"Hey Joe, I'm divorcing you, and it will be effective three weeks ago when I started sleeping with your brother. Happy New Year!"
Back to the subject, the laptop had an encryption solution on it that, because I wasn't the administrator, I couldn't uninstall. I tried to get the last lonely IT at eWeSuck.com to help, but he said if I brought it in, he'd have to wipe the OS off the laptop and give it back to me with no software. Drat - I was unemployed and while I had a laptop (that I paid for) I couldn't afford to run out and buy Windows. By the time I could afford it - the IT dude was gone and to get the encryption off I had to partition the drive and start new. (For you non-teckies think of it like a bathtub and since it won't drain the only thing to do is scoop out what you can and build a damn at the back of the tub to contain the dirty water. So, you lose the ability to lay down, but at least you can get clean.) Therefore, the OS, the partitioned drive, and all my Roxy Music doesn't leave much space for digital pictures of my cat.
Secondly, there's the image quality. I am by no means a serious photographer. I appreciate the look of good quality grainy photos, but I wouldn't even pretend to understand the f-stop settings. Frankly, I'm excited that I understand when to use 400, 200 or 800 film. However, I do LOVE the ability to really zoom in and to play with focus. In order to get a digital camera that can do that I think you have to spend millions of dollars. That could be a slight exaggeration, but I'm sure I'm not too far off the mark.
So, for me the compromise has been using film and paying extra to have Kodak burn me a cd of the photos. This has worked out well and it is spendy - but for now I think it's the best of both worlds.
This is a photo from Ali's digital camera (the detail is lovely)
This image is one I took with the fancy 35mm with the huge lens.
Online the pictures quality is very consistent, but when I got a printout of the digital one from Shutterfly.com some of the edges looked funky -- like a mystery blue edge around the top of the church. I don't know if that is a shutterfly issue, or a digital photo issue. It reminds me of the haze around people on tv in front of a green screen.
I will say that I really hate the look of pictures printed on a home printer. I will continue to pay for photo quality printing - regardless of my decision.
I'm still on the fence... either way (digital or film), it looks like a new home pc/laptop is in my future. I suppose once I make that leap, I should also invest in high-speed Internet at home... my upstairs neighbor will eventually figure our that her wi-fi is supplying the whole condo association with free Internet. (I'm kidding, that would be unethical.) I think it's funny that for someone who lives on a computer, my home situation is so low tech: dial up, on a crappy laptop, no printer... I'm a mess.
My conference call (about copy machines - seriously) is about to end, so I'm going to be free to focus on real work. Have a great weekend.
1 comment:
A few random thoughts:
+ Consider stopping by your neighborhood Fry's for a $60 100GB external hard drive.
+ But if you only have a slow USB I connection for it, it's one more sign you should just upgrade the computer.
+ If you don't need a laptop at home, consider cheaper desktop options.
+ The problem is probably with Ali's camera rather than a digital vs. film issue per se. See this.
+ I think the ability to "really zoom in" is overrated.
+ If I were going to switch to digital as a primary camera, I would probably be looking at things like the forthcoming Sony DSC-R1, which will have a sensor chip of the same size used in Nikon digital SLRs (much bigger than what's seen in other "prosumer" digicams. Street price will be $999, but for that you get the big sensor, the nice Zeiss T* zoom lens with zoom ring on the lens barrel. You get 10 megapixels, which is great if you want to do big prints or crop your shots and still get quality prints. You can also go much *wider* than a typical digicam (equivalent of a 24mm lens), made possible by the big sensor. I could go on. If you are going on these once-in-a-lifetime trips with only digital, you will want to bring back real photos. If you take the shot of a lifetime with a little 4 megapixel compact digital, you might cry. You'll probably want a better computer if you start working with bigger digital files.
+ I still don't see why it's really unethical when someone chooses to broadcast unsecured Wi-Fi for someone else to take advantage. If I throw a bunch of nickels into the street for no good reason, is it unethical for anyone to pick them up? Not an ideal metaphor, but I'm not going to spend the time to craft a better one.
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