markci

<p><em>"I would have thought that anyone using film now is using it because they reached the point long ago where they choose whether to continue with film-based photography or not, and they chose to continue."</em></p>

<p>Yes, they are hard cases, but they skew old and are dying daily. And not being replaced, except for a few hipsters whose motivations and thought processes are just too depressing to contemplate.</p>

<p>I think Shun is right. RRS's first plates were probably clones of Kirk plates, but by the time I was familiar with them they had probably expanded the line? Anyway, yes I do remember the original owner. I wouldn't go so far as to say he was the Soup Nazi of quick-release plates, but could be crotchety.</p>

<p>In any case, if anybody was copying anybody, it was both of them copying Arca-Swiss, who made the ball heads that the plates worked with originally.</p>

<p>Unless my memory of the 90's fails me (and it might), Kirk was first out, but RRS came along with a higher-quality product, with plates that were much more "custom" for each body. Kirk had a smaller number of more generic plates that maybe weren't quite as well made.</p>

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<p>Curious as to why you don't just go for the Mac 27" display (which admitted is a little more expensive) or else an iMac with its built-in display.<br>

As for CS3, I've heard that Adobe will let you transfer your license from Windows to Mac if you jump through a few hoops (phone calls, faxes). Have not tried it yet myself, but I'm about to.</p>

<p>What, no blink tags?</p>

<p>If the value you get is worth the cost of the depreciation, buy it. If not, don't. How is this different than anything else you spend money on?</p>

<p>"The Microsoft attempt at a GUI was extremely unreliable for many years ( until Windows 95)."<br>

It was never particularly unreliable, except to the extent that all operating systems without memory protection are unreliable. The reliability issue was solved with NT in 1993, if you used it. Also, the least reliable OS I ever used was a dual processor Mac running OS 9 in 2001. What a piece of sh1t that was. Apple's OS didn't have memory protection until OS X. Really archaic stuff.<br>

What the early versions of Windows were was unusable. The first usable Windows version (ie one you'd actually want installed on your machine and run all the time, without bailing out to MS-DOS when you actually wanted to get something done) was 3.1 in 1992 as I recall. 3,0 was very close, but fell down accessing network drives and resources.<br>

I use OS X mainly because I prefer a Unix-based OS to Windows, and still want to run some commerical apps that aren't available for Linux. There are of course a lot of tradeoffs, no matter which of the three you pick. Frankly I'd probably be happier if any two of them died and I didn't have to worry about what OS to run. It's sort of ridiculous really. They all do fundamentally the same thing.</p>

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<p><em>"It may be that they decided camera manufacturing costs were too high in the US and decided to become a more streamlined high tech development business needing far fewer employees."</em></p>

<p>Yes, I'm sure that's something they decided voluntarily. Also, their stockholders needed some catastrophic losses offset their capital gains elsewhere for tax reasons, so they were fine with it falling from $30 to $1 and change in just the past four years. They are masters of strategery.</p>

 

<p><em>T"hey would be overpriced, over rated and style would trump function."</em><br>

And years later, everyone else would be making inferior imitations.</p>

 

<p>I'm thinking of starting a sideline business to reprogram the firmware in digital SLR's to limit frame rates and introduce "film loading" delays in their operation every 10 frames or so to simulate using a medium format film cameras for people like Alan. I wonder how much I could charge, given the enhancement to the quality of their photos which would no doubt occur.</p>

<p><strong><br /></strong> <strong></strong> The circle of confusion is every bit as "real" as any other optical property. It is the area of the focal plane over which light emitted from any single point of an out-of-focus object is spread, due to being out of focus.<br>

<br />It's true that you can use formulas assume the actual focal ratio, or the effective one. </p>

<p>You'll never regret having higher quality lenses. However, the 17-35mm is not the most flexible range on a small-sensor digital body. And the 80-200 f/2.8 is quite heavy and bulky, so you may not see much use from it unless you have a specialized need for it. I would consider selling them both. The fact that you got them for free, of course, has nothing to do with anything.</p>

<p>Lots of wrong answers here.<br>

<br /> Effective aperture applies to DOF as well as exposure. Depth of field calculations assume some circle of confusion size. As you rack the lens out and get the bellows effect, the circle of confusion enlarges. It actually isn't at all complicated. If you do the math, effective aperture is all that matters, for anything.</p>

<p>"Must be a case of catering to the masses..which are mostly small people with tiny fingers."</p>

<p>Huh? "The masses" by definition are mostly average people with average fingers. And nothing short of an D3 or F5 feels "balanced" on a 70-200 f/2.8, and who cares?</p>

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<p><em>"As far as I can tell, there is no real disadvantage to this idea. Am I missing a crucial difference between the Mac Mini and iMac other than a built in screen?"</em><br /> <em> </em><br /> You mean other than the fact that you won't be able to get a monitor as good as the one in an iMac for much if any under$500?</p>

<p>Mac minis are meant for two types of people: those that already own nice monitors (and keyboards and mice) who want to pay the least possible for another CPU, or people who want a light-duty home server and don't care what sort of crap monitor they run it with. If you're planning on buying a new high-quality monitor with it, it's not particularly cost-effective.</p>

<p>Thanks, Leigh, I needed a laugh.</p>

<p>I tried to anchor my sailboat with one once, but found it held poorly on a sandy bottom. I'm not sure what else it does, but I'm pretty sure it just involves taking pictures and weighing way too much.</p>

<p>Go D7000 or go home. (But I guess the 5100 would do in a pinch). The resolution for landscapes and low-light capability are worth it.</p>

<p>Streams/streaming has several meanings even within computer science. The one you quoted is not the only one, or even the primary one. The term as Flickr uses it makes sense. How it could possibly "baffle" anyone baffles me.</p>

<p><em>"I think everything worked out as it should. The system worked. Maisel's lawyers were too expensive for Baio's to fight. The transformative qualities if the work, if any were never adjudicated. Who knows what might have happened had it gone that far, but Baio, in spite of the allegations that he is "independently wealthy" could not afford to go that far."</em></p>

<p>Wow, this has to be the most ludicrous thing I've read in some time. In other words, the system worked because the guy without as much money was forced to cave before the actual merits of the case could be heard? That's your idea of the system working? What if it were a case of a rich record company who had taken a photo from a random unknown photographer on photo.net, who couldn't afford to fight the record company's lawyers? I guess the system would work the other way too, wouldn't it?</p>

<p>"For those who say they can see both sides, I'm very curious about how one defends Andy Baio's actions. Feel free to weigh in..."<br>

One doesn't need to, as Baio did a pretty fair job of defending himself in the linked post. Agree with it or not, but there is a substantive case to be made that it's fair use.</p>

<p>The benchmarks you cite, by the way, are irrelevant. They test OpenGL rendering for 3D games, and nothing else.</p>

<p>The main problem I have with Android devices is the low quality of the apps. Android apps are written in Java, which is sort of C++ with training wheels, and every shaved ape that takes up space for four years in a CS program at some third-rate institution of allegedly higher learning knows Java, and has written an app that will lock up on my Android phone.</p>

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<p>It depends on the photographer.</p>