moving the data forward whenever we're getting ready to upgrade our PC, the PC's OS, the Appliations we use, etc, you need to thoroughly check your entire system out, end-to-end, to make sure that you're 100% before you unplug & cart away the old system.


(BTW, anyone interested in buying a Nikon LS-1000 35mm film scanner that my new system doesn't support?)


One last thing to keep in mind is that physical media - - be it an actual negative/slide or a CD - - will slowly degrade over time. With a physical slide that has been damaged, you can "recover" it by making a duplicate, and you'll only lose whatever part of the slide that physically degraded. But with a digital original, the various file checksum's and the like are a double-edged sword: they give you 100% recovery so long as the amount of damage does not exceed its threshhold, but then it drops to 0%. And more often than not, your system won't warn you that you're having bit failures until its too late. As such, it can be argued that the degradation of the film is more "graceful" or "forgiving" than the digital equivalent.


There's a lot here to digest...hope this helps,

-hh

 

[Dee]

Lots to digest....thanks!

 

[Wyno]

Pro’s are going Digital, newspapers been there for years now (I know they don’t need the quality) they are shooting weddings on digital cameras, I just went to a wedding were the photographer was using a digital camera. There are even Major motion pictures that are shot in the digital format, edited digitally and shown that way. And I must say watching a movie that is all digital from start to the showing is quit impressive, puts film to shame. IMO

 

[Mverick]

Wyno once bubbled...
Pro’s are going Digital, newspapers been there for years now (I know they don’t need the quality) they are shooting weddings on digital cameras, I just went to a wedding were the photographer was using a digital camera. There are even Major motion pictures that are shot in the digital format, edited digitally and shown that way. And I must say watching a movie that is all digital from start to the showing is quit impressive, puts film to shame. IMO

Yep, but all these camera's cost way more than anyone can afford. Unless you're Pro. And even then. It's tough. When for 1/20 the price. Film has better resolution.

And for a wedding. A photographer who relies totally on Digital. Isn't trying for the high dollar shots. Because he won't be able to do the large 20x30 pics that make the major money for him.

Major Motion picture camera... $250,000 in digital. For a Cheap one.

But hey, If you can afford it.. More power to ya.... But for quality. Digital still can't beat film. Not at a price regular people can afford.

Digital is quick and easy. Instead of setting up a shot. You just blast away till one looks good.

Kinda getting away from the artistic side of photography.

They are a great learning tool. And for Amateurs are wonderful. But there still are reasons for film. Will it all go digital? Yep. But it will be at least 10 years before they're there.

 

[ssra30]

Mverick once bubbled...


Digital is quick and easy. Instead of setting up a shot. You just blast away till one looks good.

Kinda getting away from the artistic side of photography.

Mverick, Don't give me this snooty attitude about film. If I have to try to compose a picture through a viewfinder to be artistic then I don't give a crap about your version of artistic. Other people can try to compose, work on lighting, and get the best angle possible regardless of the format. Just because the medium is different does not give one the license to be artistic or not. Just because it is easier does not mean that you can't be artistic. The ability to get instant feedback certainly helps to get a better looking composition but just because you can't view your picture right away, you would have to be much better photographer than me to get one really good shot as far as composition, lighting etc is concern but it certainly does not automaticallly give you any artistic anything!
For your artistic vision to be true, I think you need to bring down some clay with you so you can sculpture the perfect replication of what you see rather than the fake 2 dimensional slide.
You choose a more difficult method of taking pictures as your preference, good for you, however there is no reason to talk down other formats with ridiculous statement like this.

Sorry I generally am pretty tolerable but blanket snooty statement like this really annoys me.

 

[Wyno]

"An article floating around several news sites including Pacific Business News is that Nikon are about to stop producion of their 35mm compact camera range and go all digital. The Tokyo-based Nihon Keizai Shimbun broke the story from company sources in its Thursday editions. Though the company said no decision has been made yet, the newspaper said production is being halted and shipments to stores will stop in a few months."