[Leica] Analog[ue] v. Digital

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

I'm glad it was a humble opinion because it's also wrong, especially
with regard to the camera sensor description. If the camera sensor
kept the incoming photon energy and then sent out an electrical signal
proportional (in some way) to that energy it would be an analog
system. Military night-vision goggles used to work this way, probably
still do.

But digital cameras take the charge collected in the sensor and
convert the amount of energy held in each cell into a digital
measurement of the signal - crossing the line from the analog to the
digital domain. At that point the image can be copied exactly without
changing it's nature - it's been changed once by the conversion
process from analog to digital. After that: it's all 1's and 0's.

The signal that goes to the inkjet printer is, of course a digital
representation of the image that entered the software required to
transform the RGB -> CMYK and then to whatever the printer needs in
order to run its tiny droplets of ink out the nozzles.

That's all in the digital domain. There is some analog operation going
on somewhere in the printer, I'm thinking, but I don't know where or
even have an inkling of how it works.

Film isn't digital, of course.

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 10:52:51 -0400, buzz.hausner@verizon.net
<buzz.hausner@verizon.net> wrote:
> Humble, B.D.?  HUMBLE!?!? <<INSERT SMILEY HERE>>  Anyway, the words 
> "analog[ue]" and "digital" are still being used wrong and dtand to be 
> corrected.
> 
> Buzz
> >
> > From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
> > Date: 2004/07/14 Wed AM 10:47:06 EDT
> > To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
> > Subject: RE: [Leica] Analog v. Digital
> >
> > Ah, here we go, wandering off down the Yellow LUGroad.
> >
> > Digital smidgital - I would submit that what we're really talking about
> > is electronic image capture v. film image capture: using the first
> > process the image - light - passes through the lens, strikes an
> > electronic sensor, and is converted to electrical impulses and stored
> > electronically; using the second, the image, light, passes through the
> > lens and strikes and exposes a piece of film, creating what will become
> > a negative of the image - or a positive in the case of a slide, and is
> > "stored" on the film itself.
> >
> > And "digital" printing is, of course, either inkjet printing, dye
> > sublimation, or some other specific form of printing that converts the
> > electronic impulses captured by the camera to colors on paper.
> >
> > But someone, at some point, decided that "electronic" was pass? and
> > oh-so-50s, and that "digital" was a more marketable term, and, besides,
> > it was one people could come to understand in terms of watches and
> > clocks - digital is modern and up-to-date, analogue is old-fashioned and
> > stodgy.
> >
> > JustMHO.... :-)

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