Andrew
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Post by Andrew on Jun 19, 2009 0:55:37 GMT -5
I'm glad at least someone else remembers seeing it Michael, i was beginning to think i imagined it thanks for the extra info bringing that lingering concern of mine to an end....on to the next conspiracy theory then, hmm isnt there one going around lately that Leica actually copied thier camera from the russians LOL ah well maybe another will come to me soon
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 19, 2009 1:40:51 GMT -5
" The delightful damsel in purple doesn't have the camera hanging round her neck. The strap is round her body. Maybe she didn't want to upset her hairstyle."
Peter the strap appears to go over her right shoulder. If she allowed the camera, which she is holding up side down, to hang down the lens would be facing her navel. Surely a situation for serious contemplation.
Mickey
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 9:05:41 GMT -5
It would be great if it was possible to create a digital insert for say, my Nikon FM. I'm sure it would be possible. Problem is no one would be able to afford it. You can invent just about anything (except perpetual motion) if you have enough money.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 19, 2009 10:18:18 GMT -5
There was some excitement several years ago about the development of a digital insert for 35 mm cameras. At least I was excited. I can't remember its name. It was never marketed as far as I know. Such an attachment for my Canon T90 could induce me to give a mortgage on my house.
Perhaps. Perhaps.
If wishes were horses beggars would ride.
Mickey
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jun 19, 2009 16:57:56 GMT -5
My memory's a little hazy on this, but I remember back in the late 1980s, about 1987?, on a stand at a London trade camera exhibition there was a demonstration of prototype digital backs for the Canon and the Nikon. I don't remember the name of the company but I seem to think part of the back was made under licence from Fuji.
These were certainly no dummy mock-ups. You could handle them and try them, and the results were shown on a colour Mackintosh II which was hooked up to an external hard drive and a secondary vertical A4 screen - dim but readable .
The big promotion point was desktop publishing, then called, I believe, electronic publishing, and the pictures could be scanned, sized with a very basic image editor and dropped into a desktop layout program called Page Maker from which could be produced printed pages ready for offset printing. It wasn't quite WYSIWYG, but not far off.
No columns of copy to cut and paste and no screened Photo Mechanical Transfer pictures to make and paste on the page. Production backs were scheduled to appear about a year later. I think the suggested price for a camera back and the relevant software was about £2,800.
I don't remember ever seeing them advertised as being in production, though a digital back for a Hasselblad certainly appeared.
Desktop publishing was launched with Page Maker and another layout program called Ready, Set, Go.
One then fairly small but go-ahead magazine for which Valerie and I were freelancing used Ready, Set, Go to produce printed pages in to which screened PMT pictures were pasted - actually they were held down with wax.
Then their printers said there was no need to make PMTs. An ordinary glossy print, either black and white or colour, could be cut to size and pasted in the page. The printers would then screen them ready for offset printing. The magazine proprietor told me this had cut their production time and cost by roughly half! They also stole a march on their competitors by coming out almost full colour instead of just with four or eight colour pages (four advertising and four editorial), and being able to offer cheaper colour advertising anywhere in the magzine.
It also cut our costs a lot because we could use color print film and drop the undeveloped cassettes off at the magazine which had them developed and printed by a local two-hour service lab. We were asked not to fill the frame, but to leave plenty of margin round the subject to allow the layout sub to crop the actual print to size. We still used medium format colour transparencies for front covers because the colour prints of those days just hadn't got the definition and depth of colour at A4.
Of course, later programs, even the early versions, like Quark (streets ahead of other layout programs) and being able to scan pictures into Photoshop and adjust the density, colour saturation and so on, before dropping them in to a Quark page, made cutting and pasting of any sort redundant. But at the time Valerie and I thought the new desktop publishing was absolute magic compared with having type set in lead and picture blocks made. As for colour, that meant having four colour separations made and then put into register by a very skilled operator peering through a loupe. No wonder colour was expensive.
PeterW
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Mark Vaughan
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I STILL have a pile of Nikons. Considering starting a collection of Ricoh SLRs and RFs.
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Post by Mark Vaughan on Jun 20, 2009 0:56:31 GMT -5
All of this reminds me of my first Nikon 35mm - a rangefinder L35AF. That thing was GREAT. I even had an aftermarket set of 46mm screw-mount tele and wide lenses for it. On the 35mm to digital topic, Nikon DID get involved with converting the venerable F3HP to a digital. It involved a massive power pack and CPU carry case and much wiring and was known as the Nikon/Kodak DCS (circa 1991) I belive that the best output was 1 Megapixel and change. Here's a link: mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonf3ver2/variations/index.htmMark
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2009 17:42:52 GMT -5
Peter:
As someone who began my career casting sentences on lead slugs on a Linotype machine, I've seen a lot of changes on publishing. First we switched to offset, then to photo typsetting with paper type pasted onto master pages using wax . Then we moved on to computer for writing and editing, then layout using computers -- initially Pagemaker or Quark. Now it's direct from the computer layout to the plates for the press with no processes between. The direct-to-plate technology has reduced costs immensly. BTW Quark is fast disappearing--replaced by Adobe InDesign. Quark customer support was alway horrible but they got away with it because they were the publishing gold standard. Now that's not the case.
I also remember the old days when preparing a color photo for publication in a magazine or newspaper was a costly and very time-consuming process. The people who could do it were some of the most highly trained (and highly paid) in the publishing industry. Now the process require a few computer keystrokes.
Digital SLRs were just coming into newspapers as I was leaving back in the mid 1990s. Only the big newspapers and wire services had them because the basic Kodak (Nikon) DSLR cost between $10,000 and $15,000. I think the images they produced were in the 1.5 mpx range. That was OK for newspapers because any photo produced on newsprint isn't going to be great anyway.
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Post by herron on Jun 24, 2009 18:14:45 GMT -5
Wayne - I was content to just "read" this thread, until I saw your comment about Linotype, and realized we are certainly of the same ilk -- or at least the same generation! I can remember telling a good friend of mine, who owned (inherited from his father and grandfather) an engraving company (back when such companies produced 4-color film separations) that he should invest in one of the new "electronic" scanning machines. He was going to need it, I said, to be able to compete, timewise, with the companies in town who were already trending that way. "Too expensive" he said. His family's company, and most of the others like it, no longer exist. I also remember putting together an ROI document for my own company, telling them how fast they could recoup their investment in new Mac graphic computers for my department. It wasn't until our financial folks agreed with my "seven months" time frame that we got the go-ahead. How times have changed! ------- PS -- I don't care for the camera, but the purple-clad spokesperson is welcome here any day!
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Andrew
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Post by Andrew on Jun 24, 2009 19:56:28 GMT -5
this thread has taken on some interesting diversions. re; the digital insert when we were talking about it caused me way too much daydreaming (more like nightmares) how to make it work, until i came to the conclusion it would be best implemented if incorporated into the back of some of the higher end cameras from nikon, olympus etc that have the interchangeable backs. having spent my time and disrupted sleep i was both disappointed, and pleased to see it has already been done!; disappointed when i read this thread next to discover that you guys said that they had stole my idea after my day or two of hard thinking (reminds me of how i invented cornflakes when i about 5 or so, only to be shocked when i went to the supermarket and saw they pinched my idea and had them on the shelfs, crooks!), and pleased that i am no longer having the nightmares trying to make it work ;D ;D anyways, just back to the E-p1, i happened across this page where Olympus indeed say this camera is predominately aimed at people coming from P&S, but are promising more to come, possible primes with optical finders to suit each and whilst they class this as a consumer model they are planning/considering smaller and also models with higher grade specs. as we all would expect, if this takes off in the market they too expect that the other brand names will probably offer their own version of these 4/3 cameras....its an interesting article from the British Journal of Photography anyway, i thought you might like it www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=863832
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2009 9:08:57 GMT -5
Sounds like a model with a built-in viewfinder might be in the offing. Now THAT interests me.
Wayne
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Post by Michael Fraley on Jul 7, 2009 11:23:00 GMT -5
Interesting thread. I've been obsessing over this camera for several days now -- well, I'm on vacation so I have the time! I too would wish for a viewfinder -- preferably with a rangefinder focus. With interchangeable frames for different prime lenses. Then I would overlook the smaller sensor and its low-light drawbacks. Now I'm not so sure. But I have been contemplating the 4/3 adapter, the 25mm pancake lens, and the 'retro' leather half-case. What would be missing for me, is the experience of manually focusing through a viewfinder. I realize the lcd screen is useful especially for macro work but as Peter says, holding a camera out from your body to view the screen is not a stable position. Seems there are always trade-offs! Which is why I still haven't bought anything other than a p&s digital. If they'd only put a large bright viewfinder in a dslr, I'd be happy. When my Zorki 4 has a better viewfinder than Nikon's latest under- $1000 model, the D5000, it's pretty frustrating..
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