On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 06:53:26PM -0400, John Francis scripsit: > On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 05:47:50PM -0400, Graydon wrote: > > On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 05:36:53PM -0400, John Francis scripsit: [snip] > > > Strengths, as I see them: > > > o Metal body shell > > > > Why is this a strength? > > > > More expensive, not as strong, and conducts more heat than the > > polycarbonate. It might be a strength if you expect a 20 year working > > life and want something that won't become brittle when it runs out of > > elastomers, but that's not true of a digital camera. > > Stiffness. > I'm sure heat conduction isn't going to be an issue (there's an > outer skin of polycarbonate, after all, and the camera is cold- > weather certified).
-10 C isn't much past brisk weather, but point. > But unless they're building the body out of carbon fibre it's not > going to be as stiff as one with a metal shell. The total lack of > body flex is one of the things that I noticed when I got to play with > a high-end CaNikon. Something I have not done, so I will take your word for it. I will say I have not noticed any particular tendency in the K20D to flex. > And I *do* expect close to a 20-year working life out of this. > My *ist-D still works just fine after 5.5 years; I expect it > to make it at least to 10. My old Canon PowerShot G1 is still > delivering images (albeit now in the hands of its second owner), > and that's over eight years old. It would be surprising if all the chips involved could make it to 10 years; 20 would be well past surprising and into "how on earth?" territory. Running a microchip will eventually break it, as the electrical current causes atoms to move and this eventually makes a transistor unable to trans. Relatively low power, and relatively low use (no one has their camera on 24/7, unlike a server) camera chips are going to last relatively well, but there's a certain amount of passive diffusion involved, too. All that cleverness isn't really stable; it's just that the house of cards takes some years to fall over. -- Graydon -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
