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Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 2nd 12, 09:22 PM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
Wolfgang Weisselberg
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Posts: 5,285
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

Trevor wrote:

"Whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
I'm suprised pre-triggers aren;t used as we use them in electronics.
That way you can store images that the camera sees before pressing the
shutter that way you have a minus time 'lag'.


You simply start shooting whenever you like at somewhere between 4 and 60
frames a second. Then delete what you don't need. A pretrigger simply does
the same automatically.


Maschine gun shooting's only good if you don't care much *what*
point in time you hit exactly, but care only that you hit *lots*
of points.

With a DSLR not in movie mode, you introduce a lot of shutter wear though if
you are *always* shooting.


Never mind battery usage ... a DSLR can have everything but
the buttons off (and they don't draw power if not pressed), a
pre-shooting system has to have everything but the card writing
running at full tilt.

-Wolfgang
  #2  
Old February 2nd 12, 10:45 PM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
David Dyer-Bennet
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,814
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:

Trevor wrote:

"Whisky-dave" wrote in message
...
I'm suprised pre-triggers aren;t used as we use them in electronics.
That way you can store images that the camera sees before pressing the
shutter that way you have a minus time 'lag'.


You simply start shooting whenever you like at somewhere between 4 and 60
frames a second. Then delete what you don't need. A pretrigger simply does
the same automatically.


Maschine gun shooting's only good if you don't care much *what*
point in time you hit exactly, but care only that you hit *lots*
of points.


Not lots, but you've got a frame within 1/n of any actual point in
time. So, depending on the speed of the event, and whether you can
trigger reliably at some early moment of it (either manually or with
tech of some sort), and how accurately you need to hit your point, it
may be the easiest and cheapest solution.

For example, my bowling ball mortar pictures were done that way. Using
a fuse to set off the mortar didn't give us a very predicatable time,
and I didn't have a sound trigger (still don't, but waiting for Trigger
Trap from the Kickstarter project, due this spring), but 5 or 8 frames
per second got us interesting shots.

With a DSLR not in movie mode, you introduce a lot of shutter wear though if
you are *always* shooting.


Never mind battery usage ... a DSLR can have everything but
the buttons off (and they don't draw power if not pressed), a
pre-shooting system has to have everything but the card writing
running at full tilt.


Would be a nice option to turn on -- but not yet compatible with the
hardware platform, quite.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
  #3  
Old February 2nd 12, 11:54 PM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
Wolfgang Weisselberg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,285
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:
Trevor wrote:
"Whisky-dave" wrote in message


I'm suprised pre-triggers aren;t used as we use them in electronics.
That way you can store images that the camera sees before pressing the
shutter that way you have a minus time 'lag'.


You simply start shooting whenever you like at somewhere between 4 and 60
frames a second. Then delete what you don't need. A pretrigger simply does
the same automatically.


Maschine gun shooting's only good if you don't care much *what*
point in time you hit exactly, but care only that you hit *lots*
of points.


Not lots, but you've got a frame within 1/n of any actual point in
time. So, depending on the speed of the event, and whether you can
trigger reliably at some early moment of it (either manually or with
tech of some sort), and how accurately you need to hit your point, it
may be the easiest and cheapest solution.


Of course. Slowing down high speed actions is a typical
case. OTOH, a photo where the bullet just has left the (now
exploding) apple probably wouldn't work, due to light and
exact timing of the extremely short exposure.

For example, my bowling ball mortar pictures were done that way. Using
a fuse to set off the mortar didn't give us a very predicatable time,
and I didn't have a sound trigger (still don't, but waiting for Trigger
Trap from the Kickstarter project, due this spring), but 5 or 8 frames
per second got us interesting shots.


You could have used an (e.g. infrared) active electric eye, a
passive electic eye (shadow of the ball) or even a
very thin wire that's torn by the bowling ball, too.


With a DSLR not in movie mode, you introduce a lot of shutter wear though if
you are *always* shooting.


Never mind battery usage ... a DSLR can have everything but
the buttons off (and they don't draw power if not pressed), a
pre-shooting system has to have everything but the card writing
running at full tilt.


Would be a nice option to turn on -- but not yet compatible with the
hardware platform, quite.


You want really high speed? Then you want low resolution[1].
Readout speeds are limited by image quality.

-Wolfgang

[1] Or sweeping over several (logical and/or physical) sensors.
  #4  
Old February 3rd 12, 12:41 AM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
David Dyer-Bennet
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,814
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:
Trevor wrote:
"Whisky-dave" wrote in message


I'm suprised pre-triggers aren;t used as we use them in electronics.
That way you can store images that the camera sees before pressing the
shutter that way you have a minus time 'lag'.


You simply start shooting whenever you like at somewhere between 4 and 60
frames a second. Then delete what you don't need. A pretrigger simply does
the same automatically.


Maschine gun shooting's only good if you don't care much *what*
point in time you hit exactly, but care only that you hit *lots*
of points.


Not lots, but you've got a frame within 1/n of any actual point in
time. So, depending on the speed of the event, and whether you can
trigger reliably at some early moment of it (either manually or with
tech of some sort), and how accurately you need to hit your point, it
may be the easiest and cheapest solution.


Of course. Slowing down high speed actions is a typical
case. OTOH, a photo where the bullet just has left the (now
exploding) apple probably wouldn't work, due to light and
exact timing of the extremely short exposure.


Yes, 1/4000 sec. actually freezes the bowling ball, and my mechanical
shutter can do that. For significantly higher speeds you end up using
flash in the dark, and generally therefore only get one shot per trial.
I'd think it might be worth rigging a laser trigger instead if you were
doing it on film, so you wouldn't have to experiment to get the
placement right. Never did this on film.

For example, my bowling ball mortar pictures were done that way. Using
a fuse to set off the mortar didn't give us a very predicatable time,
and I didn't have a sound trigger (still don't, but waiting for Trigger
Trap from the Kickstarter project, due this spring), but 5 or 8 frames
per second got us interesting shots.


You could have used an (e.g. infrared) active electric eye, a
passive electic eye (shadow of the ball) or even a
very thin wire that's torn by the bowling ball, too.


Certainly, although the muzzle flash was *huge* (being enhanced with two
baggies of gasoline :-) ). And some of the best shots were far enough
back that rigging a light beam without equipment appearing in the shot
would have been hard. But a sound trigger plus delay would be a good
choice too. (As I mentioned, I supported Trigger Trap on Kickstarter,
and am looking forward to receiving one this spring. It can use any of
these modes. Actually, it can probably trigger *on* the muzzle flash.)

(Here's one from the first year of the bowling ball mortar shoots
http://dd-b.net/cgi-bin/picpage.pl/photography/gallery/fourth-2008?pic=ddb%2020080704%20010-176.
Sorry the URL is so long, make sure it doesn't get broken or it won't work!
Use the "up" link from there to find the rest of the shots from that
session.)

With a DSLR not in movie mode, you introduce a lot of shutter wear though if
you are *always* shooting.


Never mind battery usage ... a DSLR can have everything but
the buttons off (and they don't draw power if not pressed), a
pre-shooting system has to have everything but the card writing
running at full tilt.


Would be a nice option to turn on -- but not yet compatible with the
hardware platform, quite.


You want really high speed? Then you want low resolution[1].
Readout speeds are limited by image quality.

-Wolfgang

[1] Or sweeping over several (logical and/or physical) sensors.


No, of course not; I want high speed *at high resolution*; for catching
fast events lazily for fun, not for making useful scientific studies of
fast events :-).

Yeah, not feasible at sane cost, I understand. Moving data that fast is
*hard*.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
  #5  
Old February 3rd 12, 05:24 AM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
Trevor[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 874
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales


"Wolfgang Weisselberg" wrote in message
...
I'm suprised pre-triggers aren;t used as we use them in electronics.
That way you can store images that the camera sees before pressing the
shutter that way you have a minus time 'lag'.


You simply start shooting whenever you like at somewhere between 4 and 60
frames a second. Then delete what you don't need. A pretrigger simply
does
the same automatically.


Maschine gun shooting's only good if you don't care much *what*
point in time you hit exactly, but care only that you hit *lots*
of points.


Right, but as I said, taking one shot is even less likely to give you the
right one for fast action because of reaction time. Will depend on
predictabilty of course, which is not always guaranteed.


Never mind battery usage ... a DSLR can have everything but
the buttons off (and they don't draw power if not pressed),


Actually the processor is on to detect the button press. If you turn it off
all together, pressing the button does nothing. And even when on you
introduce lag when the system is in sleep mode before a shot can be taken.
Not huge for a dslr these days, but significant for anyone capturing action
shots.


pre-shooting system has to have everything but the card writing
running at full tilt.


Right, and yet pro's do demand high sequence rates these days, and even the
cheapest P&S's have continuous still shooting modes (apart from movie mode).
Once upon a time only pro's had high speed film winders and large capacity
backs on their SLR's. You had to have a good reason to go to that expense,
PLUS film cost!

Trevor.


  #6  
Old February 6th 12, 06:24 AM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
Wolfgang Weisselberg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,285
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

Trevor wrote:
"Wolfgang Weisselberg" wrote in message


Maschine gun shooting's only good if you don't care much *what*
point in time you hit exactly, but care only that you hit *lots*
of points.


Right, but as I said, taking one shot is even less likely to give you the
right one for fast action because of reaction time.


Nope.
You have to differentiate between
- repeatable actions: anything that can be shot again and again
- semi-repeatable actions: Things that can be repeated, but
only a very limited number of times, and not identically.
E.g. Raising the flag at Ivo Jima
- unrepeatable actions: The moment JFK was shot. The first goal
in the superbowl 2012.

And between
- specific predictable action (where you have a 'countdown'
to the decisive moment), e.g. a runner reaching the finish,
a ball entering the goal after a longer flight, ...
- generally predictable action (where you can sort of frame and
preshoot), but cannot predict the exact moment. E.g. a water
ballon, being filled, just starts to burst.
- unpredictable action (no time to frame or too long a time
to wait): someone robbing a store 6 years after the camera
was attached. A specific lightning bolt.
- well predictable actions that are too fast between the start of
the 'countdown' and the event for a human to trigger: a bullet
just leaving an apple. A foot kicking a ball --- at the moment
where the ball is maximally deformed.

If it can be triggered by an experienced human, if it can be
triggered by any technical means (available to you) and is either
repeatable or maths and physics can show you how much delay to
use you're better off without machine gun shooting.

If it's not triggerable, you have to make do with preshooting,
or better, extremely high frequency shooting. You'll miss the
deceive moment, but depending on the shooting frequency you'll
be close. If that difference matters depends on you.

Of course, if you want a sort-of movie ... maschinegun it is!

Will depend on
predictabilty of course, which is not always guaranteed.


If you've no chance to frame it and focus it ...


Never mind battery usage ... a DSLR can have everything but
the buttons off (and they don't draw power if not pressed),


Actually the processor is on to detect the button press.


Nope. I'll bet you that it's asleep. Even desktop computers on
mains send their processor asleep nowaday till there's some work
to be done --- why should a battery driven camera let it run?

You don't need the processor to generate an interrupt. You might
need it to handle the interrupt, but not to generate the interrupt
that wakes it.


If you turn it off
all together, pressing the button does nothing.


So your laptop does nothing if you press a key and it's just
in S3?

And even when on you
introduce lag when the system is in sleep mode before a shot can be taken.


It's absolutely negible. It doesn't need to boot again,
after all. (and that's 0.25s in a 20D and again much faster
in newer cameras, with 0.1s being average)

Not huge for a dslr these days, but significant for anyone capturing action
shots.


It's vastly faster than the time between half-press and full
press of the shutter, even if you press as fast as you can.

When a halfway modern laptop handles 400 wakeups per second and is
93% in C3 (deep sleep, every clock signal stopped) or even deeper
(down to "everything but a static RAM inside the CPU at 0V") (and
0.7-2% in C2) and is then idle 90% of the rest (with another 8%
in the lowest frequency) ... you can imagine yourself how fast
wakeups are. Not something you want to do 100,000 times per
second. Starting up the PLLs and reloading the caches takes time.

But not *much* time. 400 wakeups and 93% idle time means
that wakeup must be (much) faster than 1/400 of 7%, or much
faster than 1/5700s. 1/10,000s or 1/30.000s or faster.
That's "significant for anyone capturing action shots"?
That's much faster than the action shooter's reaction time
variability, much faster than even the 300x200'ish high speed
video shot-to-shot time available in digital prosumer
cameras.

pre-shooting system has to have everything but the card writing
running at full tilt.


Right, and yet pro's do demand high sequence rates these days,


I just see the landscape, the portrait, the architecture, the
stilllife, the macro, and several other pros[1] clamoring for
600 fps[2]

There are some very few areas where 10, 11, 12, 13 fps
are well usable --- remember, pros demand high resolution and
high image quality! And that means usually at least a crop DSLR,
usually a FF DSLR or medium format--- amongst them:
- Studio where the second shot is just lit by the backlight
flashes (to automate masking). They'd want 50 or even more
fps, so subject movement (hair waving from the wind
machine, for example) better frozen. However, reading
*many* pixels *fast* means either low image quality or
masses of digitizers (i.e. extremely expensive).
- some type of wildlife (not all of them are happy to shoo
the wildlife away by mirror and shutter maschine gun
firing). Capturing the chameleon's tongue shooting out.
- Expanding on the above: when the subject is non-cooperative
and fast moving and has fleeting, irregular, too hard to
predict moments you're trying to catch. Politicans
showing their real face, for example.

Pros might also want to capture events very close together:
Pie approaching pop star, pie hitting in face, pie parts
flying everywhere, body guards tackling pop star, pop star
just about to hit the ground, pop star on ground while body
guards draw weapons and start firing wildly into the masses
:-)

and even the
cheapest P&S's have continuous still shooting modes (apart from movie mode).


But usually no AF then, and usually a 1-3 fps.

Once upon a time only pro's had high speed film winders and large capacity
backs on their SLR's. You had to have a good reason to go to that expense,
PLUS film cost!


Once upin a time most pros didn't use either, and still did
marvelous work.

-Wolfgang

[1] And that's "pros do demand", not "pro's", there's nothing
belonging to "pro" that demands, there is no "pro is do
demand" either. Sheesh, I'm supposed to be the non-native
speaker here, making stupid mistakes ...
[2] that's AFAIR available with some consumer/prosumer
bridge cameras ... at very low resolution.
  #7  
Old February 22nd 12, 01:08 PM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
Wolfgang Weisselberg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,285
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:


Yes, 1/4000 sec. actually freezes the bowling ball, and my mechanical
shutter can do that.


But not for the whole image at the same time --- it's a
travelling slot and that means the ball will likely not be
circular in the image. (It depends of course how visible
that is and if that is good, bad or neutral for the image.)

For significantly higher speeds you end up using
flash in the dark, and generally therefore only get one shot per trial.
I'd think it might be worth rigging a laser trigger instead if you were
doing it on film, so you wouldn't have to experiment to get the
placement right. Never did this on film.


Yup. Though you can probably get close with some math.

For example, my bowling ball mortar pictures were done that way. Using
a fuse to set off the mortar didn't give us a very predicatable time,
and I didn't have a sound trigger (still don't, but waiting for Trigger
Trap from the Kickstarter project, due this spring), but 5 or 8 frames
per second got us interesting shots.


You could have used an (e.g. infrared) active electric eye, a
passive electic eye (shadow of the ball) or even a
very thin wire that's torn by the bowling ball, too.


Certainly, although the muzzle flash was *huge* (being enhanced with two
baggies of gasoline :-) ). And some of the best shots were far enough
back that rigging a light beam without equipment appearing in the shot
would have been hard. But a sound trigger plus delay would be a good
choice too. (As I mentioned, I supported Trigger Trap on Kickstarter,
and am looking forward to receiving one this spring. It can use any of
these modes. Actually, it can probably trigger *on* the muzzle flash.)


(Here's one from the first year of the bowling ball mortar shoots
http://dd-b.net/cgi-bin/picpage.pl/photography/gallery/fourth-2008?pic=ddb%2020080704%20010-176.
Sorry the URL is so long, make sure it doesn't get broken or it won't work!
Use the "up" link from there to find the rest of the shots from that
session.)


Nice. So we'll see some more interesting shots in autumn.


You want really high speed? Then you want low resolution[1].
Readout speeds are limited by image quality.


[1] Or sweeping over several (logical and/or physical) sensors.


No, of course not; I want high speed *at high resolution*; for catching
fast events lazily for fun, not for making useful scientific studies of
fast events :-).


Yeah, not feasible at sane cost, I understand.


Oh, it's feasible enough right now ... with analog methods. :-)

Moving data that fast is *hard*.


Moving data isn't the main problem. The A/D converters just
need some time to reach quality, AFAIUI. Some time * xx million
pixels = slow. No wonder most faster cameras have multiple
A/D converters.

-Wolfgang
  #8  
Old February 22nd 12, 08:23 PM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
David Dyer-Bennet
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,814
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg writes:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:


Yes, 1/4000 sec. actually freezes the bowling ball, and my mechanical
shutter can do that.


But not for the whole image at the same time --- it's a
travelling slot and that means the ball will likely not be
circular in the image. (It depends of course how visible
that is and if that is good, bad or neutral for the image.)


Tolerable, in any case. And it's not very warped (the link to it was in
the previous message; here it is again
http://dd-b.net/cgi-bin/picpage.pl/photography/gallery/fourth-2008?pic=ddb%2020080704%20010-176).

For significantly higher speeds you end up using
flash in the dark, and generally therefore only get one shot per trial.
I'd think it might be worth rigging a laser trigger instead if you were
doing it on film, so you wouldn't have to experiment to get the
placement right. Never did this on film.


Yup. Though you can probably get close with some math.


And with more experience you'd get better at it -- as with most things.
Makes using the same gun and ammo each time more important, for
example. I hear that you can see the image by eye due to persistence of
vision, but you'd probably be safely back from the impact area so you
would be seeing it from quite a distance.

For example, my bowling ball mortar pictures were done that way. Using
a fuse to set off the mortar didn't give us a very predicatable time,
and I didn't have a sound trigger (still don't, but waiting for Trigger
Trap from the Kickstarter project, due this spring), but 5 or 8 frames
per second got us interesting shots.


You could have used an (e.g. infrared) active electric eye, a
passive electic eye (shadow of the ball) or even a
very thin wire that's torn by the bowling ball, too.


Certainly, although the muzzle flash was *huge* (being enhanced with two
baggies of gasoline :-) ). And some of the best shots were far enough
back that rigging a light beam without equipment appearing in the shot
would have been hard. But a sound trigger plus delay would be a good
choice too. (As I mentioned, I supported Trigger Trap on Kickstarter,
and am looking forward to receiving one this spring. It can use any of
these modes. Actually, it can probably trigger *on* the muzzle flash.)


(Here's one from the first year of the bowling ball mortar shoots
http://dd-b.net/cgi-bin/picpage.pl/photography/gallery/fourth-2008?pic=ddb%2020080704%20010-176.
Sorry the URL is so long, make sure it doesn't get broken or it won't work!
Use the "up" link from there to find the rest of the shots from that
session.)


Nice. So we'll see some more interesting shots in autumn.


We can hope. May take a while to learn how to productively employ the
new trigger, which is now delayed until April.

You want really high speed? Then you want low resolution[1].
Readout speeds are limited by image quality.


[1] Or sweeping over several (logical and/or physical) sensors.


No, of course not; I want high speed *at high resolution*; for catching
fast events lazily for fun, not for making useful scientific studies of
fast events :-).


Yeah, not feasible at sane cost, I understand.


Oh, it's feasible enough right now ... with analog methods. :-)


Mmmmmmm; strip cameras! They did some wild stuff for the Manhattan
project, long long ago now. But then they had a real budget.

Moving data that fast is *hard*.


Moving data isn't the main problem. The A/D converters just
need some time to reach quality, AFAIUI. Some time * xx million
pixels = slow. No wonder most faster cameras have multiple
A/D converters.


If you want multiple photos, data rates are a problem, or you need a
reall BIG ram disk.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
  #9  
Old February 29th 12, 11:48 PM posted to rec.photo.digital.slr-systems,rec.photo.digital
Wolfgang Weisselberg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 5,285
Default Lazy people and "smartphones" continue to erode P&S sales

David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

Moving data that fast is *hard*.


Moving data isn't the main problem. The A/D converters just
need some time to reach quality, AFAIUI. Some time * xx million
pixels = slow. No wonder most faster cameras have multiple
A/D converters.


If you want multiple photos, data rates are a problem, or you need a
reall BIG ram disk.


Say 5000 photos at 16 MPix, 14 bit. That's 140 GB --- not
terribly much. You can probably compress it to ~80-90 GB.
Sure, you won't find that in a prosumer camera today or next
year ... but give it a couple of years ...

-Wolfgang
 




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