[ale] OT: camcorder/camera combos

Klepinger, Aaron Aaron.Klepinger at CompuCredit.com
Fri Dec 13 12:51:10 EST 2002


I liked this article comparing quality of digital and still photo shots of
the Canon 1DS and a 35mm camera

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/04/1549200&mode=thread&tid=126

-----Original Message-----
From: Dow Hurst [mailto:dhurst at kennesaw.edu]
To: ale at ale.org
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 10:20 AM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] OT: camcorder/camera combos


I really appreciate the nice explanation!  So a big thanks on that!

I can see for convenience a digital camera of reasonable quality is fun 
and fine for family vacations and knockabout photography.  However, the 
reality seems to me to be that regular 35mm film and a high quality 
camera/lense would yield far higher quality output.  The film could then 
be scanned at very high resolution for better digital prints, right?  Is 
my thought process correct?  Say that you wanted to take a picture of a 
landscape or object and blow it up into a poster.  Wouldn't the process 
I just described yield a better picture than an affordable medium 
quality digital camera?  Or would just totally sticking to the chemical 
world of regular film and standard techniques for making large posters 
be the best?

I've been thinking about getting a digital camera but haven't due to 
wanting something with nicer lenses than I can afford.  I remember from 
a previous posting that any digital camera that uses a standard memory 
card that can be put in one of those USB reader devices is pretty 
seamless under Linux since those reader devices look like a hard drive 
to the kernel.  So the real question is whether a camera supports a 
media that a reader device can use, and what camera fits your needs in 
features and quality.
Dow


aaron wrote:

>I think Eric's "Hi8 is analog" point was intended to help clarify the 
>definitions and was simply pointing out that Standard8, Hi8 and Digital8 
>are 3 different, independent signal and recording standards. Some 
>confusion arises in that products like the Sony Digital8 camcorders blur 
>the distinctions by supporting some functionality for all 3 standards of 
>8mm video tape.
>
>He was certainly correct in stating that the Hi8 format is entirely 
>analog. The fact that Digital8 is recorded on the same kind of metal 
>oxide tape cassettes as Hi8 or that a camcorder can play back or convert 
>between both standards is irrelevant to that.
>
>On a couple other points in the thread...
>
>I liked the CCD explanations, and they prompted a trip to:
>  http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera.htm
>...which also had some general answers to the original question:
>  http://www.howstuffworks.com/digital-camera38.htm
>
>Turns out the CCD descriptions were partly correct, but capacitive wells 
>are just part of the picture (pun intended) with these solid state analog 
>devices. The actual light sensitivity is provided by semi-conductor 
>diodes and are fairly similar to photovoltaic cells.
>
>Mostly the site confirmed what I knew already: that the resolution issues 
>of video and dedicated digital still cameras touch on a lot of factors. I 
>would be surprised to find many consumer Video cameras (for either 
>digital or analog recording formats) that employed a capture chain 
>producing more than 800x600 pixels, and I expect cost factors steer most 
>to 640x480 because that resolution is most consistent with common 
>standards for video signals and lossy digital encoding schemes.  [For 
>those that may not know, the standard NTSC TV signal has a maximum, 
>physical vertical resolution of 482 pixels. The Euro PAL TV standard is 
>100 pixels better on usable vertical resolution, but the standard has a 
>"resolution" trade off of 5 fewer frames per second.]  As a rule, the 
>"still photo" features of consumer Video cameras will be adequate for 
>small format prints and computer uses, but will not provide the 
>photographically oriented resolution that can be found in dedicated 
>digital still cameras.  As near as I can determine, a 640x480 resolution 
>is roughly equivalent to a 1.6 "megapixel" rating on a still camera... 
>but my searches for exact numbers only confirmed that the marketroid 
>"megapixel" anti-standard value states the number of photo-sites on the 
>CCD of a device, while the true physical pixel resolution, color depth 
>and dynamic range of a device may only be loosely related to that number.
>
>As with just about everything, as quality goes up so does the price. 
>Industrial / Professional grade video cameras of higher cost and quality 
>will employ a beam splitter to 3 CCD's of greater physical area and 
>higher pixel counts, one CCD each for the RGB channels. As Eric also 
>correctly noted, the optics make a HUGE difference, and the better video 
>cameras employ true focus tracking 13 element zoom lenses made with 
>dichroic glass. All these factors greatly improve the effective 
>(interpolated) resolution, light sensitivity and color balance control of 
>the camera's capture chain.  The last point of quality improvement with 
>more professional digital cameras is the use of higher bandwidth 
>recording formats with lower compression ratios (less than 5 to 1) that 
>don't discard most of the captured information before it even hits the 
>recording medium.
>
>Of course, the biggest marketroid myth is that "Digital" is somehow, 
>magically, always better quality, and in a whole lot of cases it simply 
>is not. Recording signals in digital form requires several times the 
>bandwidth of recording the same signals in analog, and there are a whole 
>lot of compromises being made to cram that digital bandwidth onto 
>increasing tiny formats. There are certainly a number of advantages to be 
>found with digital signal recording and processing, but these still come 
>at some cost.
>
>---
>Sorry for the overkill, but these are areas I know a fair amount about.
>
>peace
>aaron
>
>On Thursday 12 December 2002 09:02, Geoffrey wrote:
>  
>
>>Okay, so we're picking nits off of nits here.  I'm a stickler for
>>accuracy though so I'll throw out what the manual says and be done with
>>it:
>>
>>With your digital camcorder, you can use Hi8/Digital8 video cassetes.
>>Your camcorder records and plays back pictures in the Digital8 system.
>>Also, you camcorder plays back tapes recorded in the Hi8/standard 8
>>(analog) system.  You, however cannot use the functions in "Advanced
>>Playback Operations" on page 52 to 58 for playback in the Hi8/standard
>>8 system.  To enable smooth transition, we recommend that you do not
>>mix pictures recorded in the Hi8/standard 8 with the Digital8 system on
>>a tape.
>>
>>Eric Webb wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>On Thursday 12 December 2002 02:15 am, Geoffrey wrote:
>>>      
>>>
>>>>>Are you on crack?  Hi8 is purely analog.  miniDV is purely digital.
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Ah, not exactly true.  My camera Sony trv730 is a digital camera but
>>>>will accept either hi8 or standard 8 tapes.  With standard 8 tapes,
>>>>you get analog recording.
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>There's a whole lotta crack smokin' tonight.
>>>
>>>I have a TRV330 and 530 myself.  Read your manual again.  While these
>>>cameras may use either tape medium, the recording is in Digital8
>>>format.  All of these cameras (AFAIK) only PLAY the standard 8mm and
>>>Hi8 analog formats -- they do not record in those formats.
>>>
>>>(Manual says that if you record on standard 8mm, you must play back
>>>in same machine or you will get mosaic artifacting -- the fact that
>>>it's a mosaic pattern alone tells you it's gonna record in digital
>>>mode!  The cheaper standard 8mm tape doesn't have the resolution that
>>>Digital8 requires.)
>>>
>>>http://www.epinions.com/content_27278413444
>>>
>>>And even if it did, the fact that your camera would record analog on
>>>a standard 8 tape doesn't disprove my original statement.  It only
>>>would mean that your camera supports multiple formats.
>>>
>>>
>>>-E.
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Ale mailing list
>>>Ale at ale.org
>>>http://www.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>>      
>>>
>_______________________________________________
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>Ale at ale.org
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>
>  
>

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