there's not much keeping someone from glancing over your shoulder... at that picture of your kid that your wife just sent you in your email Or worse, your wife glancing over your shoulder at that picture of your kid that your mistress has just sent you in your email.
s.
This is not strange. Being rich and powerful is a hereditary characteristic in most countries of the world.Do you think it is a coicidence that almost every member of the US Senate and Mr Bush's cabinet is a multi-millionaire?
"hiking a desert or marveling the cold of Antarctica, you ain't gonna be charging your batteries for a digital camera for sure"..."Personally I would take spare batteries, a backup storage device and a solar battery charger:)"
Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley, amongst others, both managed to get some reasonable shots in Antarctica in the pre-digital era, incredibly enough.
Recently, I was on a small expedition to the high altiplano of Bolivia. It was July (winter), and so temperatures got to -20 C, if not -40. We were travelling by bicycle, so weight was at a premium. There is nowhere batteries can be recharged, films developed, or data downloaded in this area, so one must be completely self-sufficient. We had three cameras-a 35 mm film SLR, a digital compact and a digital SLR. The film SLR just did its job. When getting low on the dozen-odd rolls of Velvia I'd brought, I was able to get a few more replacement rolls of some Agfa slide film in Uyuni. It was past its date, but turned out fine. I also carried a single spare battery with me, but never needed it.
The digitals also mostly worked well, and the digi SLR was able to get one shot that was effectively impossible for me with my film camera-a night sky over an island in the middle of a salt lake, taken at -15C/3200ISO, balanced by hand for 1 minute (I think). I'd have needed a proper cable release and the exposure would have been about a quarter of an hour with the Velvia! On the other hand, we needed several spare batteries for the digitals, and a solar charger and a portable hard drive. The digital compact in particular had a voracious appetite for batteries. Therefore in practice there is no weight/bulk advantage to one or the other. Both the charger and hard drive gave problems-the solar charger turned out to be incapable of fully charging the batteries, and was unduly fragile even though it was designed for such use. Fixed with glue and gaffer tape, the first task at any stop was not to get the tent up, or a brew on, but get camera batteries charging. A directory that became corrupted on the hard drive meant it was unusable for part of the trip, precluding the use of (big) RAW file shooting later on, and we had to go and burn CDs of the images at a cyber cafe. When shooting with the digital SLR in the cold, such as early in the morning, my friend typically got one shot and then had to change to his other battery and put the one he'd just used down his pants to warm it up.
I therefore conclude that both formats have their advantages for expedition use. The problem though, is that for every camera being used in such environments Nikon sell several thousand to normal punters who never need to worry about such things, so as a "market" it is irrelevant.
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s.
Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley, amongst others, both managed to get some reasonable shots in Antarctica in the pre-digital era, incredibly enough.
Recently, I was on a small expedition to the high altiplano of Bolivia. It was July (winter), and so temperatures got to -20 C, if not -40. We were travelling by bicycle, so weight was at a premium. There is nowhere batteries can be recharged, films developed, or data downloaded in this area, so one must be completely self-sufficient. We had three cameras-a 35 mm film SLR, a digital compact and a digital SLR. The film SLR just did its job. When getting low on the dozen-odd rolls of Velvia I'd brought, I was able to get a few more replacement rolls of some Agfa slide film in Uyuni. It was past its date, but turned out fine. I also carried a single spare battery with me, but never needed it.
The digitals also mostly worked well, and the digi SLR was able to get one shot that was effectively impossible for me with my film camera-a night sky over an island in the middle of a salt lake, taken at -15C/3200ISO, balanced by hand for 1 minute (I think). I'd have needed a proper cable release and the exposure would have been about a quarter of an hour with the Velvia! On the other hand, we needed several spare batteries for the digitals, and a solar charger and a portable hard drive. The digital compact in particular had a voracious appetite for batteries. Therefore in practice there is no weight/bulk advantage to one or the other. Both the charger and hard drive gave problems-the solar charger turned out to be incapable of fully charging the batteries, and was unduly fragile even though it was designed for such use. Fixed with glue and gaffer tape, the first task at any stop was not to get the tent up, or a brew on, but get camera batteries charging. A directory that became corrupted on the hard drive meant it was unusable for part of the trip, precluding the use of (big) RAW file shooting later on, and we had to go and burn CDs of the images at a cyber cafe. When shooting with the digital SLR in the cold, such as early in the morning, my friend typically got one shot and then had to change to his other battery and put the one he'd just used down his pants to warm it up.
I therefore conclude that both formats have their advantages for expedition use. The problem though, is that for every camera being used in such environments Nikon sell several thousand to normal punters who never need to worry about such things, so as a "market" it is irrelevant.
s.