Sunsets

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
| ste© wrote:

<snip all the bits I was right about :-)>

| Using the Canon software to convert RAW images, it uses whatever
| settings are set in the camera. So if you set the camera to high
| contrast, high saturation and high sharpening, then do a bulk RAW to
| jpeg conversion, that's what your jpegs will come out like, but when you
| load a RAW image into Photoshop you can set everything to low prior to
| post processing.

Yes, that's fine so far.

| However, it seems that the Photoshop RAW converter doesn't use the
| camera settings. I just tried converting a RAW file to a jpeg in the
| Canon software and in Photoshop (without any adjustments) and the Canon
| conversion came out colourful and contrasty but the Photoshop version
| flat and dull. It seems that either the Canon software is doing some
| boosting or the Photoshop RAW converter is ignoring the camera settings
| and using defaults which are even flatter and duller than the camera
| settings.

Well that's a bummer then, for those who don't want to post process but want
an option to come back later and work on a great image, or one which is
requested by editors or whatever. But I guess there's always the option of
setting all these options specifically for a batch conversion, so no
worries, unless the user makes lots of changes in-camera.

| A word about the 300D settings. All that contrast, saturation and
| sharpness stuff that you can alter? Well there's another option,
| AdobeRGB. This saves the pics in the Photoshop colour space and when
| you choose this option you can't alter contrast, saturation and
| sharpness - all those settings are fixed when you use AdobeRGB (fixed to
| what I don't know but presumably they are ideal for post processing in
| Photoshop, which makes things simpler, I usually just load RAW images
| directly into Photoshop with no adjustment unless necessary - sharpness
| should be set to none in the RAW converter of course).

I can't see why you don't adjust the RAW files in the RAW converter.
Surely, it's better to adjust the RAW negative, then convert to TIFF, rather
than convert to TIFF, do the same adjustments, then some more adjustments
again?

| > Just different styles. If I can realise my vision in-camera (whilst
| > using RAW mode, of course), then great. I don't want to post-process
| > for the sake of it, but rather, because it can improve the image IMO.
|
| Fair enough, if you set the camera settings how you want then a straight
| RAW conversion should give you good images (from the Canon converter at
| least) without any messing about.

Yes, with the insurance of having the digital negative (raw file) for use
later on if needed.

| >>> If it's the closest to the actual scene then it's the most accurate
| >>> image. It's certainly the most natural looking one.
| >>
| >> And yet technically it's impossible. This was taken after sunset.
| >> The bay was in shade, it was only lit by blue light from the sky
| >> above. This is only how my brain imagined it looked.
| >
| > I don't quite understand why the final image is how it actually
| > looked, yet you couldn't achieve this with one white balance setting?
|
| Because it didn't really look like that.

Okay.

| But how do we know what
| anything really looks like anyway? Impulses received at the eyeballs
| are processed by the brain and compensation applied so that we see
| things how we think they should look rather than how they actually do.
| A white sheet of paper always looks like a white sheet of paper to us,
| whether we look at it indoors under tungsten, outdoors in direct
| sunlight, in a shadow lit by blue sky and so on. Our brains have a
| remarkable ability to alter white balance without us realising it.

Well that explains it then.

| > Our eyes will only be using one 'white balance setting' was we view a
| > scene?
|
| Will they? The fact is that we only look at one small point in a scene
| at any one time and the rest of the scene is a blur. Our eyes flick
| from point to point gathering information about the scene as a whole and
| the brain creates a composite image, filling in the gaps. So when I
| look at the sand I see yellow sand, when I look at the sky I see blue
| sky. The brain pieces all this information together into what I imagine
| is one single image, but I never really see it as a single sharp image
| with one colour balance, it's a composite image constructed out of many
| different pieces. The brain is very clever like that.

Good stuff.

| > Or perhaps you've just made it look better than reality?
|
| Perhaps. But it looks the most normal,

Really?...

| like I imagined it looked.

Ahh, that explains it, nice imagination! :-)

| Paul

Ste

ste© said:

Quoted message said:

However, it seems that the Photoshop RAW converter doesn't use the
camera settings. I just tried converting a RAW file to a jpeg in the
Canon software and in Photoshop (without any adjustments) and the
Canon conversion came out colourful and contrasty but the Photoshop
version flat and dull.

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Well that's a bummer then, for those who don't want to post process

Not really. If you don't want to post process then you wouldn't use the
RAW converter in Photoshop, you'd use the Canon converter instead. Far
easier for bulk conversion

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but want an option to come back later and work on a great image, or
one which is requested by editors or whatever. But I guess there's
always the option of setting all these options specifically for a
batch conversion, so no worries,

You can always process a RAW file using the "use previous settings"
option.

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unless the user makes lots of
changes in-camera.

What a load of faffing about that would be! A good reason to use RAW if
ever I heard one.

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I usually just
load RAW images directly into Photoshop with no adjustment unless
necessary

I can't see why you don't adjust the RAW files in the RAW converter.

Because I prefer to adjust them in Photoshop, using different
techniques.

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Surely, it's better to adjust the RAW negative,

Then I'd have to *un-adjust* it in Photoshop to use the techniques I
prefer. The unadjusted RAW image is perfect for the techniques I use.

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then convert to TIFF,

Eh? Who's converting to tiff? I'm just loading the RAW file into
Photoshop. There's no tiff. Tiff is a save file format, when I load
the image into Photoshop it's just an image in Photoshop, it's not in
any format.

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rather than convert to TIFF,

There's no conversion to tiff.

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do the same adjustments,

But I don't do the same adjustments, that's the whole point! Your
thinking of altering contrast and brightness with the sliders aren't
you? Which is more or less equivalent to using Levels in Photoshop.

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then some more adjustments again?

I don't do more adjustments again, I use different adjustments.

After loading the RAW file, I usually start by using the
shadow/highlight control to lighten shadows and darken bright skies (if
necessary). This reduces contrast range (if it needs to be reduced).

Then I use the USM local contrast boosting technique, which gives a
quite different effect to using Levels or the contrast slider in the RAW
converter. I often have to use the Levels control (using the lower
black and white point sliders) to reduce the contrast even further
before applying USM local contrast.

If I can't get the full contrast effect that I want, then I'll use
Curves to boost the contrast (again, different to using Levels - far
more variable and precise).

If there are any gaps at each end of the histogram I'll use Levels to
close them up, but I avoid using it for most of my contrast adjustments.

I may use contrast masking instead of the shadow/highlight control, if
it suits the image better, or I may use neither if the picture doesn't
need it, but many do because of the type of images I now take and the
way I like to process them.

The fact is, the USM local contrast boosting method gives results which
are superior to normal contrast boosting methods IMO, so I much prefer
to start with a very low contrast image and boost it with USM rather
than to start with a normal contrast image (processed at the RAW stage)
which would need very little doing to it.

These techniques involve extra time and work but I think it's worth it
for the results I get, particularly with specific types of photographs
that I'm now taking, rather than your average sunny day shot which
doesn't really need this kind of processing.

It would be best to show a detailed series of example images to better
explain what I'm doing and why, it doesn't come across very well in
words alone, but I haven't really got the time to do that now.

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Or perhaps you've just made it look better than reality?

Perhaps. But it looks the most normal,

Really?...

Well the nearest thing to normal out of the different examples I showed.

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like I imagined it looked.

Ahh, that explains it, nice imagination! :-)

Well I think that's how most people's brains would see it.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

ste© said:

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Maybe he's got one of those tripods with
angles marked on it and moved each shot a precise amount. I'd guess
that he spent a considerable amount of time ensuring that the tripod
was perfectly level before taking a single shot.

Possibly, but still tough going! And how did he remember what he'd
done and not done? To get so many lines across a complex subject
like that, very tricky, even with angles marked on tripods?

Well with such a tripod it should be too difficult, you wouldn't even
have to look through the lens for each shot, once you'd determined the
necessary angles. You'd just take the first shot, rotate x degrees,
take the second shot, rotate x degrees and so on until you've taken n
images. Then you'd adjust the vertical angle by y degrees, take the
next shot, rotate -x degrees, and so on. Just alter the correct number
of degrees between each shot and count the number of shots. In theory
at least. But you'd have to determine the angles and check it out
first, before taking any of the shots.

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Dr Saunders, can you give us a few paragraphs on perfect tripod and
spirit level technique for stitching please? :-)

I'm afraid I still haven't fully mastered this myself.

Ahh, well in that case, I'll strip the Dr from your name, Mr
Saunders! ;-)

What I tend to do is get the tripod roughly set up correctly (using the
naff spirit level on the tripod), then make sure that the tripod head is
set up so that I get a reasonably good rotation through the scene I want
to photograph (i.e. with the horizon in the middle of each picture),
then as I take each shot with the camera, I use the tilt part of the
head to make small adjustments so that the spirit level on the camera is
level for each shot.

This means that I often have to make a fiddly little adjustment for each
shot to ensure that each one is level. It's the lateral rotation of the
camera that tends to be the problem, not the motion of the camera
through the panorama. This is no doubt due to using a cheap tripod with
an imprecise pan/tilt head. I think a far more expensive and precise
tripod is necessary for seriously accurate panoramic work.

And even then, if skies are involved there always seems to be that nasty
banding effect between shots, irrespective of whether they are aligned
perfectly or not, which does depress me a bit, and makes me wonder if
it's really worth bothering in the first place (remember I have a true
panoramic film camera which I can use instead). A lot of post
processing is necessary to get rid of that nasty banding. I've had my
best results with waterfall shots that have little or no sky in them.

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You can create the equivalent of 1Ds image resolution with just three
6MP portrait shots stiched horizontally.

Surely you could make it bigger than the 11MP 1Ds image? Or are you
overlapping by almost 50% per stitch?

Yes, that's what I had been doing with my waterfall shots, with good
results, although I'm now thinking that 50% may be a tad too much, maybe
a third or 40% would be better. Much probably depends on the stitching
methods/software used. The latest Photoshop has a stitching option
which doesn't work well with 50% overlaps.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

In message <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

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It's amazing how quickly digital suddenly became accepted by
most of us, the industry certainly is being shook up :-)

This is a very good point Mark. A year or two ago many people were
insisting that digital wasn't as good as and/or would never replace film
and now we're arguing about jpegs from digital cameras being good enough
for professional reproduction! Good greif! I never thought I'd see the
day that publishers would even accept jpegs, let alone prefer them to
RAW files!

Given that all publishers use digital reproduction anyway now they've
discovered that it saves time and money to use digital files rather than
scan transparencies. And for many uses JPEGS, even low res ones are
fine. As I think I said elsewhere in this immensely long thread I've
just emailed a 920kb JPEG image for use in a book. (And to keep it on
topic, it's a sleeping bag picture for a book on walking).

In message <[email hidden]>,
SteveO@?.?.invalid writes

Quoted message said:

Paul Saunders said:

Chris Townsend said:

There's a website at http://www.outdoorphotographer.com

Yeuch, no offence Chris, but that is a horrible, horrible web site I
didn't get past the first page (I know its nothing to do with you and
you just posted the link, I'm just commenting)

I guess I'm used to it. It's not untypical of many sites. There are
worse.

In message <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

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Chris Townsend said:

Certainly costs more than slide sleeves.

Are you sure about that? I've got 5800 digital photographs stored on
less than a quarter of a 120 gig hard drive. Now what did that cost me?
Not much more than £100 I don't think. And how much would 290 slide
sleeves cost?

So far, I've bought about 60 CDs, a DVD writer, a few packs of CDs, a
150 gig hard drive that cost over £100 and is already over half full and
I'm considering buying an external hard drive. I spend about £25a year
on slide sleeves.

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I've looked at my own computing costs (hardware including
peripherals, software and consumables such as CDs, printer paper
etc) for my personal self-employed business use, and reckon that it
has cost me about £15,000 over 10 years. (I'm on my 3rd desktop
machine, 2 of which are still in use networked together and my 2nd
laptop).

My computing costs are probably close to that but these were to do
with writing not photography.

My computing costs have added up to quite a bit over the years too (no
idea how much offhand) but none of this has been to do with business.
The fact is that computers are expensive anyway, whether you're in
business or not. And if you are, well that's just a cheap side benefit,
isn't it? All depends on how you look at it.

Certainly all my computer and camera equipment are tax deductible. But
that doesn't alter relative costs.

In message <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

Chris Townsend said:

Quoted message said:

> That is the point the writer is making. He also thinks that many
> photographers can't process RAW files to achieve as good as a result
> as a JPEG

I find that hard to believe. All you do is leave it on the default
settings and press convert.

When I've done that the results tend to look a bit flatter than JPEGs.

I'm wondering if your default RAW conversion settings are different to
the in camera settings saved with the RAW file? That might explain any
difference. I know that all my RAW files look flat straight out of the
camera, but I've set my camera that way (well actually I've set it to
the Adobe RGB colour space, which sets them that way) - low contrast,
low saturation images are ideal for post processing. The opposite is
true for good looking images straight out of the camera, which is how
you'd normally set it for jpeg use.

My camera is set up for Parameter 1.

The results that look flatter are the RAW preview files before
conversion. They are then converted to Adobe RGB.

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He's saying that many photographers can't post process RAW files and
achieve as good a result as a JPEG.

Perhaps not.

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Surely we're not entering the age of "professional snappers"?

I don't find it sad. I process images on the computer but I don't
think of this as photography. Photography is taking pictures.

I'd beg to differ, and I think Ansel Adams would too. I think
photography is as much about post processing as in the original taking
of the image. It's all about the realisation of a certain vision. Some
of that vision can be realised later.

Ansel Adams certainly would differ with regard to B&W photography. But
we're talking opinions here. I wouldn't dispute that for Ansel Adams
darkroom work and for you post processing are part of your photography
but neither are part of mine.

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The
skill lies in being able to use the right techniques to get the best
result in camera. I always try and do that.

I've always tried to do that, and always been happy with that way of
working. I always had a nagging feeling that I was missing something by
not doing any darkroom work, but although I tried it, I just couldn't
get on with all that messing about with toxic chemicals in the dark
nonsense. Nowadays Photoshop is the digital equivalent of the darkroom
and can produce infinitely superior results far quicker and without the
chemicals and the blundering about in the dark. I avoided real darkroom
work because it was so much hassle and so time consuming. I've embraced
the digital darkroom version because it is so easy and so damn quick in
comparison!

I neither had any desire to do darkroom work nor, since I've always
mainly shot transparencies, did I feel I was missing something. The fact
that I knew pro photographers who didn't do their own B&W printing
probably helped.

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I can't begin to imagine how much of Ansel's valuable life was wasted in
the darkroom, he could have been so much more productive if he'd had a
digital camera and Photoshop instead! :-)

An interesting thought :-).

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I still understand the reasoning behind doing it all in-camera though,
but I've wanted to try all this darkroom stuff for years, and now I'm
loving it. It's very addictive, especially when you realise the
creative potential.

So far my use of Photoshop has felt like a chore.

I don't like computer games either :-)

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Most professional photographers use or have used slide film, where
sorting out the good slides from the mediocre and bad ones was all
that was required.

Simple wasn't it?

Sometimes :-)

After I discovered that editors sometimes preferred slides I rejected
(after one looked through some unsorted slides and went away with a few
I'd have binned) I started keeping more of them.

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As you've said, RAW processing is similar to B&W darkroom work. I was
never interested in the darkroom.

Neither was I. But now I am. Now that it's so easy and so quick
(relatively speaking of course).

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http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/cb1.jpg

Blue grey sand definitely looks odd.

As interpreted by a daylight white balance. Standard slide film would
have recorded the same colour balance.

I know. I have slides with that colour cast. Some films are worse than
others.

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http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/cb2.jpg

Slightly more natural but still odd.

Well the sand and rocks are natural (I can verify that, that's the
colour of sand and rocks on the Gower coast), it's the sky that's odd.

I meant the sky.

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Why couldn't you achieve this with a JPEG?

Not directly from an unprocessed jpeg (see other post). My main point
here was there are situations where post processing is essential. Using
the philosophy of producing finished images in-camera doesn't work in
all cases. Of course you couldn't do this with film either. But then
that's even more reason to point out the advantages of RAW processing -
new possibilites.

I guess I just wouldn't take the photo anyway, unless I wanted a record
shot.

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it. http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/misc/cb3.jpg

Looks natural. Definitely the best of the three. How long did it take
to do that?

Maybe 10 minutes.

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I can see grads wouldn't work but why not JPEGs?

Not without post-processing.

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If it's the closest to the actual scene then it's the most accurate
image. It's certainly the most natural looking one.

And yet technically it's impossible. This was taken after sunset. The
bay was in shade, it was only lit by blue light from the sky above.
This is only how my brain imagined it looked.

In message <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders
<[email hidden]> writes

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ste© said:

Paul, am I right in thinking that you can have the saturation,
contrast and sharpening set to medium (whilst using RAW mode!) to get
nicer looking unprocessed RAW files using Camera Settings (for those
that want to get it right in-camera, with the minimum of effort
during conversion), but then have the option of converting the RAW
files, if you wish, using low settings or whatever for specific post
processing?

Yes.

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This would have the combined effect of seeing nicer
previews on the LCD screen of the camera, rather than the flat and
dull previews.

My 300D's previews look fine to me. The LCD is quite high contrast.

My 300D's previews look fine too. I was talking about the RAW previews
produced by Capture One.

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In other words, if using RAW mode, it doesn't matter what camera
settings you use for these three things as they can all be changed
anyway using the RAW converter.

Correct.

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...or, does it make a difference in
the RAW converter?

No.

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i.e., does it move the starting point of the RAW
conversion? (by starting point, I don't mean the Camera Settings
option, but rather the level of adjustments available from the RAW
convertern from then on) I'm sure it doesn't make any difference,
but I'd like to have it confirmed in writing nonetheless! :-)

No, it doesn't make a difference, it just changes the default settings.

Using the Canon software to convert RAW images, it uses whatever
settings are set in the camera. So if you set the camera to high
contrast, high saturation and high sharpening, then do a bulk RAW to
jpeg conversion, that's what your jpegs will come out like, but when you
load a RAW image into Photoshop you can set everything to low prior to
post processing.

However, it seems that the Photoshop RAW converter doesn't use the
camera settings. I just tried converting a RAW file to a jpeg in the
Canon software and in Photoshop (without any adjustments) and the Canon
conversion came out colourful and contrasty but the Photoshop version
flat and dull. It seems that either the Canon software is doing some
boosting or the Photoshop RAW converter is ignoring the camera settings
and using defaults which are even flatter and duller than the camera
settings.

A word about the 300D settings. All that contrast, saturation and
sharpness stuff that you can alter? Well there's another option,
AdobeRGB. This saves the pics in the Photoshop colour space and when
you choose this option you can't alter contrast, saturation and
sharpness - all those settings are fixed when you use AdobeRGB (fixed to
what I don't know but presumably they are ideal for post processing in
Photoshop, which makes things simpler, I usually just load RAW images
directly into Photoshop with no adjustment unless necessary - sharpness
should be set to none in the RAW converter of course).

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Just different styles. If I can realise my vision in-camera (whilst
using RAW mode, of course), then great. I don't want to post-process
for the sake of it, but rather, because it can improve the image IMO.

Fair enough, if you set the camera settings how you want then a straight
RAW conversion should give you good images (from the Canon converter at
least) without any messing about.

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> If it's the closest to the actual scene then it's the most accurate
> image. It's certainly the most natural looking one.

And yet technically it's impossible. This was taken after sunset.
The bay was in shade, it was only lit by blue light from the sky
above. This is only how my brain imagined it looked.

I don't quite understand why the final image is how it actually
looked, yet you couldn't achieve this with one white balance setting?

Because it didn't really look like that. But how do we know what
anything really looks like anyway? Impulses received at the eyeballs
are processed by the brain and compensation applied so that we see
things how we think they should look rather than how they actually do.
A white sheet of paper always looks like a white sheet of paper to us,
whether we look at it indoors under tungsten, outdoors in direct
sunlight, in a shadow lit by blue sky and so on. Our brains have a
remarkable ability to alter white balance without us realising it.

Quoted message said:

Our eyes will only be using one 'white balance setting' was we view a
scene?

Will they? The fact is that we only look at one small point in a scene
at any one time and the rest of the scene is a blur. Our eyes flick
from point to point gathering information about the scene as a whole and
the brain creates a composite image, filling in the gaps. So when I
look at the sand I see yellow sand, when I look at the sky I see blue
sky. The brain pieces all this information together into what I imagine
is one single image, but I never really see it as a single sharp image
with one colour balance, it's a composite image constructed out of many
different pieces. The brain is very clever like that.

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Or perhaps you've just made it look better than reality?

Perhaps. But it looks the most normal, like I imagined it looked.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

In message <[email hidden]>, Chris Malcolm
<[email hidden]> writes

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Chris Townsend said:

The life expectancy worries me too. In fact, it's the only thing that
really worries me about digital.

The crucial point about the switch to digital from analogue is that
you switch the archiving problem from one of trying to preserve an
original thing for as long as possible to the problem of backups and
copying. The only way you will ever lose a digital representation is
if you underestimated the necessary backup procedures required to
accomodate the hardware liftetimes.

Well, yes I know all that. But as my collection of digital images grows
I can see an ever increasing problem in keeping enough backups to allow
for failures, checking that these backups are okay and transferring all
these backups to new media.

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Take for example the King James Bible. That is stored digitally (all
we care about is the correct arrangement of the letters), and we'll
never lose it for the probable lifetime of the human race.

"Never" sounds a bit to absolute. Of course we have plenty of printed
copies too.

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Nor are we likely to lose the digital encoding of the design of the human
eye in our genes, despite the somewhat iffy nature of the storage and
reproduction process :-)

The point about the switch to digital is that because it is possible
to make *perfect* copies of file very easily, the problem of
preservation shifts from preserving a *thing* from decay to preserving
an intact *copy*. It becomes a copy management problem where you can
swop copying procedures for hardware reliability down to very low
levels of hardware reliability and very frequent copying.

This is very similar to the problem of tranmitting exact digital
information reliably over very noisy communication channels, such as
encrypted military radio in wartime. This was very extensively studied
in WW2 and the theory elaborated then forms the basis of modern
digital storage methods, e.g. parity, error checksums, error
corrections codes, etc..

In message <[email hidden]>,
SteveO@?.?.invalid writes

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Chris Townsend said:

I'm trying to get the best result in camera. I don't want to spend time
on post processing.

If you don't mind me saying, you're not considering like with like;
processing in the camera is not as versatile [powerful a tool] as
[post]processing on your pc.

I know post processing is more versatile, but that doesn't mean I want
to do it :-)

Or that I won't try to get the best result in camera.

Medium and large format film is higher quality than 35mm. I never wanted
to use larger, heavier cameras.

It's all a compromise.

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That said, post-processing on your pc is, realtively, time consuming
and the need for it also should be weighed against the final image
you're looking for. All of my shots are taken in RAW, yet some of them
I take with the full intention of post-processing (whether successfuly
or not is another matter ;-) whilst others are taken as "snaps".
Irrespective of the intended outcome, I always seek to minimise the
amount of "processing" the camera does. A simple work-flow on the
'snaps' takes such a short time (significantly less than a minute)
that its inconsequential.

I currently take almost all shots in RAW, with the intention of doing no
post-processing unless I have to - which will be if I need the image for
some purpose and it really isn't good enough without post processing. I
use JPEGS for magazine shots - usually product ones - where that is what
the editor wants.

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Chris Townsend said:

Well, yes I know all that. But as my collection of digital images
grows I can see an ever increasing problem in keeping enough backups
to allow for failures, checking that these backups are okay and
transferring all these backups to new media.

Not necessarily an ever increasing problem, it may well decrease. Once
upon a time we all used floppy disks for backup and the though of having
to use hundreds of floppies to back something up was horrendous. Then
CDs came along, and now DVDs.

Likewise hard drives were pretty small back then. I remember once
thinking that a 100 meg hard drive was gigantic, some years later I
bought a zip drive and had that much storage on the equivalent of a
thick floppy disk. I thought all my storage problems were over. Now
zip disks are too small to put anything on.

Nowadays we can buy hard drives of 100 gig and over for less than £100.
Storing large numbers of digital images has become like storing text
files once was.

How much bigger will hard drives get in the next few years? There's no
sign of the storage capacity increase slowing down. What new backup
technologies will be invented to make DVDs seem tiny? I'm optimistic
that large digital image collections will be much easier to store and
archive in the future.

Of course, there's also the consideration that digital file sizes will
continue to increase in size for a while yet, but I'm sure that will hit
a plateau before too long. Although certain professionals will need
massive image sizes for certain specialist applications, most people,
amateurs and professionals alike, don't need much more resolution than
we've got already. How many people need to make prints larger than A3
and how many pros need to supply images that can be printed larger than
a double page spread in a magazine? I think the race for more
megapixels will slow down soon.

Professional digital photography is still quite a new phenomenon. Give
it a few years to settle down and I think we'll find it much easier to
manage and archive all our images.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Are you sure about that? I've got 5800 digital photographs stored on
less than a quarter of a 120 gig hard drive. Now what did that cost me?
Not much more than £100 I don't think. And how much would 290 slide
sleeves cost?

I'll tell you:

To store 5800 slides would take me 11.6 packs of 25 slide sleeves
(each sleeve storing 20 slides). The packs cost me £4.95. That
equates to £57.42. Which is approximately half the price of "not much
more than £100".

And slide sleeves don't crash, or become corrupted, or degrade in a
few years...

Michael S

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders

URL: said:

Chris Townsend said:

Certainly costs more than slide sleeves.

Are you sure about that? I've got 5800 digital photographs stored on
less than a quarter of a 120 gig hard drive. Now what did that cost me?
Not much more than £100 I don't think. And how much would 290 slide
sleeves cost?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I've looked at my own computing costs (hardware including
peripherals, software and consumables such as CDs, printer paper
etc) for my personal self-employed business use, and reckon that it
has cost me about £15,000 over 10 years. (I'm on my 3rd desktop
machine, 2 of which are still in use networked together and my 2nd
laptop).

My computing costs are probably close to that but these were to do
with writing not photography.

My computing costs have added up to quite a bit over the years too (no
idea how much offhand) but none of this has been to do with business.
The fact is that computers are expensive anyway, whether you're in
business or not. And if you are, well that's just a cheap side benefit,
isn't it? All depends on how you look at it.

Paul

I think the point is Paul that those of us who have had to use computers
for some years as part of a business and thus keep accurate records for
tax purposes can see how much it really costs to process and archive
data.

Once you move into digital photography then you suddenly have a need to
invest in the associated computing costs. Of course if you already are
using computers for other activities then some of the costs would be
shared. But it would certainly be wrong to ignore the costs.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders

URL: said:

Quoted message said:

I use an external which is taken off site if I go out.

Me too.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

It isn't cheap. Paul talks about digital freeing up money because he
doesn't have to pay for film and processing. I'm not convinced.

Quoted message said:

Me neither, it has cost me about £15,000 so far :-(

I've spent nothing like that. Some quick rough calculations;

Total spent on digital camera equipment so far: £2000
Money back from selling the Canon G3 & accessories: £450
Total cost of digital gear: £1550

Number of digital shots taken so far: 5800
Equivalent film cost (typically 25p per shot): £1450

So far it's cost me £100 more, but I haven't had the 300D all that
long and I certainly won't be selling it yet or buying another digital
camera for a while to come, so the photos I'll take this coming winter
will put me in significant profit over using film.

But you've got to project the storage costs forward. How many years do
you plan to archive your collection? 25 years isn't unreasonable. How
much is it likely to cost to archive the 35mm slides for 25 years versus
how much for the digital images?

Quoted message said:

Storage costs: maybe £40 hard drive space and £40 CD archiving costs.
Just a rough guess. This is the big problem area. I plan to buy a
DVD writer soon which will reduce the number of disks significantly
and make it cheaper to archive onto multiple disks.

But these storage media are volatile and not guaranteed much beyond a
few years. That means that to be safe you will have to have multiple
copies of each and then to re-copy them onto new disks every 2 or 3
years.

Mike
--
o/ \\ // || ,_ o Mike Clark, "An antibody engineer who also
<\__,\\ // __o || / /\, likes the mountains"
"> || _`\<,_ // \\ \> | Cambridge Climbing and Caving Club
` || (_)/ (_) // \\ \_ <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/cccc/>

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Malcolm

URL: said:

Chris Townsend said:

The life expectancy worries me too. In fact, it's the only thing that
really worries me about digital.

The crucial point about the switch to digital from analogue is that
you switch the archiving problem from one of trying to preserve an
original thing for as long as possible to the problem of backups and
copying. The only way you will ever lose a digital representation is
if you underestimated the necessary backup procedures required to
accomodate the hardware liftetimes.

Yes and the problem is that the vast majority of users do underestimate
the necessary backup procedures. I've seen very many colleagues at work
lose valuable data because they didn't make backups or, they made
backups which later turned out to be unuseable.

Mike <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders

URL: said:

Chris Townsend said:

Well, yes I know all that. But as my collection of digital images
grows I can see an ever increasing problem in keeping enough backups
to allow for failures, checking that these backups are okay and
transferring all these backups to new media.

Not necessarily an ever increasing problem, it may well decrease.
Once upon a time we all used floppy disks for backup and the though of
having to use hundreds of floppies to back something up was
horrendous. Then CDs came along, and now DVDs.

Yes but you've highlighted the problem. The formats are still changing
rapidly and you need to convert from one to another as you go. If you
fail to copy from one format at any point you may lose that data
forever.

Quoted message said:

Likewise hard drives were pretty small back then. I remember once
thinking that a 100 meg hard drive was gigantic, some years later I
bought a zip drive and had that much storage on the equivalent of a
thick floppy disk.

My first hard disk was a 40Mb 5.25inch SyQuest for £800

Quoted message said:

I thought all my storage problems were over. Now zip disks are too
small to put anything on.

Nowadays we can buy hard drives of 100 gig and over for less than
£100. Storing large numbers of digital images has become like storing
text files once was.

How much bigger will hard drives get in the next few years? There's
no sign of the storage capacity increase slowing down. What new
backup technologies will be invented to make DVDs seem tiny? I'm
optimistic that large digital image collections will be much easier to
store and archive in the future.

Yes but that doesn't mean you won't have to convert every few years.

Mike <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

In article <[email hidden]>, Michael S

URL: said:

"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<chtieh$oj3$1@newsg
3.svr.pol.co.uk>...

Quoted message said:

Are you sure about that? I've got 5800 digital photographs stored on
less than a quarter of a 120 gig hard drive. Now what did that cost me?
Not much more than £100 I don't think. And how much would 290 slide
sleeves cost?

I'll tell you:

To store 5800 slides would take me 11.6 packs of 25 slide sleeves
(each sleeve storing 20 slides). The packs cost me £4.95. That
equates to £57.42. Which is approximately half the price of "not much
more than £100".

And slide sleeves don't crash, or become corrupted, or degrade in a
few years...

Michael S

I think an important difference is that to preserve a slide collection
for 25 years you essentially do nothing except allocate storage space.

To preserve a digital collection for 25 years you are committed to lots
of time spent on backing up and converting the data as your hardware and
software becomes obsolete.

Mike Clark, <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

Following up to Mike Clark

Quoted message said:

But these storage media are volatile and not guaranteed much beyond a
few years. That means that to be safe you will have to have multiple
copies of each and then to re-copy them onto new disks every 2 or 3
years.

This is what the majority fail to realise, many, on a first
computer, don't even realise its going to fail one day soon. My
neighbour just lost all his digital photos due to a virus attack,
so he has learn two hard lessons there. I'm just now going
through my late mothers photo albums which I found in a cupboard,
still perfectly viewable including my grandfathers wedding
photos. Its hardly likely she would have been re-copying anything
for the last 20 years or so. When a similar occasion happens in
30 or 50 years time will some son looking through old cupboards
be able to get anything from the old paper floppies, plastic
floppies, CDs. various storage devices invented and not yet
invented in camera manufacturers and other formats long
forgotten? How many of us when we are very old will be buying and
using the current computers and transferring our memories to this
years storage medium and format?
--
Mike Reid
If god wanted us to be vegetarians he wouldn't have made animals out of meat.
Wasdale-Lake district-Thames path-London "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Eat-walk-Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" <-- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Malcolm

URL: said:

Mike Clark <[email hidden]> writes:

[snip]

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

At present the most cost effective storage media is probably hard
disk space. It is also rapid and random access although disks tend
to have a reliable life expectancy of only 2 or 3 years.

?? I've spent most of my computing life using disc drives that were
well over 5 years old. My current PC runs two ten year old disc
drives; one second hand, one which was thrown out by a paranoid friend
after his disc problems were traced to his sticking notes to the side
of his computer with powerful magnets.

My experience has been variable. The hard disks in my Acorn machines
seemed to be very reliable. My RiscPCs are 10 years old now and are
probably only on their 2nd drives in each. These were changed largely as
a result of recent upgrades to a new disk format and the convenience
associated with a clean install.

Perhaps the major errors I've encountered have been associated with
removable SCSI drives such as SyQuests and Zip. These seem to start to
suffer corruption of bits associated with the Directory Maps and once
this happens you run the risk of losing lots of data at once.

Quoted message said:

I know disc drives in the 1960s were troublesome, and I know the PC
market has its share of pirates who make and sell cheap rubbish before
the market gets wise to them, but if you're using disc drives which
are only reliable for a few years, may I humbly suggest you should
change your brand.

Or do you mean that after a few years you might get the odd lost bit,
the corrupted file? Disc drives are built to take that in their
stride. You simply restore the file from its backup and if necessary
reformat the disc, which will remove the dodgy bits from circulation.

That has been my experience of many PC hard drives and when the
corrupted bits affect system files or the directory Map data it becomes
a real pain booting up in safe mode to recover from backups.

Quoted message said:

There's no problem keeping secure important files on dodgy media. All
you have to do is to keep appropriate levels of back up. In the early
days of IBM 8" floppy discs, which tended to fail unrecoverably once a
week (i.e. one of the several discs you were using would fail once a
week), you needed a four level backup system to keep important files
secure.

Currently I'd still suggest that a 3 level backup is wise in most cases
of mission critical data.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Because of the problems of computer theft and failure you probably
want the data stored on more than one hard disk and you don't want
them all in the same machine at the same time.

Exactly. That's why I have two hard discs on one machine. One is the
backup. And anything important is also stored on another computer in
another *building*. Fire.

Same here except my work related data is in a minimum of 3 locations.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

So I think you've got to look at having at least two (or preferably
three) hard disks, each with a full copy of your digital data and
you've probably got to consider replacing each disk every 2-3 years,
and especially when there are major format changes to the disk (eg
FAT versus NTFS) or the data format (eg EXIF2.2 versus whatever will
be the future format). In addition you'll probably be wanting to
upgrade your main computer every 3 or so years to take account of
performance enhancements in hardware and software. At such times you
may have to undertake batch processing of your stored data to get it
into the latest data format.

I agree with your general principles, but think your 2-3 years is an
exaggeration. Most of my computer kit is second hand and more than 3
years old when I buy it or acquire it. I find the kind of folk who
upgrade every 2-3 years often think their old kit is so worthless they
give it away :-)

That may be the case but on the other hand I find that some applications
are designed to work best with the latest hardware and software. At
present if you are looking to run a digital photography
processing and archive collection you probably want a PC system with a
reasonably fast processor, good graphics card, two large hard
disks, a DVD or CD writer, plenty of RAM (256MB) and running XP pro plus
Adobe Photoshop. On the other hand if you are simply running a networked
data archive then you could get away with a slower processor less ram,
an OS based on UNIX or LINUX and lots of hard disks.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I've looked at my own computing costs (hardware including
peripherals, software and consumables such as CDs, printer paper
etc) for my personal self-employed business use, and reckon that it
has cost me about 15,000 over 10 years. (I'm on my 3rd desktop
machine, 2 of which are still in use networked together and my 2nd
laptop).

Well, I'm fortunate always to have had access to a good office system,
but I've been running my own computers at home since the day I built
my first one from a kit of a motherboard, a poly bag full of chips,
and a barely adequate small coil of solder. I guess that was about 25
years ago. I guess in all I may have spent in total over those 25
years as much as 6,000 pounds. Of course I don't run a business from
my home computers, but I've sometimes tried :-(, so they've been up to
that kind of spec.

I might have guessed at those kinds of figures had it not been for the
fact that I've had to keep detailed accounts of all my expenditure for
the IR. This has included all the costs of peripherals, spares,
software, upgrades to software etc. It is surprising how much of the
total over 10 years is from lots of small items that you'd tend to not
think about, e.g. software upgrades, printer cartridges, boxes of disks
and CDs etc

Some of the costs also look quite staggering by todays prices. I have
records of paying £800 for a 40MB SyQuest disk drive and £400 for a 32MB
SIM card.

Quoted message said:

In today's computing world you can save a lot of time by spending money
if you've got it. If on the other hand you have more time than money
you can save a lot of money by repairing, buying second hand, buying
new when stuff is being sold off as obsolete, etc..

Agreed, but I regard my time as valuable as well. I'd rather reserve as
much of my free time as possible for being out and involved in outdoor
activities than spent at home repairing old equipment. It's a choice I
make.

Mike <URL:http://www.path.cam.ac.uk/~mrc7/>
--
o/ \\ // |\ ,_ o Mike Clark
<\__,\\ // __o | \ / /\, "A mountain climbing, cycling, skiing,
"> || _`\<,_ |__\ \> | immunology lecturer, antibody engineer and
` || (_)/ (_) | \corn computer user"

In message <[email hidden]>, Mike Clark
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Paul Saunders

URL: said:

Quoted message said:

I use an external which is taken off site if I go out.

Me too.

Quoted message said:

> It isn't cheap. Paul talks about digital freeing up money because he
> doesn't have to pay for film and processing. I'm not convinced.

Quoted message said:

Me neither, it has cost me about £15,000 so far :-(

I've spent nothing like that. Some quick rough calculations;

Total spent on digital camera equipment so far: £2000
Money back from selling the Canon G3 & accessories: £450
Total cost of digital gear: £1550

Number of digital shots taken so far: 5800
Equivalent film cost (typically 25p per shot): £1450

So far it's cost me £100 more, but I haven't had the 300D all that
long and I certainly won't be selling it yet or buying another digital
camera for a while to come, so the photos I'll take this coming winter
will put me in significant profit over using film.

But you've got to project the storage costs forward. How many years do
you plan to archive your collection? 25 years isn't unreasonable. How
much is it likely to cost to archive the 35mm slides for 25 years versus
how much for the digital images?

Quoted message said:

Storage costs: maybe £40 hard drive space and £40 CD archiving costs.
Just a rough guess. This is the big problem area. I plan to buy a
DVD writer soon which will reduce the number of disks significantly
and make it cheaper to archive onto multiple disks.

But these storage media are volatile and not guaranteed much beyond a
few years. That means that to be safe you will have to have multiple
copies of each and then to re-copy them onto new disks every 2 or 3
years.

Protecting the storage media is also important, as is having some
indication when things are going wrong. As well as a firewall and virus
protection I have SpinRite to look after my hard discs.
http://www.grc.com.

Does anybody else use this?