Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/10/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Well, we bought a digital SLR to go to Antarctica: it paid for itself, because Helen won a trip to the Arctic, BUT, it was not without some "cost". Now I'm NOT trying to compare with film "fairly". I know there are more costs of running film, and that is one reason to go digital, BUT my point is the cost does not stop with the purchase of the camera. OK so here goes in point form: - the cost of the camera was "enhanced" by the extra batteries we felt we would need to have - we took an iPod to back up to, and soon discovered that the files were too big for the pod to transfer all 2 gb of the card without the iPod "stopping". So we needed, and had to borrow a laptop (thanks Christian, it saved my ass ;-) ) so really, I will have to have a laptop in future. That laptop cannot be my 5 year old iBook (I did not take it at the last minute when I realized that it would only hold 3 of the camera's cards on its HD and that it took an "hour" to open each file), so there is another AUD 4000 which needs to be spent - at the end of each day, I spent hours downloading backing up sorting and burning the files: with film I would have been in the bar making use of the social side of the trip ;-) - On arrival home we began sorting etc and soon overpowered the desktop's power and storage: Now I need to look at a new faster computer with a bigger hard disc and in the short run, I've had to purchase 2 large external hard drives. - sorting RAW files is slow, and I don't have a lot to spare ;-) which pushes the need for good organization etc. This means not only better faster computing, but bigger better programmes such as CS2 PS and Lightroom etc. As I pointed out at a talk on photography on the ship, there is no use taking RAW files if you a) don't know how to "develop" them and b) have the hardware and software and time to do so. All of this is a bit unexpected, and to top it off the camera was really pretty cheap by digital standards, so of course it broke down after such heavy use: fixed by Olympus under warranty, but really, you need to carry two cameras not the risk we took with only one (I was using a hasselblad, which would have become our "back-up", but I did not take enough films to make the 1000 images we took with the Olympus, and in the end, my exposures were not that flash with the blad -- something I only realized when I got home, so of course you can argue that with film I would need to have another 2 weeks in the Antarctic and that would pay for 10 cameras ;-) Cheers On 09/10/2006, at 21:56, Ric Carter wrote: > Alastair-- > > How about a little expansion of your thinking here? > > Thanks > > Ric Carter > http://gallery.leica-users.org/f/Passing-Fancies > > On Oct 8, 2006, at 6:27 PM, Alastair Firkin wrote: > >> The slippery slope is the hidden cost of going digital: but you >> will find out ;-) > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information