Come on Phil, drop the "CF Design" flaw con

I take back few of my words, I was taking this into a wrong direction

But what I meant was - in a battery operated equipment with a DRAM (that what I assume the cameras use) will need constant refresh to retain change. It cannot just retain data without keeping on writing it back to memory at each refresh

Dynamic RAM (DRAM)

Dynamic RAM uses a kind of capacitor that needs frequent power refreshing to retain its charge. Because reading a DRAM discharges its contents, a power refresh is required after each read. Apart from reading, just to maintain the charge that holds its content in place, DRAM must be refreshed about every 15 microseconds. DRAM is the least expensive kind of RAM.

In computers, a part of processor power works continuously to keep refreshing RAM via the Caches (they being SRAM / DRAM combination, which needs more than available memory to retain charge without refresh - I guess 4 times. These are expensive)

If architectural changes can be discounted so easily, probably its easier to just pull out a 1GB RAM module from my laptop and put it in a camera to get a $100 cheap high burst camera (Don't pick words here, what I mean is not the same RAM module, but same capacity at same price). But I'm sure those days will come

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PicPocket

PlainBoy said:

PlainBoy said:

I think it is a non-issue. I'd be glad that he would drop the
complaint and I thought he would since in some other eos review he
said he'd no longer mention it.

Click to expand...

You don't value your photos enough to ask Canon to not just dump
them if you do something not so smart?

Click to expand...

Extreme statements... and subjective ones

Whats wrong with my example of canon providing a combination lock (they are not expensive either) on CF door. That way not even your data, but the card would be safe too.

And your assumption that its just a software change to retain data in buffer... is just an assumption. Programming for a camera is like programming an OS, not like programming for an OS

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PicPocket

justrying said:

It is funny how people get offended when someone criticizes the
brand they own. Brand loyalty often takes a form similar to being
a fan of a football or a baseball team. Anybody who says anything
against the mainstream in a given forum is labeled a "troll" and is
insulted by an angry mob.

Click to expand...

Nothing to do with brand loyalty....however, this design flaw comment going on and on is getting tired. His opinion that it's a design flaw is no different than constantly complaining that Nikon has it's lens mounting direction opposite from other camera makers.

C'mom, let's start hearing about that Nikon lens mounting design flaw in every review shall we? My gosh, they still haven't corrected it after all these years and the latest D80 release....add it to the con list for the umpteenth time!

The thing is: You decide which of the Cons and Pros are actually issues to you. If I see a Con that is no issue to me, then I'll just ignore it

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/donandre

PicPocket said:

PicPocket said:

You don't value your photos enough to ask Canon to not just dump
them if you do something not so smart?

Click to expand...

Extreme statements... and subjective ones

Click to expand...

When using my camera, the photos I take are what is important to me. Taking great pictures is very important, keeping those pictures is just as important. If there is something about the camera which doesn't keep them intact all I can do is complain and hope that its fixed, which is what I'm doing.

The statements being subjective devalues them in what way?

PicPocket said:

Whats wrong with my example of canon providing a combination lock
(they are not expensive either) on CF door. That way not even your
data, but the card would be safe too.

Click to expand...

It is a good suggestion, but likely wouldn't make it into whatever the next model they're releasing. Software changes can be made much later than HW changes. Though that makes them a much higher risk, since they won't get as much test coverage.

PicPocket said:

And your assumption that its just a software change to retain data
in buffer... is just an assumption.

Click to expand...

Yes they are assumptions, but based on experiance and training. The only way I would know for sure that anything which I've suggested is true is by working for Canon on thier camera OS, and or firmware.

PicPocket said:

Programming for a camera is
like programming an OS, not like programming for an OS

Click to expand...

An assumption of your own?

I've done both, and neither is overly difficult. Canon is not programming a general purpose OS so they have a lot less to be concerned with.

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http://paulme.smugmug.com/

PlainBoy said:

PlainBoy said:

PlainBoy said:

You don't value your photos enough to ask Canon to not just dump
them if you do something not so smart?

Click to expand...

Extreme statements... and subjective ones

Click to expand...

When using my camera, the photos I take are what is important to
me. Taking great pictures is very important, keeping those
pictures is just as important. If there is something about the
camera which doesn't keep them intact all I can do is complain and
hope that its fixed, which is what I'm doing.

Click to expand...

This time you've learned to be better. Complaining is ok. Last time around you had a statement like - "You don't value your photos", while the situation was that I simply never faced this CF issue so far. See any difference there?

PlainBoy said:

The statements being subjective devalues them in what way?

Click to expand...

Never questioned the value of your statements. Simply said its subjective as it depends on person to person. Not everyone is having this problem here and thats why a balanced debate. See any difference there?

PlainBoy said:

PlainBoy said:

Whats wrong with my example of canon providing a combination lock
(they are not expensive either) on CF door. That way not even your
data, but the card would be safe too.

Click to expand...

It is a good suggestion, but likely wouldn't make it into whatever
the next model they're releasing. Software changes can be made
much later than HW changes. Though that makes them a much higher
risk, since they won't get as much test coverage.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Anyway that lock suggestion was not projected as a serious solution. I was just trying to make a point about how far you would go with a problem

PlainBoy said:

PlainBoy said:

And your assumption that its just a software change to retain data
in buffer... is just an assumption.

Click to expand...

Yes they are assumptions, but based on experiance and training.
The only way I would know for sure that anything which I've
suggested is true is by working for Canon on thier camera OS, and
or firmware.

Click to expand...

My statements are based on exactly the same parameters

PlainBoy said:

PlainBoy said:

Programming for a camera is
like programming an OS, not like programming for an OS

Click to expand...

An assumption of your own?

Click to expand...

Don't know why you would say that? If you are treating an embedded system different from programming similar to OS, then yes, I slipped in terminology here.

PlainBoy said:

I've done both, and neither is overly difficult. Canon is not
programming a general purpose OS so they have a lot less to be
concerned with.

Click to expand...

I too deal with both quite a lot. The problem here is - I never said its difficult. I said its different. Whether or not they need to be concerned, they still have their own OS to take care of memory management and thats where the difference is. Changing the memory management structure of an OS isn't as trivial as that of an application running on an OS (assuming that the underlying OS supports static memory effect). See any difference?

--
PicPocket

no text

no text

I read about the first 8 messages and am not going to waste my time reading them all, but I walk away with one question:

***************
Why does it really matter to you so much to you if Phil lists this as a con???
***************

Phil does a great job and puts in a lot of time on his reviews. I appreciate them very much and do not see the need to continually bash him over something so petty.

Alex