Re: [Leica] Digital progress

["Dan Post" <dpost@triad.rr.com>]

Johnny-
I feel that as the size of image files increase, that there will be a
concomitant increase in the ability to compact and squeeze the files into
smaller and smaller packages.
I came to use computers in the halcyon days of micros, when 4MHZ was really
fast, and a 5 megabyte hard drive was about $750. Someone came up with the
idea of .arc files, the .zip files, and now, someone was telling me about a
standard that uses fractal technology to compress files with little or no
loss of information, and that the compression ratios- well they seem like
something from 'Fantasyland'.
I think that the same types of technological inroads that have been made to
film and paper in the last 50 years will be eclipsed by the inroads of
digital within the forseeable future.. Someone said our knowledge base, as a
whole, is expanding exponentially. Even if this is an exaggeration, it still
seems that things are moving at a rapid pace! I quite distinctly remember in
1979, when our dispatch center was getting a 'state-of-the-art' computer
system, that we were amazed at how small it had gotten! No longer was it a
huge cabinet, but a box about 2 feet wide, a foot high, and 18 inches deep-
the HUGE disk drives were 50 megabytes, and the size of a clothes washer- we
were excstatic! we were amazed, and proposed that you would see computers
the size of briefcases in ten years! Three years later, I got a Kaypro
2000 - one of the first 'laptops', and since then I have been amazed
everyday at what new thing is being introduced! By the end of those ten
years, they effectively had pocket sized computers. The first 'PC' I got in
1983 that had a whopping 64K of memory, and TWO floppie drives, and which
cost me $1995, has been supplanted now with 'Supermarket' computers running
at 733MHz, with 256MRG of RAM and have only one floppy, but 20Gig hard
drives, and they are less than a grand!!
I personally don't make prognostications about what digital will do- IF
permanence of images is solved, I worry about the accumulation over time! If
the fall leaves didn't self destruct, we'd be neck deep in them in a very
short time- and even though paper and papyrus can last thougands of years,
they eventually decompose- else we'd be up to our collective butts in
scrolls by now!
I fear that in the future- someone will come up with an indestructible
photoprocess, and we will be covered over with a few generations of
'happy-snaps'!
Well, the mailman just brought me a package containing my 'new' Leica IIIb,
so I am gonna go play for a while!
Dan
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Johnny Deadman" <john@pinkheadedbug.com>
To: "LUG" <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 10:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital progress


> on 30/10/00 8:50 am, Austin Franklin at austin@darkroom.com wrote:
>
> >> What's the MB value for 100 film?  I think you have the answer and will
> >> appreciate if you can share it with the rest of us.
> >
> > It depends on the film type, exposure, development and what you deem as
> > equivalent.  My experience shows 8000DPI will get you to 'resolving'
grain.
> > That would end up with 8,000 x 12,000 x 3, or 2.88M bytes for 8
bit/pixel
> > color, and 96M bytes for 8 bit grayscale.
>
> You mean 288 Mb I think? Anyway, our reztimate is the same for 100 film.
>
> Most filmscanners can pull out 12 bits of data, so unless you chuck 4 bits
> away which seems to defeat the purpose of the exercise, you have to think
in
> terms of 16 bits, which is why my numbers were twice yours.
>
> When you consider 4x5 film the numbers get really scary. Using 16 bits and
> your figures above you arrive at file sizes of 2.5 Gb and 7.7Gb for
> monochrome and BW respectively. I guess these numbers are kind of
> meaningless in the real world, in the sense that to take advantage of the
> resolution you would have to output five-foot long four-foot wide prints
at
> 600 dpi. Nevertheless there *are* printers out there that can do this...
> such a print would be pretty radical, right?
>
> One thing such an amazing print would let you do would be to comfortably
> view a wideangle shot from the true centre of perspective, which is always
> cool. Let's say you used a 90mm lens and made a five-foot wide print...
the
> magnification is 12x, so you'd stand just over a metre away looking at a
> print which had the quality of a 16x12 from 35mm.
>
> Hmmmm... now I'm tempted... that leafscan of yours, Austin.... what did
you
> say its dpi was???
>
>
> --
> Johnny Deadman
>
> http://www.pinkheadedbug.com
>
>
>