Posted on 12/22/2004 8:20:35 PM PST by RayChuang88
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) - A novelty item just four or five years ago, the digital camera is shaping up as the most popular electronics gift in 2004, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. It was runner-up last year to the DVD player, the No. 1 gift since 2000.
Catapulted by cutthroat competition, digital technology is transforming the $85 billion global photography industry by creating new ways of capturing, developing and storing pictures.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
At the same auction there were boxes of old law books that didn't sell. At the end of the day they were hauling them to the dumpster. I was helping with the cleanup, and grabbed a box and one of the books in box was different that the others, and looked old. I pulled it out, and it was a 1919 Fifth Edition Machinery's Handbook.
Good God! I bet that is fascinating. I have a number of reprints of old manuals & texts from Lindsay Publications, and it makes interesting reading.
Thanks Paulus Invictus. With 6.1 MP I would imagine the images are sharp.
Can't wait to start using it...after I give it as a Christmas present to my wife. ;)
Digital cameras already outperform most films. That would include all negatve films sold as consumer products.
Kodachrome remains superior to digital, but large format digital cameras (costing tens of thousands of dollars) are gradually taking over magazine and catalog potography.
I think digital cameras produce better amateur snapshots than any film camera, and that's what drives the market.
It's pretty interesting stuff. I've also got some automotive manuals my grandfather left me. One of them has a diagram of a Willys-Knight sleeve-valve motor. No camshaft or valves. The intake and exhaust are controlled through ports in a pair of sleeves, one inside the other that fit in the cylinder bore. The piston fits inside the inner sleeve, and there is a small crankshaft geared to the main crank on either side, with little connecting rods to the sleeves that move them up and down to open and close the ports. They actually built these things, and they reportedly ran so quietly that if the exhaust was sufficiently muffled, the noisiest thing in the motor was the points opening and closing in the distributor.
I got my first digital camera three years ago. It was a 1.2 megapixel model that held maybe 16 pictures (at medium quality) before I had to empty the memory. It had no optical zoom, just 2X "digital" zoom which was kind of lousy (all it does is enlarge and crop the original picture). Still, the camera costed me almost $500.
This year, I got a 4 megapixel model with 12x OPTICAL zoom and a 256MB removable flash card that can hold hundreds of photos (you can use as many flash cards as you want up to 1GB each). The thing takes short movies too. It's a "professional" grade camera with all sort of buttons and options and only costed me $324 (employee discount).
I'd say film cameras are just about dead except maybe for the real professionals.
The only problem is keeping all this stuff backed up!
ping for Val
Make? / Model?
Kodak also makes Printer Docks which do all that plus print your photos.
Did I mention the anti-shake feature?
I don't print straight from the photo. I always photoshop so I can crop. The computer is my new darkroom.
Merry Christmas everyone... I'm off to mom's house for an Christmas eve Italian feast. Yummy!
Trajan88; TAMU Class of '88; Law Hall (may it R.I.P.) Ramp 9 Mule; f.u.p.!
Your CD burner drive is your friend.
The bar for that one arrives on a semi and is set in place with a crane!
really cool MP3? just bought a Creative Labs Micro Zen, and I love it. Swappable battery, 10 hours of voice recording, 32 avail. FM presets--that you can record! Very pleased with it, but the main control pad seems a bit oversensitive.
I have taken probably 3000 photos this year alone. I have never run out of batteries or storage space (~220 pics at 2500X1800 pixels, much more when the image is smaller).
Tonight at Christmas Eve celebration : 188 photos.
...and that's the old Island Auto Parts valve grinder- a Sioux. The lower right corner shows the most versatile cylinder head holder I have ever encountered-- two pieces of galvanized pipe that pull out of the bench.
You figured out your camera and made a nice shot! She looks pretty in the shot, too - all dressed in red and festive looking! Funny how machines can be so alluring...
A Souix, huh? A venerable old name and maker of very nice drills too - especially their close-quarters right angle drill. Using pipe for a rest is using the noggin, too. It a certainty that not every tool, attachment or gimick is better than sound applications of good ol' yankee ingenuity.
I'll bet as industry shuts down in this country and current steel/iron scrap prices rise, there's an awful lot of this rare and archaic old stuff going to the smelter.
Merry Christmas to you, backhoe, all other FReepers and freedom lovers around the world!
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