Politech mailing list archives
FC: Thinking of buying a new camera? Consider... analog
From: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 09:26:28 -0500
******** http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33244,00.html New Camera? Go Analog by Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com) 3:00 a.m. 23.Dec.1999 PST Here's a last-minute warning to procrastinating holiday shoppers: Before you drop US$1,000 on that feature-filled digital camera, consider going analog instead. Yes, analog technology sounds so oxymoronic, so 70s, so reminiscent of 33-rpm albums, Studio 54, and corduroy blazers. But believe it or not, that dusty old analog 35-mm your father squirreled away in his attic can give you images that are clearer and more colorful than digital ones. And its resale value won't plummet like an Aeroflot jet come Y2K. The first thing to know is that the cheapest 35-mm camera beats even a $5,000 digital camera in terms of resolution. Most good photo labs offer the Kodak PictureCD and PhotoCD service, which scans in images from any 35-mm film at 3072 x 2048 -- a 6.3 megapixel resolution. That's a lot better than the expensive Nikon D1 camera, which tops out at 2.6 megapixels and retails for $5,000. Resolution is important. The more pixels an image contains, the more you can generally enlarge an image without an unacceptable loss in quality. A 6.3 megapixel image, for instance, is detailed enough to allow attractive prints of up to 8 x 10 inches. Some analog cameras allow even larger images. At around $2,000 they're not cheap, but medium-format cameras use film that's about four times the size of 35-mm slides or negatives. Christmas photos I took with a 6x6-format Hasselblad simply wouldn't have been as clear with a 35-mm or digital camera. [...] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo () vorlon mit edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------
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- FC: Thinking of buying a new camera? Consider... analog Declan McCullagh (Dec 23)