RANT- Reality Check-"The Early Days of Digital Photography"

Kibo informs me that "Gene Palmiter" stated
that:

"Robert Lynch" wrote in message
What kind of standards do you think are lacking in the world
digital photography?

Well....RAW files....why can't they be standarized so that the programs that
handle them can improve?

You mean like the 'DNG' (for "digital negative"?), open RAW file format
that Adobe have just announced?

Lion Battery packs...do they all have to be
different and proprietary?

Yeah, that part still sucks, but I think it's unlikely to change. It's
still the same way for laptops, & there have been a couple of failed
attempts to bring in a standard set of battery formats for them over the
last 15 years or so.

But....the market will decide what the standards
will be....but not for awhile.

Well, the memory cards are a standard format (well, maybe 1.5 formats
, & the communication protocol for downloading or printing direct from
the camera is reasonably standardised already.

--
W
. | ,. w , "Some people are alive only because
\|/ \|/ it is illegal to kill them." Perna condita delenda est
---^----^---------------------------------------------------------------

"Mardon" wrote in message ...
"Drifter" wrote...

We're standing in the shallow end and I'm telling you now that digital
photography is still very, very, new.

Thanks for some thoughtful comments. BTW, I agree that your words are not a
rant! :-)

Your comparison of the digital timeline to the overall photography timeline
raises an interesting issue that you did not address. The quality and
archival durability of many 19th century and early 20th century negatives
(glass plate and film, as well as tintypes) are often much better than
negatives produced by the 'advanced' technology of the mid-20th century. I
have worked with almost 2,000 glass plate negatives and many large format
film negatives from the period around the beginning of the 20th century and
they are generally much better in quality and preservation than the
negatives that I have from the 1960s and '70s. I think that, like many
things, the loss of quality was a result of the disposable economy / lowest
price mindset that overcame the marketplace in the late 20th century. Do
you see a similar analogy being possible with digital; that is, where
quality suffers even though the technology advances? In some respects, the
very nature of digital photography creates this paradox, since digital is
anathema to archival considerations. A hundred years from now, will my
great grandchildren be able to see an image from a 1DMarkII, just as I can
see images of my great grandfather in those old 19th century negatives?

If you take care of your flash card (assuming you don't upload your
images to a hard disk, or print them), then yes, why not? Flash is
good for indiscernable data loss after decades. To the human eye,
probably good forever. Even with current post-processing technology,
one could probably pull out data from a chip after centuries, and
eliminate intrinsic data loss (short of catastrophic environmental
failures) to see the image good as new.

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 10:45:22 -0700, Big Bill wrote:

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 14:57:56 GMT, "Gene Palmiter"
wrote:

Way back when I got my Oly E-10 I would hear people whisper "That's a
digital camera!," others would freak when I showed them a photo on the
viewer...they had no idea that digital existed. I think that is what people
are refering to when they talk of when digital was new...the days before it
was ubiquitous. I do agree though that we are where the PC was before the
IBM-PC. There are no standards.

Standards?
As opposed to film?
I can go into a camera store that stocks 35mm film, and see the lack
of standards there.
Or lenses.
Or cameras themselves.
Standards? We've got hundreds of standards, none of them standard. :-)

How about Pentax calling themselves "The official camera of the
Internet"? What standard elected them that?


The International Pentax Marketers Association, of course.

On 1 Oct 2004 15:43:19 -0700, (zach) wrote:

"Mardon" wrote in message ...
"Drifter" wrote...

We're standing in the shallow end and I'm telling you now that digital
photography is still very, very, new.

Thanks for some thoughtful comments. BTW, I agree that your words are not a
rant! :-)

Your comparison of the digital timeline to the overall photography timeline
raises an interesting issue that you did not address. The quality and
archival durability of many 19th century and early 20th century negatives
(glass plate and film, as well as tintypes) are often much better than
negatives produced by the 'advanced' technology of the mid-20th century. I
have worked with almost 2,000 glass plate negatives and many large format
film negatives from the period around the beginning of the 20th century and
they are generally much better in quality and preservation than the
negatives that I have from the 1960s and '70s. I think that, like many
things, the loss of quality was a result of the disposable economy / lowest
price mindset that overcame the marketplace in the late 20th century. Do
you see a similar analogy being possible with digital; that is, where
quality suffers even though the technology advances? In some respects, the
very nature of digital photography creates this paradox, since digital is
anathema to archival considerations. A hundred years from now, will my
great grandchildren be able to see an image from a 1DMarkII, just as I can
see images of my great grandfather in those old 19th century negatives?

If you take care of your flash card (assuming you don't upload your
images to a hard disk, or print them), then yes, why not? Flash is
good for indiscernable data loss after decades. To the human eye,
probably good forever. Even with current post-processing technology,
one could probably pull out data from a chip after centuries, and
eliminate intrinsic data loss (short of catastrophic environmental
failures) to see the image good as new.

I suspect the biggest archival problem with digital images is
more a matter of being able to find equiopment to use in viewing them.
Just as I'd have trouble scrounging up an 8-track tape player if I
found an old tape in the garage.

I wonder how much thought went into the issues of archiving
the early film material. They'd not likely have hed accelerated aging
processes to test for longevity so as to select the best materials.

Drifter wrote:

Okay, this one is driving me nutz so I'm going to blow off a little
steam and be done with it.

Repeatedly I have been seeing/hearing the phrase "back when digital
photography was new", sometimes with a wry intent, but more often with
complete seriousness that carries a sort of blasé "been there/done
that" attitude (possibly a symptom of a sort of time-compressed,
multitasking, revved-up, "Moore's Law" mentality that many of us live
with today).

I have to admit that I find it triggers equal measures of irritation
and humor.

Photography in general stems from the ancient concept of the "Camera
Obscuras", but for the sake of my comparison I consider modern
photography to be a direct descendant of the first film negatives
created by Henry Talbot in 1834. That gives photography a pedigree of
at least 170 years. Even starting from the first Leica (1924) we have
a photographic history of 80 years!

By contrast, digital photography (using a sensor as opposed to a film
negative) can, at best, claim a history of roughly 17 years with
Kodak's first commercial sensor around 1987 or, more practically,
about 13 years because the 1991 release of the DCS cameras by Kodak
could be considered the spiritual equal of the stunning release of the
1900's "Brownie" camera. Today (2004) we have moved well into the
equal of the "Leica/Kodachrome" phase (roughly equal to 1936 in film
terms).

Obviously development of digital photography has been accelerated
since digital took only 13 years to cover roughly the same span that
took film photography 36 years. This is no real surprise as many
aspects of digital photography (especially lens technology) rest
firmly on the well developed shoulders of film photography. However
even at this faster pace it seems apparent that digital photography is
still a very young sibling to it's parent (film photography).

Just as Talbot had no idea what his creation would (pardon the pun)
develop into, we have no idea what digital photography will accomplish
in 80 (or 170) years.

We're standing in the shallow end and I'm telling you now that digital
photography is still very, very, new.

I think you have the time line wrong. I took my first digital
picture in 1976, recorded onto 9-track tape. The birth of
digital imaging started much earlier in the space program,
I believe with one of the first satellites that took pictures
of the earth. That later led to weather satellites.
Of course, the birth may have been in the spy business, but
I have no knowledge about that (beyond reading aviation week
and space technology). So my guess would be around
1960.

Roger

---snip---
I think you have the time line wrong. I took my first digital
picture in 1976, recorded onto 9-track tape. The birth of
digital imaging started much earlier in the space program,
I believe with one of the first satellites that took pictures
of the earth. That later led to weather satellites.
Of course, the birth may have been in the spy business, but
I have no knowledge about that (beyond reading aviation week
and space technology). So my guess would be around
1960.

Roger

Roger- I tried to make my whole point very clear that I'm talking
about the development and use of both film negatives and digital
sensors from their common -commercial- release point; that "everyman"
usability that the "Brownie" and then the Leica gave to film, and the
same with the Kodak DCS systems for digital.

Having established (I thought) that point I was then trying to show
just how short the digital timeline really is and how new everything
surrounding the use of a digital sensor to capture images really is.

The underlying points of my rant...(keeping in mind that this is
directed to the world in general, not at you personally)...

1) Digital based photography is still very new, not only have the bugs
not all been worked out. Heck, we probably don't even know what all
of the bugs are yet!

2) The hype from the sales departments of various companies is that
you are buying solid, mature, technology. "Oh we solved all those
issues from the early days". Well there is some amazing equipment no
doubt, but the truth is that if you jump in now the you are still an
"early adaptor" (equal to the brand new Leica days) and as a result
you are probably going to get "nicked" here and there by issues. I
wanted to issue a really big "reality check" about where we are on the
digital development timeline.

4) Like film, many of the issues that plague us today (limited range,
long term storage, incompatible formats, battery life, and so on) will
most likely be solved as photography is too popular for the issues to
remain ignored. In the meantime it's up to the user to either
compensate for those issues, or avoid digital until it grows up.

5) These problems will probably not be solved within the next 2-3
years, but it will most likely take less than the 40-70 years that it
took for film, so stop being so darn impatient! grin.

The great divide that I trip on all the time can best be illustrated
this way. I have a friend who bought the Digital Rebel and paid
"serious bucks" so the camera would do everything for him. He
absolutely cannot understand why I paid "serious bucks" for a 10D so
that I could get the camera to STOP trying to do everything for me
grin.

Ah well, east is east and west is west I guess.


Drifter
"I've been here, I've been there..."

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 04:08:04 GMT, friend®
wrote:

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 08:40:50 -0400, Drifter
wrote:

--------------------in general you're right. But there is one only
thing in common amongst Leaf digital back, DSLR a nd compact digital
cameras - [concept of a sensor. Otherwise, they are different
spewcies.

Which has no bearing on my point...

Summed up ..again...

Film Photography development timeline
Begin-------------------long timeline----------------current day

Digital Photography development timeline
Begin-short timeline-Current day

Easily 80% of the complaints I hear about digital photography have
their roots in people forgetting (or not knowing in the first place)
just how new the technology is. The point of my rant was a reminder
that it's all still very new (in spite of what corporate advertising
would have you think, but hey, they're just trying to instill
confidence in their product so it'll sell).

Because it's so new be ready to compensate -for now-. If you aren't
ready to compensate then don't let anyone fool you into jumping in
until things have matured a little more.

Personally, I love the fun of figuring out new technology grin.


Drifter
"I've been here, I've been there..."

Drifter wrote:

---snip---

I think you have the time line wrong. I took my first digital
picture in 1976, recorded onto 9-track tape. The birth of
digital imaging started much earlier in the space program,
I believe with one of the first satellites that took pictures
of the earth. That later led to weather satellites.
Of course, the birth may have been in the spy business, but
I have no knowledge about that (beyond reading aviation week
and space technology). So my guess would be around
1960.

Roger


Roger- I tried to make my whole point very clear that I'm talking
about the development and use of both film negatives and digital
sensors from their common -commercial- release point; that "everyman"
usability that the "Brownie" and then the Leica gave to film, and the
same with the Kodak DCS systems for digital.

Having established (I thought) that point I was then trying to show
just how short the digital timeline really is and how new everything
surrounding the use of a digital sensor to capture images really is.

The underlying points of my rant...(keeping in mind that this is
directed to the world in general, not at you personally)...

1) Digital based photography is still very new, not only have the bugs
not all been worked out. Heck, we probably don't even know what all
of the bugs are yet!

2) The hype from the sales departments of various companies is that
you are buying solid, mature, technology. "Oh we solved all those
issues from the early days". Well there is some amazing equipment no
doubt, but the truth is that if you jump in now the you are still an
"early adaptor" (equal to the brand new Leica days) and as a result
you are probably going to get "nicked" here and there by issues. I
wanted to issue a really big "reality check" about where we are on the
digital development timeline.

4) Like film, many of the issues that plague us today (limited range,
long term storage, incompatible formats, battery life, and so on) will
most likely be solved as photography is too popular for the issues to
remain ignored. In the meantime it's up to the user to either
compensate for those issues, or avoid digital until it grows up.

5) These problems will probably not be solved within the next 2-3
years, but it will most likely take less than the 40-70 years that it
took for film, so stop being so darn impatient! grin.

The great divide that I trip on all the time can best be illustrated
this way. I have a friend who bought the Digital Rebel and paid
"serious bucks" so the camera would do everything for him. He
absolutely cannot understand why I paid "serious bucks" for a 10D so
that I could get the camera to STOP trying to do everything for me
grin.

Ah well, east is east and west is west I guess.


Drifter
"I've been here, I've been there..."
Hi,
You raise interesting points. I guess I got confused
about the origin of photography when you mentioned
Talbot in 1834--that was not a commercial venture.
In a sense the commercialization of digital photography
did start in the 1960s with NASA funding contractors
to build camera systems for spacecraft. It was that
research and development that eventually led to
commercial products.

But what I think you should rant about has more to do
with commercial decisions than technology. Companies
dribble out a slightly better product to try and get
people to buy it. Each company just puts out a product
they believe slightly edges out their competitor.
But they could actually leap way ahead. We see this with
computers all the time: 2.6 GHz, 2.8 GHz, 3.2 GHz, and with
digital cameras: 4 Mpixels, 6 Mpixels, 8 Mpixels. These
are small steps in the scheme of things, but a commercial
effort to keep profits rolling in. Once the top is
reached, and one needs no better tool, sales will drop
and profits will drop. At what point is it good enough,
like the evolution of audio CD players, which have plateaued
for years?

Roger

"Mardon" wrote in message ...
"zach" wrote...

Even with current post-processing technology,
one could probably pull out data from a chip after centuries, and
eliminate intrinsic data loss (short of catastrophic environmental
failures) to see the image good as new.

Given the trouble that I've had finding a 'regular 8' (mm) movie projector
to transfer some old family movies, combined with my contining search for a
reel to reel recorder that will play some old family audio tapes recorded at
3 3/4 ips, I have to be skeptical that the technology to read today's flash
card format will be available 100 years from now. I did a university
computer program in the early 1960s (a Fortran course) and prepared my
program and data on punched cards. I suspect that the chances of finding a
computer to run that program today are better than the chances of reading a
flash card a century from now. Do you really think that the technology will
still exist to do this?

I was thinking of more on the silicon level, but you are right from a
practical standpoint. I was also thinking more for future
anthropologists. A negative image is still a negative image, whether
on a glass plate, or a piece of film. There are many flavors of flash
memory, each with its company's proprietary (cross-licensed or not)
method of reading the data out from each memory cell.

As for when digital photograhy started, as someone else pointed out,
you could probably say with the invention of the CCD, in the late
1960s quick google seach ok, 1969. And the first major applications
were(spy?) satellite photography and space telescopy.

You mean like the 'DNG' (for "digital negative"?), open RAW file format
that Adobe have just announced?



YES! That is exactly what I mean. How can a "standard" be "just announced"?
At best it's something that is, or will be, a proposed standard. How many
others like it are on the drawing board. Have others been announced? If so,
then none are standard. Is Adobe's the first? The first bicycle was like a
hobby horse....the gearing did not become standard for a long time. Time
will tell. On the other hand....Mark Twain wrote a novel, Huck Finn I think,
using a typewriter...the first to do so. He typed it double spaced on one
side of sheets of paper....that became a standard.

Being proposed by Adobe gives it an advantage...but time will tell.