Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/07/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 10:47:06 -0400, B. D. Colen <bdcolen@earthlink.net> wrote: > 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. The 'digital' comes from the fact that the output of the electronic sensor is stored as a binary integer, a series of '0s' and '1s'. You could also store the signal as analog, where it would be a real number. Think older video recorders. But I guess I'm taking us further down that Yellow LUGroad with extraneous bovine scatology. Maybe I just have too much time on my hands. > > 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. You can also print digital to silver based film and paper. I don't know how widespread this is. And, the technique of printing a photo from an analog electronic signal goes well back into the last century. The wire services used to do this all the time. > > 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. Well, we do have to be throughly "modern" now, don't we? > > JustMHO.... :-) > > B. D. > -- ================================================ Ken Firestone, W3CAT Kerry-Courage under fire. kenf01@gmail.com Bush-Driving under the influence. kenf@speakeasy.net ================================================