Nikon DSLR (DSLR)

[BOREALIS]

Digital camera turns 30 — sort of
Kodak had prototype in 1975, but waited for decades to enter market

David Duprey / AP
Kodak's prototype digital camera built in 1975 is shown
next to Kodak's latest digital camera, the EasyShare One.

By Ben Dobbin
Updated: 7:13 p.m. ET Sept. 9, 2005


ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Steven Sasson knew right away in December 1975 that his 8-pound, toaster-size contraption, which captured a black-and-white image on a digital cassette tape at a resolution of .01 megapixels, "was a little bit revolutionary."

When anyone asked, the Eastman Kodak Co. engineer ventured that it would become a commercial reality in 15 to 20 years.

It would be a quarter century, though, before Kodak began to capitalize on Sasson's breakthrough: the first digital camera.
In the meantime, the company that pioneered mass-market photography was busily amassing more than 1,000 digital-imaging patents. Today, almost all digital cameras rely on those inventions.

But Kodak's transition to a new world of photography was hindered by a reluctance to phase out celluloid film, its 20th-century gravy train.

Not until 2001 did Kodak begin selling mass-market digital cameras, though it leapfrogged Sony Corp. and Canon Inc. in 2004 for the lead in U.S. digital camera sales.

In the meantime, Sasson's fanciful alternative has gone from scientific curiosity to high-end novelty to America's most popular electronics gift, giving him unfamiliar star power late in his career and a few worries about his role in the steamroller effects of innovation.

After all, the toll of the digital-photography revolution on Kodak's work force "is enormous," he noted.

"Every once in a while," the garrulous, good-natured Sasson joked, "some of my friends say they're going to put my statue up at Kodak Park" — the mammoth but now rapidly shrinking film-manufacturing hub that George Eastman began erecting here in the late 1800s.

Sasson, now 55, never imagined as a relatively new Kodak hire in 1975 all the dazzling ingredients that have, in just a few years, put digital cameras in 50 percent of American households: fiber optics, the Internet, personal computers, home printers.

His invention began with a 30-second conversation.

Sasson, who'd recently earned a master's in electrical engineering, said his supervisor, Gareth Lloyd, gave him a "very broad assignment: He just said, 'Could we build a camera using solid-state imagers?'" — a new type of electronic sensor known as a charge coupled device, or CCD, that gathers optical information.

Finding the literature on digital imaging to be virtually blank — Texas Instruments Inc. had designed a filmless but analog-based electronic camera in 1972 — Sasson drew on whatever wizardry was available: an analog-to-digital converter adapted from Motorola Inc. components, a Kodak movie-camera lens and the tiny CCD chips introduced by Fairchild Semiconductor in 1973.

He set about constructing the digital circuitry from scratch, relying on oscilloscope measurements to guide him. There were no images to look at until the entire prototype was put together.

Completing their final voltage-variation test in December 1975, Sasson and his chief technician, Jim Schueckler, persuaded a lab assistant to pose for them. The image took 23 seconds to record onto the cassette and another 23 seconds to read off a playback unit onto a television. Then it popped up on the screen.

"You could see the silhouette of her hair," Sasson said. But her face was a blur of static. "She was less than happy with the photograph and left, saying 'You need work,'" he said.

But an overjoyed Sasson already knew the solution: By simply reversing a set of wires, the assistant's face was restored.

Sasson's show-and-tell presentations over the next year "met with a lot of curiosity, some annoyance," he said. "Many times people talked about all the reasons why it would never happen. But there were many people that quietly looked at it and said, 'Boy, it's a long time, but I don't see that it won't happen.'

When Sony marketed the first filmless camera in 1981, a Mavica that worked off magnetic disks, Sasson thought: "Exciting development, wrong approach." It was based on television technology, "which had inherent limitations in image quality," he said.

Besides, Kodak wouldn't be rushed.

Considering that Eastman's $1 Brownie camera turned photography into a hobby for the masses way back in 1900, some critics insist Kodak discovered the "next big thing" and didn't bring it out quickly enough, letting Japanese rivals drive the digital-camera market.

The story is reminiscent of one of technology's biggest fumbles: In the 1970s, Xerox Corp. researchers in Silicon Valley invented seminal aspects of personal computing that were virtually ignored by the parent company and ultimately used by others.

But Chris Chute, a photography analyst at research firm IDC in Framingham, Mass., views Kodak as an easy target because it "keeps all doors open as long as possible until the real opportunities start to shape themselves."

Unquestionably, though, Kodak's dash to transform itself into a digital heavyweight has left a painful trail: Tumbling sales of film, which still accounts for the bulk of its profits, will soon drop its global payroll below 50,000 employees from a peak of 145,300 in 1988.

While most of Sasson's career has revolved around finding ways to capture, store, transmit and manipulate digital images, he now specializes in protecting Kodak's intellectual property.

His prototype will form the root of historical arguments against Sony in an upcoming patent-infringement trial over Kodak's digital-camera inventions from 1987 to 2003.

In looking back at Kodak's long road to the digital age, Sasson doesn't believe his employer ultimately was late to the game.

"As much as other people may have introduced cameras earlier, I submit those cameras probably were not very easy to use — or very good by image-quality standards," he said. "The mission is the same as George Eastman's: Take this very important art and turn it into something 'as convenient as the pencil.'"

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9261340/

[BOREALIS]

Imagine a 2.6 Gigabyte photo....

taken with a 1943 vintage large-format view camera,
modified for extremely high resolution!!


Clifford Ross' camera holds 100 times more data than advanced digital cameras
even though it looks like an old-fashioned camera. (Photo: CBS)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/08/25/eveningnews/main796442.shtml
(Also two videos at site)


Photographer Sees The Big Picture

NEW YORK, Aug. 25, 2005

(CBS) Artist Clifford Ross is living proof that the key to success is thinking big. His pictures are so big that the viewer has the feeling of looking out a picture window.

CBS News correspondent Richard Schlesinger catches up with the artist and finds that it's not just their size, but the level of detail that makes his photographs remarkable.

With a lot of pictures, the closer you get the less you see — but with this one, the closer you get, the more you see.

In a photo taken from two miles away, the detail of a horse is clear.

"If you look up close up here, you can see the horse is grazing." Ross says. "The consensus here is that the horse is heading in our direction — but noshing."

There's a science to Ross' art. Each of his giant negatives becomes a 2.6 gigabyte file — that's about 100 times more data than advanced digital cameras.

But Ross' camera looks anything but advanced. Rather, it looks more like an old-fashioned portrait camera. It uses film, housed in a holder originally built in 1943.

"It's sort of an old-fashioned portrait camera on steroids," Ross says. "This thing could have flown reconnaissance missions during World War II."

Ross expected the art world to be interested, but he was surprised when he heard from NASA.

Artists and rocket scientists do not often meet. "It's a shame," Ross says.

His work has also caught the attention of the super-secret National Security Agency. While developing his photos, he also developed a talent for seeing how minute details fit together. That's what the intelligence agency and other scientists want to learn from him.

"Part of my interaction with the scientists," Ross says, "is essentially saying, 'Look. Take a step back. Do the details come together into a big picture?' "

And more than almost anybody, Clifford Ross understands the big picture.

©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[DAVE_007]

Haaa..yep..LOL..eom

[Go_Stocks]

Dave, very nice, certainly it looks different from this American one - the IHUB squirrel:

[WANG]

that's a rabbit!!!!!

LOL

[JUST 10-11-12]

cute!!!

nice pictures.

Keith

[DAVE_007]

here's another quickie..man..dial-up uploads slow

to PhotoBucket..

ANYWAYS..

a Ukranian squirrel..and they get white in the winter I think he said....

ha..you don't see these everyday..

[DAVE_007]

my Ukranian printer mechanic brought me a disc..

not bad his Fuji 5700..got about 100 pictures of different stuff..believe they distorted some when he reduced the size of them..anyways..believe my CoolPix would've done just as good

this is three of the old part of city of Kiev..
the Ukraine capital..I think..
(real gold, he says..hmm..whatever..)

[BOREALIS]

The Next Camera Lens Technology???

Tiny Camera Lens Focuses Using Just Oil and Water

ABCNEWS
By Paul M. Eng


March 23 - Oil and water may not mix. But researchers say the two incompatible liquids can unite to create a unique artificial lens that mimics the workings of the human eye.

Such a lens was introduced recently by Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands. Like many common camera lenses, the so-called FluidFocus lens is "variable-focus" — able to bring either near or distant objects into razor-sharp clarity through simple manipulation.

But unlike traditional lenses, the Philips prototype doesn't require moving mechanical parts or a lot of power. That could makes it an ideal optical solution for next-generation digital cameras or other optical devices.

The mechanics of the lens is based on an interesting phenomenon that occurs with water, explain scientists Stein Kuiper and Benno Hendricks at Philips.

"If you put water on a greasy surface, it will take a spherical shape. And if you put it on clean surface, it spreads out," says Kuiper, the senior research scientist on the Philips FluidFocus project.

In other words, the surface of the liquids formed concave or convex curves similar to shape of lenses used in cameras and eyeglasses. And both Kuiper and Hendricks figured out an innovative way to control the shape — and thus the focal power —of their liquid lens.


I See Cylinders

The FluidFocus lens consists of a tiny sealed glass tube filled with two non-mixing fluids — a non-electrically conducting oil and an electrically conducting solution of water and soap. The interior walls and one end of the tube are coated with clear Teflon-like coating that actually repels water, causing the soapy water solution to form into a hemisphere shape at one end of the tube.

When an electrical charge is applied to the walls of the tube, the water becomes attracted to the sides of the cylinder and the oil flattens the center of solution's hemisphere. Increase the voltage even more, and the water "climbs" up the sides of the tube's walls, forming a convex shape.

Hendricks says the walls of the tube has to be charged with only tiny amounts of power to bend the lens from near-focus to far-focus capabilities. And the lens will retain its shape until the amount of charge is changed.


Experimental versions of a lens about three millimeters in diameter have been able to focus on objects as close as five centimeters and all the way out to "infinity." And according to the scientists, they've been able to rapidly change the so-called focal length of the liquid lens over a million times with no measured loss of optical performance.


Faster Than a Blinking Eye

The mechanics of the FluidFocus lens is similar to how a human eye works as it shifts focus from near object to distant items. But Hendricks says their artificial eye is much faster than its flesh-and-blood counterpart.

"A human eye has a typical response time of about 200 milliseconds," says Hendricks. With the proper auto-focusing algorithms, Hendricks and Kuiper have been able to change their prototype lens in as fast as 10 milliseconds, or 20 times faster.


The quick response time, low-power requirements, and simple construction of the artificial lens will make it an ideal candidate for use in devices that need a rugged, yet flexible optical lens — such as robots or endoscopes used in the medical field.

But eventually, the tiny lenses could make its way into digital cameras or other consumer devices, say Hendricks and Kupier.

"At the moment, there are practically no miniature cameras that can focus variably. They are all fixed-focus [cameras]," says Kupier. "A lot of people are trying to solve this with a mechanical system. But we think we have one of the possible systems to replace those fixed-focus systems."



Focusing on the Near Future

Still, both scientists admit there are still minor obstacles to work out.

For example, they still must test how well a liquid lens would survive the rough-and-tumble shocks cameras and other optical systems face in the real world. Would a FluidFocus lens on a planetary robot explorer, say, operate at extreme temperatures?

And there is the matter of size. For now, FluidFocus works best at small scales — lenses less than a centimeter in diameter. Larger lenses require more power, take longer to focus, and are more susceptible to "shock." (Picture how much easier it is to upset an oil-and-vinegar salad dressing in bottle than a thimble.)


Those drawbacks may leave the picture for the liquid lens a tad cloudy. But both Hendricks and Kupier are confident these aren't major drawbacks. And they say as they figure out how to mass produce these lenses — perhaps by drilling and filling large sheets of glass with their concoctions — FluidFocus could become a viable commercial product for Philips within a year or two.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/FutureTech/story?id=99560&page=1

[dalcindo]

I'm not surprised at all.

[JUST 10-11-12]

article on the new Nikon D50

in a premiere
photography magazine for September.


VERY GOOD REVEIWS! HECK, wonder if you should
even buy a higher priced Nikon. Compared it to
others(ie, Canon, Pentax and Olympus)...and Nikon
was the pure winner.


Keith

[WANG]

nice

[Go_Stocks]

Very pretty, but I see this is a butterfly not a bat

[JUST 10-11-12]

yep, off to Walmart.

Keith

[DAVE_007]

Keith..these cameras eat up akaline batteries like me and MM's..
especially using flash alot and high quality pictures..

after shelling out a small fortune on batteries it didn't
take me too long to get one of these..
this one comes with 4 rechargeable batteries and the charger..got it at Walmart too..
'bout $25..very well worth it if you plan on using camera alot..

[JUST 10-11-12]

incredible for a $200 camera!

--purchased the Ultra II SD memory today at
Circuit City for around $40 with rebate.

now need the batteries: lithium, NIMH or alkaline?
Suspect NIMH might be best?

Keith

[DAVE_007]

One of the women at work came to me and said there was a bat

or something flying around in our breakroom..

close but no cigar..lol..when it finally stopped flying

it came to rest on the floor..what the heck..took a pic

before I scooped him up and took him outside and let him go..

[DAVE_007]

Rabbit at work yesterday at work..
at our outside break area..
fascinated by a black piece of plastic garabage bag..
this 3x zoom..surprised he let me get this close..
I believe he had a tick on his nose..LOL..

[JUST 10-11-12]

yes, Canon 20D...the Fuji 5700 is nice too!

--not as good as the Nikons though?

just kidding.

oh, I-BOX should have www. epinions.com
(I could have spelled it wrong)

Keith

[DAVE_007]

I should be able to post some pics next week of the Ukraine

from my Ukranian printer mechanic...

he went back home on vacation (Ukraine) recently and took his

fuji 5700, I believe it was, camera with him..

took some great pics he said..he's supposed

to bring me a disc next week..

told me just yesterday though he's going to buy (eventually)

a Canon 20D..or D20..whatever..says he goes to local camera

shop and handles and dreams of owning one..

he's kind of a camera buff..

[DAVE_007]

Yes very noisy..for a few seconds..but at 150? MPH
as they fly over our building, the noise doesn't last long..

if a bunch of us are outside smoking and talking at the picnic table
and hear one coming, we just usually stop talking (in mid-sentence sometimes) for about 5 seconds till it passes.

[Go_Stocks]

Thanks! I like the site. Put in the IBOX too.

[JUST 10-11-12]

that should be

www. techbargains. com

spelled the bargins wrong!

Keith

[JUST 10-11-12]

oh,

must be missing something, but I guess
I haven't been sold on the products of IGTN.

guess, I need to review this situation: because
they look like their sales are increasing.

Keith

[JUST 10-11-12]

still holding

INSQ too!

Keith

[Go_Stocks]

Keith,

My IRA scored big on IGTN/SSTY today, I traded very little on IRA, many stocks (maybe 10 or 15 stocks) sit there for weeks if not months. I found patience pays off if you buy stocks with FUNDAMENTALS and good stories.

IMOT/WFMC are in my IRA too, both should do well next week. Watch SCXC too, it has a nice story.

[JUST 10-11-12]

BTW,

nice performance on some of your stocks.

holding HISC, PTSC, little IGTN(for some stupid
reasons I wasn't high on their products), CYBL--buying
more of this next week!

Keith

[Go_Stocks]

Good deal, make sure you send the mai-in rebates.
I bought a couple LCD monitors before the last Christmas, when I wanted to send the $100 rebate after the New Year, I realized it had a 15 days expiration date, it was too late to claim the rebates, lazy guy here, also didn't send rebates on a printer and a hard drive

[JUST 10-11-12]

T4$ check this one I found on www. tech bargins.com


Sandisk 512MB Ultra II SD card at Circuit City
for around $40 with a rebate.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?c=1&sourceid=qIpcQusE2kqTAmBdGkTM&affiliatei...

this way, I save on shipping costs.


Keith

[JUST 10-11-12]

also, I check www. techbargains. com.


now, I have two places to check.

also, www. epinions. com gives good reviews and
places to compare.

Keith

[JUST 10-11-12]

have the buy.com discount card.

purchased my son a Garmin GPS device--awaiting
delivery. heck, likely paid for shipping on this baby!

Keith

[Go_Stocks]

Current Product Price: $38.95
Price After Rebate(s): -$19.95*
Buy.com Visa Discount: - $30.00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your New Product Price: -$11

[JUST 10-11-12]

your right!

[Go_Stocks]

Hmmm, I see it qualifies for free shipping:

http://www.buy.com/prod/Kingston_Technology_512MB_Secure_Digital_Card/q/mp/65/loc/101/10370495.html

[JUST 10-11-12]

no free shipping on the buy.com deal, but
$5 bucks cheaper than any deal on the net.

Keith

[JUST 10-11-12]

heard Sandisk is good!

Keith

[JUST 10-11-12]

thanks guy!

order from buy.com all the time!

Keith

[Go_Stocks]

BOREALIS, amazing, I've never imagined the nest is so tiny, thanks!

[Go_Stocks]

Here is a deal from the previous link:

Kingston Technology 512MB SD Card $20 at Buy.com Click Here
Discuss (6) Posted 5:00 AM PDT 7/29/05 by Ben

Buy.com has the Kingston 512MB Secure Digital Card for $39 - $9 rebate [Exp 7/31] - $10 rebate [Exp 7/31] - $9 rebate = $20 with free shipping. [BizRate


http://bensbargains.net/cgi-bin/ep.cgi?585028

Deal: Coolpix 3MP Digital Camera $97 at eCost.com Click Here
Discuss (0) Posted 9:32 AM PDT 7/29/05 by Ben

eCost.com has the Refurbished Nikon Coolpix 3100 Digital Camera 3 Megapixel for $89 + $2 shipping $6 handling = $97. [BizRate]

[Go_Stocks]

ON cards, I go with Sandisk, but not much difference in performance if you don't do continous shooting a lot. The price is near free for 256MB card.

Checkout here regularly:

http://www.bensbargains.net/

[Go_Stocks]

This thing must be very noise, do you guys have hearing test regularly?

[DAVE_007]

"Gentlemen start your engines!"

"hey, they are started..it just looks like they're not running"

..LOL..

from today at work as C130 flew over our plant..

[BOREALIS]

Can't you open any of them??

The two photos I pasted in msg. are in ipj format.

But the photos in the link >> http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/
are jpg

[JUST 10-11-12]

Coolpix 3200---SD memory card:

any favorite brand?
256 mb enough
Keith

[dalcindo]

Sorry, bad format. Will change them to jpeg.

[WANG]

Can't see any of your pictures.

[Go_Stocks]

dalcindo, I won't be able to see any pics you posted..

[Go_Stocks]

Hmmm, won't be able to see your pics.

[BOREALIS]

Humming Bird photos - from eggs to flight!
Excellent quality!

Got this in an email.

These photos weren't taken with a Nikon, but are still worth a look.....


"This is truly amazing. Be sure to click on NEXT PAGE at the bottom of each page; there are 5 pages in all.

A lady found this hummingbird nest and got pictures all the way from the egg to leaving the nest. Took 24 days from birth to flight. Because you'll probably never in your lifetime see this again, enjoy; and please share....Just click the link below to get started."

http://community-2.webtv.net/Velpics/HUM/


just a couple of the photos:



For a size comparison: A toothpick is 2½" long, a penny is ¾" in diameter




"These photos were captured by a Panasonic DMC FZ20 digital camera.
It's wonderful 12x zoom lens, managed to reach into that jungle and retrieve these images without creating too much stress for Mom and the babies.

Photos were edited with a computer.
All photos by Vel. (Verle33) "

[dalcindo]

All these pictures were taken from a Nikon FE onto slide films. These slides were then scanned and stored in my computer image databank.

I am still waiting for a dirt cheap Nikon D50, though. I received good reference in terms of website for shopping, so I now remain on the look-out.

Thank you for prior feedbacks.