Re: Behind the counter with digital
But what do you sell them if they have a mac? Il Bill T Rittenhouse wrote: Which, brings up an interesting point. A good salesperson could get a lot of information just by asking the prospective digital camera purchaser, What kind of computer do you have?. If they say they don't have one, point them towards a film PS. If they say an old 486 point them towards a low end digi. If they say a recent mid-line point them toward a mid-line digi. If they say a high-end gaming machine, or a new powerbook, rub his hands in glee, and sell them an EOS-1Ds grin. The interesting thing about Bill's recent comments is that they are in no way unique to digital cameras. Many a person has gone into the camera store and asded for the best camera they have, and then left it in a drawer for the next twenty years because it was too complicated for them to figure out how to use. That is in fact where most of the mint collectable cameras used to come from. Ciao, Graywolf http://pages.prodigy.net/graywolfphoto - Original Message - From: William Robb [EMAIL PROTECTED] If they are managing their own files, a computer needs to be tossed into the cost equation. I realize they may already have one around, but it still counts as added cost. -- William Kane http://www.KaneScience.com IABT Advisory Board Member http://www.iabt.net Tinley Park High School 6111 W. 175th Street Tinley Park, IL 60477 V: 708/532-1900 ext 3909 http://www.bhsd228.com
Re: Behind the counter with digital
On Tuesday, December 24, 2002, at 09:41 AM, William Kane wrote: But what do you sell them if they have a mac? Il Bill Well Bill, if they were smart enough to get a mac, they wouldn't be having those problems in the first place. g Merry Christmas! Dan Scott
Re: Behind the counter with digital
I wasn't gonna get into this but hey, its xmas. The Pz-1p is an infinitely better camera than say an F90X or F80. The only thing the F90X has in it's favor is the vertical grip. This is where Pentax has fallen down repeatedly in the past. The Mz-s appears to be the salve for this dilemma. I used an F5 for a few weeks about 2 years ago, and whilst it is a brilliant camera, I wasn't disappointed to see the end of it. It was about the heaviest damn thing imaginable to carry around. I had a sb-26 flash and normally a 35-70 f2.8 Nikkor on it, and boy was it heavy. The AF speed wasn't noticeably that much faster than the z-1 I also had at the time. Sure, the construction and finish of the F5 was like comparing an LX to a Centon...but I could not justify spending six grand on the F5. The F5 was nice to use, but pretty damn complicated. The lenses I used were not as good as SMC stuff, but were hideously expensive. All Pentax needs to do now to keep me happy, is release a DSLR that is as good in all departments as the pz-1p is/was. I love mine. The only gripes are the noisy AF, lack of wide area AF, and no battery grip. So if the new DSLR (or FILM slr for that matter) has all this I would be wrapped. I don't want to change to another brand...and not just because of the cost. To get back to the point, I don't believe the AF speed of comparable cameras was/is that much faster than my pz-1p. Focus tracking is a different bowl of noodles all together. Even so, the pz-1p are not too bad at tracking moving objects, but the F5/Eos-1n are far better (which you would bloody well expect for the extra couple of grand over a pz-1p). 0.02 Cheers Shaun Cesar Matamoros II wrote: I have tried the F4, F5 (just a little bit), the D1X and D1H. I don't see what Bruce is getting at. César Panama City, Florida -- -Original Message- -- From: Pål Jensen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] -- Sent: Saturday, December 21, 2002 3:05 PM -- -- Bruce wrote: -- -- -- Try using an AF SLR that doesn't have Pentax on the front -- of it and you'll -- see that you don't have to prefocus to get in focus shots. -- -- Neither do you have to with a Pentax AF slr. Have you tried the MZ-S? -- -- På -- . -- Shaun Canning Cultural Heritage Services High Street, Broadford, Victoria, 3658. www.heritageservices.com.au/ Phone: 0414-967644 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] My images can be seen at www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=238096
Re: Behind the counter with digital
John Mustarde wrote: Troll, troll, troll Isn't it amazing that the Rube spends so much time here? Why would a Nikon man waste his time reading the trivial postings of mere mortals?
Re: Behind the counter with digital
Am I starting to sound like Mafud on the subject? William Robb Not by a long shot Bill. Free UK Macintosh Classified Ads at http://www.macads.co.uk/ Oh, swipe me! He paints with light! http://www.macads.co.uk/snaps/
RE: Behind the counter with digital
I think this is the machine that my local shop just got in. I will check in the next couple of days. I have an open invitation to see it in action. I have been meaning to ask if they will give guidlines on submissions or will they just deal with everything as it comes in. Cesar Panama City, Florida -- -Original Message- -- From: Bruce Dayton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] -- Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 11:07 PM -- -- William, -- -- I have to laugh. I am seeing similar problems anytime I go into the -- lab. They have the Agfa D-Labs and people bring in digital work for -- them. I can't begin to count the number of times that someone has -- emailed a small image (600X400) and then asked for an 8X10 print. It -- goes on and on. Most of them are pretty clueless. The most common -- problem is to set their camera to greatest compression and sometimes -- smallest image size so they can fit more on the card. Then they -- wonder why the pictures look so poor. -- -- The biggest problem I see with this is the lab who is doing the -- service is seen as the bad guy rather than the real culprits -- (user and -- manufacturer of the camera. -- -- -- Bruce -- -- -- -- Wednesday, December 18, 2002, 5:31:47 PM, you wrote: -- -- WR I'm spending this week working in a lab that has digital to -- WR photo paper printing capability. -- WR What a gong show. -- WR First, there seems to be no standards in the industry, and we -- WR are being asked to support 3 different memory card styles, plus -- WR microdrives, plus floppies and CDs. -- WR The people don't seem to have a sniff that they have to have -- WR minimum file sizes to make prints or that it would be nice to -- WR have the work in a common format. -- WR One clever sot actually asked us to make prints from a bunch of -- WR GIF images today. I guess thats how photodeluxe saves them -- WR The there was the moron that buried the files he wanted printed -- WR about 6 levels down from the root directory of his full CD, and -- WR didn't know the exact filenames for a search. -- WR Anyway, the people who make this stuff need to do some more -- WR market research. Maybe try to make digital photography easy. -- WR Film users can literally aim and shoot, and expect reasonable -- WR results, with no knowledge base. -- WR Digital users seem to need a course in rocket science to get -- WR pictures. -- -- WR William Robb --
Re: Behind the counter with digital
William Robb wrote: Digital users seem to need a course in rocket science to get pictures. Well, maybe they just need a COURSE, period. Who's educating the public about how to use digital? The old paradigm is that the camera stores have knowledgeable salespeople who can serve as the front line for educating the consumer. That hardly works now that mail order and mass-market stores are #1 and #2 in terms of disseminating the devices. Plus, there are literally thousands of schools that teach photography, and about a zillion books that cover the basics (again, and again, and again...). There's no sort of infrastructure for teaching digital. Everybody uses different cameras, everybody uses different image-management programs, everybody uses different computers and picture formats and transportation media. Where are consumers supposed to go to learn this stuff? My local community college doesn't even teach a course in Photoshop because anyone who's enough of an expert in Photoshop to teach it can get a better job than being a teacher. The few books that are out are basically out of date before they see the inside of a bookstore, and because of the lack of standardization they assume an equipment set that few specific readers actually have. True, we have the internet, but that's like educating a sixth grader by dumping a set of encyclopaedias on his head. My Mom owns a digital camera and a six-year-old Macintosh, and she can no more find her way to a digital print than I can find my way to the Powerball jackpot. I've got more than a little sympathy for the digital neophyte. It wasn't all that easy for _me_, and I have just a tad more knowledge about making still pictures than the average bear. --Mike
Re: Behind the counter with digital
I'm spending this week working in a lab that has digital to photo paper printing capability. What a gong show. First, there seems to be no standards in the industry, and we are being asked to support 3 different memory card styles, plus microdrives, plus floppies and CDs. [slight snip] Anyway, the people who make this stuff need to do some more market research. Maybe try to make digital photography easy. Film users can literally aim and shoot, and expect reasonable results, with no knowledge base. Digital users seem to need a course in rocket science to get pictures. If I were in charge at Kodak, I'd settle on a method of digital storage, whether it be CF card or whatever, I'd re-launch my digital hardware (cameras and storage cards) in a humongous blitz, calling it Digital Film, and force it into the family snapshot users' minds. All previous digital standards are old and defunct! Digital Film is *the* replacement for that old favourite 'film'. Now you can truly enter the digital age with an exciting new range of digital cameras from Kodak, and they all use just one way of keeping those cherished photos: Digital Film. Buy a Kodak camera, or any of the following cameras (x, y, z), and use Kodak Digital Film: an easy solution to all the complexity of taking digital pictures. Simply drop it into your favourite high street lab and you'll get back what you've always had in the past - beautiful prints on Kodak paper, a CD of your photos so Uncle Ernie and Aunti Flo can have some reprints later, and a freshly wiped Kodak Digital Film ready to take some more super pictures. Digital memories with Digital Film, only from Kodak. This achieves several things. Importantly, it clarifies the process for the average family snapper beyond simplicity itself. It's even easier than film, because you don't need to thread the stuff from the old outdated cassettes into the camera, you simply pop in the DF card and away you go. Pics taken, you drop in the DF card to the supermarket minilab, and for 3.99 you get back 2 or 3 dozen prints, a CD of all the shots for any later reprints, and your DF card, wiped, ready to go again. After it takes off, which it would ( 'Henry - which kinda camera shall we get, it's all so confusing - look at all these cards and things - oh - there's this Digital Film thing from Kodak, that sounds really easy...') then other makers could get in on the act - Fuji Digital Film, Agfa Digital Film, and so on. Sure they would be either a CF card or a memory stick or whatever the standard was, but in the public conscioussness, it would effectively be *the* replacement for film. The real fly in the ointment is getting them to standardize the format :-) .02 Cheers, Cotty PS- I'll bet that Wychwood's Hobgoblin that Kodak already hold the trademark on 'Digital Film'.. Free UK Macintosh Classified Ads at http://www.macads.co.uk/ Oh, swipe me! He paints with light! http://www.macads.co.uk/snaps/
Re: Behind the counter with digital
I've been working on a theory the last few years that digital technology has only 3 widespread effects: a) slowing things down for the consumer or hands-on worker b) making things unnecessarily complicated for the consumer or hands-on worker c) saving corporations money And mind you, I programmed micros for a living between 1978 and 2000. I'm not sure I was in the right field. -Lon Mike Johnston wrote: William Robb wrote: Digital users seem to need a course in rocket science to get pictures. Well, maybe they just need a COURSE, period. Who's educating the public about how to use digital? The old paradigm is that the camera stores have knowledgeable salespeople who can serve as the front line for educating the consumer. That hardly works now that mail order and mass-market stores are #1 and #2 in terms of disseminating the devices. Plus, there are literally thousands of schools that teach photography, and about a zillion books that cover the basics (again, and again, and again...). There's no sort of infrastructure for teaching digital. Everybody uses different cameras, everybody uses different image-management programs, everybody uses different computers and picture formats and transportation media. Where are consumers supposed to go to learn this stuff? My local community college doesn't even teach a course in Photoshop because anyone who's enough of an expert in Photoshop to teach it can get a better job than being a teacher. The few books that are out are basically out of date before they see the inside of a bookstore, and because of the lack of standardization they assume an equipment set that few specific readers actually have. True, we have the internet, but that's like educating a sixth grader by dumping a set of encyclopaedias on his head. My Mom owns a digital camera and a six-year-old Macintosh, and she can no more find her way to a digital print than I can find my way to the Powerball jackpot. I've got more than a little sympathy for the digital neophyte. It wasn't all that easy for _me_, and I have just a tad more knowledge about making still pictures than the average bear. --Mike
Re: Behind the counter with digital
I _like_ it, but that fly is about as big as a turkey buzzard. -Lon Cotty wrote: I'm spending this week working in a lab that has digital to photo paper printing capability. What a gong show. First, there seems to be no standards in the industry, and we are being asked to support 3 different memory card styles, plus microdrives, plus floppies and CDs. [slight snip] Anyway, the people who make this stuff need to do some more market research. Maybe try to make digital photography easy. Film users can literally aim and shoot, and expect reasonable results, with no knowledge base. Digital users seem to need a course in rocket science to get pictures. If I were in charge at Kodak, I'd settle on a method of digital storage, whether it be CF card or whatever, I'd re-launch my digital hardware (cameras and storage cards) in a humongous blitz, calling it Digital Film, and force it into the family snapshot users' minds. All previous digital standards are old and defunct! Digital Film is *the* replacement for that old favourite 'film'. Now you can truly enter the digital age with an exciting new range of digital cameras from Kodak, and they all use just one way of keeping those cherished photos: Digital Film. Buy a Kodak camera, or any of the following cameras (x, y, z), and use Kodak Digital Film: an easy solution to all the complexity of taking digital pictures. Simply drop it into your favourite high street lab and you'll get back what you've always had in the past - beautiful prints on Kodak paper, a CD of your photos so Uncle Ernie and Aunti Flo can have some reprints later, and a freshly wiped Kodak Digital Film ready to take some more super pictures. Digital memories with Digital Film, only from Kodak. This achieves several things. Importantly, it clarifies the process for the average family snapper beyond simplicity itself. It's even easier than film, because you don't need to thread the stuff from the old outdated cassettes into the camera, you simply pop in the DF card and away you go. Pics taken, you drop in the DF card to the supermarket minilab, and for 3.99 you get back 2 or 3 dozen prints, a CD of all the shots for any later reprints, and your DF card, wiped, ready to go again. After it takes off, which it would ( 'Henry - which kinda camera shall we get, it's all so confusing - look at all these cards and things - oh - there's this Digital Film thing from Kodak, that sounds really easy...') then other makers could get in on the act - Fuji Digital Film, Agfa Digital Film, and so on. Sure they would be either a CF card or a memory stick or whatever the standard was, but in the public conscioussness, it would effectively be *the* replacement for film. The real fly in the ointment is getting them to standardize the format :-) .02 Cheers, Cotty PS- I'll bet that Wychwood's Hobgoblin that Kodak already hold the trademark on 'Digital Film'.. Free UK Macintosh Classified Ads at http://www.macads.co.uk/ Oh, swipe me! He paints with light! http://www.macads.co.uk/snaps/
Re: Behind the counter with digital
On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 21:45:38 +1300, David A. Mann wrote: William Robb wrote: First, there seems to be no standards in the industry, and we are being asked to support 3 different memory card styles, plus microdrives, plus floppies and CDs. From the other side of the counter, its a bit frustrating when the format you want to use is not supported. The lab I go to has the Agfa e-box hooked into their D-lab 3 (they just took delivery of a D-lab 2 as well but thats another story). Well that e-box contraption takes every kind of memory card you can throw at it plus CD and floppy and something called XD which I've never heard of. But the CD drive won't read a CD-RW disc (I am not willing to use a CD-R for a temporary file). There's a USB port on the front of the box but the software doesn't support it. I was thinking about those little USB keychain memory cards as a perfect way to transfer files. At least they accept files by email. Cheers, - Dave http://www.digistar.com/~dmann/ xD memory is the newest player on the block. eXtreme Digital is designed with a capacity of up to 8GB. So far Canon and Fuji seem to be the only users. Given its small size, approximately the dimensions of a U.S. penny, squared off, I suspect it will be popular with other manufacturers soon. jm
Re: Behind the counter with digital
Bill, Don't these people edit out the bad shots before they bring the camera/memory in for prints? Wow! They are really screwed-up. That's the 2nd thing I learned how to do on my Sony. Regards, Bob S. There isn't that cost advantage in reality, because the cost per print of digital (at least in my market) is enough higher that a film can be half used, taken in and processed, and will likely cost less than getting the digital equivalent printed. William Robb
Re: Behind the counter with digital
- Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Behind the counter with digital Bill, Don't these people edit out the bad shots before they bring the camera/memory in for prints? Wow! They are really screwed-up. That's the 2nd thing I learned how to do on my Sony. Bob, in my market, the cost of printing from a digital file is nearly double the cost of printing from film. Film users can have a lot of bad shots before digital comes close to the same price, presuming the digital user hits 100% success via file deletion. Here is an extreme example: A 24 exposure roll of cheap but adequate film: $1.79 12 prints made, 8 keepers (for the sake of discussion) $1.84. Total cost for 8 keepers is: $3.63 Compared to: a customer comes in with 8 digital files for printing, at $.42 per print. Total cost is $3.36. Customer saves a whopping $.27. That is with 50% film usage, and a 50% failure rate: keepers/taken vs 100% success with digital. Am I starting to sound like Mafud on the subject? William Robb
Re: Behind the counter with digital
That some of that new math. The real numbers would be $4.55 for the 8 keepers from film, for a saving to the digital user of $1.19. Still, not a big savings for a blatant waste of film. William Robb - Original Message - From: William Robb Subject: Re: Behind the counter with digital - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Behind the counter with digital Bill, Don't these people edit out the bad shots before they bring the camera/memory in for prints? Wow! They are really screwed-up. That's the 2nd thing I learned how to do on my Sony. Bob, in my market, the cost of printing from a digital file is nearly double the cost of printing from film. Film users can have a lot of bad shots before digital comes close to the same price, presuming the digital user hits 100% success via file deletion. Here is an extreme example: A 24 exposure roll of cheap but adequate film: $1.79 12 prints made, 8 keepers (for the sake of discussion) $1.84. Total cost for 8 keepers is: $3.63 Compared to: a customer comes in with 8 digital files for printing, at $.42 per print. Total cost is $3.36. Customer saves a whopping $.27. That is with 50% film usage, and a 50% failure rate: keepers/taken vs 100% success with digital. Am I starting to sound like Mafud on the subject? William Robb
Re: Behind the counter with digital
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Customer saves a whopping $.27. That is with 50% film usage, and a 50% failure rate: keepers/taken vs 100% success with digital. Am I starting to sound like Mafud on the subject? No, not like Mafud, but don't push it! g The example is interesting. I'm fooling with digital now. I like the immediate results, But don't want to spend any more time in front of the computer!!! And it's costing me more as I print 8 1/2 by 11 inch color prints... (I've taken 1,000 pictures with it in the last 12 months, FYI) (At 3 megapixels, the results are not photo quality but fun 8x10's) Regards, Bob S.
Re: Behind the counter with digital
On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 20:32:20 -0600 (CST), Chris Brogden wrote: On Thu, 19 Dec 2002, John Mullan wrote: xD memory is the newest player on the block. eXtreme Digital is designed with a capacity of up to 8GB. So far Canon and Fuji seem to be the only users. Given its small size, approximately the dimensions of a U.S. penny, squared off, I suspect it will be popular with other manufacturers soon. Actually, Olympus is the only current user of XD cards. You're probably thinking of MMC/SD (MultiaMedia Cards and Secure Digital cards), which Canon uses in their digital video cameras (not in their still cameras), and which Kodak also uses in digital still cameras. I personally hate the cards, as they're so small that they're easy to lose. BTW, don't count on ever seeing an 8GB version. Lots of cards have the potential to reach massive storage capacity, but never go that high because almost no one would buy them, or because the technology is later found to be flawed. Look at Sony's Memory Stick. Sony had claimed gigabyte capacity, but it doesn't look like they're going beyond 128MB. The new (and largely incompatible) form of Memory Stick called Memory Stick Pro will come out sometime next year, and that could conceivably reach gigabyte+ capacities, but it's not really economically viable until storage costs come down. chris The Fuji Finepix F402, 2650, A200, A203, A303, and 3800 as well as the Olympus C-50, C-730, and C-5050 all use the xD chip. Considering how memory prices have fallen, and as pixel count goes up, I expect to see 1 GB memory cards soon. Multi-Gigabyte memories are a little further out. I can remember spending several hundred dollars to add 16 MB to a PC. Now PC memory is dirt cheap. I expect flash memory to do the same. jm
Re: Behind the counter with digital
William, I have to laugh. I am seeing similar problems anytime I go into the lab. They have the Agfa D-Labs and people bring in digital work for them. I can't begin to count the number of times that someone has emailed a small image (600X400) and then asked for an 8X10 print. It goes on and on. Most of them are pretty clueless. The most common problem is to set their camera to greatest compression and sometimes smallest image size so they can fit more on the card. Then they wonder why the pictures look so poor. The biggest problem I see with this is the lab who is doing the service is seen as the bad guy rather than the real culprits (user and manufacturer of the camera. Bruce Wednesday, December 18, 2002, 5:31:47 PM, you wrote: WR I'm spending this week working in a lab that has digital to WR photo paper printing capability. WR What a gong show. WR First, there seems to be no standards in the industry, and we WR are being asked to support 3 different memory card styles, plus WR microdrives, plus floppies and CDs. WR The people don't seem to have a sniff that they have to have WR minimum file sizes to make prints or that it would be nice to WR have the work in a common format. WR One clever sot actually asked us to make prints from a bunch of WR GIF images today. I guess thats how photodeluxe saves them WR The there was the moron that buried the files he wanted printed WR about 6 levels down from the root directory of his full CD, and WR didn't know the exact filenames for a search. WR Anyway, the people who make this stuff need to do some more WR market research. Maybe try to make digital photography easy. WR Film users can literally aim and shoot, and expect reasonable WR results, with no knowledge base. WR Digital users seem to need a course in rocket science to get WR pictures. WR William Robb
