[ale] Re: [Off List -- ale ] OT: camcorder/camera combos

[aaron]

Figured it was polite to move this off list...

On Friday 13 December 2002 10:19, Dow Hurst wrote:
> I really appreciate the nice explanation!  So a big thanks on that!

Glad it helped.

> I can see for convenience a digital camera of reasonable quality is fun
> and fine for family vacations and knockabout photography.  However, the
> reality seems to me to be that regular 35mm film and a high quality
> camera/lense would yield far higher quality output.  The film could
> then be scanned at very high resolution for better digital prints,
> right?  Is my thought process correct?

All of that is still pretty much my opinion of the best process. Even 
when digital cameras start to match film in physical resolution, they 
will still have a long way to go to also match the color depth and 
dynamic range.
 
>  Say that you wanted to take a
> picture of a landscape or object and blow it up into a poster. 
> Wouldn't the process I just described yield a better picture than an
> affordable medium quality digital camera?

Absolutely. You may start to get results similar to film with very high 
end, very high resolution professional digital cams, but at the consumer 
levels 35mm wins hands down.

> Or would just totally
> sticking to the chemical world of regular film and standard techniques
> for making large posters be the best?

The step from film to "poster" is really the cost question. If it's a One 
Off print where you might afford the hefty price of a large scale photo, 
then I believe that would yield the best quality. Then there are printing 
services have color "plotters" that can print fairly high res color onto 
large format sheets (assuming poster means something like 2 ft x 4 ft 
scale); bring them an 8x10 photo print source and they would be able to 
do a high res scan and print. 

On the cheap solutions end, if you have a computer with a fair amount of 
mem and color inkjet that does reasonable quality, you could scan a 5x7 
or 8x10 photo print in fairly high resolution and then print it out in 
sections; there are several software solutions for "poster printing" a 
single image across several pages.

> I've been thinking about getting a digital camera but haven't due to
> wanting something with nicer lenses than I can afford.  I remember from
> a previous posting that any digital camera that uses a standard memory
> card that can be put in one of those USB reader devices is pretty
> seamless under Linux since those reader devices look like a hard drive
> to the kernel.  So the real question is whether a camera supports a
> media that a reader device can use, and what camera fits your needs in
> features and quality.

The advantages and trade offs of electronic v. chemical are the same in 
the still arena as they are for motion film and video: electronic gives 
you some convenience, instant access and feedback, chemical gives you 
superior quality (for years now motion picture production has used "video 
assist" to employ the best of both worlds). Most all the digital cam 
technology can work with Linux, so the decision is more importantly a 
matter of your most likely applications. If you are looking to do a lot 
of snapshots and family photos and share them electronically, then 
digital is fine. If you are looking to learn photography or produce art 
work or a lot of large format pieces, then Film is pretty clearly the 
better choice. 

The only caveate I can offer if the decision leans toward a digital 
camera is to check on the issues of Battery Life, both in terms of charge 
and replacement. My understanding is that this aspect of digital can 
undermine a lot the convenience.

peace
aaron

> aaron wrote:
> >I think Eric's "Hi8 is analog" point was intended to help clarify the
> >definitions and was simply pointing out that Standard8, Hi8 and
> > Digital8 are 3 different, independent signal and recording standards.
> > Some confusion arises in that products like the Sony Digital8
> > camcorders blur the distinctions by supporting some functionality for
> > all 3 standards of 8mm video tape.
> >
> >He was certainly correct in stating that the Hi8 format is entirely
> >analog. The fact that Digital8 is recorded on the same kind of metal
> >oxide tape cassettes as Hi8 or that a camcorder can play back or
> > convert between both standards is irrelevant to that.
> >
> >On a couple other points in the thread...
> >
> >I liked the CCD explanations, and they prompted a trip to:
> >  http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera.htm
> >...which also had some general answers to the original question:
> >  http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera38.htm
> >
> >Turns out the CCD descriptions were partly correct, but capacitive
> > wells are just part of the picture (pun intended) with these solid
> > state analog devices. The actual light sensitivity is provided by
> > semi-conductor diodes and are fairly similar to photovoltaic cells.
> >
> >Mostly the site confirmed what I knew already: that the resolution
> > issues of video and dedicated digital still cameras touch on a lot of
> > factors. I would be surprised to find many consumer Video cameras
> > (for either digital or analog recording formats) that employed a
> > capture chain producing more than 800x600 pixels, and I expect cost
> > factors steer most to 640x480 because that resolution is most
> > consistent with common standards for video signals and lossy digital
> > encoding schemes.  [For those that may not know, the standard NTSC TV
> > signal has a maximum, physical vertical resolution of 482 pixels. The
> > Euro PAL TV standard is 100 pixels better on usable vertical
> > resolution, but the standard has a "resolution" trade off of 5 fewer
> > frames per second.]  As a rule, the "still photo" features of
> > consumer Video cameras will be adequate for small format prints and
> > computer uses, but will not provide the photographically oriented
> > resolution that can be found in dedicated digital still cameras.  As
> > near as I can determine, a 640x480 resolution is roughly equivalent
> > to a 1.6 "megapixel" rating on a still camera... but my searches for
> > exact numbers only confirmed that the marketroid "megapixel"
> > anti-standard value states the number of photo-sites on the CCD of a
> > device, while the true physical pixel resolution, color depth and
> > dynamic range of a device may only be loosely related to that number.
> >
> >As with just about everything, as quality goes up so does the price.
> >Industrial / Professional grade video cameras of higher cost and
> > quality will employ a beam splitter to 3 CCD's of greater physical
> > area and higher pixel counts, one CCD each for the RGB channels. As
> > Eric also correctly noted, the optics make a HUGE difference, and the
> > better video cameras employ true focus tracking 13 element zoom
> > lenses made with dichroic glass. All these factors greatly improve
> > the effective (interpolated) resolution, light sensitivity and color
> > balance control of the camera's capture chain.  The last point of
> > quality improvement with more professional digital cameras is the use
> > of higher bandwidth recording formats with lower compression ratios
> > (less than 5 to 1) that don't discard most of the captured
> > information before it even hits the recording medium.
> >
> >Of course, the biggest marketroid myth is that "Digital" is somehow,
> >magically, always better quality, and in a whole lot of cases it
> > simply is not. Recording signals in digital form requires several
> > times the bandwidth of recording the same signals in analog, and
> > there are a whole lot of compromises being made to cram that digital
> > bandwidth onto increasing tiny formats. There are certainly a number
> > of advantages to be found with digital signal recording and
> > processing, but these still come at some cost.
> >
> >---
> >Sorry for the overkill, but these are areas I know a fair amount
> > about.
> >
> >peace
> >aaron
> >
> >On Thursday 12 December 2002 09:02, Geoffrey wrote:
> >>Okay, so we're picking nits off of nits here.  I'm a stickler for
> >>accuracy though so I'll throw out what the manual says and be done
> >> with it:
> >>
> >>With your digital camcorder, you can use Hi8/Digital8 video cassetes.
> >>Your camcorder records and plays back pictures in the Digital8
> >> system. Also, you camcorder plays back tapes recorded in the
> >> Hi8/standard 8 (analog) system.  You, however cannot use the
> >> functions in "Advanced Playback Operations" on page 52 to 58 for
> >> playback in the Hi8/standard 8 system.  To enable smooth transition,
> >> we recommend that you do not mix pictures recorded in the
> >> Hi8/standard 8 with the Digital8 system on a tape.
> >>
> >>Eric Webb wrote:
> >>>On Thursday 12 December 2002 02:15 am, Geoffrey wrote:
> >>>>>Are you on crack?  Hi8 is purely analog.  miniDV is purely
> >>>>> digital.
> >>>>
> >>>>Ah, not exactly true.  My camera Sony trv730 is a digital camera
> >>>> but will accept either hi8 or standard 8 tapes.  With standard 8
> >>>> tapes, you get analog recording.
> >>>
> >>>There's a whole lotta crack smokin' tonight.
> >>>
> >>>I have a TRV330 and 530 myself.  Read your manual again.  While
> >>> these cameras may use either tape medium, the recording is in
> >>> Digital8 format.  All of these cameras (AFAIK) only PLAY the
> >>> standard 8mm and Hi8 analog formats -- they do not record in those
> >>> formats.
> >>>
> >>>(Manual says that if you record on standard 8mm, you must play back
> >>>in same machine or you will get mosaic artifacting -- the fact that
> >>>it's a mosaic pattern alone tells you it's gonna record in digital
> >>>mode!  The cheaper standard 8mm tape doesn't have the resolution
> >>> that Digital8 requires.)
> >>>
> >>>http://www.epinions.com/content_27278413444
> >>>
> >>>And even if it did, the fact that your camera would record analog on
> >>>a standard 8 tape doesn't disprove my original statement.  It only
> >>>would mean that your camera supports multiple formats.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>-E.
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>Ale mailing list
> >>>Ale at ale.org
> >>>http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Ale mailing list
> >Ale at ale.org
> >http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale