----- Original Message ----- From: < Subject: The true cost of "free" digital?
> IN SEARCH OF: The "real" cost of digital imaging. > > I wonder who, besides me, has owned (and discarded or given away) more than 4 > printers in the past three years? > Owned and discarded more than 3 scanners? > How much have you spent on "AA" batteries for those dratted, battery chewing > digitals? > My own fleeting experiences with "free" digital is that the costs ~never~ > stop, more so than with prints/slides. I hate it when you make sense. While I am still on my first scanner, I am on my third printer, and now I have set up a computer dedicated to digital imaging. I would like to be on my second scanner fairly soon. OTOH, I think upgrades in equipment are inevitable. When I started out in photography, I bought Olympus, then upgraded to Nikon, then upgraded again to Pentax. At the same time, I have gone through a little Pixure watermelon on a stick enlarger through a Durst M301 to an Omega of some sort (6x6), then a Beseler (6x7 colour head), to a Beseler 23C. As well, I have also bought (and upgraded to cold light) a Beseler 4x5. I startd out with a wrist watch for timing exposures, then bought a Heathkit darkroom timer, then a couple of Time-O-Lites, a Gra-Lab, another Gra-Lab (I hated the first one, but by then it was too late, I was stuck with it) and a Zone VI. I have gone from a single roll plastic developing tank, to a better one, to a single reel S/S, to a multi reel S/S to a Jobo drum processor. My first darkroom was a set of 4x5 trays on top of my parents deep freeze, with the aformentioned watermelon beside it and a pickle pail of water on the floor for dropiing fixed prints into. Now I have set aside one room in the house specifically for this sort of foolishness, and have built a proper and very good darkroom (which wasn't all that expensive, but still...an entire room!!!!) In retrospect, perhaps the computer makes more sense,,,,,photography, at the enthusiast level is an expensive proposition no matter how you cut it. At the level we are at, and with a young and rapidly improving technology, it is only natural to want to get better hardware as it becomes available. William Robb - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
