Hi all
all this ccd stuff is way over my head, but I do know you are justified in
saying "never say never". It will *always* come back and bite you
eventually. There is a famous quote by the guy who was CEO or MD of IBM
back in the late fifties or early sixties, where he forecast that the
worldwide market for computers would be "five or six". How embarrassing....
I don't know whether this info is correct or not, but I was watching a
documentary on tv last weekend, and they stated that when the original
Apollo missions went to the moon, they had a computer with just 64k of
memory. (It probably cost a gazillion dollars too!!!). Most of us wouldn't
even bother to even consider buying a personal organiser now if it had less
than 128k or 256k of memory, let alone trust it to fly us to the moon!
I still believe (hope?) that Olys prominence in the sphere of digital
imaging (it seems they are one of the leading companies) will encourage
them to bring out a new back for the existing OM range that will give us
the resolution, storage speed etc etc that we all know is needed to match
the combo of "real" film and a motor drive (as per recent posts).
The more companies competing in the digital race the better, because it is
consumer demand, and competition for market share that will lead to more
$$$$ spent on research. And one day, (maybe sooner than we think) with
improved compression algorithms, storage technology, electronics and $2 36k
x 24k ccd 's (or whatever technology replaces them with!), someone will say
"Hell, all these old OM series have interchangeable backs, why not whack
one of our xxxx arrays into the space where the film pressure plate sits -
we might be able to sell one or two of them!"
I'll be first in line!
I remember when the first computer hard drives came out for mainframes,
they were huge- a 60cm diameter platter, with a capacity of 1 MB per side
for about $10,000. Now, you can buy an 8Gb drive that is the size of a
matchbox for $500 (I have one in my laptop). That's 8000 times the
capacity, at 1/100 the size, for 1/20 of the cost. Translate those figures
to digital imaging.
I guess the point is that as long as there is a demand to drive it, the
scientists, engineers, physicists, electronics and computer gurus will keep
slaving away making things smaller, lighter and faster. Eventually, I'm
pretty sure we will reach a stage where *something* that is digital based,
will be able to be placed inside the back of a "traditional" film camera
and replace the use of film, with little or no loss of resolution,
convenience, speed etc. It might even give us more resolution, more "shots
per roll", faster motor drives (although resetting the shutter would become
a limiting factor). I think it is not "if" but "when". And before someone
(who knows more about these things than me) argues that ccds do this, or
can't do that etc, just think outside the square (film frame?) for a minute
as I am sure that somewhere someone is working on a technology that will
make even ccds look clunky and obsolete....
There was a thread a couple of days ago about the convergence and
divergence of amateur and professional photographers and their eqt, and it
made a lot of sense (unfortunately).
I don't have too many concerns that my OM-4Ti 's and OM-1n will still be
chugging along in another 10 years giving me great pleasure (and some nice
pics too), but what if the market for 35mm film dries up because the
consumer demand has gone to digital technology, and pros are using film but
only medium and large format? What if we can't buy 35mm film for our
belowed OM's?
Most of the plastic cameras sold these days just don't seem to be built to
last, or even to be repaired. They are almost meant to be thrown out when
they break as they are then obsolete consumer items, and fixing them would
cost more than replacing them. I wonder how many of the cameras sold to the
consumer market in 1995 will still be around and servicable 10 years later?
Compare that with a (now) 20 year old OM-1 or OM-2 that are just as
desirable now as when they were released, and just as useable. If they do
disappear from circulation, to be replaced by "next years model" digital
consumer cameras, the installed base of 35mm film users will decline, along
with the market demand.
anyway, that's my 2 cents worth.
peter
>A very famous and wealthy man once said something to the effect that there
>is no way anyone will ever need more than 640KB of memory in a personal
>computer. 15 years later, the PC used to enter this has 100 times that much
>memory and room for 400 times that much. Oh yeah, its half the price
>too.....without inflation adjustments.
>
>So as not to repeat this famous man's folly, I'm reluctant to say never, but
>I'm hard pressed to see a digital device match what my OM-4T, equipped with
>and MD-2 and a 250 back filled with PMC, can do. 250 frames in 50 seconds;
>a new frame every 0.2 sec at up to 1/2000 sec action freezing speed. In full
>color. At much greater than 3000x2000 resolution. Neat trick - I can
>hardly wait.
>
>Maybe in another 15 years CCD's will make these huge technological leaps,
>and price plummets, like the PC biz has done. And then stabilize so the
>image I capture on a flash RAM card will last 100 years, or even 10, before
>the storage technology is obsolecesed twice over.
>
>John P
>______________________________________
>My Grandfather taught me to live by two rules. Rule #1: Don't tell folks
>everything you know.
>
>
>Lee Hawkins <lhawkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> correctly pointed out:
>>
>>True, but the readout time of the chip *does* limit how fast you can
>>take exposures. If the chip doesn't have a frame transfer area (half
>>the CCD, the same size as the imaging part of the chip, but shielded
>>from light) to quickly move the image to for slower readout, then you
>>are limited by the readout of the chip. I think this is around
>>10Mpixels/second currently, but I'm not sure you can read out that fast
>>and still have meaningful 32 bit images due to read noise. Also, if you
>>have a 3kx4k chip to start with, in order to have a frame buffer on chip
>>you need another 3kx4k area, which makes the chip, say, 6kx4k. Now
>>we're pushing the 9kx9k state of the art, and that ain't cheap!
>
>
>
>
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