Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie, Re point (2) The Olympus P400 also laminates (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. Eh! Ian - Original Message - From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 4:53 PM Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? Ian, Partial possible answers to your question are: I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? (1) Dye sublimation printers may be too costly as compared to inkjet printers both to purchase and to operate given the cost of expendables. (2) Dye sublimation prints are even more fragile than inkjet prints in terms of longevity in the case of resistance to heat and water among other factors so I am told. (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. (4) There is more development going on in regard to inkjet and laser technologies than in dye sublimation technologies, which it appears - relatively speaking - has been orphaned, which makes people uncomfortable in investing in a product that might be abandoned in the near future so as to make getting expendables difficult and expensive. BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (1) Expense of printers and expendables as noted above. (2) Difficulty getting good black and white tonal range using just the black on the dye sub black dye ribbon and getting rich blacks when trying to obtain black from a mixture of the other color dyes. (3) Not archival enough to be used for anything more than mere proofing. Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? I have no response to this. :-) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ian Jackson Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 6:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael, I've got to be careful here as this is a scanners BBS not a printer BBS but I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner? My only questions are: (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Michael, Thanks for the tip! Blueyonder is going through a major upgrade program and causing pain to all its users whether email, newsgroups or PWP. I go the PWP working only after applying the pipex cache. regards, Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Wilkinson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 3:17 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? - Original Message - From: "Ian Jackson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] : (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature : (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? . Try looking for a used one !!! Repro-Link is a trade mag with that sort of kit in it here in the UK. how are you finding Blueyonder ? Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Ok, I take you word on that; I was talking in general terms rather than in terms of any specific make or model. It is also possible that my information and understanding is dated regarding this aspect given the fast paced changing technologies and equipment designs. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ian Jackson Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2001 9:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Laurie, Re point (2) The Olympus P400 also laminates (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. Eh! Ian - Original Message - From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 4:53 PM Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? Ian, Partial possible answers to your question are: I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? (1) Dye sublimation printers may be too costly as compared to inkjet printers both to purchase and to operate given the cost of expendables. (2) Dye sublimation prints are even more fragile than inkjet prints in terms of longevity in the case of resistance to heat and water among other factors so I am told. (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. (4) There is more development going on in regard to inkjet and laser technologies than in dye sublimation technologies, which it appears - relatively speaking - has been orphaned, which makes people uncomfortable in investing in a product that might be abandoned in the near future so as to make getting expendables difficult and expensive. BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (1) Expense of printers and expendables as noted above. (2) Difficulty getting good black and white tonal range using just the black on the dye sub black dye ribbon and getting rich blacks when trying to obtain black from a mixture of the other color dyes. (3) Not archival enough to be used for anything more than mere proofing. Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? I have no response to this. :-) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ian Jackson Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 6:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael, I've got to be careful here as this is a scanners BBS not a printer BBS but I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner? My only questions are: (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartr
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I don't know if it is worldwide, but I believe ALPS has abandoned their dye sub product line, perhaps only supporting it with consumables. They weren't very popular in Canada, and I only saw one dealer who carried them for a short time. The main problems ALPS had were they took too long to get the units out, they were a bit too costly and slow, they couldn't resolve the banding problem with the ribbons, and they didn't or couldn't license out the technology, so companies with more bucks behind them, like HP, Canon, IBM (Lexmark) and Epson were able to create a very strong market following. Finally, inkjet printers have improved their output so much that dye sub has been pretty much been left in the dust, considering other aspects. Dye sub is probably best for self-contained units not requiring a computer, for smaller format prints. The Canon "Home Lab" is an example. Art Gordon Tassi wrote: Ian: I had looked at a some ALPS Electric dye sub printers before getting my Epson. Based on the prices I saw, I would say the 2000 UK Pounds would be at the very top of the line. Their web site ( Search for "ALPS Electric") shows OEM and retail printers.. Their global section shows an office in the U.K. (At Milton Keynes, I believe). The costs shown in the site are the costs to produce a photo, not not the cost of the machine. The cost of a low end printer is the US is about $500. ( I found them at www.alpsusa.com) They do show black and white and color. They seem to print slower than an inkjet. A friend of mine has one and says that the dpi and dimension of the computer output will be the same as the printer output, with the upper limit of the printer's capability being the restriction. Gordon Ian Jackson wrote: Michael, I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner? My only questions are: (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not like
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Actually, I like the fact that inkjets are somewhat worse and better than inkjets but not that inkjets might be equal to inkjets. Some inkjets are more equal than others. Apologies to Orwell and the list.
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
"At the extremely high end, the KAF-16801CE CCD features 16.6 million pixels in a 40804080-pixel array. By using relatively large, 99-m pixels, the device delivers greater light-capturing ability, dynamic range, and SNR than possible with the commonly used smaller pixels. As a result of the pixel size, the dual inline package, which has just 34 pins, measures about 38 mm2 -an eye-catching piece of silicon! The array also includes proprietary on-chip RGB-color filtering to improve color-space performance and sensitivity. The KAF-16801 sells for $3000 to $4000 (1000)." Thus, we are getting there and sooner than I dared hope! Now, when it gets to be affordable, I'll buy one! Custom made CCDs for astronomy have gone as high as 10,000 by 10,000 with the diameter of the sensor being just slightly smaller than the 5 inch blank it was fabricated on. Cost was less than $1,00,000 USD. BW only. Takes a few minutes to read the sensor after a multi-hour exposure. Noise level of around 1 photon per pixel. True 16 bits per pixel (16 stops) range.
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Michael, I've got to be careful here as this is a scanners BBS not a printer BBS but I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner? My only questions are: (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
- Original Message - From: "Ian Jackson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] : (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature : (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? . Try looking for a used one !!! Repro-Link is a trade mag with that sort of kit in it here in the UK. how are you finding Blueyonder ? Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I use my D30 on Super-Fine JPEG mostly, and the 1G Microdrive can hold about 799 of those. In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (B.Rumary) wrote: In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Berry Ives wrote: Digital SLRs that have maybe half the required resolution now cost about $3K. If that technology progresses at anything like what CPUs have, I think 10 years is rather ample to eliminate, say, 90% of the 35mm film market. That said, I recently bought a Contax film camera and am about to buy a film scanner. (%~~/ I think we are tending to judge the market by our own standards. I am not interested in a digital camera *at the moment* because the resolution is not up to my standards for the price that I can afford. However for the ordinary member of the public they are already "good enough". Remember most people's standards for photos are pretty low, as you can see be looking at most "happy snaps" (or home videos). All they want is reasonable pictures that are recognizable, and they hardly ever have a print made bigger then the 6x4's they get when they have the film processed. They don't have 10x12's made and then look at them through a lens to see how fine the grain is! And they _never_ use slides or black white; too inconvenient or old fashioned. I also feel that the memory chips, flash cards or what ever don't hold enough high quality shots for the price. When I go on an overseas trip I shoot 10-12 35mm films, and this would need several flash cards or memory sticks, at a heavy cost. Many photographers take several times this number of frames. However the ordinary public don't take that many shots. There is a joke in the photo processing business that the average punters film has a Christmas tree in the first frame and also in the last one - that is one film lasts them all year! What has this to so with us? Well such people make up 95% of the photographic market, and their needs (or what the advertisers tell them they need) will drive the industry. Before too long you might find that you can't get non-digital supplies, because "there is no demand for them". You might still be able to get such stuff as film and photo paper from professional suppliers, at "professional prices", but the photography stores we use now may have gone out of business. If you don't believe me, try to get old-style flash bulbs, glass plates, or films other than APS, 35mm and 120. I hope that it doesn't come to this, but I am rather afraid that we may have to go digital eventually, whether we like it or not. Brian Rumary, England http://freespace.virgin.net/brian.rumary/homepage.htm
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Until CMOS sensors became high-quality, the image sensor market was held back by the specialist nature of the CCD manufacturing process. You can't produce a CCD in a CMOS fab line and vice versa, and CCD fabs lag well behind the CMOS equivalents. Now, the sky's the limit. Image sensors like the Canon one can be rolled off the same production lines as all the other high-volume semiconductors, and the intrinsic cost should plummet. In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Clark Guy) wrote: HI, Bob! Of course, you are quite correct about the market strategy aspect of this matter. The technology exists to have significantly higher resolution sensors than we have available to us today. There just isn't a big enough market for them, so the prices stay high, so there is no market for them. etc. I believe that the storage and processing speed issues are more easily addressed than the limitations of the sensor technology, and again, if there were perceived to be a big enough market, the major manufacturers would be providing high speed processing and high capacity storage along with the high resolution sensors that demand it! I just am not convinced that we will see usable/affordable 30Mpixel cameras in the coming decade. Call me a pessimist, but prove me wrong! Please!! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Murphy, Bob H [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 5:28 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) I don't think the image sensor is the problem. I'm talking about a die that is the same size as the current one used in the Canon D30, namely 22.7mm horizontal only made with pixels the size currently used in the Olympus 3030, Nikon 990, etc. or about 3.0x smaller in each direction. This makes for an array of "conventional" pixels in a "conventionally" sized die totaling 30 million. Why couldn't this be done today? I suspect the answer is market strategy - not technology. Furthermore today's camera electronics could handle an image of this size provided customers were willing to wait 9 times longer for the data to be written to an on-camera 1GB microdrive or 10 seconds perhaps for a high quality jpg. I know the small pixels in the $1000 3Mpixel digicams are nosier than the D30's and are awful when shot an iso greater than 100 but I believe the market has proven that they're clean enough for a good, well exposed image. And 30 million of them would make one awesome image. Finally, you could always resample it down to 3.3 Mega pixels and get (I predict) a much better shot than the current D30 can produce. Why can't this be doe today? --Bob -Original Message- From: Clark Guy [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 4:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) HI, Bob! That's one of the points I feel most secure about. There is that lower limit to how small the CCD elements (photon buckets) can be. Too small and they get noisy, smaller than that and they are too small to respond to visible light! Then there is the upper limit dictated by how well we can make semiconductor devices without flaws. The larger they are, the more likely to include a flaw. Thus, the larger they are, the more expensive (exponentially with die area, I've been told) they are! (This partially explains the horrific cost of medium format digital backs, and the "astronomical" cost of astronomical "large" CCD arrays (up to $25000 as advertised in Sky and Telescope magazine!!!)) So, you see, there is an upper boundary to size and a lower boundary to size, and we are pushing at both of them! I, therefore, am somewhat skeptical about seeing any 30Mpixel devices anytime soon. Possibly if there is a major breakthrough in manufacturing of imaging arrays allowing for larger cheaper arrays, but physics dictates that lower limit to element size. Just because there has been an explosion of newer and better digital cameras over the last five years doesn't mean that that rate of improvement can continue! There also needs to be a market for these 30Mpixel devices to make them and make them affordable! Joe Pointenshoot won't be pushing for that kind of quality unless it is cheap (by cheap I mean costs less than a 1.5Mpixel camera does now), which kind of defeats the market drive. Really, I hope you are right!!! I just am a little too close to the engineering side of this to be this optomistic! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Murphy, Bob H [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 11:24 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of
Re: filmscanners: real value?
- Original Message - From: Ian Jackson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 4:01 AM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael, I've got to be careful here as this is a scanners BBS not a printer BBS but I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner? My only questions are: (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? Olympus P-400 at 1000 USD? Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Well, ok then! That's the kind of major breakthrough that I was talking about! If this allows the relatively easy manufacture of imaging arrays of high resolution, then some of my comments become moot. I did see a reference to the Kodak digital imaging website where an array on the order of 16mpixels with 9.9 um pixels in EDN magazine (14 September, 2000): "At the extremely high end, the KAF-16801CE CCD features 16.6 million pixels in a 40804080-pixel array. By using relatively large, 99-m pixels, the device delivers greater light-capturing ability, dynamic range, and SNR than possible with the commonly used smaller pixels. As a result of the pixel size, the dual inline package, which has just 34 pins, measures about 38 mm2 -an eye-catching piece of silicon! The array also includes proprietary on-chip RGB-color filtering to improve color-space performance and sensitivity. The KAF-16801 sells for $3000 to $4000 (1000)." Thus, we are getting there and sooner than I dared hope! Now, when it gets to be affordable, I'll buy one! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 12:42 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) Until CMOS sensors became high-quality, the image sensor market was held back by the specialist nature of the CCD manufacturing process. You can't produce a CCD in a CMOS fab line and vice versa, and CCD fabs lag well behind the CMOS equivalents. Now, the sky's the limit. Image sensors like the Canon one can be rolled off the same production lines as all the other high-volume semiconductors, and the intrinsic cost should plummet. In article [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Clark Guy) wrote: HI, Bob! Of course, you are quite correct about the market strategy aspect of this matter. The technology exists to have significantly higher resolution sensors than we have available to us today. There just isn't a big enough market for them, so the prices stay high, so there is no market for them. etc. I believe that the storage and processing speed issues are more easily addressed than the limitations of the sensor technology, and again, if there were perceived to be a big enough market, the major manufacturers would be providing high speed processing and high capacity storage along with the high resolution sensors that demand it! I just am not convinced that we will see usable/affordable 30Mpixel cameras in the coming decade. Call me a pessimist, but prove me wrong! Please!! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Murphy, Bob H [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 5:28 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) I don't think the image sensor is the problem. I'm talking about a die that is the same size as the current one used in the Canon D30, namely 22.7mm horizontal only made with pixels the size currently used in the Olympus 3030, Nikon 990, etc. or about 3.0x smaller in each direction. This makes for an array of "conventional" pixels in a "conventionally" sized die totaling 30 million. Why couldn't this be done today? I suspect the answer is market strategy - not technology. Furthermore today's camera electronics could handle an image of this size provided customers were willing to wait 9 times longer for the data to be written to an on-camera 1GB microdrive or 10 seconds perhaps for a high quality jpg. I know the small pixels in the $1000 3Mpixel digicams are nosier than the D30's and are awful when shot an iso greater than 100 but I believe the market has proven that they're clean enough for a good, well exposed image. And 30 million of them would make one awesome image. Finally, you could always resample it down to 3.3 Mega pixels and get (I predict) a much better shot than the current D30 can produce. Why can't this be doe today? --Bob -Original Message- From: Clark Guy [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 4:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) HI, Bob! That's one of the points I feel most secure about. There is that lower limit to how small the CCD elements (photon buckets) can be. Too small and they get noisy, smaller than that and they are too small to respond to visible light! Then there is the upper limit dictated by how well we can make semiconductor devices without flaws. The larger they are, the more likely to include a flaw. Thus, the larger they are, the more expensive (exponentially with die area, I've been told) they are! (This partially explains the horrific cost of medium format digital backs, and the "astronomical" cost of astrono
RE: filmscanners: real value?
At 11:53 AM 02-02-01, Laurie Solomon wrote: (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. ?? Am I reading this wrong, it doesn't make sense to me.
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Ian: I had looked at a some ALPS Electric dye sub printers before getting my Epson. Based on the prices I saw, I would say the 2000 UK Pounds would be at the very top of the line. Their web site ( Search for "ALPS Electric") shows OEM and retail printers.. Their global section shows an office in the U.K. (At Milton Keynes, I believe). The costs shown in the site are the costs to produce a photo, not not the cost of the machine. The cost of a low end printer is the US is about $500. ( I found them at www.alpsusa.com) They do show black and white and color. They seem to print slower than an inkjet. A friend of mine has one and says that the dpi and dimension of the computer output will be the same as the printer output, with the upper limit of the printer's capability being the restriction. Gordon Ian Jackson wrote: Michael, I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner? My only questions are: (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? Ian - Original Message - From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:53 AM 02-02-01, Laurie Solomon wrote: (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. ?? Am I reading this wrong, it doesn't make sense to me. I suspect the last word was meant to be "dye-subs". :) Rob
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I buy a lot of items secondhand, including a lot of technology which I have saved tons of money doing. I would be very cautious about considering buying a dye sub printer used, unless it came with a very good service contract. They are finicky and very expensive to repair, and they are heavy to ship around. Art Michael Wilkinson wrote: - Original Message - From: "Ian Jackson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] : (1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature : (2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds? .. Try looking for a used one !!! Repro-Link is a trade mag with that sort of kit in it here in the UK. how are you finding Blueyonder ? Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:53 AM 02-02-01, Laurie Solomon wrote: (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. ?? Am I reading this wrong, it doesn't make sense to me. I think this is called a "senior's moment" regardless of the age of the person involved. I do this all the time. It is the fingers auto-typing another word than the one in one's mind. A little bit of logic and creativity would probably allow you to make the assumption that the second reference was supposed to be dye sub, rather than inkjet. Art
RE: filmscanners: real value?
You are right on both accounts. As written it makes no sense at all; but a relatively non acrobatic leap to the assumption you suggest would be in order. I sure wish all you editors were around before I actually transmitted the posts rather than after I put my foot in my mouth or in another orifice. :-) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 6:12 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:53 AM 02-02-01, Laurie Solomon wrote: (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. ?? Am I reading this wrong, it doesn't make sense to me. I think this is called a "senior's moment" regardless of the age of the person involved. I do this all the time. It is the fingers auto-typing another word than the one in one's mind. A little bit of logic and creativity would probably allow you to make the assumption that the second reference was supposed to be dye sub, rather than inkjet. Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
You are right on both accounts. As written it makes no sense at all; but a relatively non acrobatic leap to the assumption you suggest would be in order. At 11:53 AM 02-02-01, Laurie Solomon wrote: (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. Actually, I like the fact that inkjets are somewhat worse and better than inkjets but not that inkjets might be equal to inkjets. John M.
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I have the impression that Alps is going out of the Dye Sub printer business.
At 06:21 PM 02/02/2001 -0500, you wrote:
Ian: I had looked at a some ALPS Electric dye sub printers before getting my
Epson. Based on the prices I saw, I would say the 2000 UK Pounds would be at
the very top of the line. Their web site ( Search for "ALPS Electric") shows
OEM and retail printers.. Their global section shows an office in the
U.K. (At
Milton Keynes, I believe). The costs shown in the site are the costs to
produce
a photo, not not the cost of the machine. The cost of a low end printer
is the
US is about $500. ( I found them at www.alpsusa.com)
They do show black and white and color. They seem to print slower than an
inkjet.
A friend of mine has one and says that the dpi and dimension of the computer
output will be the same as the printer output, with the upper limit of the
printer's capability being the restriction.
Gordon
Ian Jackson wrote:
Michael,
I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye
sublimation printers?
Surely these would fully complement say a 4000 dpi scanner?
My only questions are:
(1) BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature
(2) Where do I find an A3 Dye sub printer under 2000 UK Pounds?
Ian
- Original Message -
From: "Michael Moore" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value?
Ian,
I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing
mentality
that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers.
That
said,
I do think that their printers at least are much better made than
Epson's...
What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their
printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both
in
manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the
price
comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the
2000,
they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned
thing
clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in).
As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival
pigment/inks for
the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier...
Mike Moore
Ian Jackson wrote:
Michael Moore wrote.
Michael,
I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same
oscilloscopes,
power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers,
printers,
software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same
league.
Somehow I feel you would not disagree?
Ian
- Original Message -
From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value?
Michael Moore wrote:
I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics
tech
in Th
US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I
bought
an HP
932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the
cartridges
come
with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just
replace
the
cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged
print
head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that
things
can't
be made to last...
Mike M
Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of
the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it
costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense
to
do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T)
that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable,
doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80
mph
for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high
tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last
for
50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn
thing
has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or
resale value.
BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs
about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one,
you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks
(which are
12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.)
and
is bigger than a tower computer ;-)
Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie Solomon wrote: Ian, Partial possible answers to your question are: I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? (1) Dye sublimation printers may be too costly as compared to inkjet printers both to purchase and to operate given the cost of expendables. Although perhaps true in the U.S. now that ALPS has stopped selling their low-cost dye-sub printers here (I am still using mine), Oki is still selling them in some countries (as an OEM product). At least for mine, the runtime costs are similar to a photo-inkjet (which my wife's printer is one of). Printer costed a bit more than an inkjet, but that difference is not significant over the life of the printer (where runtime costs dominate). Price was about double an inkjet's cost (which is to say, still not much). I have an Alps MD-1300. (2) Dye sublimation prints are even more fragile than inkjet prints in terms of longevity in the case of resistance to heat and water among other factors so I am told. At least in terms of mine, the opposite is true. One can crunch the print up in a ball and flatten it out w/o problems to the image (other than for obvious creases in the paper). One can stick it under a faucet of running water *immediately* after coming out of the printer. It's completely waterproof and never had any liquid used in it's processing (the pigments were sublimated, solid-gas-solid). Longevity is supposed to be archival. The Alps units, at least, are technically pigment-sublimation printers. :-) (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. Perhaps some inkjets over some dye-subs. Some dyesubs are only 200 dpi or less, the alps prints at 600 dpi. Note that each dot has a full range of colors -- not like the three to six colors that inkjet dots have. But indeed, some inkjets are very very good. :-) With Alps out of the U.S. market, my next printer when the Alps breaks will undoubtedly have to be an inkjet. (4) There is more development going on in regard to inkjet and laser technologies than in dye sublimation technologies, which it appears - relatively speaking - has been orphaned, which makes people uncomfortable in investing in a product that might be abandoned in the near future so as to make getting expendables difficult and expensive. For business applications, lasers are probably the future with the speed and volume needed in the printer -- plus cost per print. My Alps printer prints photos very well, but it is *SLOW*. For me, I'll take the slug slow printing (not that inkjets aren't slugs too) to have the price low -- but a business would value it's time to make that unacceptable. Alps quit selling in the U.S. (IMO) because it wasn't a business printer (other than maybe light duty in small businesses) while simultaneously they wouldn't/couldn't compete in the distribution-game having to sell the printers at cost (or less) and making it up on the runtime materials. Mass home sales go to low initial price over quality. :-( BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (1) Expense of printers and expendables as noted above. (2) Difficulty getting good black and white tonal range using just the black on the dye sub black dye ribbon and getting rich blacks when trying to obtain black from a mixture of the other color dyes. A fellow who works for a local printer-making company I know was surprised how good the blacks were on my Alps dye-sub because in dye-sub mode it is a CMY+overcoat printer. But I know that has been a problem for some dyesubs (as well as inkjets that ran in CMY mode back when those were still being made). I'm kind of happily glad about how well blacks turn out as well. Odd way to do a dye-sub BW, but it's how I do it, and it works well. If one is in the U.K., check out Oki's line of dysub printers, the ALPS MD-5000 is probably "something"-5000, and in that one dye-sub printing is an option. There is a new semi-professional model coming out soon that prints large pages (etc) that sounds quite interesting! But it won't be available here in the states. :-( Mike K.
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Mike, I have no reason to question or refute anything you have said. I must admit that I do not know all that much about Dye-Sub printers except what I have read, heard and seen by way of sample prints. Most of the information and samples came not from Alps devices but from Kodak devices primarily. That is why I prefaced my response with a disclaimer by saying the response consisted of "partial possible answers." :-) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Mike Kersenbrock Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 11:04 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Laurie Solomon wrote: Ian, Partial possible answers to your question are: I wonder why there are so few people film scanning then printing with dye sublimation printers? (1) Dye sublimation printers may be too costly as compared to inkjet printers both to purchase and to operate given the cost of expendables. Although perhaps true in the U.S. now that ALPS has stopped selling their low-cost dye-sub printers here (I am still using mine), Oki is still selling them in some countries (as an OEM product). At least for mine, the runtime costs are similar to a photo-inkjet (which my wife's printer is one of). Printer costed a bit more than an inkjet, but that difference is not significant over the life of the printer (where runtime costs dominate). Price was about double an inkjet's cost (which is to say, still not much). I have an Alps MD-1300. (2) Dye sublimation prints are even more fragile than inkjet prints in terms of longevity in the case of resistance to heat and water among other factors so I am told. At least in terms of mine, the opposite is true. One can crunch the print up in a ball and flatten it out w/o problems to the image (other than for obvious creases in the paper). One can stick it under a faucet of running water *immediately* after coming out of the printer. It's completely waterproof and never had any liquid used in it's processing (the pigments were sublimated, solid-gas-solid). Longevity is supposed to be archival. The Alps units, at least, are technically pigment-sublimation printers. :-) (3) Inkjets have reached the level where there quality and other features come very close to those, if not in some instances surpass those, of inkjets. Perhaps some inkjets over some dye-subs. Some dyesubs are only 200 dpi or less, the alps prints at 600 dpi. Note that each dot has a full range of colors -- not like the three to six colors that inkjet dots have. But indeed, some inkjets are very very good. :-) With Alps out of the U.S. market, my next printer when the Alps breaks will undoubtedly have to be an inkjet. (4) There is more development going on in regard to inkjet and laser technologies than in dye sublimation technologies, which it appears - relatively speaking - has been orphaned, which makes people uncomfortable in investing in a product that might be abandoned in the near future so as to make getting expendables difficult and expensive. For business applications, lasers are probably the future with the speed and volume needed in the printer -- plus cost per print. My Alps printer prints photos very well, but it is *SLOW*. For me, I'll take the slug slow printing (not that inkjets aren't slugs too) to have the price low -- but a business would value it's time to make that unacceptable. Alps quit selling in the U.S. (IMO) because it wasn't a business printer (other than maybe light duty in small businesses) while simultaneously they wouldn't/couldn't compete in the distribution-game having to sell the printers at cost (or less) and making it up on the runtime materials. Mass home sales go to low initial price over quality. :-( BW - I see no mention of this is any Dye sub printer literature (1) Expense of printers and expendables as noted above. (2) Difficulty getting good black and white tonal range using just the black on the dye sub black dye ribbon and getting rich blacks when trying to obtain black from a mixture of the other color dyes. A fellow who works for a local printer-making company I know was surprised how good the blacks were on my Alps dye-sub because in dye-sub mode it is a CMY+overcoat printer. But I know that has been a problem for some dyesubs (as well as inkjets that ran in CMY mode back when those were still being made). I'm kind of happily glad about how well blacks turn out as well. Odd way to do a dye-sub BW, but it's how I do it, and it works well. If one is in the U.K., check out Oki's line of dysub printers, the ALPS MD-5000 is probably "something"-5000, and in that one dye-sub printing is an option. There is a new semi-professional model coming out soon that prints large pages (etc) that sounds quite interesting! But it won't be available here in the states. :-( Mike K.
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie I believe you are missing my point an analogy would be a vintage car. if it runs when you start it and it does not need new parts it will still get you from A to B in the same way as it did when it was new. So it is with computers and their peripherals ,Its only when you change Operating systems or tack on bits that are too new that you have problems. There seems to be an obsession with keeping up with the Joneses so to speak. I can only repeat that if the kit still works then it still damn well works regards Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office
it works for me. nuff said. -- Regards Richard // | @ @ --- Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] C _) ) --- ' __ / From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 21:00:27 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? paperless office Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy themselves if we ever need it. How can you count on this if we were actually in a "paperless society" or if the other person was or was in a "paperless office" like you. Why would you expect them to have a copy themselves that they could get to you if you needed it? Why couldn't it be possible that they did not have an existent paper copy and only had an electronic copy but their computer system was down due to a power blackout, a system crash, a hard drive crash, a virus attack, a hacker attack, or an accidental erasure of the original file. In such a case, what if you needed it yesterday but they could not get back online to get you a copy or locate or get access to the backup copy for several days. There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork. While what you say has some merit; it does ignore certain types of issues and situations. Many people, for reasons of personal security, insist on having their own personal copies of important files under their exclusive control for their own personal protection - be it internal office politics or external reasons. In many such cases, they do not want said documents to be on the company server or even on a hard drive on their personal company workstation, which other higher company authorities can legally access and which are not covered by personal privacy laws and policies. For them, hard paper copy constitutes real, hard, concrete evidence and/or documentation that is less open to question than an electronic version which may be easier to alter without leaving any easily recognizable trace of the alteration something which will only increase as the digital advances take place. You can scientifically test the age of a paper document, identify the handwriting or typewriter that produced it, determine if it is an original or a copy, readily recognize any erasures, whiteouts, cut pasting, etc. It is not so with electronic files and documents. We have the option to print any of the 20,000 docs if we wish. I respectfully submit that it is precisely that option which technically makes an office a "paper office" rather than a purely and truly "paperless" one. If you - the royal you is intended here - decided on each and every occasion to exercise that option when reading, writing, or working on those documents, what would differentiate your office from a traditional paper based one where there is an electronic option equivalent to the option which you describe. In both case, it would ultimately boil down to a matter of personal convenience of the user or office worker, -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 6:08 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity, I suppose it is. (b) your office technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive invoices, receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and er... obviously, but we then scan it and bin it. All contractors invoice us by email, we don't accept paper from them. All correspondence is done by email and Word docs, PDF for the more complex stuff. All faxes are digital. All bank transactions are conducted on-line and we have records of accounts for the past 2 years printed into MarcoPolo from the browser. The VAT and TAX office accept the set-up for storing receipts etc. Everything is searchable. Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy themselves if we ever need it. (c) most other places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to keep paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case as do their workers for their personal security and use. There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork. It is still easier for people to printout and read a hard copy version of a 100 page report than to read it on
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Ok, I accept your argument. I really did not miss your point; I was just working on a different set of arguments to which that point was not very relevant. Yes, it is true that, if we quick freeze a state of affairs in time, it will go through the changing time continuum unchanged and will continue to work in the same way it originally did in its heyday even though it may no longer be suited to its new conditions. It has been a pleasure communicating and miscommunication with you on this; but it s probably time we drop it before the angry list Hums start attacking us. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Wilkinson Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2001 4:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Laurie I believe you are missing my point an analogy would be a vintage car. if it runs when you start it and it does not need new parts it will still get you from A to B in the same way as it did when it was new. So it is with computers and their peripherals ,Its only when you change Operating systems or tack on bits that are too new that you have problems. There seems to be an obsession with keeping up with the Joneses so to speak. I can only repeat that if the kit still works then it still damn well works regards Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Art, You have hit the nail on the head and even with Michael Wilkinson's hammer. :-) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 5:39 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Ian, I totally agree. HP has fallen victim to the same short term marketing mentality that infects too many of today's manufacturers and service providers. That said, I do think that their printers at least are much better made than Epson's... What I would really like to see is the old HP mentality applied to their printers, etc., so that we would have truly professional equipment, both in manufacture and design... I will also reply to Art's comment about the price comparison between HP and Epson... wheteher it's the 740, the 870, or the 2000, they all have the print head as part of the printer, so if the darned thing clogs beyond repair, you're scr (my spell-checker just kicked in). As for HP, ain't nobody that I know making third party archival pigment/inks for the darn thing Just give me a Fuji Frontier... Mike Moore Ian Jackson wrote: Michael Moore wrote. Michael, I respect your comment about HP assuming you meant the same oscilloscopes, power supplies etc, that I also used. However HP's Computers, printers, software and service FOR THOSE PRODUCTS, are just not in the same league. Somehow I feel you would not disagree? Ian - Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 11:39 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael Moore wrote: I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Didn't the 932C cost a good deal more than the 740 (I'm not on top of the prices on these)? And yes, most anything can be made to last, it costs more RD and usually more in material and manufacturing expense to do so. That's not my point. Making a car last (say a Ford Model T) that can't go above 30 miles an hour, other than as a collectable, doesn't make good sense in a world that demands cars that can go 80 mph for practical considerations. The same is true (and more so) of high tech. If you owned a 10 megabyte harddrive and it was built to last for 50 years, would you still be using it today? Not likely. The darn thing has more value in aluminum and gold than in either practical use or resale value. BTW, I have a perfectly good 10 meg hard drive I'll sell you (weighs about 15 pounds -- you pay postage, too) And if you'd like that one, you'll really appreciate my dual drive Bernoulli with disks (which are 12" wide and hold 5 or 10 megs each... it weights about 50 pounds.) and is bigger than a tower computer ;-) Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I have to admit to an ignorance on compressing files in gereral I use LZW when Im storing on my server and have not bothered with other methods simply because in my early digital days I was shown how badly jpeg images are degraded . I understand that JPEG 2000 is the new standard and should be with us soon. a search of the web should bring up some information on it.I have read about it but don't have that to hand. look at www.Altamari-group.com who do free to download trial software http://206.63.152.155/product.asp also look at http://www.aladdinsys.com/deluxe/index.html they do a compression and expansion package which is supposed to be very good.I do not know how it handles graphics files though regards Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie: Thanks for the reply. How would one flush the ink out of a printer? I thought they didn't operate if a partially used cartridge was removed. Certainly, my ancient HP DeskJet 870Cxi won't run if even the cover is opened but it's so old that it's a museum piece. BTW, it has never clogged or dried up though, even when we've been away for two months. Res is awful, longevity worse, color a nightmare. Hart Corbett -- From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? Date: Tue, Jan 30, 2001, 7:54 PM (1) Will the 1200, using non-OEM inks, clog up if it's used for periods separated by months? (2) Will the 1200 clog up, using Epson inks, if only used periodically as above? In an attempt to respond to the above question, I think that most inkjets, including the 1200, if left for any extended period of time could clog up with either OEM or third party inks. With non-OEM inks, there is always the distinct possibility of clogging due to other factors such as air bubbles or impurities. Clogging due to extended periods of inactivity ( especially with respect to third party inks) can be minimized by flushing the ink out of the printer. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Hart or Mary Jo Corbett Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 3:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael: Thanks for your excellent advice (and the opportunity to post this message). ..SNIP
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Wouldn't it make sense, if going away for an extended period, to remove the cartridge? Or am I missing something here? At 09:54 PM 01/30/2001 -0600, you wrote: (1) Will the 1200, using non-OEM inks, clog up if it's used for periods separated by months? (2) Will the 1200 clog up, using Epson inks, if only used periodically as above? In an attempt to respond to the above question, I think that most inkjets, including the 1200, if left for any extended period of time could clog up with either OEM or third party inks. With non-OEM inks, there is always the distinct possibility of clogging due to other factors such as air bubbles or impurities. Clogging due to extended periods of inactivity ( especially with respect to third party inks) can be minimized by flushing the ink out of the printer. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Hart or Mary Jo Corbett Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 3:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael: Thanks for your excellent advice (and the opportunity to post this message). ..SNIP
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie ,you are spot on with regards to OS changes and support for legacy devices. My film recorder for instance uses a GPIB interface ,the one we have is only Win 95 compatible unit. I would prefer a win 2K item but will not spend the money just to upgrade so we now have one 5 year old computer dedicated to running win 95 driving the film recorder.We will not upgrade as there is no point. The film recorder will be whacking out trannies and negs for a good few years as it has done since 95 and Ill still use the old Win 95 o/s or even Win 3.11 if needed. My Mum was still playing games on her 12 year old Tatung Einstein computer till she died last year.No hard drive, just 2 floppies but , like a hammer, it just kept driving those old fashioned nails in. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files ,- Original Message - From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Operating systems could change : dramatically so as to render drivers not only inefficient but totally : obsolete, interface electronic connections may disappear to be replaced with : new ones that will not work with the equipment (e.g., systems using parallel : port connections being replaced by systems that furnish only USB connections : or Firewall connections, computer systems that do not use interchangeable : cards resulting in one not being able to install a SCSI card into an open : slot so as to use SCSI devices, etc.), obsolete software that no longer will : work with contemporary operating systems, new technologies that are : incompatible with the older ones, etc. : : One never knows in advance what may happen of the sort described above which : will render all one's planning for nil in 2 or three years - let alone 10 : years. : : -Original Message- : From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Wilkinson : Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:09 AM : To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? : : : Its interesting to look at what the photographic industry is : experimenting with. : Mini Labs can now install a printer than scans the neg ,adjusts the : contrast levels ,colour corrects and then prints using LEDs or Laser : beams and then processes conventionally. : As I understand it the number of prints output per hour is phenomenal : and the quality breathtaking. : I agree that Inkjet prints have a long way to go before they replace : photo paper. : just this weekend we were looking at old colour photos in our rugby club : showing me with black hair ( those were the days ) ,the colours were : brilliant ,definition superb and they had been hanging on a wall for 20 : years,lets see Inkjets like that in 20 years from now,I don't think so ! : I feel strongly that a 10 year prediction is realistic in relation to : buying kit for personal use. : If we ignore the hype and advertising ,check out the spec,s and ensure : that a product does what you want then it should still be doing that in : 10 years time. : Have you ever watched a chicken eating ? : If you put a heap of top quality grain down it will start to tuck : in,walk a couple of yards away drop some stale rice down and it will : immediately run over to see if it has a better deal. : We consumers are just like that. : That's why I say if you research your needs and what's available first : you don't need to be like a chicken. : : Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ : [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk : For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Art ,we all have our own approach to acquiring those items we want,your way is a good way foreword,but don't misinterpret what I was endorsing. When I purchased my current Flatbed scanner in 1995 (its 7th birthday is around the corner) You obviously did a great deal of research and discovered an unusual product. I can think of very few models of anything in the PC marketplace that have been manufactured for nearly 7 years, even if they were not superseded by newer product. Quality certainly has its place, and its cost in high tech markets. The life cycles most PC peripheral devices are tested for is way below seven years, today. Until very recently, however, I was using a HP Laserjet II, which I am sure HP wished they never made, because it is not only still a reasonable quality laser printer, but it also lasted for years, keeping people from considering newer product. Art I wrote down my current and perceived future requirements. I found only one scanner that fitted the bill and I bought it. within 12 months there was a scanner from another manufacturer being demonstrated ,I checked it out and sure enough it was better than mine in many respects. But ,7 years on and my scanner works every day,its built like the proverbial out house and produces scans which, whilst soft and lacking in shadow detail compared with current high end kit,sell. I expect to be using it for at least another 5 years. Now this suits me as to be fair it was a major investment. Had I paid 10 percent of its original cost I would be looking for a replacement maybe,but only because the magazine reviews and the glossy brochures would be seducing me. The bottom line for me must be Is it still doing its job properly if the answer is yes then there is no need to pension it off.The manufacturer is still selling them !! best wishes Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
For the time being (and perhaps sometime to come) I suspect film, as a capture medium, will remain superior to digital, but digital will take over as the medium for transfer and transmission of those images, and, obviously, it is also very useful for special effects. Art Michael Moore wrote: I live in Salt Lake City, Utah as in Sundance Film Festival I have also worked as still photog on a few features as well as shot a few documentary in my hoary past lives... the digital versus film debate gets endlessly argued here every year... when video tape came out, it was also looked upon as the death knell of film... the fact is, the DP's (directors of photographer) much prefer to work with film because they can "paint with light"... that is create all kinds of moods that the silver based film seems able to capture with great subtlety and nuance it is difficult to light video and get the same effect... digital isn't much different... the digital divide at Sundance is between the young wannabe's who prefer digital 'cuz it's cheaper to shoot and edit (no processing, no work prints, no a/b rolls, etc.) and the established film guys and gals who can afford to do it the ol' fashioned way... that said, I should also note that Lucas Digital just came out with a whole digital system for projection, but that is after the film has been shot... so editing is also done digitally, but the original is still film... we'll know digital has arrived when we see Panavision quit making film cameras... Mike Moore Hart or Mary Jo Corbett wrote: There are a great many movie theaters in the SF Bay Area, and not all are multiplexes, either. Hart Corbett -- From: Arthur Entlich [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Date: Tue, Jan 30, 2001, 4:42 AM 35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I thought the sarcasm in my original comment was so dripping that the emoicons would have been redundant, I'm not sure, however... Yes, multiplexes are movie theaters. We have an good dozen movie houses in Victoria and an IMAX here as well. And next week, for the full week, we have a huge international movie event which has a catalogue with about 60 pages. Lot's of well known directors showing up apparently to speak and lots of strange films. Nearly all of them are 35mm prints. Art Laurie Solomon wrote: Gee, there are a number of 10-18 screen multiplexes where I live; do they count as movie theaters? I have actually gone to see movies in them also; but there are many people in my university town who got to see movies in these multiplexes every week and throughout the week. They always seem crowded. Either they have died a different sort of death than that which I am familiar with or I am hallucinating. :-) In fact, since the introduction of television and even with the introduction of video tapes, these theaters seem to thrive at best and survive at worst in contrast to disappearing; and in this area, they all show 35mm movies to boot. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? 35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Michael Wilkinson wrote: - Original Message - From: "Clark Guy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] For : professional photography, there will be specialized digital camera backs : that can do perhaps as much as 25Mpixels or better using scanning : technologies. ~~~ ~~~ Your crystal ball needs a polish. Ive got the cheapest scan back that LightPhase sell and it delivers a crystal clear 35Mb file on the back of my Hasselblad. Some of the units for 5x4" cameras will deliver 350Mb and trust me ,the quality is far superior to film and scanning ! Perhaps the way foreword will be CMOS as used in the Canon D30.I wait with tightly shut wallet regards Cost of these backs? Cost to store images? Space taken up with storage media?, etc Art
Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office
I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity, I suppose it is. (b) your office technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive invoices, receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and er... obviously, but we then scan it and bin it. All contractors invoice us by email, we don't accept paper from them. All correspondence is done by email and Word docs, PDF for the more complex stuff. All faxes are digital. All bank transactions are conducted on-line and we have records of accounts for the past 2 years printed into MarcoPolo from the browser. The VAT and TAX office accept the set-up for storing receipts etc. Everything is searchable. Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy themselves if we ever need it. (c) most other places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to keep paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case as do their workers for their personal security and use. There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork. It is still easier for people to printout and read a hard copy version of a 100 page report than to read it online or off the monitor - and often more convenient as well. We have the option to print any of the 20,000 docs if we wish. -- Regards Richard // | @ @ --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] C _) ) --- ' __ /
removing ink cartridges was Re: filmscanners: real value?
Hersch wrote: Wouldn't it make sense, if going away for an extended period, to remove the cartridge? Or am I missing something here? Removing the cart won't flush the heads. You have to use a cleaning cart to flush the heads, or the ink still in the lines and head itself could dry and block the nozzles. I found that pigmented inks were *much* more prone to this, at least in the sub-tropical climes where I live. I've never had blocks with OEM inks that I can recall, but then I seldom go more than a week without printing at least a page of text. In fact with Epson printers prior to the chipped carts, it is inadvisable to ever remove the carts unless you are changing them. The chipped carts are designed to be removable. Rob
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
HI, Bob! Of course, you are quite correct about the market strategy aspect of this matter. The technology exists to have significantly higher resolution sensors than we have available to us today. There just isn't a big enough market for them, so the prices stay high, so there is no market for them. etc. I believe that the storage and processing speed issues are more easily addressed than the limitations of the sensor technology, and again, if there were perceived to be a big enough market, the major manufacturers would be providing high speed processing and high capacity storage along with the high resolution sensors that demand it! I just am not convinced that we will see usable/affordable 30Mpixel cameras in the coming decade. Call me a pessimist, but prove me wrong! Please!! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Murphy, Bob H [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 5:28 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) I don't think the image sensor is the problem. I'm talking about a die that is the same size as the current one used in the Canon D30, namely 22.7mm horizontal only made with pixels the size currently used in the Olympus 3030, Nikon 990, etc. or about 3.0x smaller in each direction. This makes for an array of "conventional" pixels in a "conventionally" sized die totaling 30 million. Why couldn't this be done today? I suspect the answer is market strategy - not technology. Furthermore today's camera electronics could handle an image of this size provided customers were willing to wait 9 times longer for the data to be written to an on-camera 1GB microdrive or 10 seconds perhaps for a high quality jpg. I know the small pixels in the $1000 3Mpixel digicams are nosier than the D30's and are awful when shot an iso greater than 100 but I believe the market has proven that they're clean enough for a good, well exposed image. And 30 million of them would make one awesome image. Finally, you could always resample it down to 3.3 Mega pixels and get (I predict) a much better shot than the current D30 can produce. Why can't this be doe today? --Bob -Original Message- From: Clark Guy [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 4:23 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) HI, Bob! That's one of the points I feel most secure about. There is that lower limit to how small the CCD elements (photon buckets) can be. Too small and they get noisy, smaller than that and they are too small to respond to visible light! Then there is the upper limit dictated by how well we can make semiconductor devices without flaws. The larger they are, the more likely to include a flaw. Thus, the larger they are, the more expensive (exponentially with die area, I've been told) they are! (This partially explains the horrific cost of medium format digital backs, and the "astronomical" cost of astronomical "large" CCD arrays (up to $25000 as advertised in Sky and Telescope magazine!!!)) So, you see, there is an upper boundary to size and a lower boundary to size, and we are pushing at both of them! I, therefore, am somewhat skeptical about seeing any 30Mpixel devices anytime soon. Possibly if there is a major breakthrough in manufacturing of imaging arrays allowing for larger cheaper arrays, but physics dictates that lower limit to element size. Just because there has been an explosion of newer and better digital cameras over the last five years doesn't mean that that rate of improvement can continue! There also needs to be a market for these 30Mpixel devices to make them and make them affordable! Joe Pointenshoot won't be pushing for that kind of quality unless it is cheap (by cheap I mean costs less than a 1.5Mpixel camera does now), which kind of defeats the market drive. Really, I hope you are right!!! I just am a little too close to the engineering side of this to be this optomistic! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Murphy, Bob H [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 11:24 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) I'm not too sure about the pixel and array size statement. The CCD's in current 3.3Mpixel CCD cameras like the Olympus 3030 have a diagonal dimension about a third that of the Canon D30 SLR digicam's sensor. As signal processing and memory get faster and lower power (which happens at a steady factor of 2 about every 18-24months) it will be reasonable to have a 30megapixel device in a camera like the D30 with pixels the same size as the current Olympus 3030. Given Moore's Law (see: http://www.intel.com/intel/museum/25anniv/hof/moore.htm ) this could happen within the next 6 to 10 years. --Bob
Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Clark, I can honestly say that my scan back,still subjects only, produces far superior digital images to those made from trannies on either my flatbed or my drum scanner. 1. There is NO noise anywhere , either in deep shadow or highlights. 2.The capture software is essentiality scanning software and has an out of gamut warning. when I preview an image I get a visible colour blocking in those areas of the image which are over or under exposed.I then adjust lighting and exposure until it is correct. I also do a grey balance before capture so no colour correcting after. 3. No spotting needed,images are Clean. 4.I always capture without using unsharp mask,it just is not needed.Ill apply it in Photoshop if required when I know the images destination. 5. Absolutely NO Newton's rings. 6. No chemical mixing and processing (yippee) here endeth my sermon regards Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files ### - Original Message - From: "Clark Guy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't believe that a good 4x5" transparency scanned at 1200 dpi : on a flat bed would be any worse than what would come off of that 4x5 back
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Hi, Berry! D'Ohhh!!! You are quite right... That's what I get for posting at the end of a long day! Sorry about the confusion! Since we are actually 8X closer to that 30Mpixel goal mentioned earlier than I calculated, I concede that it is POSSIBLE that we may see a 30Mp camera come down in price to be affordable by the serious hobbyist in ten years. My concerns about the size of the sensor still stand, but this amount of improvement might be achieved in ten years. I guess I need to polish my brain and calculator more than my ball... ;-) Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Berry Ives [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 8:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) on 1/30/01 2:32 PM, Clark Guy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Michael! Uhh... 35Mb file at 24bits per pixel corresponds to what... 1.45 million pixels. That's just 8 bit color. Haven't you confused bits with bytes? 24 bits is 3 bytes. 35 MB--not 35 Mb--would give you 35 MB/3B = 11+ megapixels. --Berry
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I cut my electronics teeth on HP when I trained as an electronics tech in Th US Navy... Their stuff was always built to last... Last summer I bought an HP 932C... it's built much better than my Epson 740... plus the cartridges come with the nozzles built in so if a print head clogs, you just replace the cartridge... I bought it to replace an Epson that had a clogged print head...(third party inks!)... I thinks it's a load of bull that things can't be made to last... Mike M Arthur Entlich wrote: Art ,we all have our own approach to acquiring those items we want,your way is a good way foreword,but don't misinterpret what I was endorsing. When I purchased my current Flatbed scanner in 1995 (its 7th birthday is around the corner) You obviously did a great deal of research and discovered an unusual product. I can think of very few models of anything in the PC marketplace that have been manufactured for nearly 7 years, even if they were not superseded by newer product. Quality certainly has its place, and its cost in high tech markets. The life cycles most PC peripheral devices are tested for is way below seven years, today. Until very recently, however, I was using a HP Laserjet II, which I am sure HP wished they never made, because it is not only still a reasonable quality laser printer, but it also lasted for years, keeping people from considering newer product. Art I wrote down my current and perceived future requirements. I found only one scanner that fitted the bill and I bought it. within 12 months there was a scanner from another manufacturer being demonstrated ,I checked it out and sure enough it was better than mine in many respects. But ,7 years on and my scanner works every day,its built like the proverbial out house and produces scans which, whilst soft and lacking in shadow detail compared with current high end kit,sell. I expect to be using it for at least another 5 years. Now this suits me as to be fair it was a major investment. Had I paid 10 percent of its original cost I would be looking for a replacement maybe,but only because the magazine reviews and the glossy brochures would be seducing me. The bottom line for me must be Is it still doing its job properly if the answer is yes then there is no need to pension it off.The manufacturer is still selling them !! best wishes Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
The Canon D30 is NOT a CCD array camera. It has a CMOS chip. If I used the CCD relating to the D30, I know better, and it was an oversight. Sorry, you are right, it is a CMOS sensor array. Though, that is not relevant to the points I was making... I guess I call any light sensor array a CCD from habit...I'll watch out for that.
Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Michael Out of interest, how much did the digital back cost? -- Regards Richard // | @ @ --- Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] C _) ) --- ' __ /
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
HI, Michael! I'm glad that you are having good luck with your scan back! It is a cool idea to be able to preview your image and correct the lighting if necessary! I certainly envy the lack of spotting! I spend WAY too much time with the cloning tool in my "hand". Your other points are also well taken. I doubt you'd be able to take a (usable) picture of a living model, though. It'd be kind of like a return to the daugerreotype days of long exposures and props to "prop up" the model! As I admitted in an earlier post, I miscalculated the filesize vs resolution ratio in yesterday's posts, so I am suitably chastised! (good thing I'm not designing bridges!!!) Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Michael Wilkinson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 7:23 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) Clark, I can honestly say that my scan back,still subjects only, produces far superior digital images to those made from trannies on either my flatbed or my drum scanner. 1. There is NO noise anywhere , either in deep shadow or highlights. 2.The capture software is essentiality scanning software and has an out of gamut warning. when I preview an image I get a visible colour blocking in those areas of the image which are over or under exposed.I then adjust lighting and exposure until it is correct. I also do a grey balance before capture so no colour correcting after. 3. No spotting needed,images are Clean. 4.I always capture without using unsharp mask,it just is not needed.Ill apply it in Photoshop if required when I know the images destination. 5. Absolutely NO Newton's rings. 6. No chemical mixing and processing (yippee) here endeth my sermon regards Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files ### - Original Message - From: "Clark Guy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't believe that a good 4x5" transparency scanned at 1200 dpi : on a flat bed would be any worse than what would come off of that 4x5 back
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Art, And I thought the same about my response. It seems that we both pulled the wool over everyone else's eyes. :-) The point to be learned, I guess, is never to take an emoicon for granted when posting online. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 3:34 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? I thought the sarcasm in my original comment was so dripping that the emoicons would have been redundant, I'm not sure, however... Yes, multiplexes are movie theaters. We have an good dozen movie houses in Victoria and an IMAX here as well. And next week, for the full week, we have a huge international movie event which has a catalogue with about 60 pages. Lot's of well known directors showing up apparently to speak and lots of strange films. Nearly all of them are 35mm prints. Art Laurie Solomon wrote: Gee, there are a number of 10-18 screen multiplexes where I live; do they count as movie theaters? I have actually gone to see movies in them also; but there are many people in my university town who got to see movies in these multiplexes every week and throughout the week. They always seem crowded. Either they have died a different sort of death than that which I am familiar with or I am hallucinating. :-) In fact, since the introduction of television and even with the introduction of video tapes, these theaters seem to thrive at best and survive at worst in contrast to disappearing; and in this area, they all show 35mm movies to boot. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? 35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
RE: filmscanners: real value?
It ( the HP) may not have clogged up in part due to the fact that HP's typically have their nozzles in the cartridge itself; whereas Epsons and some other brands do not. In the pre-chipped Epson printers there was a reservoir of ink between the cartridge and the nozzle which could dry out and harden as well as the ink left within the nozzles which could dry out and harden. With the intro of the chipped cartridge in the 1270, this is less likely to happen. However, before the advent of the chipped cartridge, it was recommended that one not remove the cartridges from the printer except to change them when they were empty for that very reason. Unfortunately, even the OEM cartridges in the older printers, if left standing for an extended period of time without being used would tend to have air leaks that would cause the ink to dry out sometimes at the outlet from the cartridge but more typically at the nozzle. As for how to flush the nozzles, I believe Art has already suggested one way. I suppose there are other ways as well that one could get from the Epson Inkjet lists or from some of the third party ink distributors. Personally, I have not run into the problem myself; but I suspect that I will soon be facing a clogged old Photo Stylus which has been sitting unused for 1 year with the ink cartridges still in it and which I did not take my own advice to you. Oh yes, one other thing, after you have removed the partially used ink cartridges from the earlier model Epson printers, do not try and reinstall them later. Use a new fresh set of cartridges. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Hart or Mary Jo Corbett Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 12:23 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Laurie: Thanks for the reply. How would one flush the ink out of a printer? I thought they didn't operate if a partially used cartridge was removed. Certainly, my ancient HP DeskJet 870Cxi won't run if even the cover is opened but it's so old that it's a museum piece. BTW, it has never clogged or dried up though, even when we've been away for two months. Res is awful, longevity worse, color a nightmare. Hart Corbett -- From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? Date: Tue, Jan 30, 2001, 7:54 PM (1) Will the 1200, using non-OEM inks, clog up if it's used for periods separated by months? (2) Will the 1200 clog up, using Epson inks, if only used periodically as above? In an attempt to respond to the above question, I think that most inkjets, including the 1200, if left for any extended period of time could clog up with either OEM or third party inks. With non-OEM inks, there is always the distinct possibility of clogging due to other factors such as air bubbles or impurities. Clogging due to extended periods of inactivity ( especially with respect to third party inks) can be minimized by flushing the ink out of the printer. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Hart or Mary Jo Corbett Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 3:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael: Thanks for your excellent advice (and the opportunity to post this message). ..SNIP
Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
- Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Cost of these backs? Cost to store images? : Space taken up with storage media?, etc ### 4500 buys you a Lightphase studio kit comprising scan back,2 lowerpro lights and an IR filter. 35Mb file uninterpolated on a 6x6cm format. If you want a one shot for moving subjects I guess 10,000 or so will get you started ! .Storage ,well to be honest its getting kinda crowded on my server,im going to have to add another hard drive or two. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: filmscanners: real value?
In your case, you are lucky that the old computer is Win 95 compatible system; what if it were an old Kaypro computer or an old 286 CPU PC which used only dos and allowed for no more than 8-16MB of Ram? It would be hard to keep driving those old nails in just like a hammer with a system that will accommodate only a limited amount of physical ram of a type that is hard to find anymore and uses a OS that has not existed for several decades so as to be incompatible with current peripherals and current software. Similarly, it would be hard to do color work on a monotone black white monitor or printer even if it still worked and could be used with your more current system. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Wilkinson Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 3:37 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Laurie ,you are spot on with regards to OS changes and support for legacy devices. My film recorder for instance uses a GPIB interface ,the one we have is only Win 95 compatible unit. I would prefer a win 2K item but will not spend the money just to upgrade so we now have one 5 year old computer dedicated to running win 95 driving the film recorder.We will not upgrade as there is no point. The film recorder will be whacking out trannies and negs for a good few years as it has done since 95 and Ill still use the old Win 95 o/s or even Win 3.11 if needed. My Mum was still playing games on her 12 year old Tatung Einstein computer till she died last year.No hard drive, just 2 floppies but , like a hammer, it just kept driving those old fashioned nails in. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files ,- Original Message - From: "Laurie Solomon" [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Operating systems could change : dramatically so as to render drivers not only inefficient but totally : obsolete, interface electronic connections may disappear to be replaced with : new ones that will not work with the equipment (e.g., systems using parallel : port connections being replaced by systems that furnish only USB connections : or Firewall connections, computer systems that do not use interchangeable : cards resulting in one not being able to install a SCSI card into an open : slot so as to use SCSI devices, etc.), obsolete software that no longer will : work with contemporary operating systems, new technologies that are : incompatible with the older ones, etc. : : One never knows in advance what may happen of the sort described above which : will render all one's planning for nil in 2 or three years - let alone 10 : years. : : -Original Message- : From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Wilkinson : Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:09 AM : To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? : : : Its interesting to look at what the photographic industry is : experimenting with. : Mini Labs can now install a printer than scans the neg ,adjusts the : contrast levels ,colour corrects and then prints using LEDs or Laser : beams and then processes conventionally. : As I understand it the number of prints output per hour is phenomenal : and the quality breathtaking. : I agree that Inkjet prints have a long way to go before they replace : photo paper. : just this weekend we were looking at old colour photos in our rugby club : showing me with black hair ( those were the days ) ,the colours were : brilliant ,definition superb and they had been hanging on a wall for 20 : years,lets see Inkjets like that in 20 years from now,I don't think so ! : I feel strongly that a 10 year prediction is realistic in relation to : buying kit for personal use. : If we ignore the hype and advertising ,check out the spec,s and ensure : that a product does what you want then it should still be doing that in : 10 years time. : Have you ever watched a chicken eating ? : If you put a heap of top quality grain down it will start to tuck : in,walk a couple of yards away drop some stale rice down and it will : immediately run over to see if it has a better deal. : We consumers are just like that. : That's why I say if you research your needs and what's available first : you don't need to be like a chicken. : : Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ : [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk : For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: filmscanners: real value? paperless office
Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy themselves if we ever need it. How can you count on this if we were actually in a "paperless society" or if the other person was or was in a "paperless office" like you. Why would you expect them to have a copy themselves that they could get to you if you needed it? Why couldn't it be possible that they did not have an existent paper copy and only had an electronic copy but their computer system was down due to a power blackout, a system crash, a hard drive crash, a virus attack, a hacker attack, or an accidental erasure of the original file. In such a case, what if you needed it yesterday but they could not get back online to get you a copy or locate or get access to the backup copy for several days. There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork. While what you say has some merit; it does ignore certain types of issues and situations. Many people, for reasons of personal security, insist on having their own personal copies of important files under their exclusive control for their own personal protection - be it internal office politics or external reasons. In many such cases, they do not want said documents to be on the company server or even on a hard drive on their personal company workstation, which other higher company authorities can legally access and which are not covered by personal privacy laws and policies. For them, hard paper copy constitutes real, hard, concrete evidence and/or documentation that is less open to question than an electronic version which may be easier to alter without leaving any easily recognizable trace of the alteration something which will only increase as the digital advances take place. You can scientifically test the age of a paper document, identify the handwriting or typewriter that produced it, determine if it is an original or a copy, readily recognize any erasures, whiteouts, cut pasting, etc. It is not so with electronic files and documents. We have the option to print any of the 20,000 docs if we wish. I respectfully submit that it is precisely that option which technically makes an office a "paper office" rather than a purely and truly "paperless" one. If you - the royal you is intended here - decided on each and every occasion to exercise that option when reading, writing, or working on those documents, what would differentiate your office from a traditional paper based one where there is an electronic option equivalent to the option which you describe. In both case, it would ultimately boil down to a matter of personal convenience of the user or office worker, -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 6:08 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity, I suppose it is. (b) your office technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive invoices, receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and er... obviously, but we then scan it and bin it. All contractors invoice us by email, we don't accept paper from them. All correspondence is done by email and Word docs, PDF for the more complex stuff. All faxes are digital. All bank transactions are conducted on-line and we have records of accounts for the past 2 years printed into MarcoPolo from the browser. The VAT and TAX office accept the set-up for storing receipts etc. Everything is searchable. Fact is anyone who sends me an mega important doc will always have a copy themselves if we ever need it. (c) most other places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to keep paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case as do their workers for their personal security and use. There is always a risk with whatever media you choose. Just recently a hospital here in Ennis was flooded and lost 3 years of patients records. A fire in a local accountants ruined their business. We have a serious daily back-up policy in place. Try backing up 2 ton of paperwork. It is still easier for people to printout and read a hard copy version of a 100 page report than to read it online or off the monitor - and often more convenient as well. We have the option to print any of the 20,000 docs if we wish. -- Regards Richard // | @ @ --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] C _) ) --- ' __ /
Re: filmscanners: real value?
At 21:36 29/01/2001 -0600, you wrote:
And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago.
Maris
exactly. you can still buy a brand new Nikon FM2, which is in production
for around 20 years now. My Canon camera of the same vintage is still doing
well. My flatbed is OK, so many of video, audio, etc. I have just retired
my 8 years old 486/100 (in my son's bedroom). There are millions of owners
of cameras, not many will fork more money to buy a camera that has very
little advantage.
How many years ago did we see the first digital (consumer) camera?
Digital photography will be just a little bit bigger success that the ASP,
but by a narrow margin :-{). Unless we can get a decent copy directly onto
a photographic paper, inkjets are dead-end street, cost wise and on
technical performance.
Also,recommend checking stats regarding a number of digital cameras
returned due to unsatisfactory results.
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Michael: Thanks for your excellent advice (and the opportunity to post this message). You may have missed my post a while back that outlined what I'm contemplating for a totally new system from the ground up. I've had my present setup for 5 years and only had one computer setup before that, also for 5 years. When one's printer is so obsolete that the manufacturer (HP) no longer updates the driver to match an updated OS, then it's time to renew! Briefly, I am contemplating this: €PowerMac G-4, dual processor, 40 gig HD, 512 meg SDRAM [or more], OS 9, PS6, high end graphics card, internal modem + all the assorted programs that I have accumulated for very varied purposes. €CD-R/W, make model not determined yet. €Polaroid SS4000 35mm neg scanner w/ Silverfast. Perhaps to be replaced in time by the upcoming Polaroid 120 scanner. €Flatbed scanner, make model probably a Microtek Scanmaker X12USL because it has carriers for various film sizes. €Epson Printer, probably a 1200 or 1270; for photos only. €"Ordinary" printer, perhaps Epson, for correspondence, databases, spreadsheets the like. I have tens of thousands of 35mm BW negs1935-1995. Likewise, about 15,000 6cmX6cm BW negs, about 25% of which I've printed in the Ansel Adams manner. There also are about 5,000 6cmX6cm mounted slides and I don';t know how many 35mm slides from 1946 to the present. There old BW negs in various extinct formats, eg: 127, 616, "postcard", etc. 1909-1950 And there are hundreds of scanned historic photos sent to me over the Internet by friends or downloaded by me (legally and with permission) from such places as the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, California (photos of the 1st transcontinental railroad being built in the 1860s). These all reside on my hard disk (backed up). Starting with the BWs, 35mm and otherwise, I would like to print those which are of historical significance or at least of significance to me and my family. LIkewise, I would like to print the old negs in odd formats (they are proofed -- everything is proofed except for the slides and the downloads) and the downloaded photos. None of the prints will be larger than 8X10 or possibly 11X14 in certain cases. The weakest link in all this hardware seems to be the printer. I have seen output from the large professional printers and they don't always meet my standards, ether. The reconditoned 1200 (Epsom 1 year warranty) would be an interim step until something better comes along. From this list, I have learned that 1200s and some other Epsons can be used for BW fairly effectively by substituting a grayscale cartridge for the color cartridge with non-OEM inks from such places as The Stock Solution in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 2000P, as many of you have commented and the Web sites of various sales outlets have also pointed out, is no good for BW printing. I have no space for anything larger than the 1200. The 1270 cannot use non-OEM inks but allegedly has a "slight edge" on sharpness. I would be printing from time to time and often the 1200 printer would be idle for 2 or 3 months or more (we take 4 to 6 week trips every year and I have a lot of other activities that fill my life). The 1200 will ONLY be used for BW print making and the prints will be kept in archival plastic sleeves in a number of large archival albums from Light Impressions in Rochester, New York. So, given this background, I have a couple of requests or questions for the extremely knowledgeable and experienced people on this List: (1) Will the 1200, using non-OEM inks, clog up if it's used for periods separated by months? (2) Will the 1200 clog up, using Epson inks, if only used periodically as above? (3) Comments on the *flatbed scanner* [MIcrotek Scanmaker X12USL] which I propose above (the ability to scan odd sized negs is important to me). (4) If anyone has thoughts about a suitable CD-R/W machine and software, I'd sure appreciate them but please e-mail me *off List* at [EMAIL PROTECTED] (5) If you have any suggestions about anything else not related to scanners or printers or if your thoughts on printers are long, please also e-mail me *off List*, too. I'll be 64 in March and if I don't get started on this project now, I never will. At 60, I realized that more of my life is behind me than ahead of me and thus I reordered my priorities! I don't want to clog up Tony's list with OT material! And thanks to Tony for letting me post this and thanks to you all in advance for your great comments and suggestions! Hart Corbett -- From: "Michael Wilkinson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Date: Mon, Jan 29, 2001, 1:21 PM Laurie Soloman ,suggests buying "two steps behind" technology. Good advice To refine that however you seem to be talking about relatively inexpensive kit . A scanner costing less than 1000 dollars/600UK pounds is a cons
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Its interesting to look at what the photographic industry is experimenting with. Mini Labs can now install a printer than scans the neg ,adjusts the contrast levels ,colour corrects and then prints using LEDs or Laser beams and then processes conventionally. As I understand it the number of prints output per hour is phenomenal and the quality breathtaking. I agree that Inkjet prints have a long way to go before they replace photo paper. just this weekend we were looking at old colour photos in our rugby club showing me with black hair ( those were the days ) ,the colours were brilliant ,definition superb and they had been hanging on a wall for 20 years,lets see Inkjets like that in 20 years from now,I don't think so ! I feel strongly that a 10 year prediction is realistic in relation to buying kit for personal use. If we ignore the hype and advertising ,check out the spec,s and ensure that a product does what you want then it should still be doing that in 10 years time. Have you ever watched a chicken eating ? If you put a heap of top quality grain down it will start to tuck in,walk a couple of yards away drop some stale rice down and it will immediately run over to see if it has a better deal. We consumers are just like that. That's why I say if you research your needs and what's available first you don't need to be like a chicken. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
IronWorks wrote: And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago. Maris Try 20 years ago... ;-( Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I have rarely found buying top of the line works out as "good value" in most peripherals. Look at things like dot matrix printers. I bought a top end one which cost a minor fortune. Sure it still could work if I used it, it was designed to last. Too bad it was superseded for most applications by faster, quieter, nicer output from laser and inkjet at considerably less cost. Sure the dot matrix printer still has a place for those needed multi-form printing, but mine sits and gathers dust. I'd say the same for scanners. Most reflective images do not have a huge dynamic range. A bit of tweaking with Photoshop and a couple hundred dollar scanner looks close to a $2000 one. Sure, if you are running hundred of scans a week, it might matter, because the more expensive one is more durable and might be faster. But, I used to go to government surplus sales and see equipment that cost "us" thousands of dollars, and built to "last" for sale for less than 10% the value, because it was too slow, no longer had modern drivers, no longer had a computer that drove it, didn't have enough memory, resolution or whatever, even though it was built to last another millennium. I now buy those $100 (or less) flatbeds, and replace them as the newer models come out with higher resolution, more speed, or other features. I'm sorry but you can't make even a "good quality 300 dpi" scanner into a 1200 dpi one. Besides, parts become hard to come by and no one knows how to fix this stuff properly if it does fail. If I get the warranty period with good service from the product, that's usually not bad for the price. Art Michael Wilkinson wrote: Laurie Soloman ,suggests buying "two steps behind" technology. Good advice To refine that however you seem to be talking about relatively inexpensive kit . A scanner costing less than 1000 dollars/600UK pounds is a consumer item. The manufacturers expect you to throw it away fairly soon or give it to your children to put in their toy shop next year. If you really want good value for money allied to something which will last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. If a limited dynamic range ,a less than perfectly sharp image and a mediocre resolution are ok for you now to start off with and will be for the foreseeable future then buy the nikominotolympus OB1 whatever and have your fun right now. If you see a long term usage and don't want to keep upgrading look at just what you really really want out of your scanner, write your ideal specification down and then go hunting through the sales columns in the e various specialist press that deal in Repro etc,track down a used high quality bit of kit ,buy it at the right price and you are set for the next Decade Make no mistake about it. if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years time. Anyway,by then the software (Photoshop 15 ??? ) will be able to optimise your inadequate input to match the latest ten dollar laser printer giving photorealistic output perfectly colour balanced. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: filmscanners: real value?
It's really crazy, but here in Georgia, they keep building movie theaters, and they keep closing them! As far as the future of 35mm film is considered, have you ever seen some of those shots from film based spy sats, surely some more of this technology will trickle down and cause greater advances in film performance. I still use manual focus SLR equipment, as I'm worried about digital taking over, but did look today at Nikon F5, and could use the lenses on a Nikon D2 (or 3) 9 megapixel camera of the future. Edwin -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 7:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? 35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Gee, there are a number of 10-18 screen multiplexes where I live; do they count as movie theaters? I have actually gone to see movies in them also; but there are many people in my university town who got to see movies in these multiplexes every week and throughout the week. They always seem crowded. Either they have died a different sort of death than that which I am familiar with or I am hallucinating. :-) In fact, since the introduction of television and even with the introduction of video tapes, these theaters seem to thrive at best and survive at worst in contrast to disappearing; and in this area, they all show 35mm movies to boot. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? 35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
HI, everyone! I guess I'll weigh in with my opinion on the future of photography... In ten years I believe that digital cameras will continue to get better and better, but the rate of improvement will be less and less as time goes by. Unless there is a dramatic change in the methods of manufacturing the sensor elements, resolution will not get much better than what is available now. WHY? because we are already approaching the limit of how small a single pixel can be. It can't be smaller than a wavelength of light, and we are approaching this limit even now. On top of that, the smaller they are the more noisy they become, so that creates a limit on size as well. Better we should be making the sensor arrays bigger, but there is the manufacturing yield issue there. The larger the chip, the more likely a defect will be present in it, rendering it useless. This is why I prefaced my comments with the proviso that there be no dramatic change in the manufacturing process. Possibly there will be some non-silicon method of manufacture that will not have so much chance for defects, and that will cause another rapid improvement of image quality. Therefore, I see amateurs going to digital photography much as we see now, but the amateurs will have something like 5Megapixel cameras. For professional photography, there will be specialized digital camera backs that can do perhaps as much as 25Mpixels or better using scanning technologies. The other pros will be using silver chemistry much as we are today. 35mm film will become a professional gauge, much as 16mm movies are pretty much the domain of professional cinematographers these days (I used to use old amateur 16mm equipment for vacation and sports movies while in High School, but I was a photo geek! ;-) ). Medium format will still be used for the highest quality wedding and other location photography, and Large format will be used for posters and other large final image uses. Scanners will phase out much of the darkroom work, however, with the exception of certain specialized applications, and resolutions will increase much as the camera CCD resolutions, but will continue to increase beyond what is done in cameras because of the possiblities offered by not needing to make the image in an instant. Multiple CCD linear arrays can be made much more easily than multiple two dimensional arrays, and the scanner hardware/firmware can compensate for offset arrays. In fact, with optics, one could actually ENLARGE the image of the film on to a very large linear array to get tremendous optical resolutions that will require gigabytes of RAM to deal with. I see this coming too! I guess I'd better take my turban off and put my crystal ball away before my boss sees me!! Feel free to disagree with me!!! Guy Clark -- photo geek -Original Message- From: Laurie Solomon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 10:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? And, of course, we will have a paperless society, advanced artificial intelligence, and Dot Coms will rule the world replacing the traditional principles of economics and finance with new principles of finance and economics where producing a profitable product is unnecessary as long as you believe in vaporware. :-)Color photography was suppose to completely eliminate black white photography except as a anachronistic specialty, which accounts for the recent resurgence in black white photography in advertising as well as the fine arts photography to mention a few applications that not only refused to die but actually came to life despite color photography and all the predictions of death and doom for BW. :-) In short, I think you are being much to optimistic about the futuristic predictions. However, I do think that any sort of ten year projections or forecasts into the future are very risky and daring. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Berry Ives Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? on 1/29/01 2:21 PM, Michael Wilkinson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you really want good value for money allied to something which will last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. buy it at the right price and you are set for the next Decade Make no mistake about it. if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years time. Very daring of you to make a 10-yr forecast about anything digital. Here's my forecast: 35mm film will be rarely used, except for very specialized applications, since digital will take over that market. Digital SLRs will be as affordable as the Pentax XZ-5n. The scanners will still be around, though, since there are so many old images on film. But the ones we are buying today will definitely
RE: filmscanners: real value?
I feel strongly that a 10 year prediction is realistic in relation to buying kit for personal use. Of course one cannot argue with feelings so I will only say that while I feel the ten year prediction is slightly on the optimistic side even for personal use kits, as you put it in so British a manner. I can see the possibility of a situation where your forecast for those personal kits might come about in ten years, however. That would be when and if manufacturers decide that that is where the market is going to be or should be; and they stop making 35mm consumer photographic equipment altogether and start distributing only digital products despite the fact that the marketplace might not be there or even heading in that direction. That certainly would force the issue and eliminate any preferences or choices on the part of the consumer even if the digital stuff turns out to be of a lesser quality and even undesirable. We have to remember that companies, despite their chasing the profit, often structure he marketplace as well as follow it. If we ignore the hype and advertising ,check out the spec,s and ensure that a product does what you want then it should still be doing that in 10 years time. Even if we ignore the hype and advertising, check out the specs, ensure that a product does what we want, and many more things as well, there are always unanticipated conditions that could very well manifest themselves in such a fashion so as to undermine expectations. Operating systems could change dramatically so as to render drivers not only inefficient but totally obsolete, interface electronic connections may disappear to be replaced with new ones that will not work with the equipment (e.g., systems using parallel port connections being replaced by systems that furnish only USB connections or Firewall connections, computer systems that do not use interchangeable cards resulting in one not being able to install a SCSI card into an open slot so as to use SCSI devices, etc.), obsolete software that no longer will work with contemporary operating systems, new technologies that are incompatible with the older ones, etc. One never knows in advance what may happen of the sort described above which will render all one's planning for nil in 2 or three years - let alone 10 years. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Wilkinson Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:09 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Its interesting to look at what the photographic industry is experimenting with. Mini Labs can now install a printer than scans the neg ,adjusts the contrast levels ,colour corrects and then prints using LEDs or Laser beams and then processes conventionally. As I understand it the number of prints output per hour is phenomenal and the quality breathtaking. I agree that Inkjet prints have a long way to go before they replace photo paper. just this weekend we were looking at old colour photos in our rugby club showing me with black hair ( those were the days ) ,the colours were brilliant ,definition superb and they had been hanging on a wall for 20 years,lets see Inkjets like that in 20 years from now,I don't think so ! I feel strongly that a 10 year prediction is realistic in relation to buying kit for personal use. If we ignore the hype and advertising ,check out the spec,s and ensure that a product does what you want then it should still be doing that in 10 years time. Have you ever watched a chicken eating ? If you put a heap of top quality grain down it will start to tuck in,walk a couple of yards away drop some stale rice down and it will immediately run over to see if it has a better deal. We consumers are just like that. That's why I say if you research your needs and what's available first you don't need to be like a chicken. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: filmscanners: real value? paperless office
I would suggest (a) that your office is a rarity, (b) your office technically is not a "paperless office" in that you still receive invoices, receipts, etc. from others that you need to scan in, and (c) most other places which are relying heavily on electronic operations still tend to keep paper backup files and archives of their files and records just in case as do their workers for their personal security and use. It is still easier for people to printout and read a hard copy version of a 100 page report than to read it online or off the monitor - and often more convenient as well. Statistics show that with the advent of the digital age paper usage has increased rather than decreased. It seems everyone wants their own hard copy of each and every document just for safety and security reasons; so now files are keep both in electronic form as well as in hardcopy form by most offices just in case of some electronic disaster, some hacker intrusions, some virus, some inadvertent or deliberate deletion of files by happy or disgruntled employees, and the like. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Richard Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 4:12 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? paperless office From: "IronWorks" [EMAIL PROTECTED] And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago. I've been working in the computer industry for 20 years and I'm afraid you are wrong. The paperless office was predicted more like 15 years ago. :-) And its been here in my office in Ireland for at least 3 years. Every piece of paper, receipt, fax etc is scanned using a Visioneer Paperport (very fast). As the items are scanned they come out the other side and drop into a wastebin. (The latest version of Paperport is called Strobe VX and scans in colour). The results are automatically OCR'ed and/or one can embed keywords into the file. From the File menu I can then send the docs to a MarcoPolo database, mine contains 20,000 items to date, one can also store any file, Excel, Quark etc by printing to the database and even store the original file if needed. I can search for any item whether it be the price of a purchase, a VAT number on a receipt, a clients name or a description of a product and up pops the scanned item in seconds. I can also search the database remotely from any anywhere on the planet using TCP/IP. I set up the same system for Radiohead's recording studio in Oxford. The band and management team can access the database from the tour bus and run their business on the road. It's cheap, effective and I love it. Regards Richard // | @ @ --- Richard [EMAIL PROTECTED] C _) ) --- ' __ /
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Well... Perhaps that's what was meant after all? Laurie Solomon wrote: Gee, there are a number of 10-18 screen multiplexes where I live; do they count as movie theaters? snip...
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
I'm not too sure about the pixel and array size statement. The CCD's in current 3.3Mpixel CCD cameras like the Olympus 3030 have a diagonal dimension about a third that of the Canon D30 SLR digicam's sensor. As signal processing and memory get faster and lower power (which happens at a steady factor of 2 about every 18-24months) it will be reasonable to have a 30megapixel device in a camera like the D30 with pixels the same size as the current Olympus 3030. Given Moore's Law (see: http://www.intel.com/intel/museum/25anniv/hof/moore.htm ) this could happen within the next 6 to 10 years. --Bob -Original Message- From: Clark Guy [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 11:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) HI, everyone! I guess I'll weigh in with my opinion on the future of photography... In ten years I believe that digital cameras will continue to get better and better, but the rate of improvement will be less and less as time goes by. Unless there is a dramatic change in the methods of manufacturing the sensor elements, resolution will not get much better than what is available now. WHY? because we are already approaching the limit of how small a single pixel can be. It can't be smaller than a wavelength of light, and we are approaching this limit even now. On top of that, the smaller they are the more noisy they become, so that creates a limit on size as well. Better we should be making the sensor arrays bigger, but there is the manufacturing yield issue there. The larger the chip, the more likely a defect will be present in it, rendering it useless. This is why I prefaced my comments with the proviso that there be no dramatic change in the manufacturing process. Possibly there will be some non-silicon method of manufacture that will not have so much chance for defects, and that will cause another rapid improvement of image quality. Therefore, I see amateurs going to digital photography much as we see now, but the amateurs will have something like 5Megapixel cameras. For professional photography, there will be specialized digital camera backs that can do perhaps as much as 25Mpixels or better using scanning technologies. The other pros will be using silver chemistry much as we are today. 35mm film will become a professional gauge, much as 16mm movies are pretty much the domain of professional cinematographers these days (I used to use old amateur 16mm equipment for vacation and sports movies while in High School, but I was a photo geek! ;-) ). Medium format will still be used for the highest quality wedding and other location photography, and Large format will be used for posters and other large final image uses. Scanners will phase out much of the darkroom work, however, with the exception of certain specialized applications, and resolutions will increase much as the camera CCD resolutions, but will continue to increase beyond what is done in cameras because of the possiblities offered by not needing to make the image in an instant. Multiple CCD linear arrays can be made much more easily than multiple two dimensional arrays, and the scanner hardware/firmware can compensate for offset arrays. In fact, with optics, one could actually ENLARGE the image of the film on to a very large linear array to get tremendous optical resolutions that will require gigabytes of RAM to deal with. I see this coming too! I guess I'd better take my turban off and put my crystal ball away before my boss sees me!! Feel free to disagree with me!!! Guy Clark -- photo geek -Original Message- From: Laurie Solomon [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 10:30 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? And, of course, we will have a paperless society, advanced artificial intelligence, and Dot Coms will rule the world replacing the traditional principles of economics and finance with new principles of finance and economics where producing a profitable product is unnecessary as long as you believe in vaporware. :-)Color photography was suppose to completely eliminate black white photography except as a anachronistic specialty, which accounts for the recent resurgence in black white photography in advertising as well as the fine arts photography to mention a few applications that not only refused to die but actually came to life despite color photography and all the predictions of death and doom for BW. :-) In short, I think you are being much to optimistic about the futuristic predictions. However, I do think that any sort of ten year projections or forecasts into the future are very risky and daring. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Berry Ives Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Clark Guy writes ... I believe that digital cameras will continue to get better and better, but ... ... because we are already approaching the limit of how small a single pixel can be. It can't be smaller than a wavelength of light, and we are approaching this limit even now. ... Granted, much of what you say either makes digital cameras too expensive or too impractical for the majority of us. However, my estimation of wavelengths of light relative interaction with a CCD would be on the order of a micron. If there are 25k microns in a inch ... well, the math would imply there is considerable room for improvement(?) shAf :o)
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie, Your post outlining your extensive processing experience left me somewhat embarrassed at my lazy attitude to working in the darkroom.Well, many of us amateurs go through the experience of hearing, "get that mess cleared up!". I have all the "right" equipment, 120 film, Beselar, Schneider Componons, although no colour analyser. Despite this I look for a digital solution which gets more elusive with each received newsgroup message. The cost of a new computer, Nikon/Polaroid/Minolta 120 scanner, and Epson 2000P (Olympus Dye-sub!! if only more than A4), is making me dizzy! I am 54, crave quality, but am not financially rich. Maybe I should re-live my evenings where I held a contact frame with gas-light paper? Thanks, Ian
Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
- Original Message - From: "Clark Guy" [EMAIL PROTECTED] For : professional photography, there will be specialized digital camera backs : that can do perhaps as much as 25Mpixels or better using scanning : technologies. ~~~ ~~~ Your crystal ball needs a polish. Ive got the cheapest scan back that LightPhase sell and it delivers a crystal clear 35Mb file on the back of my Hasselblad. Some of the units for 5x4" cameras will deliver 350Mb and trust me ,the quality is far superior to film and scanning ! Perhaps the way foreword will be CMOS as used in the Canon D30.I wait with tightly shut wallet regards Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
- Original Message - From: "Arthur Entlich" [EMAIL PROTECTED] : : I now buy those $100 (or less) flatbeds, and replace them as the newer : models come out with higher resolution, more speed, or other features. : I'm sorry but you can't make even a "good quality 300 dpi" scanner into : a 1200 dpi one. Besides, parts become hard to come by and no one knows : how to fix this stuff properly if it does fail. If I get the warranty : period with good service from the product, that's usually not bad for : the price. Art ,we all have our own approach to acquiring those items we want,your way is a good way foreword,but don't misinterpret what I was endorsing. When I purchased my current Flatbed scanner in 1995 (its 7th birthday is around the corner) I wrote down my current and perceived future requirements. I found only one scanner that fitted the bill and I bought it. within 12 months there was a scanner from another manufacturer being demonstrated ,I checked it out and sure enough it was better than mine in many respects. But ,7 years on and my scanner works every day,its built like the proverbial out house and produces scans which, whilst soft and lacking in shadow detail compared with current high end kit,sell. I expect to be using it for at least another 5 years. Now this suits me as to be fair it was a major investment. Had I paid 10 percent of its original cost I would be looking for a replacement maybe,but only because the magazine reviews and the glossy brochures would be seducing me. The bottom line for me must be Is it still doing its job properly if the answer is yes then there is no need to pension it off.The manufacturer is still selling them !! best wishes Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Given Moore's Law I'd like to give my rant on this... It is NOT a law damn it! It is an assertion. One that MANY people in the industry made before, and about the same time Moore did. He did not come up with this. It is like saying Bill Gates invented software. Sorry ;-)
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
Clark Guy writes ... I believe that digital cameras will continue to get better and better, but ... ... because we are already approaching the limit of how small a single pixel can be. It can't be smaller than a wavelength of light, and we are approaching this limit even now. ... Granted, much of what you say either makes digital cameras too expensive or too impractical for the majority of us. However, my estimation of wavelengths of light relative interaction with a CCD would be on the order of a micron. If there are 25k microns in a inch ... well, the math would imply there is considerable room for improvement(?) The issues are getting the signals out of the array, and noise. The reason the new crop of '35mm-esque' cameras work so well, is the sensor elements are spaced quite far apart, and are quite large.
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Paperless office? No way. Printed docs are a lot easier to read and can be "pulled up" a lot faster than any computer can, especially if you're organized. When I was working for Wells Fargo, I was either being a witness on a witness stand in a courtroom or having my deposition taken --constnatly, for 23 years. Grand jury, civil court, criminal court, bankruptcy court, appeals court --haven't been in the US Supreme Court though a classmate is one of the justices. Paper records --reams of it--were always required. Easier to autheniticate and a lot harder to "accidentally erase". Computer printouts, particularly of financial records, would produce acres of glassy eyed stares for most of the legfal types, including judges. Somewhere I read that the computer revolution has actually increased the consumption of paper a lot -- hence one of the reasons for the accelerated disapearance of forests. I first heard that "paperless office" forecast in late 1962 by the VP in charge of Wells Fargo's then new computer center in SF. Didn't believe it then, don't believe it now. Hart Corbett -- From: "Henry Richardson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Date: Mon, Jan 29, 2001, 8:21 PM From: "IronWorks" [EMAIL PROTECTED] And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago. I've been working in the computer industry for 20 years and I'm afraid you are wrong. The paperless office was predicted more like 15 years ago. :-) _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
HI, Bob! That's one of the points I feel most secure about. There is that lower limit to how small the CCD elements (photon buckets) can be. Too small and they get noisy, smaller than that and they are too small to respond to visible light! Then there is the upper limit dictated by how well we can make semiconductor devices without flaws. The larger they are, the more likely to include a flaw. Thus, the larger they are, the more expensive (exponentially with die area, I've been told) they are! (This partially explains the horrific cost of medium format digital backs, and the "astronomical" cost of astronomical "large" CCD arrays (up to $25000 as advertised in Sky and Telescope magazine!!!)) So, you see, there is an upper boundary to size and a lower boundary to size, and we are pushing at both of them! I, therefore, am somewhat skeptical about seeing any 30Mpixel devices anytime soon. Possibly if there is a major breakthrough in manufacturing of imaging arrays allowing for larger cheaper arrays, but physics dictates that lower limit to element size. Just because there has been an explosion of newer and better digital cameras over the last five years doesn't mean that that rate of improvement can continue! There also needs to be a market for these 30Mpixel devices to make them and make them affordable! Joe Pointenshoot won't be pushing for that kind of quality unless it is cheap (by cheap I mean costs less than a 1.5Mpixel camera does now), which kind of defeats the market drive. Really, I hope you are right!!! I just am a little too close to the engineering side of this to be this optomistic! Guy Clark -Original Message- From: Murphy, Bob H [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 11:24 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) I'm not too sure about the pixel and array size statement. The CCD's in current 3.3Mpixel CCD cameras like the Olympus 3030 have a diagonal dimension about a third that of the Canon D30 SLR digicam's sensor. As signal processing and memory get faster and lower power (which happens at a steady factor of 2 about every 18-24months) it will be reasonable to have a 30megapixel device in a camera like the D30 with pixels the same size as the current Olympus 3030. Given Moore's Law (see: http://www.intel.com/intel/museum/25anniv/hof/moore.htm ) this could happen within the next 6 to 10 years. --Bob
Re: filmscanners: real value?
I live in Salt Lake City, Utah as in Sundance Film Festival I have also worked as still photog on a few features as well as shot a few documentary in my hoary past lives... the digital versus film debate gets endlessly argued here every year... when video tape came out, it was also looked upon as the death knell of film... the fact is, the DP's (directors of photographer) much prefer to work with film because they can "paint with light"... that is create all kinds of moods that the silver based film seems able to capture with great subtlety and nuance it is difficult to light video and get the same effect... digital isn't much different... the digital divide at Sundance is between the young wannabe's who prefer digital 'cuz it's cheaper to shoot and edit (no processing, no work prints, no a/b rolls, etc.) and the established film guys and gals who can afford to do it the ol' fashioned way... that said, I should also note that Lucas Digital just came out with a whole digital system for projection, but that is after the film has been shot... so editing is also done digitally, but the original is still film... we'll know digital has arrived when we see Panavision quit making film cameras... Mike Moore Hart or Mary Jo Corbett wrote: There are a great many movie theaters in the SF Bay Area, and not all are multiplexes, either. Hart Corbett -- From: Arthur Entlich [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Date: Tue, Jan 30, 2001, 4:42 AM 35mm film will go the way of the do-do, just as movies theaters did when television started showing films, and later when videotaped movies came out. I haven't seen a movie theater in decades, have you? However, in fairness, 8mm movie film has become a rarity since video camcorders. What gets to live or die does, in part, depend upon how successfully the new technology replaces and if possible improves upon the old one. Art
RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
What you suggest can not be made today, with current technology for process, packaging and material. You have to get all the wires out of the die, AND it has to be done such that crosstalk is eliminated, as well as adjacent sensors interfering with each other. Speed is not really an issue either, as the sensor can be segregated into quadrants to speed up capture, and parallel flash/micro drives could be used for storage. The D30 works so well BECASUE it has a large array. The large array practically eliminates the sensor noise/crosstalk issue, as well as the packaging issue...since it's easy to get less wires out of a larger package. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Murphy, Bob H Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 6:28 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?) I don't think the image sensor is the problem. I'm talking about a die that is the same size as the current one used in the Canon D30, namely 22.7mm horizontal only made with pixels the size currently used in the Olympus 3030, Nikon 990, etc. or about 3.0x smaller in each direction. This makes for an array of "conventional" pixels in a "conventionally" sized die totaling 30 million. Why couldn't this be done today? I suspect the answer is market strategy - not technology. Furthermore today's camera electronics could handle an image of this size provided customers were willing to wait 9 times longer for the data to be written to an on-camera 1GB microdrive or 10 seconds perhaps for a high quality jpg. I know the small pixels in the $1000 3Mpixel digicams are nosier than the D30's and are awful when shot an iso greater than 100 but I believe the market has proven that they're clean enough for a good, well exposed image. And 30 million of them would make one awesome image. Finally, you could always resample it down to 3.3 Mega pixels and get (I predict) a much better shot than the current D30 can produce. Why can't this be doe today? --Bob
RE: filmscanners: real value?
Sheesh! I think he was kidding! Frank Paris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=62684 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Laurie Solomon Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 8:12 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: real value? Gee, there are a number of 10-18 screen multiplexes where I live; do they count as movie theaters? I have actually gone to see movies in them also; but there are many people in my university town who got to see movies in these multiplexes every week and throughout the week. They always seem crowded. Either they have died a different sort of death than that which I am familiar with or I am hallucinating. :-)
Re: Future of Photography (was RE: filmscanners: real value?)
on 1/30/01 2:32 PM, Clark Guy at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, Michael! Uhh... 35Mb file at 24bits per pixel corresponds to what... 1.45 million pixels. That's just 8 bit color. Haven't you confused bits with bytes? 24 bits is 3 bytes. 35 MB--not 35 Mb--would give you 35 MB/3B = 11+ megapixels. --Berry
RE: filmscanners: real value?
(1) Will the 1200, using non-OEM inks, clog up if it's used for periods separated by months? (2) Will the 1200 clog up, using Epson inks, if only used periodically as above? In an attempt to respond to the above question, I think that most inkjets, including the 1200, if left for any extended period of time could clog up with either OEM or third party inks. With non-OEM inks, there is always the distinct possibility of clogging due to other factors such as air bubbles or impurities. Clogging due to extended periods of inactivity ( especially with respect to third party inks) can be minimized by flushing the ink out of the printer. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Hart or Mary Jo Corbett Sent: Tuesday, January 30, 2001 3:58 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? Michael: Thanks for your excellent advice (and the opportunity to post this message). ..SNIP
Re: filmscanners: real value?
Laurie Soloman ,suggests buying "two steps behind" technology. Good advice To refine that however you seem to be talking about relatively inexpensive kit . A scanner costing less than 1000 dollars/600UK pounds is a consumer item. The manufacturers expect you to throw it away fairly soon or give it to your children to put in their toy shop next year. If you really want good value for money allied to something which will last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. If a limited dynamic range ,a less than perfectly sharp image and a mediocre resolution are ok for you now to start off with and will be for the foreseeable future then buy the nikominotolympus OB1 whatever and have your fun right now. If you see a long term usage and don't want to keep upgrading look at just what you really really want out of your scanner, write your ideal specification down and then go hunting through the sales columns in the e various specialist press that deal in Repro etc,track down a used high quality bit of kit ,buy it at the right price and you are set for the next Decade Make no mistake about it. if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years time. Anyway,by then the software (Photoshop 15 ??? ) will be able to optimise your inadequate input to match the latest ten dollar laser printer giving photorealistic output perfectly colour balanced. Michael Wilkinson. 106 Holyhead Road,Ketley, Telford.Shropshire TF 15 DJ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.infocus-photography.co.uk For Trannies and Negs from Digital Files
Re: filmscanners: real value?
on 1/29/01 2:21 PM, Michael Wilkinson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you really want good value for money allied to something which will last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. buy it at the right price and you are set for the next Decade Make no mistake about it. if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years time. Very daring of you to make a 10-yr forecast about anything digital. Here's my forecast: 35mm film will be rarely used, except for very specialized applications, since digital will take over that market. Digital SLRs will be as affordable as the Pentax XZ-5n. The scanners will still be around, though, since there are so many old images on film. But the ones we are buying today will definitely be in the landfill. --Berry
Re: filmscanners: real value?
And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago. Maris - Original Message - From: "Berry Ives" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:14 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? | on 1/29/01 2:21 PM, Michael Wilkinson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] | wrote: | If you really want good value for money allied to something which will | last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. | buy it at the right price and you are set for | the next Decade | Make no mistake about it. | if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real | expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years | time. | Very daring of you to make a 10-yr forecast about anything digital. | | Here's my forecast: 35mm film will be rarely used, except for very | specialized applications, since digital will take over that market. Digital | SLRs will be as affordable as the Pentax XZ-5n. The scanners will still be | around, though, since there are so many old images on film. But the ones we | are buying today will definitely be in the landfill. | | --Berry | | | |
RE: filmscanners: real value?
And, of course, we will have a paperless society, advanced artificial intelligence, and Dot Coms will rule the world replacing the traditional principles of economics and finance with new principles of finance and economics where producing a profitable product is unnecessary as long as you believe in vaporware. :-)Color photography was suppose to completely eliminate black white photography except as a anachronistic specialty, which accounts for the recent resurgence in black white photography in advertising as well as the fine arts photography to mention a few applications that not only refused to die but actually came to life despite color photography and all the predictions of death and doom for BW. :-) In short, I think you are being much to optimistic about the futuristic predictions. However, I do think that any sort of ten year projections or forecasts into the future are very risky and daring. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Berry Ives Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? on 1/29/01 2:21 PM, Michael Wilkinson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you really want good value for money allied to something which will last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. buy it at the right price and you are set for the next Decade Make no mistake about it. if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years time. Very daring of you to make a 10-yr forecast about anything digital. Here's my forecast: 35mm film will be rarely used, except for very specialized applications, since digital will take over that market. Digital SLRs will be as affordable as the Pentax XZ-5n. The scanners will still be around, though, since there are so many old images on film. But the ones we are buying today will definitely be in the landfill. --Berry
Re: filmscanners: real value?
From: "IronWorks" [EMAIL PROTECTED] And we now have the paperless office that was predicted 5 years ago. I've been working in the computer industry for 20 years and I'm afraid you are wrong. The paperless office was predicted more like 15 years ago. :-) _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: filmscanners: real value?
on 1/29/01 9:29 PM, Laurie Solomon at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And, of course, we will have a paperless society, advanced artificial intelligence, and Dot Coms will rule the world replacing the traditional principles of economics and finance with new principles of finance and economics where producing a profitable product is unnecessary as long as you believe in vaporware. :-)Color photography was suppose to completely eliminate black white photography except as a anachronistic specialty, which accounts for the recent resurgence in black white photography in advertising as well as the fine arts photography to mention a few applications that not only refused to die but actually came to life despite color photography and all the predictions of death and doom for BW. :-) In short, I think you are being much to optimistic about the futuristic predictions. However, I do think that any sort of ten year projections or forecasts into the future are very risky and daring. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Berry Ives Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 8:15 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: real value? on 1/29/01 2:21 PM, Michael Wilkinson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If you really want good value for money allied to something which will last a decade you have to look at what you want from the product. buy it at the right price and you are set for the next Decade Make no mistake about it. if a scanner is doing a good job now the chances are that only a real expert will be able to see a difference in your final output in 10 years time. Very daring of you to make a 10-yr forecast about anything digital. Here's my forecast: 35mm film will be rarely used, except for very specialized applications, since digital will take over that market. Digital SLRs will be as affordable as the Pentax XZ-5n. The scanners will still be around, though, since there are so many old images on film. But the ones we are buying today will definitely be in the landfill. --Berry Digital SLRs that have maybe half the required resolution now cost about $3K. If that technology progresses at anything like what CPUs have, I think 10 years is rather ample to eliminate, say, 90% of the 35mm film market. That said, I recently bought a Contax film camera and am about to buy a film scanner. (%~~/ -Berry
