February 25, 2007Gadget of the Month: Got gadgets? Not these five…
Comments (6) Last month I started a series of “Gadget of the Month†posts. Right, so one post hardly makes a series. Don’t worry; there are a few more coming. But recently I read an interesting article about five new “gadgets†to skip right now. There were some interesting choices.
High-def DVD Players
First on the list? High-def DVD players. I have to say I agree with this one. You’ve got Blu-ray on one side and HD-DVD on the other. Who wants to come out on the losing side of that battle? I will admit I’m actually old enough to remember the VHS versus Betamax wars, and most folks will know who won that one. (Hmm, history in the making? Sony was a major backer of Betamax. Does that predict the death of Blu-ray?) High-def DVD players are still quite pricey compared to their standard counterparts. And unless you have a high-def television can you really enjoy the quality?
I am getting to the point where we have just about finished replacing any movies that we had purchased on VHS with a DVD copy. I don’t intend to run out and replace them all with HD versions. I think HD-DVD is going to see a much slower growth curve than regular DVD players did.
Playstation 3
Second on the list: the Playstation 3. I am not a gamer, so I can’t really comment on this. I’ve never once owned a game console. I’ve played games on my computers (I fondly recall the hours of enjoyment from playing the first Wing Commander game, what an amazing piece of work that was. And how many times did I get fragged by a buddy of mine playing network Doom? Over the phone line? With IPX/SPX protocol? 
) It’s interesting that the PS3 also contains a Blu-ray drive… or at least that’s what I understand. 
Wireless N
Third on the list? The latest version of wireless devices in a new class called Wireless N. I am not completely up to speed on this, but we started with A and B wireless devices and moved on to G. I currently have a G router in my house for my network. I did a little bit of research before posting this article and found this quote from a press release on the Cisco web site:
With up to four times the range and up to 12 times the throughput of Wireless-G*, the WRT300N and WPC300N deliver wireless networks with the capacity to surf the web, enjoy multiple streams of high definition video, listen to digital music collections and make Internet phone calls – all at the same time.
Sounds exciting, right? Four times the range gives your neighbors even further down the street the opportunity to leech off of your wireless connection. 
Twelve times the throughput means you won’t notice your neighbors leeching as much. But there’s bad news… the N standard apparently hasn’t been completely finalized yet. So any products shipping today and advertising themselves must include the word “Draft” if they are Wireless N devices.
The impact? If you buy one today, it might (or might not) be compatible with the official specification once it is finalized. So you might enjoy the products earlier, but have compatibility issues later. One safe route: purchase all of your products from the same vendor. I bet they would like that anyway.
Windows Vista
Product #4 was an interesting choice: Windows Vista. I know that a lot of folks that are interested in phpBB are more interested in Linux as an operating system than Windows, but face it; Microsoft still owns the corporate world. All but one of my systems at my house run Windows. And the last two I’ve purchased are advertised as “Vista Readyâ€. I have a dual-core laptop with 2GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive. I have a dual-core desktop with 4GB of RAM and 250GB of RAID1 storage. Both should have ample power to run Vista. But you know what? They run XP just fine too. 
I like gadgets; that’s sort of the point of these articles. But I have also reached the point where my computer is a tool, not a gadget anymore. I am willing to put up with subtle issues with my gadgets; I expect them to be leading edge. But my computer should just work. I don’t have the patience to put up with annoyances from my tools. So I happen to agree with this one. I will be waiting a while to upgrade.
10MP Cameras
The final gadget on this list to avoid now? Ten mega pixel cameras. I have been interested in photography for many years. My first web site was related to photography, and I still enjoy it even if I don’t get out into the field as much anymore. But when people find out that I am involved with photography and computers one of the most frequent questions they ask me is, “What sort of digital camera should I purchase?”
My answer? Get the best camera you can find for under $200, because in a year or two when you want to throw it away because of the newer models coming out you won’t feel so bad. My digital camera? I purchased a Nikon D-70. As a digital SLR it allows me to use most (but not all) of my current Nikon lenses. It’s only a 6MP camera, but that’s more than enough.
I still use film for photography. I use digital for taking pictures. Why make that distinction? When I need to take pictures of my two boys and email them to grandpa and grandma, do you think they want to download an 8 megabyte file? No, of course not. So what’s the very first step I take, even with a 6MP camera? I reduce the size of the image.
I use slide film for photography. I have a Nikon slide scanner that can scan at 4000dpi, giving me an image size somewhere around 55MB. That’s way more than any current consumer digital camera can do. I expect I will be using my D-70 for quite some time, as for what I use the digital camera for it’s more than satisfactory. I’ll probably talk more about this later on in another blog post.
Summary
So there you have it, five “gadgets” that you won’t find in my house. My current DVD players work fine. I’m not a gamer. My wireless is the secondary network access route in my house anyway, nearly everything is wired for security and speed. I don’t play to upgrade to Vista for about a year, and I see no need to run out and purchase a 10MP (or higher) digital camera when I can get more data out of my dedicated slide scanner today. Gadgets? Sure, I like ‘em. Just not these five.
Related Links
- Original Article mentioned in this post
- Nikon Slide Scanner mentioned in this article
- Moments of Light – My photography web site
Comments (6)
Some interesting things on the list…
My thoughts on the “Format-war”
It’s Blu-Ray against HD-DVD, and HD-DVD is going to win this “format-war”. Why? Because you will be banned from the licence if you start selling Blu-Ray discs with porn on them. You should know that porn is being sold more then any other type of media. For those who remember Betamax…same story… VHS won because they had pr0n… Some porn movies are already available on HD-DVD… And finally, Blu-Ray technology is still too expensive and new to become the new format.
My thoughts on the PS3
). That should say enough.(Sony is Nintendo’s biggest enemy)
I’m a gamer. But I’m also a Nintendo Fan(boy
Still, when I look at the really “cool” parts of the PS3, it’s not the great machine some people think it’ll be. The graphics of the device aren’t that different from the XBox 360’s graphics. The Blu-ray, wich makes the device so expensive, might become populair after five years, if no other (better) data thingie is released. Sony said that they’ll keep the PS3 as their main console for the next ten years, wich also gives Microsoft and Nintendo the chance of releasing a new and better console.
My thoughts on Vista
I’m running Vista. It’s a graphic masterpiece, but the upgrade isn’t necessary. If you run XP, you’re fine. I run Vista because I…like to show off…
My thoughts on Wireless N
My brother is interested in Networks and that sort of stuff. Waiting a bit longer for pages to load doesn’t matter to me… As long as I’ve got internet I’m fine…
I have broadband internet right now. That’s all I know.
My thoughts on 10MP Cameras
I never take pictures, so I don’t need a camera. Taking pictures can be fun and the final piece of paper that it’s printed on can look good. But it’s just not one of my hobbies…
Comment by Ganon_Master — February 25, 2007 @ 2:54 pm
For me the best gadget I EVER purchases was the Philips Pronto, I have one of the original 1mb ones from the first few months they were out. However to this day I am delighted with it. Took months to get programmed 100%, but now my wife even thinks its great.
Time has come to upgrade and after 7 years of ownership I am going to move to the full colour pronto.
If you have a serious home cinema setup, or too many remote controls I hand on my heart recommend philips pronots.
Comment by Esmond Poynton — February 26, 2007 @ 3:49 am
I purchased my first SLR (a Canon FTb) 30-something years ago. Somewhere in those years I bought a Yaschica Mat-124G, a medium format TLR.
As of this year, all my film camera stuff is gone. I decided it was time to be brave and work digital only. I say all that to say that my instinct is to think of more megapixels as a good thing in the same way that I thought of the medium format Yashica as a good thing. Additionally, it’s pretty straightforward how differences in film speed/ISO values impact image quality, and that just reinforces my instinct.
Now, with my first sub-$300 digital camera I learned something important the hard way: Don’t assume that a camera that offers bunches of megapixels will do the consistent thing and offer quality image storage options. It was a little frustrating to start playing with 7MP images only to find out that I had a single, unimpressive image storage option–medium quality JPEG.
That problem addressed, I’m trying to figure out the real value of megapixel quantity. While I agree that unlike 35mm film images it’s almost certain you’ll reduce the image rather than enlarge it, I don’t get the expected results, magnifying glass in hand. My last pictures with a very tired Canon FT (the predecessor of the FTb), taken at the end of the year and printed at Wal-Mart, appear to me to be consistently crisper than any digital image from any sub $1000 digital camera I’ve had the leisure to consider. Perhaps at some point in the megapixel ladder digital post processing plays the key role when it comes to final product quality (as was obviously the case with my first digital camera)?
With that question in mind, I have yet to dabble in RAW images. So many new things to learn, so little time. And I’m wondering about my habit of thinking film while working digital; maybe the two shouldn’t even be compared. In any case, while my limited experience tells me that more megapixels != better images, I’m not sure that my experience confirms that the reason is down to the fact that we’re almost certain to reduce (which introduces it’s own set of variables) rather than enlarge.
Maybe you could elaborate on how you see it all working it at some point, for us digital novices?
Comment by SamG — March 3, 2007 @ 10:25 am
Sam, I’m happy to share what I know. Despite what I often tell my wife, I really don’t have all the answers.
But I’ll provide some feedback based on what I’ve read and experienced.
First of all, I believe that you are right on the mark about megapixels being only one important factor in digital camera technology. Most sensors in today’s cameras use CCD technology. (I found the Wiki on CCD sensors to be very educational.) The megapixel rating for the sensor is just one attribute; the other two are the size of the sensor and the actual capture technology. It turns out that the sensors used in many point-and-shoot digital cameras (and camcorders) are different in a very important way from those used in Digital SLRs. Here’s an explanation from one site:
As it turns out, I have owned 3 different digital cameras. The first was a simple 2MP Kodak. It took great pictures. The second is a Sony digitcal camcorder that will also take stills. The still images suck, and based on the description above I now know why.
I had not known this until I started doing some research for this comment. (Yes, I research. 
) My third digital camera is a Nikon D-70 SLR.
In my opinion, the sensor size and technology are just one aspect of image quality. The second is the programming. Some years ago I read about a new digital sensor technology that blew me away. I was totally excited and ready to buy it, but at the current time the only camera company using the technology is Sigma. I am not excited enough to trade in all of my lenses and completely switch platforms. I originally believed that this technology would take over the digital camera market, and so far I have been wrong. Why? From what I have read, the programming is still being tweaked.
The sensor, whether CCD or other technology, is a digital input device. Someone has to write code to take in that data and write out the RAW or jpeg file. The quality of that code no doubt varies from one vendor to another. If I had to guess, I would say that most cellphones with cameras in them use the exact same sensor and chipset, thus they will all take the same poor quality images.
I have experimented with some very inexpensive digital cameras for my two young boys and the capture quality for those cameras (we’re talking under $20 here) is miserable. But hey, they’re only 4 and 6 years old. 
Sam, you actually hit this point in your comment:
So that’s now two additional factors to consider along with megapixels. You can’t really review the programming, but you can read camera reviews on the web and see what other folks say about the same model camera you are considering. You can make some judgements about the possible image quality based on certain features that the camera offers. For example if they offer a “live preview” or video capture mode, then they are likely using the interline transfer mode mentioned in the quote above, and less likely to provide quality images.
The final factor that I believe can have a dramatic impact on image quality is under the control of the consumer, at least in some cases. You can have the best quality and technology for your sensor, and the world’s best coders working on your capture logic… if you take a picture through the bottom of a Coke bottle you’re still going to get a sucky image.
That, to me, is one of the primary reasons for going with a digital SLR. I can continue to use my collection of Nikon glass that I have purchased over the years on my new D-70. Having quality glass in front of the sensor (or film, for that matter) is the one area where I can change or improve without buying a different camera.
Sam, I’m happy to continue this discussion here, but I would actually like to invite you over to a digital photography board (phpBB, naturally
) that I started up for a local camera club. I participate in a digital photography club at a client site where I am currently working, and I set up the board to give club members a place to upload photographs and critique them. I think that the club members would enjoy reading (and participating) in a discussion along these lines. The board is not private; anyone can join. A link is at the end of this comment.
Finally, I would like to go back to the megapixels for one last comment. Megapixels – all other factors aside – are essentially a measure of how much raw data is being collected. A 2MP sensor just cannot collect as much data as a 6MP, which is going to collect less than a 10MP camera, and so on. But ultimately it’s all about the data. Once you snap a 6MP image, you have all of the data you will ever have for that image.
I’m not talking about image adjustments (Photoshop or otherwise). I’m talking about the source data. What you get is it, and it can never be improved. The megapixel size does have a rather direct relationship to print size; the more megapixels you collect the larger image you can print. With film, I have an analog (okay, it’s really chemical) method for collecting data. The slide that results from my photograph is my raw data. It just isn’t in digital form. I can take my Nikon scanner and convert it to digital data, and I get more digital data than nearly any digital camera on the market today. (If you have some time, check out the Gigapxl Project for some truly astounding digital images.)
Now suppose a few years from now Nikon releases the Super-Whamo Ultra-Jumbo Gigapixel scanner. I can go back to my source image (the slide) and rescan it, effectively increasing the amount of digital data that I get from the image. My slides – because they are not digital data – can be redigitized as technology improves. That’s the primary reason why I still use film, and intended to for some years to come.
I have just found out that Fuji has stopped making the film that I adore, and am rather miffed about it.
Film chemistry took about 50 years to evolve. I don’t expect digital sensors to take that long (Moore’s Law and all that) but I do expect to see major (not just incremental) improvements over the next five years. It was my desire to stay with film for “photography” and use digital just for taking pictures.
We’ll see how accurate my forecasting skills are.
Related Links (will open in a new window or tab)
Read a nice high-level overview of CCD technology
This is a great article I found while looking for CCD information. It has lots of information that – as the title says – is more for beginniners but I still found informative.
Major data collection device
Foveon offers the X3® chip, a form of silicon film
Comment by dave.rathbun — March 3, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
Dave, thanks for taking the time to reply. There’s much to think about here, and I want to follow up on your suggestion to consider discussing this in a photography-specific venue.
Three quick, closing thoughts. First, Coke bottles. It’s true that even though I didn’t own a Canon F-1 (the king of Canon’s SLR line when I retired my Instamatic), the FTb bodies used the same lense series as the F-1, so I was at the top of the Canon optics heap of the time. But things changed in the camera market even before digital cameras, and optics quality became more of a gradient than before. So I simply don’t know how to compare a 30-year-old Canon FD lens to the Nikkor ED optics in the Nikon Coolpix 5700 sitting at my left, or the Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon optics in the Kodak P712 on my right. I’m guessing that in reality both are closer to the optics I had in my Canon FD lenses than the ones I had in my Instamatic, but it’s not so clear when you look at the prints.
Second, the thought that “ultimately it’s all about the data. Once you snap a 6MP image, you have all of the data you will ever have for that image.” Agreed. So my instincts tell me that 10MP of RAW (or TIFF) image are better than 6MP of RAW image, just like my Yashica’s medium format negative seemed to have an inherent edge over my Canon’s 35mm format negative, optics notwithstanding.
Finally, reviews. This is where I really began to feel the tension between my ignorance of digital photography priorities and the priorities I’d had while shooting film. I think it was reviews of the Kodak Z710 that first got me confused. They were flogging Kodak for not having image stabilization in that camera. Now, up to that time, my only experience with image stabilization was with my camcorder, and I certainly didn’t find that feature a must have in terms of image quality. Then there were the negative comments about the limited ISO range because the camera topped out at something like 800. I thought, man, I used high speed film only in a pinch, and even then nothing over 400. So when it comes to reading these reviews, I’m feeling like a photography Rip Van Winkle; even when the terminology is familiar it all ends up in unexpected places.
Comment by SamG — March 3, 2007 @ 2:29 pm
Heh, as far as taking the time to respond, of course I would do that. In fact I wrote so much that my own anti-spam process kicked in and rejected my comment as being too long!
So I had to write it all again.
Certain a 10MP camera would capture more data than 6MP. If you are going 100% digital then you would want to have the most capability that you can get. In my case, I am not going full digital, and one reason could be said to be the lack of a 60MP camera. (Did you look at the Gigapxl site? It’s fun.)
Image Stabilization… hm, we could go several rounds on that. My folks purchased Canon IS lenses. Sony puts IS into their camera. I don’t have either. Nikon offers the VR series, but to be honest, most of my photography is done on a tripod and the IS/VR technology is not going to help. Whether a particular camera has it or doesn’t is a different discussion than digital versus film, at least the way I see it.
ISO speed. Yeah, that’s another wrinkle. In film the ISO is a factor of the chemistry of the film. The sensor (film) literally responds faster to light sources but at the expense of grain. Slower films have finer grain and therefore can be enlarged more. The impact of ISO on digital is digital noise. If you shoot in jpeg mode you’ll get jaggies and other flaws you might see called “artifacts” in your image. I do not know exactly how the ISO changes are implemented in a digital camera. I expect it’s a combination of electronics (sensor controls) and programming (image processing). I would have to do some more reading.
As far as lens quality… I have yet to see a point-and-shoot with the quality of lens available for SLR cameras. The sales person at Best Buy made a huge deal over the fact that my Sony camcorder has a “Carl Zeiss” lens. Yeah, right. I don’t think they use the same process they used for the fine Leica lenses that are viewed by many as some of the finest optics ever made.
Today’s lens technology is so much different from before. My lenses are made up of lens groups, rather than a single piece of glass.
Time to put boys to bed.
Otherwise I would probably type another five or twenty paragraphs. 
Comment by dave.rathbun — March 3, 2007 @ 7:56 pm