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RE: [OM] [OT] Pentax DSLR Announced

Subject: RE: [OM] [OT] Pentax DSLR Announced
From: "Richard F. Man" <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2002 23:47:56 -0700
At 10:03 PM 10/22/2002 -0600, The Bobbs wrote:
To my mind, the question is not "if" but when the silicon sensor based systems overcome enough of their obstacles (and Winsor points out a several goods above) to become the dominant player from snapshooter to professional.

It's true. The DSLR will come, the film camera days are definitely numbered....

As for scanning slides/negatives -- sorry, I just hate the experience. I hate getting the stuff arranged, coping with dust, scratches and misbehaving scanner issues. To avoid doing it very often, I am willing to accept a somewhat lower quality solution from a digital camera or pay a premium to get an equivalent result. I bet I'm not alone. (exactly how much lower quality or how much of a premium is the market question that every camera company wants to know with great precision!)

Richard, it sounds like you are big time into scanning. Assuming things are going well, on average, how long does it take you to go from negative/slide to a file on disk that is exactly as you want it to be? (Ignoring any computer manipulation that you might also do with a digital camera RAW file). Do you have a feel for the time for "best case", "average case" and "rare, but not freakishly worst case" with your scanning? My experiences in doing it (limited) were horrid, and I've heard of experienced folks spending 10+ minutes per image. That's just unbearable (to me). (And my own experiences were never as good as 10 minutes an image, either!)

ha ha, the aforementioned roll film adapter comes in real handy. First of all, get a scanner with ICE, if you can afford it. Dust /scratches no longer a problem. In fact, a few hours ago I just inserted a 34 exposure of slides in the Nikon scanner before we went to Tai Chi. When I came back 3 hours later (w/ dinner and all that), the roll has long since been done. I have just gotten ACDSee and I can have it batch convert the TIFF files into Photoshop format, so I save another step. With this setup, very few manual minutes are needed to get the files ready for further processing. Actually, for most of the web pics or 4x6 pics, a lot of times I just use them as is w/o any additional work. I know I should run them through some sharpening since scanning, especially w/ ICE softens things a bit, but they seem to be OK for those needs.

I have manually scanned in, oh may be about 50 rolls worth of film/slide. I would say before I settled on the routine above, 10 min per image is not a bad guess.

For the next several years, I see my (totally hobby) photography running in parallel courses -- Consumer grade digicam for those situations where all the emphasis is convenience, content (get "a" shot, take several in hopes of getting "the" shot) and moderate prints (8x10, max) and OM film gear for the situations where you want to get the best possible image and aspire to a 20x15 on the wall, or can't cope with current digicam limitations. (Long exposure, wide angles, shallow DOF, etc). And of course, do it w/o breaking the bank.

The current product mix has to be really hard for some professionals. Digital has a siren song of instant gratification and low capture costs versus the screeching sound of high capital investments and image quality limitations. Everybody has a "sounds good enough" point. Each new generation pushes another set of folks over their internal threshold.

For me, investing in a good scanner costs $2000+ including the roll film adapter. That cost about the same as an Oly E-20 or "low" end of the DSLR. With the scanner and the OM system, I can shoot slides and just suck them in the computer. The OM system uses minimal amount of battery so I suspect that with this setup, one of the advantages of digital system of lowering ongoing cost (no film to buy or develop), drops dramatically. The advantages I have is access to wide range of Zuikos and the smallness of the OM system. Of course we all know the OM system can benefit from upgrading (fill flash, fill flash...)

I expect to go to the route of the DSLR some days, may even be sooner than I thought if I get into the "business" of shooting costumers as I mentioned in another msg, but I see plenty of advantages of the OM system remain.

We have the C-3000 for over 2 years now and it definitely has its uses, so I suspect it is one of the cases where you choose the best / most comfortable tools for the job.

// richard <http://www.imagecraft.com> <http://www.dragonsgate.net/mailman/listinfo>
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