At 10:03 AM -0800 3/2/00, Steve Schear wrote:
>Although there may have been an inaccuracy or two in Declan's article I
>agree in general with his premise. I think digital cameras have a great
>future but are still at a disadvantage in terms of cost per image captured,
>based on cost of good point and shoot cameras and typical annual consumer
>photo processing volume, and image quality. They have many assets,
>however, especially the convenience of viewing in real-time what the sensor
>will capture and the results. (BTW, I recently ordered a Kodak DC280)
>
>> From http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,33244,00.html
>>
>> >Speed: Most sub-$1,000 digital cameras are painfully slow to anyone used
>> >to taking lots of photos in a row. I can take five photos a second on my
>> >Canon, but digitals usually take a second or two to process each image.
>> >On most decent 35-mm cameras, zooming from wide-angle to telephoto takes
>> >a scant fraction of a second. The Nikon CoolPix 950, one of the better
>> >models, takes over three seconds.
My personal experiences.
First off, I have a variety of cameras, both film and digital. For film
cameras, they are mostly Nikon bodies and Nikkor lenses. The "best" of them
is now outdated, being a Nikon 8008. I debated last year getting a newer
body, either the Nikon F5 or the F100 (a slightly lighter and smaller
version of the F5, but with nearly all of the same features, and even some
features the F5 lacks).
As Declan noted in one of his messages, lens selection tends to be what
determines which family of camera bodies one commits to. I started with
Nikon a couple of decades ago, so I have a lot of Nikkor and
Nikon-compatible lenses. My current favorite lens is an 85mm f1.8
"portrait" lens. It's very fast, so I can shoot in very low level light
situations. The focal length is a moderate tele, so shots from across a
small room are possible. I have several zooms, including a nice Nikkor
35-135, but the fast 85 is what I use most often. (Some of my older Nikon
bodies are never used, like an FG.)
I shoot mostly slides. Kodachrome 64 and Ektachrome E100S. I don't have a
slide scanner yet, but I expect to get one of the Nikon CoolScan scanners
with scratch/dust removal optics. I have many thousands of slides to be
scanned and processed. Someday.
When I travelled through Europe a while back, I took my Nikon FG with a
zoom and my little Olympus XA-2 (roughly the size of today's small point
and shoot cameras). The small Olympus was much handier, as I could just
pocket the camera and have it with me at all times. I generally cannot tell
the difference between the slides shot with these cameras, except by the
labels on the slides and the wider zoom ratios I got with the SLR.
My little Olympus Stylus takes equally good pictures. Again, no zoom. I
also have a "ruggedized" camera, with quartz plate over the lens and
rubber-coated metal body, the aptly-named Konica "Offroad." Useful for
motorcycle and bicycle trips.
There are plenty of fine small 35mm cameras. One I liked several years ago
was the Yashica with a ground-glass focussing screen which could be viewed
for candid shots (camera held at a distance or at waist level) and a fine
Zeiss lens. I assume something like it is still being made.
As for digital cameras, I started with a 300K pixel Olympus D-220L. It was
OK for documenting stuff around my house, like the growth of my fruit
trees, and for insurance purposes. Or for snap shots at parties. Still, I
didn't use it much.
My newest digital camera is a Nikon Coolpix 850, a 2.1 megapixel brother to
the Nikon Coolpix 950 which Declan refers to. (The 2.1 megapixels is only
at the highest resolution setting, and I seldom use this setting.)
(The first 3 people who request a sample photo can see me and my new
Mercedes in a photo taken with this camera. Send me a personal e-mail
request and I'll attach it. And this photo was only taken at the
intermediate setting, not even the full 2.1 megapixel setting.)
This brother to the 950 is smaller, as the flash options are less extensive
and the swivel head feature of the 950 is not included. The smallness makes
a big difference.
I find that having smaller cameras available for "grab shots"--unexpected
photo opportunities--much more than makes up for any slight reduction in
quality as compared with larger cameras. But this says a lot about my
approach to photography. A professional photographer would not care about
size or numbers of lenses in his camera bag.
The most impressive single photographic gadget I have is a tiny, tiny VIDEO
camera. No larger than a point and shoot camera. It's a Sony "RUVI" camera,
now discontinued. It records up to 30 minutes on a special Hi8mm cartridge
which is semi-permanently installed inside the camera. (It can be replaced,
if it breaks, but the cartridge is meant to act as a buffer, not as a
removable storage medium.)
The battery life is about 2 hours of "ON" time. A flying erase head makes
for flawless transitions between scenes, thus encouraging shooting with
lots of short scenes. In fact, there's a mode which shoots a 5-second
snippet.
The lens has a little bit of zoom, and the LCD viewing screen is small and
is meant to be viewed in bright light (this to save battery life). Usual
features of time and date labels, backlighting control, etc. But mainly the
use is for the video equivalent of point and shoot. As such, it has been
very useful for taping family gatherings, parties, shots of my cats and my
friends, and trips.
Once the 30 minutes have been taped, a special cable is used to transfer
the contents to ordinary video tapes. (To preserve image quality, which is
Hi8 quality (excellent), I transfer to S-VHS archival tapes.) Then the
camera is ready to go again.
With these limitations, it has still been my most used video camera of all
time. I carry this camera and my Nikon Coolpix 850 side by side in the
outside pouch of a leather shoulder bag. They are both about the same size.
Having either available at all times is great.
The RUVI was originally introduced by Sony for about $800. Apparently it
was too expensive or too unusual, so Sony cut the price. Still a poor
seller. Fry's Electronics in Manhattan Beach was dumping them at $300, with
a special sale for $250. So I bought one.
Like I said, my favorite camera. A friend of mine has been so impressed
with the shirt-pocket convenience, and excellent quality, that he searched
around on Ebay and found one or more for sale, and he got one. He's happy
with his. (I expect they may be gone completely by now, several months
later.)
My plans to ever get a Nikon F100, let alone a Hasselblad, are probably
gone forever.
--Tim May
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
