Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Digital destruction of traditional camera makers  (Read 11431 times)

bill t.

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3011
    • http://www.unit16.net
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #20 on: May 31, 2009, 02:48:31 pm »

Let's see...we have the pre-coated dry glass plate destruction of wet plates, the flexible sheet film destruction of glass plates, the roll-film destruction of sheet film, etc etc.  Forgot about Daguerreotypes and many others.

In photography as everywhere destruction is the norm, only thing different today is the rate of change.  What will destroy digital...don't know but I bet it won't take long and it will create a minor but impassioned Luddite-esque digital forum here.  Maybe we'll be able to record and transmit the very images we perceive in our visual cortex, including all sensations and emotions connected with the instant of viewing.  In which case you are warned to turn off the lumbar area sensation channel before looking at my mental images.
Logged

dalethorn

  • Guest
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #21 on: May 31, 2009, 05:20:40 pm »

Quote from: bill t.
Let's see...we have the pre-coated dry glass plate destruction of wet plates, the flexible sheet film destruction of glass plates, the roll-film destruction of sheet film, etc etc.  Forgot about Daguerreotypes and many others.
In photography as everywhere destruction is the norm, only thing different today is the rate of change.  What will destroy digital...don't know but I bet it won't take long and it will create a minor but impassioned Luddite-esque digital forum here.  Maybe we'll be able to record and transmit the very images we perceive in our visual cortex, including all sensations and emotions connected with the instant of viewing.  In which case you are warned to turn off the lumbar area sensation channel before looking at my mental images.

It's all digital from here on, forever. Scientists have already played with non-Hertzian signals for some time - how much of that has been implemented is probably top secret. But whatever methods are used for communication and temporary editing (of photos for example), the storage is still digital, because that kind of precision is required. To get a glimpse of some of the outer limits of precision and the need for it, there's an article within the last couple of years in Harper's magazine, about time, in the sense of calendars and clocks. As good as our human brains can be, and there are some fantastic examples of how good (world class chess masters playing 50 games blindfolded in their head simultaneously, and winning most for example), the big downsides compared to computers are the vagaries of storage integrity and lack of validations. Think of eyewitnesses and courtrooms. If we can just visualize the future as the data being more and more detached from physical devices, as we approach the point where we can merely think and something happens, we can either be frightened by the god-like powers that would seem to represent (Star Trek: Where No Man Has Gone Before), or we can accept that communication and other data-related things will take place within a very different paradigm than the one we live in now.
Logged

David Sutton

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1345
    • David Sutton Photography
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #22 on: May 31, 2009, 06:58:05 pm »

Quote from: dalethorn
Your comments and ignorance of what Stereophile did says it all. We learned both how and why the studios manipulated sound to improve playback on cheap equipment, which you apparently missed (the why part anyway). I expect most photo enthusiasts understand the equivalent in photo gear and processing, but perhaps you missed that too.
Uh, what a waste of a life. Good sound gear is like the top end DSLRs: it's are all going to do the job. What is probably more important is the front end : speakers and lenses. In the end you have to stop looking at the figures and trust your own eyes and ears and feelings. Reading endlessly and “pixel peeping” is missing the point: these things are made for our enjoyment. Listening to music and getting out in the open air and photographing. Never mind, I hope you like the anorak for Christmas.
Logged

dalethorn

  • Guest
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #23 on: May 31, 2009, 07:13:55 pm »

Quote from: Taquin
Uh, what a waste of a life. Good sound gear is like the top end DSLRs: it's are all going to do the job. What is probably more important is the front end : speakers and lenses. In the end you have to stop looking at the figures and trust your own eyes and ears and feelings. Reading endlessly and “pixel peeping” is missing the point: these things are made for our enjoyment. Listening to music and getting out in the open air and photographing. Never mind, I hope you like the anorak for Christmas.

Actually that's exactly what Stereophile said all those years - learn to use your ears instead of trusting test reports.  I think you're on the right track, but maybe on the wrong train.
Logged

John Camp

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2171
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #24 on: May 31, 2009, 07:20:12 pm »

Quote from: dalethorn
Actually that's exactly what Stereophile said all those years - learn to use your ears instead of trusting test reports.  I think you're on the right track, but maybe on the wrong train.

I don't want to get too deeply involved when I'm not an enthusiast, but I know a bunch of sound engineers on the west coast (where I'm involved with the construction of a sound stage) and they mostly ridicule Stereophile -- it's sorta the Pop Photo of the recorded music set.
Logged

dalethorn

  • Guest
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #25 on: May 31, 2009, 07:43:14 pm »

Quote from: John Camp
I don't want to get too deeply involved when I'm not an enthusiast, but I know a bunch of sound engineers on the west coast (where I'm involved with the construction of a sound stage) and they mostly ridicule Stereophile -- it's sorta the Pop Photo of the recorded music set.

Big difference between J. Gordon Holt's Stereophile of the 1970's, and Atkinson's Stereophile of more recent years.  The more recent versions are still somewhat useful, and at least entertaining, when you look at things like $75,000 turntables.
Logged

Wally

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 64
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #26 on: June 01, 2009, 11:44:21 am »

Quote from: BernardLanguillier
but I guess that this mostly happened for the same reason we are all seeing global warming coming but are not doing much about it... poor mgt (of priorities) and inability to trust statistics and their projections.


My town sits in a valley that 12,000 years or so ago was burried under a glacier that was over a mile think. Global warming started a very long time ago to melt all that ice. Damn those cavemen for not doing anything about it.
Logged

Gordon Buck

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 458
    • LightDescription
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #27 on: June 01, 2009, 04:02:17 pm »

Is traditional film and chemical based photography really considered to be "analog" ?  I would have thought that the discrete nature of the light sensitive grains would rule out the use of 'analog'.  Or did analog photography come about as the descriptor for film and chemical only after 'digital photography' became popular?  That is, in the same sense of 'analog computer' vs 'digital computer'?

Logged
Gordon
 [url=http://lightdescription.blog

Rob C

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24074
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #28 on: June 01, 2009, 05:13:00 pm »

Quote from: gordonsbuck
Is traditional film and chemical based photography really considered to be "analog" ?  I would have thought that the discrete nature of the light sensitive grains would rule out the use of 'analog'.  Or did analog photography come about as the descriptor for film and chemical only after 'digital photography' became popular?  That is, in the same sense of 'analog computer' vs 'digital computer'?



I think that´s exactly what happened; at least, I never heard of it as analogue until well after the introduction of digital!

On another note - no pun intended - klrzfm.com which I wrote about some long while ago has now stopped streaming sound due to copyright issues. What a drag, and how counter-productive. Of course I champion copyright, but in the case of such a specialist sound as came form there, swamp pop rock and cajun, it introduced the music to a worldwide audience which it has now closed the door upon. That will increase royalty revenues? Who will ever hear of those local bands again...

Rob C

David Sutton

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1345
    • David Sutton Photography
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #29 on: June 02, 2009, 03:24:53 am »

Quote from: gordonsbuck
Is traditional film and chemical based photography really considered to be "analog" ?  I would have thought that the discrete nature of the light sensitive grains would rule out the use of 'analog'.  Or did analog photography come about as the descriptor for film and chemical only after 'digital photography' became popular?  That is, in the same sense of 'analog computer' vs 'digital computer'?
Similarly I'd never heard of the "wet" darkroom until recently.
Mind you, apparently people play the "acoustic piano" now. If you are a keyboard player you need to find a power point first.
David
Logged

lenelg

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 22
Digital destruction of traditional camera makers
« Reply #30 on: June 02, 2009, 06:06:46 am »

Quote from: gordonsbuck
.. Or did analog photography come about as the descriptor for film and chemical only after 'digital photography' became popular?  That is, in the same sense of 'analog computer' vs 'digital computer'?

It did, but the metaphor was borrowed from analog vs digital sound recording, not analog computers, which very few are tinkering with these days..
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up