Digital Doubts

First I love my 995 and gave up my film cameras and only shoot digital. Its especially nice when you manage a digital (frontier) photo lab. My customers only think my 370 is for their use but its mine you understand.

What worrys me is that all camera manfacturers are in such a hurry to get their piece of the digital pie that they have thrown serious R & D out the window. With a film slr they plan on having a new model in their line for three to four years. I think it has alot to do with the fact the film market is very mature and does not grow like the digital market. This also means that they can take three to four years to develope, test, and market new products. I have never seen a film camera introduced with the same problems as new digitals.

With digital it is a game of who can get the newest, the fastest, and get the biggest share of this growing market. The problem is we play right into their game by jumping at every new camera they throw at us. Doesn't make any difference if its gray market, untested, if it looks good we throw cash at the manufacturers.

Look at Nikon alone, a recall on the d100 right out of the box, the coolpix 5000 diaster with the accessories, the 5700 and focus problems. Why arent these problems researched, found and corrected before new model intoduction. This doesn't show much respect for us the consumer. Maybe if we the consumers took a show me it works before I buy mentality, the manufactorers would try harder to get it right the first time.

Troutman

All your comments are "right on the mark." Even this forum has changed. Where it used to be requests for help, showing photos to see what others think, or can do to help them get better ones, it's now lots of complaints and data on the new models. If you don't have or want one, you can skip most of the threads. They are not generic anymore, at least, not usually. The price of progress. And some people are getting out of line with crude, rude remarks. Such a pity.

--
Muriel

True, but this is not just about cameras. Nowhere has consumerism been so clear but with digital technology (and fast food). Computers, phones, telephones, - 3 years is lifetimes of technology change. When have you seen such high paced technology change in film cameras. About the only major refinement in the last 25 years has been Autofocus. I kept my Minolta X-700 for 10 years before deciding to upgrade to an autofocus camera. I have seen Minolta introduce new film bodies but they are essentially refinements of the old. Compare the Xtsi with the Maxxum 5. Clearly then, there is room for testing and refinement of film cameras when the pace of revolutionary change is so incredibly slow.

Looking closer, it would seem to me that the money in film cameras is not in the bodies - it is in the accessories. How many people with film cameras have accessories that add up to more than the body - most I suspect. My Xtsi was only $300. My lenses easily surpass that and my flash comes close on its own. Not to mention the cost of filters. I can't say the same for digital. There is not much must have stuff out there other than a flash and a very few accessory lenses. The money is in the body and the need to keep selling bodies. Thus there is not much room for time and refinement if you want to make money and keep pace with accelerated technology change.

All we can hope is that Nikon will continue on a path of improving on a theme rather than to keep offering us brand new untested stuff. The 995 that I own now is not ideal but it is a nice evolutionary step from earlier models (900, 950, 990). I am extrodinarily happy with it despite its faults and I feel no need to upgrade to anything right now. I does what I want and I'm not intersted in trying to impress others with my equipment. I hope that Nikon continues to refine the line rather than offer completely new models such as the 5000 and the 5700.

That said, if we can't hold back from buying the latest and greatest then maybe we can at least support a theme. I hope Nikon continues to improve upon the 99x/4xxx line. I hope so because a few iterations down the road I would probably choose to stick with the twisty body. It would also be nice to know that the accessory lenses I (might) buy today would fit in 2 or three years (I can hope can't I?)

Cheers,
Brent

MDTROUT said:

First I love my 995 and gave up my film cameras and only shoot
digital. Its especially nice when you manage a digital (frontier)
photo lab. My customers only think my 370 is for their use but its
mine you understand.

What worrys me is that all camera manfacturers are in such a hurry
to get their piece of the digital pie that they have thrown serious
R & D out the window. With a film slr they plan on having a new
model in their line for three to four years. I think it has alot to
do with the fact the film market is very mature and does not grow
like the digital market. This also means that they can take three
to four years to develope, test, and market new products. I have
never seen a film camera introduced with the same problems as new
digitals.

With digital it is a game of who can get the newest, the fastest,
and get the biggest share of this growing market. The problem is we
play right into their game by jumping at every new camera they
throw at us. Doesn't make any difference if its gray market,
untested, if it looks good we throw cash at the manufacturers.

Look at Nikon alone, a recall on the d100 right out of the box, the
coolpix 5000 diaster with the accessories, the 5700 and focus
problems. Why arent these problems researched, found and corrected
before new model intoduction. This doesn't show much respect for
us the consumer. Maybe if we the consumers took a show me it works
before I buy mentality, the manufactorers would try harder to get
it right the first time.

Troutman

Click to expand...

Been lurking in this forum for 2 & 1/2 years now and the retoric is always the same each time a new model comes out. Same old bitching about focus and waiting on something better. Buy a camera from a reputable outlet with a return policy.. Test it for a couple of hundred shots. Return if necessary and move on to the next model that probably won't meet your E L E V A T E D expectations.. Nuff said.... My 5700 works great out of the box and is heads aaaaaaaaaaabove my old 990.. I'll try a 7i tomorrow......................................................................
but the 5700 is a keeper..

Muriel Sulli said:

some people are getting out of line with crude, rude remarks. Such
a pity.

Click to expand...

Agreed!

Muriel Sulli said:

All your comments are "right on the mark." Even this forum has
changed. Where it used to be requests for help, showing photos to
see what others think, or can do to help them get better ones, it's
now lots of complaints and data on the new models. If you don't
have or want one, you can skip most of the threads. They are not
generic anymore, at least, not usually. The price of progress. And
some people are getting out of line with crude, rude remarks. Such
a pity.

Click to expand...

That is human nature. Try any PC forum you will see PC vs. Mac, Windows vs. Mac OS vs. Linux, etc. There are also "my computer is better than yours because ...." and all sorts of arguments for converting people from PC to Mac and vice versa. Hey, how about automobile forums, Hi-Fi forums. You name it. IMHO, many forum goers forgot that cameras and computers are tools and no tool is perfect.

CK
http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam

Good thread.

First, I suspect that this site/forum attracts a pretty diverse crowd: some photographers, some technologists, and lots of hybrid interests.

I'm pretty sure that any company that thinks it can even begin to compete in the design/manufacturing/distribution of digital products is likely to spend a significant amount of $ on R&D, just to keep up, if not get ahead. I think what might suffer a little under the crush of not only competition, but the crush of Moore's Law, is some amount of Quality Control and occasionally some amount of employee training and customer service.

Think about it, every 18 months a company has to sell twice as many units at the same level of (processor and memory) power just to maintain the same revenue. How many companies in what markets can grow at that rate (twice the number of units sold) in a year and half? And for how many years can they do that? And that's just to stay even on the revenue line. Alternatively, Moore's Law says you can sell for the same price, as long as your (processor and memory) power doubles every 18 months. For now, this is where the Nikon 5000 and 5700 reside; same price, just more "power." (And of course not everything is purely digital -some features such as optics, plastic, magnesium, etc are subject to different economic issues.)

But to your point, all of this pressure to keep coming with new products can strain something (especially the sellers and the buyers). Personally, I think it's mostly Moore's Law along with a good dose of strong competition for a somewhat finite market that is shortening product life cycles. (For a while you get more new buyers of a technology, but ultimately just about everyone that wants a product (at least in the middle class of an industrialized society), gets one, or a few; but at some point, people don't feel a need for more PCs, and in some cases, even if you give away a product, people just don't want any more. Personally, even if my price for long distance phone calls was lower, I still wouldn't call any more. And this is the challenge we face with Moore's Law: lots of products that use to sell for $1,000 are headed below $100 toward nearly free. You better believe digital manufacturers are in a hurry to figure out something new to sell us.

The other big dynamic behind your comments is of course the move from film to digital. It should be evident to just about everyone in this forum (both the technologists and the photographers), that if the cross over hasn't occurred, it is very nearly upon us. In my opinion, when you look at the quality of the images (not just one photo but all of the 24 or 36 on roll) and the price, digital is very nearly on it's way to causing film based systems to go the way of vinyl records. The quality of an image you can get from a 5700 outputted to a $349 Canon 900 printer is pretty competitive with what you typically get from any film based Nikon or Canon camera "outputting" to a film development lab. (Now before the hard cores point out that “yeah, but the 5700 is slow as a dog compared to a Nikon F100”, I fully agree; digital home solutions are only competitive for some types of photography...... but it's only a matter of time until the $1,000 digital camera is just as fast (and then faster) than a F100. Nearly instantaneous first pictures and 5 frames per second are not that far away; two maybe three football seasons - max.

Meanwhile, if you do the math on one-time and recurring costs for both film and digital (today, and it’s only going to get better for digital), the costs are roughly a push on a 3 year life cycle assuming "typical" usage (lot's a 4x6, a few 5x7, and an occasional 8x10 photo). And if you want lots of 5x7 or 8x10 images, the cost starts tipping quickly in favor of digital. And if you don't want to drive 15 minutes to wait for 2 hours (1 hour development doesn't really happen that often) so you can drive 15 minutes home again, that's ok, but wouldn't you rather get the photo in about 2 minutes off your own printer? And of course you would know what you have when you took the picture and then immediately reviewed the image on the LCD, as opposed to finding out about 3 hours later that you missed the opportunity to get the shot.

All of this is just now becoming apparent to the mass market. So for a while there are going to be lots of new users coming into the market. Those of us who have already arrived in the market are just the technology enthusiasts and the early adopters. The camera companies are fighting to be at the head of the line when the "early majority" (the steep part of the bell shaped curve) arrives. Between Moore's Law and their competitors, most manufacturers might try to appear as if they are paddling calmly forward, but underneath the surface, they are paddling with a healthy dose of fear that the pace is brutal and it's only going to get tougher. The good news is that as customers we are going to see many tremendous products (and hopefully a good mix of quality service). Ten years from now you will not think about snapping a single picture from a 5700; the new version will make a 5700 look about as useful as those wooden boxes sitting on the wooden tripod with a photographer covering his head with a cloth around the turn of the last century (you get the picture).

Just to provide a glimpse of the future, given just what is known about the pace of storage technology, in about 10-12 years it will be possible to store video of every waking moment a human being experiences over a 100 year lifetime (if they were so inclined to record it) on a hard disk the size of quarter, which will sell for about $50. Think about it: 100 years of video for $50 (to be precise, you’ll only get about two thirds of each year recorded in this model since we sleep about a third)…. but, pick a frame, any frame, lot’s of frames, from 100 years of a person’s life. The Kodak moment as we use to know it will be every moment, although I’m not sure Kodak will have quite the same market share. This is not a science fiction movie coming to a theater near you, this is the technology and economics of our kid’s lives, pretty much on the rail road tracks and guaranteed for delivery in about a decade.

Strap your harness belts on; it's going to be a wild ride.

I'm pretty sure that one of these days (in a few years) we are going to see another crossover whereby if you want an image, just hit the pause button on the video (since as well all know, video is just 24-30 frames per second.) Right now we only get a mega pixel or so in a frame of video, but as mega pixels get cheaper, it won't be too long before paused video on a Sony video camera looks as good as today's Sony digital still photo camera. If I was a still motion camera manufacturer, I'd be worried.

And of course, lots of other dynamics can and will enter the equation, not the least of which are the many, many new applications both users and suppliers will create. The only thing we can say for sure is that change is not just on the way.... it is accelerating (if you don’t quite see it yet, just pick any number and see what happens when you double it every 18 months; if you start with something already pretty big, like a million pixels or 6 million pixels, it doesn’t take too many 18 month periods before the number becomes impressive.)

Personally, I like the technology a lot, but there is something especially pleasing about figuring out how to squeeze a little more resolution and color accuracy, or maybe just some better composition out of a photo of your kids and friends (whether you do it with film or digital technology), and then there is a sort of blurred demarcation where the image of your kids becomes more the point than how you got the image...... And then you jump on the Web to study more specs or learn more photography...... and then at some point, for at least a few seconds, you get back to appreciating the subject you were photographing.

Yin and Yang, back and forth, hopefully with some balance.

Lot's of things to like about digital photography, not the least of which is this site and this forum.

Happy dp

yada day said:

The other big dynamic behind your comments is of course the move
from film to digital. It should be evident to just about everyone
in this forum (both the technologists and the photographers), that
if the cross over hasn't occurred, it is very nearly upon us. In
my opinion, when you look at the quality of the images (not just
one photo but all of the 24 or 36 on roll) and the price, digital
is very nearly on it's way to causing film based systems to go the
way of vinyl records. The quality of an image you can get from a
5700 outputted to a $349 Canon 900 printer is pretty competitive
with what you typically get from any film based Nikon or Canon
camera "outputting" to a film development lab. (Now before the hard
cores point out that “yeah, but the 5700 is slow as a dog compared
to a Nikon F100”, I fully agree; digital home solutions are only
competitive for some types of photography...... but it's only a
matter of time until the $1,000 digital camera is just as fast (and
then faster) than a F100. Nearly instantaneous first pictures and
5 frames per second are not that far away; two maybe three football
seasons - max.

Click to expand...

A similar argument appeared at least twice in the past two decades in computer inductry. When workstations (e.g., Apollo and Sun) appeared, people announced the end of mainframes. Then, when PC gor more popular, futurists claimed that the death of mainframes and workstations and that the work done by mainframes and workstations will all be replaced by PCs. If we look back, we will find out that this type of optimitic (or, if I may, simplistic) arguments all failed. Yes, these days the number of PCs, Macs included, is far more higher the total of mainframes and workstations. However, IBM still makes big money from her mainframe business and workstation manusfactures are still rolling out fantastic machines. Why? This is because there are different level of needs and applications. For most people who don't need a mainframe nor a workstation, they can buy a PC. As a result, the market is segmented and more applications are created. The mainframe sector yields some applications to the workstation sector, which, in turn, turns over the low-end applications to PCs. The result is that from novice to professional all have a right tool to solve their problems. The digital camera technology simply repeats what has been happening in the computer industry and still has a long to go. (Film camera technology took more than 50 years to mature.) Just like more people buying PCs for home use, lower-end digital cameras will offset the lower-end consumer, point-and-shoot type cameras.

In fact, it is happening now. Eventually, IMHO, the camera market will be very similar to the computer market and will be segmented in a very fine way.

I personally believe that comparing the 5700 with Nikon F100 (not Minolta's P&S F100) is not a good example. The F100 is aprofessional level tool just like a workstation (or a high-end PC running an advanced operating system) and the 5700 is simply a high-end PC. When the 5700 type cameras eventually catch up to the F100 level, the F100 type machines will morph into a new type of film/digital camera.

So, this is the advanced technology. New technology expands the market rather than only converting the existing market. We see it in computer industry, in mobile phone, etc. Just my 2 cents.

CK
http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam

Just for the record, I didn't predict the mainframe is going away, but I am sticking with my contention that the film and film camera markets are in a bit of trouble.

If you want to compare technology evolution/revolution, mainframe vs. PC is a somewhat different model than film vs. digital.

The PC was a new processing platform but a variant of the same (digital) system architecture as the mainframe. The digital camera is a substantially new capture and processing platform vs film (you do still have the lens) and it (the digital camera) is a totally new system architecture. Further, the new architecture (of the digital camera) plays natively with a much larger system architecture - Information Technology; sure you can scan analog images into a digital format, but film and digital are clearly more distant cousins than mainframes and PCs. Put the standalone benefits of digital imaging and the likely progress of digital imaging against the benefits and likely progress of film based systems, and you can see the contrasting curves. Then look at the "system wide" benefits of digital cameras working in an all digital world, and you start to see why the mainframe vs. PC model wasn't the right analogy. PCs and mainframes work in the same native architecture. On the other hand with film, you can kludge and milk a technology only for so long. Mainframes win for some applications because of processing power and economics. I don't think film is going to win the processing power battle as well as mainframes have, and I think film is going to get it's butt kicked on economics. Add the convenience factor and it's adios the old and in with the new.

To your point, this doesn't mean that film is going to just go away, but I believe film cameras might have a bigger economic struggle for a prominent position in their food chain than mainframes have had, and ask IBM what a struggle that has been. Sure they get some important business with their mainframes, but largely their business model has shifted from hardware to services. Kodak and Fuji have seen the change coming for ten years; they are past denial mode and into full scramble mode.

You are right that the market segments and tools get specialized; and of course the mainframe has retained a place, but it is a much smaller, much less all dominant place in the market than it once enjoyed. Mainframes used to be the heart of the entire architecture, now they are just specialized nodes. Film cameras can't even connect electronically to the system; they can't even act as an online node. At best, they are an offline node.

I think high end film cameras will wind up somewhere between the mainframe and the vinyl record in terms of the significance of their role/position in the market and in terms of their longevity; ie, film cameras may do better than vinyl, but probably not as well as mainframes.

Price/Performance/Flexibility, etc, etc usually wins, and digital is just at the toe of the curve; film is at or near the top of the curve. The only thing that got me going on all this was when I saw that I like showing off 8x10s made from the 5700 and the Canon 900 much more so than most of the photos I can get out of an A2E with USM glass or an F100 with ED glass.

(I don't claim to be anything but a wanna-be photographer, but for my effort, my digital results are starting to get exciting where my film results were pretty well plateaued at so-so. Give me some more pixels and I'm going to look like real photographer.... I don't see the same opportunity coming with film.)

It is what it is, consistently more impressive photos, faster time to hardcopy, at about the same price. And the digital combo is just going to get better and less expensive while the film combo has minimal hope for getting either better or less expensive.

And we haven't even got into the chemical/biohazard/environmental issues....

Joe Lucky said:

box and is heads aaaaaaaaaaabove my old 990.. I'll try a 7i
tomorrow......................................................................
but the 5700 is a keeper..

Click to expand...

Can you post your experiences after testing the 7i?
I made some comparison shots with the CP4500.
Your can view the photos in full resolution at
http://www.pbase.com/spockhh
I had no 5700 so I am very interested in your comment.

Arnd

Troutman,
'I have never seen a film camera introduced with the same problems as new

digitals.' Then you must have missed the autofocus trials and tribulations of the 1980's. Canon vs Nikon... too slow, unpredictable, contrast vs x,y and z, USM vs camera body Nikon etc, etc, etc... I also remember the argument.. I'll never go autofocus that sort of thing. Even lenses weren't always up to snuff. I bought a $1000 dollar piece of Canon L glass in 1989, their first 28-80 USM lens (for all those complaining about slow lenses it was only a 2.8-4.0). It was huge and heavy but suffered from fairly major light fall off in the corners... vignetting if you wish.. I complained+++ and recieved no satisfactory answers or even acknowledgement that this was even a problem. 4 years later they offered a solution to the light fall off problem of the 28-80, removal of an internal flare suppression diaphragm. Perhaps if we had had the internet and these discussion forums the introduction of new af technology in the 80's would have been alot rockier. My point... these forums are great but also suffer from a tendency to over react to deficiencies and over emphasize the minutia... 'the 5000 disaster???' hardly, its a very useable tool and can produce excellent results (especially with a little help from your excellent Digital 101 tips), not perfect but hardly a disaster.
Peter

yada day said:

Just for the record, I didn't predict the mainframe is going away,
but I am sticking with my contention that the film and film camera
markets are in a bit of trouble.

Click to expand...

Snip.

Yada Day said:

To your point, this doesn't mean that film is going to just go
away, but I believe film cameras might have a bigger economic
struggle for a prominent position in their food chain than
mainframes have had, and ask IBM what a struggle that has been.
Sure they get some important business with their mainframes, but
largely their business model has shifted from hardware to services.
Kodak and Fuji have seen the change coming for ten years; they are
past denial mode and into full scramble mode.

Click to expand...

Snip..

Yada Day said:

I think high end film cameras will wind up somewhere between the
mainframe and the vinyl record in terms of the significance of
their role/position in the market and in terms of their longevity;
ie, film cameras may do better than vinyl, but probably not as well
as mainframes.

Price/Performance/Flexibility, etc, etc usually wins, and digital
is just at the toe of the curve; film is at or near the top of the
curve. The only thing that got me going on all this was when I saw
that I like showing off 8x10s made from the 5700 and the Canon 900
much more so than most of the photos I can get out of an A2E with
USM glass or an F100 with ED glass.
(I don't claim to be anything but a wanna-be photographer, but for
my effort, my digital results are starting to get exciting where my
film results were pretty well plateaued at so-so. Give me some
more pixels and I'm going to look like real photographer.... I
don't see the same opportunity coming with film.)

It is what it is, consistently more impressive photos, faster time
to hardcopy, at about the same price. And the digital combo is
just going to get better and less expensive while the film combo
has minimal hope for getting either better or less expensive.

And we haven't even got into the chemical/biohazard/environmental
issues....

Click to expand...

--

Alan.T.wrote: I was impressed by your very lucid analysis in your three postings but would take issue on a couple of points. First,I think you are somewhat optimistic with regard to the future of film.Personally I see no long term future for film except,possibly,for one or two very specialised applications.For example a digital image is so easily manipulated that it can have no value as legal evidence. I read recently on some other digital photography website an interview with Patrick(Lord) Lichfield who runs a very successful commercial photography business in England.Two years ago he went digital acquiring, at what to us mere mortals might seem vast expense,top rate digital backs for Hasselblads and view cameras.He reports great saving of time,increased customer satisfaction (someone from the ad.bureau can be in the studio and judge results on large screen monitor) and ,most remarkably a saving in the first year of £76,000 on film and processing ! When one thinks that in ten years we have gone from 0.6 to 6 M.pixels I think that another ten years advancement and film is finished. > Your analogy with vinyl was perhaps slightly unfortunate as we are now seeing a renaissance in vinyl with the hi-fi market inundated with new record players ! We have seen the same with tube amplifiers,twenty years ago there were hardly any on the market,now there are hundreds,if not thousands. However there are audible differences between tube and transistor and vinyl and digital whilst any visible difference between film and digital is decreasing rapidly and at some point will turn to the advantage of digital. The objective comparison of two images is simple,the appreciation of music is a subjective process that will always result in varying evaluation of sound quality and personal preference may lead to the choice of otherwise obsolecent technologies. I am an old man (72) who photographed with film for over 50 years but having experienced the digital darkroom I am quite sure that I will never use film again.The resolution from my 3M.pixels (CP995) is,of course,not as high as with a relatively slow film but I achieve satisfactory 8x10 prints even after some cropping and the macro capability is phenomenal.I haven´t quite got my drivers license for the 995 yet and have just started struggling with PS.I fear my learning curve has steepened with age ! > Alan.

Its a question of manufacturers' greed for profits, followed by market share considerations and ultimate survival in such intense competition in the burgeoning technology marketplace!

Muriel Sulli said:

All your comments are "right on the mark." Even this forum has
changed. Where it used to be requests for help, showing photos to
see what others think, or can do to help them get better ones, it's
now lots of complaints and data on the new models. If you don't
have or want one, you can skip most of the threads. They are not
generic anymore, at least, not usually. The price of progress. And
some people are getting out of line with crude, rude remarks. Such
a pity.

--
Muriel

Click to expand...

--
chas

Keep the faith.

For whatever it's worth, the most accurate reproducing hifi I ever heard was achieved with tubes (by Audio Research Corp from Minnesota). If somehow film could find a way to be considered as the ARC of imaging, it would secure a worthwhile resting place. And if film prices are going to be priced like ARC gear, the price on film is going up, way up

You know, sometimes certain technologies can just render healthy "joy." Tube amplifiers and preamplifiers in particluar and audio systems in general seem to do this. I think it is likewise with film cameras and photography; they are fine hobbies, (and opportunities for professions), arts, and ways to learn and communicate in my book.

Arnd Nolte said:

Joe Lucky said:

box and is heads aaaaaaaaaaabove my old 990.. I'll try a 7i
tomorrow......................................................................
but the 5700 is a keeper..

Click to expand...

Can you post your experiences after testing the 7i?
I made some comparison shots with the CP4500.
Your can view the photos in full resolution at
http://www.pbase.com/spockhh
I had no 5700 so I am very interested in your comment.

Arnd

Click to expand...

Arnd,

I looked at your comparison of the D7i. Now I see why they say it is noisy. There was a ton of shadow noise in daylight pics and the night pics were not very good. Not the pics, the noise I mean.

Thanks for the comparison.

--
Thanks & God Bless,
Chuck
http://www.pbase.com/candrask

I once heard someone say that people only do things because of greed, fear, or love, and in business not too many people are motivated by love. So I guess you could say a lot of people are operating because of greed. I prefer to think of it has an incentive to work hard and get good results. Nothing wrong with making money if you are doing it honestly with good intentions, adding value, and getting good results in a free market. I think you are right, a lot of greed along with a notable amount of fear (the survival instinct) is fueling our digital photography market; and we have some weddings to photograph

charles ellison said:

Muriel Sulli said:

All your comments are "right on the mark." Even this forum has
changed. Where it used to be requests for help, showing photos to
see what others think, or can do to help them get better ones, it's
now lots of complaints and data on the new models. If you don't
have or want one, you can skip most of the threads. They are not
generic anymore, at least, not usually. The price of progress. And
some people are getting out of line with crude, rude remarks. Such
a pity.

--
Muriel

Click to expand...

--
chas

Click to expand...

"... these forums are great but also suffer from a tendency to
over react to deficiencies and over emphasize the minutia..."

Agreed 99%. (I might modify "suffer" to "experience".) A beauty of the Internet is that you can take pretty much any subject to whatever zoom level you want, in or out. I think a lot of knowledge, learning, communicating, and skill development is occuring as a result. This is just an an analysis; putting an evaluation on it is another matter. It might be too much detail to be beneficial for some people (it might be just an addictive waste of time) and it might be valuable insight for someone else.

Clearly, time is a very valuable commodity. Whether you use it for learning, pleasure, or whatever, it is valuable and should be used wisely. The nice thing about email and discussion boards is you can pretty quickly scan and/or avoid it if it doesn't trip your trigger.

I personally find cameras (digital and analog) and this forum to be a trip. Hopefully it won't be addictive or otherwise bad for anyone.

peter konzuk said:

Troutman,
'I have never seen a film camera introduced with the same problems
as new
digitals.' Then you must have missed the autofocus trials and
tribulations of the 1980's. Canon vs Nikon... too slow,
unpredictable, contrast vs x,y and z, USM vs camera body Nikon etc,
etc, etc... I also remember the argument.. I'll never go autofocus
that sort of thing. Even lenses weren't always up to snuff. I
bought a $1000 dollar piece of Canon L glass in 1989, their first
28-80 USM lens (for all those complaining about slow lenses it was
only a 2.8-4.0). It was huge and heavy but suffered from fairly
major light fall off in the corners... vignetting if you wish.. I
complained+++ and recieved no satisfactory answers or even
acknowledgement that this was even a problem. 4 years later they
offered a solution to the light fall off problem of the 28-80,
removal of an internal flare suppression diaphragm. Perhaps if we
had had the internet and these discussion forums the introduction
of new af technology in the 80's would have been alot rockier. My
point... these forums are great but also suffer from a tendency to
over react to deficiencies and over emphasize the minutia... 'the
5000 disaster???' hardly, its a very useable tool and can produce
excellent results (especially with a little help from your
excellent Digital 101 tips), not perfect but hardly a disaster.
Peter

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Hey Alan, one other thing: if PS refers to Photo Shop, I don't care what age a person is; it is not the easiest software to learn on your own. It is powerful, but definitely not easy (but I think it's probably worth figuring out). In any event, it sounds to me like you are doing great. Enjoy!

Brent W Haydamack said:

About the only major refinement in the last 25 years
has been Autofocus

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One refinement on the film side that I'm wondering how long will it take 'til Canon adds it to their digital line: eye-controlled focusing. Though I'd get a D60 or D100 even without it, had I the money for one + accessories... for now, the CP5700 will do - as soon as the package arrives

--
Teppo @ Finland
Camera: Canon PowerShot S30, drooling @ Nikon CP5700
Galleries: http://th.joroinen.fi/home/photography.html