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Digital Camera Hottest Gift for 2004
Associated Press via MyWay.com ^ | December 22, 2004 | Ben Dobbin

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: digitalcameras; photography
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To: backhoe
I hear ya. Three jawed chucks are nice if you've got the luxury of working with round (or hex) stock, which doesn't seem to be neary often enough.

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.

61 posted on 12/24/2004 10:55:10 AM PST by tacticalogic (Amateur blaksmith trying to stay on good term with the people who are getting coal for Christmas.)
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To: tacticalogic
...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.

62 posted on 12/24/2004 11:14:38 AM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: Paulus Invictus
You bought a great camera! Good going! Mine is simply terrific and their software is also formidable.

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. ;)

63 posted on 12/24/2004 11:20:38 AM PST by FreeReign
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To: Trajan88

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.


64 posted on 12/24/2004 11:23:36 AM PST by js1138 (D*mn, I Missed!)
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To: backhoe

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.


65 posted on 12/24/2004 11:27:25 AM PST by tacticalogic (Amateur blaksmith trying to stay on good term with the people who are getting coal for Christmas.)
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To: RayChuang88
My company is in the camera business and it's phenomenal how digital cameras so quickly surpassed film cameras.

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!

66 posted on 12/24/2004 11:42:18 AM PST by SamAdams76 (No intolerant liberal is going to take my Christmas away from me)
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To: ValerieUSA

ping for Val


67 posted on 12/24/2004 11:44:37 AM PST by reg45
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To: SamAdams76
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).

Make? / Model?

68 posted on 12/24/2004 11:51:02 AM PST by reg45
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To: Hillary's Lovely Legs

Kodak also makes Printer Docks which do all that plus print your photos.


69 posted on 12/24/2004 11:55:14 AM PST by reg45
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To: reg45
Konica Minolta Z3.

Did I mention the anti-shake feature?

70 posted on 12/24/2004 11:58:05 AM PST by SamAdams76 (No intolerant liberal is going to take my Christmas away from me)
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To: reg45

I don't print straight from the photo. I always photoshop so I can crop. The computer is my new darkroom.


71 posted on 12/24/2004 12:13:50 PM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs (Santa, Shmanta, just send an unlimited Black Amex Card and I am set.)
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To: glasseye
Film is old school indeed (I'm old... at 38+)... he, he.

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.!

72 posted on 12/24/2004 1:35:38 PM PST by Trajan88 (www.bullittclub.com)
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To: SamAdams76
The only problem is keeping all this stuff backed up!

Your CD burner drive is your friend.

73 posted on 12/24/2004 8:17:18 PM PST by RayChuang88
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To: tacticalogic

The bar for that one arrives on a semi and is set in place with a crane!


74 posted on 12/24/2004 9:52:26 PM PST by dalereed
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To: Hillary's Lovely Legs

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.


75 posted on 12/24/2004 10:00:05 PM PST by John Robertson
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To: RayChuang88
Nice example of why I have a decent 5MP digital camera. I bought it about 14 months ago for about 450.00 with a 256MB digital card.

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.

76 posted on 12/24/2004 10:34:04 PM PST by Centurion2000 (Truth, Justice and the Texan Way)
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To: WorkingClassFilth
Van Norman Perfecto 777 and YT:


77 posted on 12/25/2004 1:15:23 AM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: WorkingClassFilth

...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.

78 posted on 12/25/2004 6:54:09 AM PST by backhoe (-30-)
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To: backhoe

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...


79 posted on 12/25/2004 7:49:07 AM PST by WorkingClassFilth (From Ku Klux Klan to the modern era of the Koo Kleft Klan...the true RAT legacy.)
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To: backhoe

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!


80 posted on 12/25/2004 7:56:22 AM PST by WorkingClassFilth (From Ku Klux Klan to the modern era of the Koo Kleft Klan...the true RAT legacy.)
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