The near future.....perhaps

Fair enough.


It's the astonishment, and awe I have for all of creation that inspires me to pick up a camera.....

Fair enough.

I'd use the word 'nature', rather than 'creation', but apart from that we don't differ too much there.

Although almost all the pictures of yours that I've seen have very little to do with that. They're creations, inventions, composites and artistic additions. Interesting though many of them are, I don't think they particularly reflect nature, or indeed creation if such it be.

In all honesty I can look at the awesomeness of nature and be impressed any time.

To want to record it though is something different.

I think it's a very legitimate combination of a desire for self-improvement, a desire to create and enjoy good art, and a desire for affirmation from one's peers. That and money, of course.

You might say, 'well where do such desires come from?' But I couldn't possibly comment.

Well I suppose that one could use dna, chemical analysis, carbon dating, scientific observation, and whatnot to analyze the contents of a bakery....
Perhaps one person will take the "evidence" and conclude that the cookies evolved from the muffins, which evolved from the cakes, which evolved from the breads......while another will look at the evidence and conclude that they were all made in the same kitchen, and give thanks to the baker.....

But at the moment, there is nothing stopping both from enjoying the goods!

The bulk of my images are portraits. Photos of people who have souls.
Most of my stuff never winds up on the web.

That's true.

However seductive this facile claptrap sounds if you try and extend it to origins of life, that's all it is.

It was pathetic when the creationists were doing it, and it's almost as pathetic, and a lot more dangerous, now that the ID lot have espoused it.

However it remains the case that non-science is being pushed as science to an audience incapable of seeing the lies, and diverting attention from where educational effort should be being spent.

And that stops a lot of people from enjoying the real goods.

Doubtless you'll be able to counter with yet another hackneyed but superficially attractive one-liner from any number of discredited ex-scientists, but that's all it will be.

You're a good photographer, Don, and a creative and inventive engineer. I respect you greatly for that.

But Intelligent Design as a way of accounting for origins is wrong. Get over it.

point. counter point.
It's a nice debate. Could go on for a long time.

I wonder what other species could go on like that, with such an intelligent debate, about our species, our arts, our sciences, politics...

fish swim. so do dolphins. (look at how evolution sculpted sharks and dolphins).
birds fly. so do bats. so do insects. How many different species have eyes? legs? hearts?

in fact, every species out there has similarities to other, sometimes completly different species.

the absence of human like concience, intelligence, and abstract thought, on a level that competes with humans... is significant. And therefore must be Proof of something. Evolution demands that those attributes must be of value and therefore more than one lifeform would evolve to have it.

The fact that I can't have this argument with an insect-evolved creature, or reptile-evolved creature... you get the idea? You are more than the sum of your building blocks. And entitled to your beliefs.

In the end,
I could live my life, with my beliefs, and harm no one with them.
If I was wrong, the end comes and I am dirt. I lived my life trying to be good to my fellow human beings. If I influence them to do likewise I've harmed them in no way. If I'm right, I'll see them after death in a good place.

You could live your life, with your beliefs, and choose to do nobody no harm. If you're right in the end, you are dirt. Everything ends. You lived your life trying to be good to your fellow human beings.
If you are wrong, you and everybody you misled wind up in a bad place, And you will have harmed many, with your beliefs.

Either way, this argument should end.

my answer this time is exactly the same as it was a year ago.

For me to buy an SLR/equivalent camera which is also capable of video, the following will need to be true:


1: The stills quality will need as good or better than the equivalent camera without video capability

2: It will need to be no larger or heavier than the equivalent camera without video capability

3: The control layout will need to be at least as intuitive for stills capture as the equivalent camera without video

4: It will need a KAF lens mount

5: It will provide an optical TTL viewfinder image.

6: It will cost no more than the equivalent camera without video.

In other words, if I am presented with two cameras and the only difference between them is that one shoots stills only and the other shoots video at HD TV quality with sound, I'll buy the one with video.

If there is the slightest disadvantage to the video equipped camera, why on earth would a stills photographer buy it?

Agree....
that camera is not too far off... It's possible to build today..... somebodies gonna do it (likely won't be Sony, thier marketing depts would have a fit....) but Samsung...???? possibly...
compare this to the offerings of evf superzooms from a couple years back....
http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/5270/casio-exilim-ex-f1-sneak-peek.html

good point. One of the best bets for being able to make this camera and make it work well probably wont unless driven to it simply because they can make more money by selling you 2 cameras than 1.

Regarding the convergence of capable stills & video in a single unit, this is likely, for the time being at least, to remain technology that is only implemented at a consumer level. When Canon introduced the 1D MkIII they had to run it past the Olympic Association (& no doubt FIFA as well) in order to assuage concerns that photographers inside sporting venues might undermine lucrative TV rights. For this reason I can't imagine high quality video being a feature that's seen on pro-spec SLRs for a while.

Jonathan

true jps. there are barriors. until you realize that repoerters have taken to using video phones to get stories where pulling out a pro video camera would get them shot or arrested... since those video cam phones were being used by pros for professional jobs, do they not count as pro equipment?

and with hidef vidcams as small as a cell phone already, how will they stop non-pros from using them?

last point....

when producers realize that they can pay one salary, instead of two...
why send one guy with a vid cam and one with a still cam.... when they can get both from one operator with a hybrid cam?

Broadcast journalism has always been driven by cost, 30 years ago a BBC news crew consisted of a cameraman, sound recordist, spark and reporter usually travelling in three cars and shooting on reversal film. Now its one operator and a reporter and for the most part the technology hasn't made life easier and the cameras haven't got much lighter just much more complex. Versatility in shooting has been compromised by a mic cable attached to the camera as opposed to recording onto a separate medium. So now half the wages and no film stock and processing cost. The BBC are now employing 'broadcast journalists' which presumably means half the wages again ie one person. The audio will be strpped off and used as a radio report and the transcript will end up on the web site (they call it a 'tri-media newsroom'). I have yet to meet an editor who is the least bit interested in pictures as opposed to words and the old adage 'radio with pictures' has never been more apposite than now.

One fundamental problem with any kind of dual purpose camera is the exposure speed - 1/50 sec - you cant lift a frame from anywhere there is camera movement because the still will be blurred. Sure you can use higher speeds but then the moving image becomes jerky.

The whole technique of story telling in film and stills is fundamentally different but will newsroom editors care? I dont think so.

the fact is that moving images don't need to be the same resolution as stills, and stills don't need to be shot as fast as moving images.

Any camera which has both a high enough resolution to be useful for stills and fast enough repeat rate to be useful for video is going to be bigger, bulkier and more expensive than its single use equivalent.


The only way it will happen is if you come to a point where you can build both the single use versions no larger than half the size which is ergonomically sensible.

Even then, the classic shapes of stills cameras and video cameras have developed independantly to best serve their purposes. They are not the same. I just can't see a camera being ergonomically sensible for both roles.


Technology be <insert expletive here>ed, if the resulting contraption isn't user friendly, market forces wont let it take off.

Very well put, indeed.

Ken