[meteorite-list] Re: Digital Photography

From: Martin Horejsi <martinh_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:02:28 2004
Message-ID: <B8B50A3B.23CF%martinh_at_isu.edu>

Hello Robert and all,

Good point about the max shutter-open duration. While I have not
experimented with it yet, my Coolpix 5000 does have a max of about 5
minutes. Still too short for many applications, but plenty for others.

Speaking of what the future holds for film, I actually wish we could go to
the past instead. To the days when Ansel Adams and his buddies had the
super-thick emulsion films that gave such amazing tonal ranges.

Oh, well. Ansel was never able to shoot 40 frame bursts at 1/4000 of a
second either.

Cheers,

Martin


On 3/13/02 1:33 PM, "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON_at_saic.com> wrote:

> Hi Martin and List,
>
> There is another issue in the debate between commercial digital
> and film cameras. There is a maximum exposure duration for
> most commercial digital cameras (usually less than 30 seconds),
> making them completely unsuitable for astrophotography. Yes,
> you can buy CCD arrays specifically for astrophotography work,
> but if you want to record wide field-of-view images (e.g.
> during a meteor shower), an SLR film camera is really the
> only way to go.
>
> And while digital camera resolution is steadily improving and
> approaching that of today's film, photographic emulsion technology
> is ALSO rapidly improving and thus will continue to be preferred
> by most professional photographers for the foreseable future.
> And even if/when the day comes that CCD resolution matches that
> of the best film, there will still be purists that prefer analog
> over digital (just as there are audiophiles today that prefer
> vinyl records to CD's).
>
> On a side note, I wonder how expensive digital cameras would
> be today if it weren't for the existence of eBay? Think price,
> supply and demand... --Rob
Received on Wed 13 Mar 2002 03:52:59 PM PST