Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]From: William Davis <wishda@weblnk.net> Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 1999 11:27 Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica Users digest V12 #58 > Some of those reasons include concerns about the archival > abilities of digital ... Anyone who is concerned about this betrays a lack of understanding of the fundamental principles of information theory and digital information representation. Digital images have an infinite lifetime. If you need proof, just look at the written word, which is an example of digital information representation. > ... converting to digital is more expensive when you consider > the need to upgrade ... It depends on the application. For ordinary consumer use, the continuing cost of digital is practically nil (a few pennies per shot). > ... perhaps most importantly, image quality. Image quality will improve. For some applications, the image quality is already more than adequate. For others, it has a long way to go. > A digital image's aftermarket value is much less than a slide > or a negative. That's mainly a matter of subjective prejudice. > No magazines, calendars or posters are going to be made with > even the high-end digital images. It is already being done. Conventional printing processes, in fact, impose much less stringent limits on image resolution, such that digital photos are much more easily used than they would be in, say, exhibition prints. > They realize this. I've never heard anyone mention it. Most people waste their time on bogus arguments about archives or expense or other points that do not bear close examination. > One of the main reasons my newspapers has avoided > buying a high-end digital camera (or even the mid-grade > Nikon D1) is because of this. The D1 is pretty reasonably priced, however. It might be a wise investment. > Right now we have several consumer (still $1,000+) > digital cameras for reporters to use for mugshots and > other images where quality is not that important. Even > so, it is easy to see that the cameras break more easily > than the Canon Rebels they replaced ... Consumer digital cameras are low-end equipment, lower even than Canon Rebels. They break more easily because they are cheaply made, not because they are digital cameras. > ... and the expensive digital memory cards get corrupted much too easily. I've never encountered any corruption of a digital memory card. Of course, I read the manual. -- Anthony