Yep, its better to have a decent wage (Hell - a HIGH Wage by local conditions) than to starve.
As has been pointed out by myself and others, in nearly all cases the only reason that they need to work for Nike's wages in the first place is history: local economies and subsistence methods have already been destroyed by western corporations who now happily offer these individuals employment at what we would consider horrendous wages under what we would consider horrendous conditions.
Were it not for these benevolent corporations, the individuals in these circumstances wouldn't need to choose between starvation and slave labor. But now that traditional subsistence methods and functioning local economies have been destroyed -- now that western corporations have created such dire circumstances that many people have few alternatives, human dignity demands that they be paid a fair wage and that children be excluded from the labor pool.
For anyone about to buy into what this guy is saying, remember: this is the man who, one post level up, was saying that sweatshops are a good thing for the people, including small children, who work in them.
Such an opinion makes a better argument than I ever could.
And on the sweatshop thing-- the liberals hate sweatshops because they hate the poor.
And conservatives, by comparison, love sweatshops because they love the way forced child labor and slave labor line their pockets in a way that legal labor never could!
If these "sweatshops" are so bad, then why are they preferred by the people who work in them to the alternatives? What, because there are no alternatives?
And why are there no alternatives? Because after hundreds of years of economic colonialism by the west, traditional subsistence structures have bee destroyed and any chance for competition on equal footing precluded!
Of course, liberals think that somehow Nike is responsible for there not being lots of better jobs for them to go to. Because Liberals apparently never took economics.
Right, because everyone agrees that Schumpeter trumps Marx! Oh wait... Economists actually have as many disagreements as researchers in every other field! It's only the conservatives who routinely say things like "ignore the bulk economic research until the liberals who rule the field stop harping on about economic colonialism" or "ignore the bulk of environmental research until the liberals who rule the field stop harping on about global warming" or "ignore the bulk of international policy opinion until the liberals who rule the NGO's stop harping on about the freedom fighters..."
Seems like you conservatives are always being nailed by the "liberals" hiding under every rock, doesn't it...?
And when you mod me down, realize you're trying to shut me up, just like liberals always do...
You have a right to speak nonsense, but not necessarily a right to be agreed with or even heard.
Heh... It was inexpensive and came with the camera -- one of the ways we were able to get her into real gear without doubling what she would have paid for the consumer camera.
But fortunately, since she went with a nice camera and not a consumer camera, she can add to her lens collection as her needs increase...
The pro cameras have significantly better dynamic range than the consumer cameras. There is, however, a great deal of variation among pro cameras as well with the Fuji S1/S2 apparently turning in the best results (I shoot with Canon glass, so I haven't used the Fuji cams). This site's pro -level camera reviews often quantify each camera's dynamic range compared to others.
In my opinion, the real key is the storage format. Consumer cameras generally store in 24-bit (8 per channel) compressed (i.e. JPEG) format and you lose a great deal of information that way -- the limitation is the storage format itself (JPEG), which isn't capable of holding all of the color and light information the camera captures -- the camera simply throws it away before storing the image. Of course in some low-end consumer cameras, the sensor is that poor to begin with.
With pro cameras you generally store the important shots in a raw format (12-bit per channel, 36-bit total) that discards nothing; you can then manipulate this in Photoshop as a 48-bit uncompressed image in a wide colorspace and get dynamic range and color reproduction very similar to what you can get with good quality film. If you happen to be on the road with your pro digital and need your images to stay as small as possible, many higher-end cameras will also allow you to shoot in JPEG format but using an enhanced colorspace (i.e. Adobe RGB rather than sRGB) to try to preserve this additional information while still gaining the benefits of compression. However, to use such JPEG images you must have software which supports these enhanced colorspaces (i.e. Photoshop does, GIMP does not).
As myself and other posters have pointed out in this thread, there are medium format digitals with file sizes up to 380MB and resolution in excess of 10kx10k that are in regular use in advertising.
Prices are high, but they do exist, and prices will only come down in the future.
Me thinks these people are playing with their friend's Kodak DC3400 or something.
I think this is exactly the problem!
I had a friend recently who was prepared to spend $$$$ at retail for a Sony consumer camera that she thought was a good idea because it stored images on a floppy (!!!!). Of course, I checked the specs and this camera was only 1280x960 and shot at very high JPEG compression.
I took her to a local interest group and we asked around and got her hooked up with an EOS-D30 and a Canon 28-80mm lens. Yes, it was used, a little beaten up, heavier and more expensive -- about 60% more in fact -- but there is no comparison in the camera's output! The difference between the two cameras is ridiculous. I can't imagine spending something like US$800 in a department store on a "floppycam" that takes horrible pictures! Uggggh!
Another friend of mine in Oregon, a kind of hobbyist, was replacing his film gear recently. He was very happy when I told him to visit a camera store instead of the computer store (?!!?) he had been camera shopping at. He was able to buy an Olympus E-10 digital with a glass SLR viewfinder and full manual for about the same price as the Olympus point-and-shoot digitals he had been looking at! It's a shame that non-camera stores are now the major sellers of cameras, even to hobbyists!
Last consumer digicam story: my uncle recently sent me a digital camera that he thought was funny... he got it for free when he bought a dinette set! I have no idea how the two items are connected... But I can see how they can give it away for free -- it only shoots 320x200 and has 1MB memory! Anybody who is introduced to "the wonders of digital" this way will be sadly biased for a long time to come.:-(
Heh... Maybe you are right (I don't think so, but maybe you will).
Before you judge for sure... Rent an EOS-D60, an EOS-1D or (if you're a Nikon guy) an S2 or a D100 from a local supplier. Take ten shots digital and take the same ten shots with your film rig.
Have slides made from both, then pull out the loupe and inspect them.
You might be surprised! I used to think as you do... if I needed slides for a job or a submission, I'd pull out the film gear. Then I had my first batch of digital slides made. Heh... I sold most of my film gear (all except one backup camera) the next day.
Um, why not just have slides of your digitals made up for you? A good photo lab can do anything with digital that they can do with film, and for similar price points.
I personally prefer digital storage because I've lost my fair share of slides over the years to things like floods:-( which would likely not have affected optical storage as much, but if you want slides or lab prints, have them made!
If you think you are getting ~3000dpi out of any film, then you need to look again. Get your drum scanner moving and then load up your 3000dpi image and zoom in to 100% to compare it to a digital image from a recent back.
The image detail in the digital capture has cleaner, sharper edges, is better defined and less "muddy" and has much better contrast than the film scan. If you zoom in to 100% on a 3000dpi scan, what you will see is... grain. Something which is blessedly absent in digital shots! It will be hard to make out any detail at all at that level of magnification, even with the best film.
With regard to absolute resolution, this back will give large format (even for a moment assuming an analog resolvable 24,000x30,000) a run for its money.
See my earlier post about 1/16,000 shutter speed on an EOS-1D. It's great for sport shooting! I challenge you generate an "artifact" from movement at 1/2000, much less eight times that speed. Yes, we are talking digital.
The human eye? The human eye sees the print when it is finished, after the camera has captured it at such speeds. I challenge you to recognize anything with your "human eye" even if it is shown to you for a whopping 1/500 of a second!
Or are you talking about viewfinders? Pro digitals use glass, through-the-lens SLR viewfinders, just like film cameras. And consumer digital cameras (i.e. Olympus E line) are starting to use glass through-the-lens viewfinders, too.
If you're merely talking about the EVF (i.e. LCD) viewfinders in some consumer cameras, then you have a point -- these are difficult to use when framing a shot. But it has little bearing on the quality of the digital sensor itself or the quality of the image, and as I mentioned, no serious amateur or pro would buy a camera that uses an EVF anyway! Certainly not all digitals are saddled with this limitation, nor is it an inherent limitation of a digital camera.
People should become educated before they post, "Bub."
I posted simply to pre-empt the inevitable stream of "Digital sux, its for chumps and vain people, film rulez!" posts that seem to always occur when Slashdot posts a story about digital shooting.
You're right, an EOS-1D is still pretty pricey... But you should be happy about its success. As Canon (for example) has continued to release new models, the prices of the low-end pro cameras like the EOS-D30 (nearly on par with 35mm pro film quality, much better than any 35mm consumer film quality) have dropped like a rock on the used market, to similar price points of high-end consumer digitals.
If the innovation continues at this pace and Canon and Nikon continue to flood the market with better and better cameras, you will soon be able to buy a better-than-35mm pro digital system for approximately the same price as a 35mm film system. Of course, the only problem is that you will still be drooling over the high-end models, which will continue to improve...
Film still rules for taking pictures in low-light. Digital cameras just can't handle low-light situations, by their very nature.
Plus, the speed of film is better. Digital cameras aren't very good for action photography.
So, uh, yeah. Digital is great for posed shots in good lighting. So I guess it is the best. Whatever.
Remember, I said "please be sure you have used the gear".
The ISO 1600 and 3200 shots from the pro digitals are easily less grainy and have better dynamic range than their film counterparts. Try it. And my EOS-1D can do 1/16,000 shutter speed with zero lag. Is that fast enough for you?
Before all of the replies saying that digital is for geeks and film will forever rule, please be sure that you have used current and professional quality digital gear, including 35mm gear made by Canon or Nikon with standard lens mounts, digital medium or digital large format backs (depending on the type of vs. film comparison you plan to make).
Consumer digital cameras are one thing... X3 is another (still hotly debated)... but most photo editors and labs out there right out agree that a Canon EOS-1D, EOS-D60, a Fuji S2 or a Nikon D1X or D100 is simply takes better pictures in nearly every regard (including resolution) than a 35mm film camera, with any brand or grade of film. With the latest range of full-frame cameras such as Canon's EOS-1Ds (11 megapixel, I believe) and Kodak's 14 megapixel offering, the distance between digital and film (with digital on top) will only increase.
And before you comment on other film sizes, realize also that many of the largest advertising companies shooting commercial spreads abandoned film long ago and are shooting with digital medium format or large format backs. Yes, many of the fashion or product spreads you see in your favorite checkout stand magazine are in fact digital these days.
Film is well on its way to becoming a playing for history hobbyists and an art tool for retro artists, and no amount of "ludditing" will change this.
Entirely spot on. I myself am an atheist. However, I don't mind carrying on a conversation with a devout person whose interpretation of Genesis is not necessarily literal and who makes room in his life (and conception of God) for Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Anthropology et. al.
On the other hand, there is no talking to the rather stupid rabid creationists and Biblical literalists out there who ironically continue to use computers, the Internet, television and radio to spread the message that all modern science, and indeed the scientific method itself, is little more than a lie purveyed by servants of "darkness."
I always wonder where such people have received their education. Somewhere in the rural midwest of the US, no doubt, where exist those fabled schools which have banned instruction about natural selection, yet which at the same time dedicate hours to evangelical Bible study...
It is not selfish, it is CAPITALISM. Unions are socialist.
And socialism proposes to feed everyone because everyone is human after all, while capitalism says that only a priveleged few should eat.
Read any Marx lately?;-)
Yes. I am a socialist. It is not a bad word. And yes, I will sacrifice one dollar or many to feed you, if you are in need. I will not tell you that if you're starving, it's because you're a lazy bum who should get a job.
So you're saying that you believe God didn't create the universe, and instead created a set of rules that caused it to be created? Isn't that the same as creating it, albeit indirectly? You're not making any sense, sir.
You've missed the point entirely.
The poster is not saying that God did not create the universe. He is saying that "Perhaps God did create the universe, and Physics is how he chose to do it!"
There remain a large number of rabid creationists who say "The Physicists are all blasphemous buffoons! GOD created the universe, not some pile of gravity and chemicals and suns!"
The poster is trying to say that given the complexity of a universe that many people assert that God has created, it would not be uncharacteristic of such a God if he were to create the universe not by waving a magic God-Wand, but rather by creating a set of simple, elegant physical laws (i.e. Physics) by which his universe, the planets, and life could arise. This would not, as the rabid creationists seem to think, defile God in any way; rather, it supposes that God is of such awesome intelligence that he foresaw a way to create laws of the universe which would not only lead to the creation of life, but whose selfsame boundaries would also govern such life through the end of time.
It is not an argument against God; it is an argument that God has better taste than to do showy wave-of-the-hand parlor tricks when creating life, the universe, and everything.
If there is a view of "scientific creationism" that I can accept, this is it.
I'm a union member. My union provides me with affordable health care and travel insurance when I'm traveling, legal representation when I get screwed (I'm a freelance writer/journalist; sometimes companies or publications use what I write, then don't pay up at all), and gives me a voice in government (because -- and lets be honest -- how often to national governments bother to hear the voice of a single citizen?)
All of these things might conceivably raise costs for the people that buy my work. But what you're arguing is that I should have no health care or insurance, that I should be easily screwable and that I should have no voice in government, all so the products you buy might be a little cheaper. This is a very selfish attitude on your part and does not tend to lead to quality products for your consumpution.
I know nothing about you, but who knows, you might be able to afford a little price increase for quality and to protect the humanity of those who serve you if you also had a union going to bat to keep your wages fair for what you do.
We can all either be economic slaves or valued workers together. I choose the latter; I will continue to pay my union dues and vote in my union elections!
Exactly. So go and start your own company rather than whining about the one to which you're enslaved! Capitalism is not about giving your life so some corporate schmoe can get his quarterly bonus - it's about incorporating yourself and being that schmoe.
Hmm, it seems to me like your argument to the original poster is that everyone should find a way to get into management.
Who, exactly, is going to do the actual work?
In reality, every company must have workers. Every worker is utterly replaceable with a cheaper worker, wherever he/she is to be found. Workers are therefore in competition to lower their standards of living in order to remain employed.
Clearly, everyone cannot be an owner or a manager, ergo, everyone cannot achieve the high standard of living that capitalism seems to promise. That standard is reserved, as the original poster correctly observed, for a priveleged and elite few whose riches are gained at the expense and labor of the underclasses.
Plug USB camera into USB port. Click on "Camera" icon on KDE desktop. File manager window opens showing icons of photos in camera. Click on the one I want to print. Full image is displayed. Click File->Print.
My GOD, that was difficult. I'm sure my mother couldn't do it!
You people who call Linux "inferior" all the time either a) haven't used it or b) have a chip on your shoulder.
I know the command line quite well but I don't think my mom or grandma should be required to learn it so they can see a picture of my dog that I sent them via e-mail.
But I daresay your mom and grandma could both easily figure out how to open up KMail and click on an attachment, or do the same in Evolution, so for such tasks, there really is nothing wrong with Linux desktops, compared to, for example, OS X.
My mother already uses Linux -- although it's Red Hat:P -- she found out about it, installed it, and began to use it all on her own because she heard it was good as a server and she wanted to run an extended-family Web site. My mom isn't technical at all and she figured it out and uses it happily!
So if we're really only worried about whether mom or grandma can open up photos, why all of the bashing of Linux desktops all the time, saying that KDE and GNOME need to be dumbed down and the command line hidden because all three are currently too complicated?
No one's talking about taking away your ability to do things efficiently via the command line. I find myself dropping into Terminal pretty regularly on OS X, because you're right that there are lots of things you can do much more efficiently via the command line than via any GUI.
The point is not merely the command line; the point is the KDE and GNOME and even the traditional X desktop (to a far lesser degree) provide command-line integration of various kinds, which much more "usable" GUIs tend not to do.
There is, BTW, a smaller but still substantial set of things you can do via GUI more efficiently than via command line; e.g., moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories.
You're right on principal, but the example you've chosen is a rotten one. Moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories is *much* more efficient at the command prompt, where patterns can be used to move all or any subset of those files and flow control and test logic can be used to move or categories to multiple deeply-nested destinations intelligently. A simple file manager window could never hope to compete.
A better example would be Photoshop-like or GIMP-like image manipulation (i.e. still acting within a single file).
Just so this post isn't totally devoid of content, there seems to be a contingent of Linux advocates (mostly on usenet although I'm sure there are some here), that believe efficiency > usability
That seems like total bunk to me, just because something is easy to grasp doesn't mean that it's less efficient.. okay so there are certain things that are, but using it as a coverall dismissal at any remotely useable UI seems more like "I HAVEN'T GOT IT SO YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER!" paddying.
I am a longtime Linux user. I do not work in tech. Here is what I think:
efficiency > usability.
But for me, efficiency != economy of thought, but rather, economy of required action. This is why I use Linux. Because no file manager will ever come close to matching the speed with which I can manage my library of personal files (100+GB of photos and word processing documents which are chapters from my books or articles or research) in Linux.
There are a lot of people who will never invest the time necessary to learn to use Linux or UNIX at the shell prompt, or learn to use the integration features in desktops like KDE which really link the desktop to the shell effectively. There is nothing wrong with not learning this stuff; it's definitely harder to learn and involves a larger investment of time than learning how to click around OS X.
HOWEVER, don't begrudge those of us who do use the power of UNIX operating systems. I can type a single line at the shell prompt that will search all of my 100GB of files for the word "wasabi", repace each occurance with the words "hot stuff", send each document with a match to my printer (taking care to output separator pages between each file), then compose a sorted list of these filenames and e-mail the list to all of the people in my 'Sushi' e-mail address book. Again, not four hours of click, click, clicking to get this done -- just 5 seconds or so of typing a short string of commands on a single line.
Granted, this is an odd, overwrought example, but it's still real: such things are easily done with shell commands in Linux. Things like DCOP in KDE and scriptability in Nautilus help to bring the desktop to the shell and vice-versa; with them, you can not only harness the power of the command prompt, but you can provide it with more "usable" GUI-based integration, so that shell processes can provide interaction with and accept input from the keyboard, mouse and display.
To perform task of significant complexity across 100GB and 20k files using a Windows or OS X (with its tendency to "hide" UNIX rather than exploit it) would require significantly more work than it requires in Linux. In fact, there is an entire segment of products -- file organizers and document managers, etc. -- which exist to try to make "housekeeping" tasks and tasks which act on large volumes of data less painful in Windows and Mac OS. These operating systems are really caught up in a "single file" mentality -- the ease of use and functionality is all associated with working on a single file at a time. But in the new millenium, as our digital lives grow, few people have only one or two files to deal with. More and more people live their digital lives like authors and photographers have for some time now: with volumes and volumes of files, data and information to manage. This is where the efficiency of Linux and the Linux desktops improves quality of life considerably. I manage my entire photo library using KDE and my own shell scripts (a system that took about 4 hours to construct). This "system" is more efficient and well-designed for the subjects I shoot and the way I sell than any mass-market application ever could be (not to mention that I didn't have to pay $$$ for the software).
I guess I'm saying that you shouldn't knock efficiency until you've needed it and made use of it. Because some of us have, and sacrificing efficiency to gain "usability" would represent a significant loss of functionality. In fact, I would imagine that there are those of us at Slashdot who would feel comfortable asserting that efficiency is indeed the ultimate form of usability...
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, its better to have a decent wage (Hell - a HIGH Wage by local conditions) than to starve.
As has been pointed out by myself and others, in nearly all cases the only reason that they need to work for Nike's wages in the first place is history: local economies and subsistence methods have already been destroyed by western corporations who now happily offer these individuals employment at what we would consider horrendous wages under what we would consider horrendous conditions.
Were it not for these benevolent corporations, the individuals in these circumstances wouldn't need to choose between starvation and slave labor. But now that traditional subsistence methods and functioning local economies have been destroyed -- now that western corporations have created such dire circumstances that many people have few alternatives, human dignity demands that they be paid a fair wage and that children be excluded from the labor pool.
Period.
For anyone about to buy into what this guy is saying, remember: this is the man who, one post level up, was saying that sweatshops are a good thing for the people, including small children, who work in them.
Such an opinion makes a better argument than I ever could.
And on the sweatshop thing-- the liberals hate sweatshops because they hate the poor.
And conservatives, by comparison, love sweatshops because they love the way forced child labor and slave labor line their pockets in a way that legal labor never could!
If these "sweatshops" are so bad, then why are they preferred by the people who work in them to the alternatives? What, because there are no alternatives?
And why are there no alternatives? Because after hundreds of years of economic colonialism by the west, traditional subsistence structures have bee destroyed and any chance for competition on equal footing precluded!
Of course, liberals think that somehow Nike is responsible for there not being lots of better jobs for them to go to. Because Liberals apparently never took economics.
Right, because everyone agrees that Schumpeter trumps Marx! Oh wait... Economists actually have as many disagreements as researchers in every other field! It's only the conservatives who routinely say things like "ignore the bulk economic research until the liberals who rule the field stop harping on about economic colonialism" or "ignore the bulk of environmental research until the liberals who rule the field stop harping on about global warming" or "ignore the bulk of international policy opinion until the liberals who rule the NGO's stop harping on about the freedom fighters..."
Seems like you conservatives are always being nailed by the "liberals" hiding under every rock, doesn't it...?
And when you mod me down, realize you're trying to shut me up, just like liberals always do...
You have a right to speak nonsense, but not necessarily a right to be agreed with or even heard.
Heh... It was inexpensive and came with the camera -- one of the ways we were able to get her into real gear without doubling what she would have paid for the consumer camera.
But fortunately, since she went with a nice camera and not a consumer camera, she can add to her lens collection as her needs increase...
The pro cameras have significantly better dynamic range than the consumer cameras. There is, however, a great deal of variation among pro cameras as well with the Fuji S1/S2 apparently turning in the best results (I shoot with Canon glass, so I haven't used the Fuji cams). This site's pro -level camera reviews often quantify each camera's dynamic range compared to others.
In my opinion, the real key is the storage format. Consumer cameras generally store in 24-bit (8 per channel) compressed (i.e. JPEG) format and you lose a great deal of information that way -- the limitation is the storage format itself (JPEG), which isn't capable of holding all of the color and light information the camera captures -- the camera simply throws it away before storing the image. Of course in some low-end consumer cameras, the sensor is that poor to begin with.
With pro cameras you generally store the important shots in a raw format (12-bit per channel, 36-bit total) that discards nothing; you can then manipulate this in Photoshop as a 48-bit uncompressed image in a wide colorspace and get dynamic range and color reproduction very similar to what you can get with good quality film. If you happen to be on the road with your pro digital and need your images to stay as small as possible, many higher-end cameras will also allow you to shoot in JPEG format but using an enhanced colorspace (i.e. Adobe RGB rather than sRGB) to try to preserve this additional information while still gaining the benefits of compression. However, to use such JPEG images you must have software which supports these enhanced colorspaces (i.e. Photoshop does, GIMP does not).
As myself and other posters have pointed out in this thread, there are medium format digitals with file sizes up to 380MB and resolution in excess of 10kx10k that are in regular use in advertising.
Prices are high, but they do exist, and prices will only come down in the future.
Me thinks these people are playing with their friend's Kodak DC3400 or something.
:-(
I think this is exactly the problem!
I had a friend recently who was prepared to spend $$$$ at retail for a Sony consumer camera that she thought was a good idea because it stored images on a floppy (!!!!). Of course, I checked the specs and this camera was only 1280x960 and shot at very high JPEG compression.
I took her to a local interest group and we asked around and got her hooked up with an EOS-D30 and a Canon 28-80mm lens. Yes, it was used, a little beaten up, heavier and more expensive -- about 60% more in fact -- but there is no comparison in the camera's output! The difference between the two cameras is ridiculous. I can't imagine spending something like US$800 in a department store on a "floppycam" that takes horrible pictures! Uggggh!
Another friend of mine in Oregon, a kind of hobbyist, was replacing his film gear recently. He was very happy when I told him to visit a camera store instead of the computer store (?!!?) he had been camera shopping at. He was able to buy an Olympus E-10 digital with a glass SLR viewfinder and full manual for about the same price as the Olympus point-and-shoot digitals he had been looking at! It's a shame that non-camera stores are now the major sellers of cameras, even to hobbyists!
Last consumer digicam story: my uncle recently sent me a digital camera that he thought was funny... he got it for free when he bought a dinette set! I have no idea how the two items are connected... But I can see how they can give it away for free -- it only shoots 320x200 and has 1MB memory! Anybody who is introduced to "the wonders of digital" this way will be sadly biased for a long time to come.
Heh... Maybe you are right (I don't think so, but maybe you will).
Before you judge for sure... Rent an EOS-D60, an EOS-1D or (if you're a Nikon guy) an S2 or a D100 from a local supplier. Take ten shots digital and take the same ten shots with your film rig.
Have slides made from both, then pull out the loupe and inspect them.
You might be surprised! I used to think as you do... if I needed slides for a job or a submission, I'd pull out the film gear. Then I had my first batch of digital slides made. Heh... I sold most of my film gear (all except one backup camera) the next day.
Um, why not just have slides of your digitals made up for you? A good photo lab can do anything with digital that they can do with film, and for similar price points.
:-( which would likely not have affected optical storage as much, but if you want slides or lab prints, have them made!
I personally prefer digital storage because I've lost my fair share of slides over the years to things like floods
Yes. Even up to "bulb" exposures of several minutes. The Canon cameras in particular will let you shoot those night tripod shots beautifully.
If you think you are getting ~3000dpi out of any film, then you need to look again. Get your drum scanner moving and then load up your 3000dpi image and zoom in to 100% to compare it to a digital image from a recent back.
The image detail in the digital capture has cleaner, sharper edges, is better defined and less "muddy" and has much better contrast than the film scan. If you zoom in to 100% on a 3000dpi scan, what you will see is... grain. Something which is blessedly absent in digital shots! It will be hard to make out any detail at all at that level of magnification, even with the best film.
With regard to absolute resolution, this back will give large format (even for a moment assuming an analog resolvable 24,000x30,000) a run for its money.
See my earlier post about 1/16,000 shutter speed on an EOS-1D. It's great for sport shooting! I challenge you generate an "artifact" from movement at 1/2000, much less eight times that speed. Yes, we are talking digital.
The human eye? The human eye sees the print when it is finished, after the camera has captured it at such speeds. I challenge you to recognize anything with your "human eye" even if it is shown to you for a whopping 1/500 of a second!
Or are you talking about viewfinders? Pro digitals use glass, through-the-lens SLR viewfinders, just like film cameras. And consumer digital cameras (i.e. Olympus E line) are starting to use glass through-the-lens viewfinders, too.
If you're merely talking about the EVF (i.e. LCD) viewfinders in some consumer cameras, then you have a point -- these are difficult to use when framing a shot. But it has little bearing on the quality of the digital sensor itself or the quality of the image, and as I mentioned, no serious amateur or pro would buy a camera that uses an EVF anyway! Certainly not all digitals are saddled with this limitation, nor is it an inherent limitation of a digital camera.
People should become educated before they post, "Bub."
I posted simply to pre-empt the inevitable stream of "Digital sux, its for chumps and vain people, film rulez!" posts that seem to always occur when Slashdot posts a story about digital shooting.
You're right, an EOS-1D is still pretty pricey... But you should be happy about its success. As Canon (for example) has continued to release new models, the prices of the low-end pro cameras like the EOS-D30 (nearly on par with 35mm pro film quality, much better than any 35mm consumer film quality) have dropped like a rock on the used market, to similar price points of high-end consumer digitals.
If the innovation continues at this pace and Canon and Nikon continue to flood the market with better and better cameras, you will soon be able to buy a better-than-35mm pro digital system for approximately the same price as a 35mm film system. Of course, the only problem is that you will still be drooling over the high-end models, which will continue to improve...
Remember, I said "please be sure you have used the gear".
The ISO 1600 and 3200 shots from the pro digitals are easily less grainy and have better dynamic range than their film counterparts. Try it. And my EOS-1D can do 1/16,000 shutter speed with zero lag. Is that fast enough for you?
Yet another person who is bashing without trying.
Before all of the replies saying that digital is for geeks and film will forever rule, please be sure that you have used current and professional quality digital gear, including 35mm gear made by Canon or Nikon with standard lens mounts, digital medium or digital large format backs (depending on the type of vs. film comparison you plan to make).
Consumer digital cameras are one thing... X3 is another (still hotly debated)... but most photo editors and labs out there right out agree that a Canon EOS-1D, EOS-D60, a Fuji S2 or a Nikon D1X or D100 is simply takes better pictures in nearly every regard (including resolution) than a 35mm film camera, with any brand or grade of film. With the latest range of full-frame cameras such as Canon's EOS-1Ds (11 megapixel, I believe) and Kodak's 14 megapixel offering, the distance between digital and film (with digital on top) will only increase.
And before you comment on other film sizes, realize also that many of the largest advertising companies shooting commercial spreads abandoned film long ago and are shooting with digital medium format or large format backs. Yes, many of the fashion or product spreads you see in your favorite checkout stand magazine are in fact digital these days.
Film is well on its way to becoming a playing for history hobbyists and an art tool for retro artists, and no amount of "ludditing" will change this.
Entirely spot on. I myself am an atheist. However, I don't mind carrying on a conversation with a devout person whose interpretation of Genesis is not necessarily literal and who makes room in his life (and conception of God) for Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Anthropology et. al.
On the other hand, there is no talking to the rather stupid rabid creationists and Biblical literalists out there who ironically continue to use computers, the Internet, television and radio to spread the message that all modern science, and indeed the scientific method itself, is little more than a lie purveyed by servants of "darkness."
I always wonder where such people have received their education. Somewhere in the rural midwest of the US, no doubt, where exist those fabled schools which have banned instruction about natural selection, yet which at the same time dedicate hours to evangelical Bible study...
It is not selfish, it is CAPITALISM. Unions are socialist.
;-)
And socialism proposes to feed everyone because everyone is human after all, while capitalism says that only a priveleged few should eat.
Read any Marx lately?
Yes. I am a socialist. It is not a bad word. And yes, I will sacrifice one dollar or many to feed you, if you are in need. I will not tell you that if you're starving, it's because you're a lazy bum who should get a job.
So you're saying that you believe God didn't create the universe, and instead created a set of rules that caused it to be created? Isn't that the same as creating it, albeit indirectly? You're not making any sense, sir.
You've missed the point entirely.
The poster is not saying that God did not create the universe. He is saying that "Perhaps God did create the universe, and Physics is how he chose to do it!"
There remain a large number of rabid creationists who say "The Physicists are all blasphemous buffoons! GOD created the universe, not some pile of gravity and chemicals and suns!"
The poster is trying to say that given the complexity of a universe that many people assert that God has created, it would not be uncharacteristic of such a God if he were to create the universe not by waving a magic God-Wand, but rather by creating a set of simple, elegant physical laws (i.e. Physics) by which his universe, the planets, and life could arise. This would not, as the rabid creationists seem to think, defile God in any way; rather, it supposes that God is of such awesome intelligence that he foresaw a way to create laws of the universe which would not only lead to the creation of life, but whose selfsame boundaries would also govern such life through the end of time.
It is not an argument against God; it is an argument that God has better taste than to do showy wave-of-the-hand parlor tricks when creating life, the universe, and everything.
If there is a view of "scientific creationism" that I can accept, this is it.
I'm a union member. My union provides me with affordable health care and travel insurance when I'm traveling, legal representation when I get screwed (I'm a freelance writer/journalist; sometimes companies or publications use what I write, then don't pay up at all), and gives me a voice in government (because -- and lets be honest -- how often to national governments bother to hear the voice of a single citizen?)
All of these things might conceivably raise costs for the people that buy my work. But what you're arguing is that I should have no health care or insurance, that I should be easily screwable and that I should have no voice in government, all so the products you buy might be a little cheaper. This is a very selfish attitude on your part and does not tend to lead to quality products for your consumpution.
I know nothing about you, but who knows, you might be able to afford a little price increase for quality and to protect the humanity of those who serve you if you also had a union going to bat to keep your wages fair for what you do.
We can all either be economic slaves or valued workers together. I choose the latter; I will continue to pay my union dues and vote in my union elections!
Exactly. So go and start your own company rather than whining about the one to which you're enslaved! Capitalism is not about giving your life so some corporate schmoe can get his quarterly bonus - it's about incorporating yourself and being that schmoe.
Hmm, it seems to me like your argument to the original poster is that everyone should find a way to get into management.
Who, exactly, is going to do the actual work?
In reality, every company must have workers. Every worker is utterly replaceable with a cheaper worker, wherever he/she is to be found. Workers are therefore in competition to lower their standards of living in order to remain employed.
Clearly, everyone cannot be an owner or a manager, ergo, everyone cannot achieve the high standard of living that capitalism seems to promise. That standard is reserved, as the original poster correctly observed, for a priveleged and elite few whose riches are gained at the expense and labor of the underclasses.
Printing a photo:
Plug USB camera into USB port. Click on "Camera" icon on KDE desktop. File manager window opens showing icons of photos in camera. Click on the one I want to print. Full image is displayed. Click File->Print.
My GOD, that was difficult. I'm sure my mother couldn't do it!
You people who call Linux "inferior" all the time either a) haven't used it or b) have a chip on your shoulder.
I got laid last night, how about you?
Sheesh!
I know the command line quite well but I don't think my mom or grandma should be required to learn it so they can see a picture of my dog that I sent them via e-mail.
:P -- she found out about it, installed it, and began to use it all on her own because she heard it was good as a server and she wanted to run an extended-family Web site. My mom isn't technical at all and she figured it out and uses it happily!
But I daresay your mom and grandma could both easily figure out how to open up KMail and click on an attachment, or do the same in Evolution, so for such tasks, there really is nothing wrong with Linux desktops, compared to, for example, OS X.
My mother already uses Linux -- although it's Red Hat
So if we're really only worried about whether mom or grandma can open up photos, why all of the bashing of Linux desktops all the time, saying that KDE and GNOME need to be dumbed down and the command line hidden because all three are currently too complicated?
No one's talking about taking away your ability to do things efficiently via the command line. I find myself dropping into Terminal pretty regularly on OS X, because you're right that there are lots of things you can do much more efficiently via the command line than via any GUI.
The point is not merely the command line; the point is the KDE and GNOME and even the traditional X desktop (to a far lesser degree) provide command-line integration of various kinds, which much more "usable" GUIs tend not to do.
There is, BTW, a smaller but still substantial set of things you can do via GUI more efficiently than via command line; e.g., moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories.
You're right on principal, but the example you've chosen is a rotten one. Moving large numbers of files between deeply nested directories is *much* more efficient at the command prompt, where patterns can be used to move all or any subset of those files and flow control and test logic can be used to move or categories to multiple deeply-nested destinations intelligently. A simple file manager window could never hope to compete.
A better example would be Photoshop-like or GIMP-like image manipulation (i.e. still acting within a single file).
Just so this post isn't totally devoid of content, there seems to be a contingent of Linux advocates (mostly on usenet although I'm sure there are some here), that believe efficiency > usability
That seems like total bunk to me, just because something is easy to grasp doesn't mean that it's less efficient.. okay so there are certain things that are, but using it as a coverall dismissal at any remotely useable UI seems more like "I HAVEN'T GOT IT SO YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER!" paddying.
I am a longtime Linux user. I do not work in tech. Here is what I think:
efficiency > usability.
But for me, efficiency != economy of thought, but rather, economy of required action. This is why I use Linux. Because no file manager will ever come close to matching the speed with which I can manage my library of personal files (100+GB of photos and word processing documents which are chapters from my books or articles or research) in Linux.
There are a lot of people who will never invest the time necessary to learn to use Linux or UNIX at the shell prompt, or learn to use the integration features in desktops like KDE which really link the desktop to the shell effectively. There is nothing wrong with not learning this stuff; it's definitely harder to learn and involves a larger investment of time than learning how to click around OS X.
HOWEVER, don't begrudge those of us who do use the power of UNIX operating systems. I can type a single line at the shell prompt that will search all of my 100GB of files for the word "wasabi", repace each occurance with the words "hot stuff", send each document with a match to my printer (taking care to output separator pages between each file), then compose a sorted list of these filenames and e-mail the list to all of the people in my 'Sushi' e-mail address book. Again, not four hours of click, click, clicking to get this done -- just 5 seconds or so of typing a short string of commands on a single line.
Granted, this is an odd, overwrought example, but it's still real: such things are easily done with shell commands in Linux. Things like DCOP in KDE and scriptability in Nautilus help to bring the desktop to the shell and vice-versa; with them, you can not only harness the power of the command prompt, but you can provide it with more "usable" GUI-based integration, so that shell processes can provide interaction with and accept input from the keyboard, mouse and display.
To perform task of significant complexity across 100GB and 20k files using a Windows or OS X (with its tendency to "hide" UNIX rather than exploit it) would require significantly more work than it requires in Linux. In fact, there is an entire segment of products -- file organizers and document managers, etc. -- which exist to try to make "housekeeping" tasks and tasks which act on large volumes of data less painful in Windows and Mac OS. These operating systems are really caught up in a "single file" mentality -- the ease of use and functionality is all associated with working on a single file at a time. But in the new millenium, as our digital lives grow, few people have only one or two files to deal with. More and more people live their digital lives like authors and photographers have for some time now: with volumes and volumes of files, data and information to manage. This is where the efficiency of Linux and the Linux desktops improves quality of life considerably. I manage my entire photo library using KDE and my own shell scripts (a system that took about 4 hours to construct). This "system" is more efficient and well-designed for the subjects I shoot and the way I sell than any mass-market application ever could be (not to mention that I didn't have to pay $$$ for the software).
I guess I'm saying that you shouldn't knock efficiency until you've needed it and made use of it. Because some of us have, and sacrificing efficiency to gain "usability" would represent a significant loss of functionality. In fact, I would imagine that there are those of us at Slashdot who would feel comfortable asserting that efficiency is indeed the ultimate form of usability...
Some [in]equalities:
Cute != Aesthetically pleasing.
Bauhaus == Aesthetically pleasing.
Hello Kitty == Ugly and annoying as hell.