Shel, Let's assume that I am on a photographic trip somewhere for 4 weeks. This is perfectly realistic because I've done it several times in the past, and intend to do it again.
I need enough cards to cover me for a day's shooting. With this camera that's about 3 Gb, although I'd be more comfortable with at least one more Gb. The cost per Gb over here is at least twice what it is for you. Realistically I would not do a trip with just one camera, I need to be able to use 2, so I probably need at least one more Gb of memory per day, so let's say I need 5 cards. At the end of the day I need to save the files, so I now need enough image tanks to be able to store an entire trip's images, with some duplication to avoid single-point failures. On top of all of that of course is the cost of new cameras and lenses and the various accessories one needs. So that's a fair bit of capital outlay just to get into the game to the extent that I'm already in it with film. Most of that needs to be replaced periodically as part of the now normal cycle of obscelence that we seem to be forced to accept. So far I have no permament storage for my photos. When I get home at the end of the trip I want to save permamently at least 2 copies of each of the pictures I have taken, so I need various additional storage devices & media for that. Let's say I shoot the equivalent of 300 rolls of film per year, that's about 150 Gb per year on an 8 Mpix camera, times at least 2 for backups. There is then the storage needed for a relatively small number of output-ready pictures that I may have worked on, and which I want to keep. Add to that the periodic cost of transferring the pictures to new media as things become obsolete. Alongside all the new equipment I have to buy, and the new processes and habits I have to train myself in to do all the work, I have to spend time learning how to get a decent print from a raw file. This is going to take a long time, and I don't particularly care for it - there is almost always something I would rather do with the time. So after all that, what have I got for my money? Are my pictures better in any way than they were when I was shooting film? What has all that outlay and learning - because there is a lot of learning to be done and that consumes a resource which may be more important to me than the money - given me? Whatever it has given me, is it so much better than what I have with film that it justifies all that cost and time? Those are the questions I am trying to answer in buying this recent camera and experimenting with it at the moment. Right now it looks as though I could spend an awful lot of time and effort, and be no better off than I am now. -- Cheers, Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Shel Belinkoff > Sent: 21 June 2006 10:03 > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: RE: The Middle-aged Man and the Sea > > Hi Bob, > > While I shoot more with digi, storage space is actually reduced > substantially per frame. For example, a single 16-bit scan > of a B&W frame > is, iirc, about 45K, for color it's about 150K. I'm using > round figures, > of course. Using the DS, that same frame is only about 5-6K > when converted > to DNG, or about 10K with a full PEF (Pentax RAW) file, and > that's color. > Doing the math, I can get 25X or more space saving than with > film. YMMV, > but I can shoot 25 frames in digi for every one frame with > film and end up > using about the same storage space. > > Now, here's another hidden space saver: When processing a RAW > file, I can > make numerous changes to the image - color balance, contrast, hue, > saturation, and so on, all without increasing the file size, > and all with > being able to save the original file as well as the changes using the > Photoshop raw converter. I suspect other raw converters allow this as > well. However, when working with film, and making universal > changes to an > image using layers, that 145K file can grow to as large as > 300K. Now I > have a file that's using about 50X more storage space than > the raw file > from the camera. > > In another message I noted that the price of one of my > favorite SD cards is > now below $25.00 for a GB of storage. With the Pentax that's about 93 > frames. So, for the price of processing about three rolls of > film, I can > shoot more than three rolls worth on a single card, clear the > card, and > start all over again. The card has paid for itself and then > some having > used it to capacity just once. > > Storage and cost are no longer an issue > > YMMV > > Shel -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
