Renovating my Canon F-1N/Ikelite Housing/Ikelite Strobes
Aug 6, 2019 18:12:46 GMT -8
technidiver likes this
Post by SeaRat on Aug 6, 2019 18:12:46 GMT -8
I've about had it with digital photography. I have tried my Canon PowerShot SD500 in a case, and unfortunately it flooded in the pool at 1.5 feet last winter. I immediately got the housing out of the water, camera out of the housing, battery out of the camera, and dried everything off. Damage seemed minimal, but I have lost flash capability with this camera. I will probably get another of these cameras off E-bay, as they are very inexpensive. But there is a second delay before I get a photo after pressing the shutter, and that is very, very frustrating. So I'll have that, soon again. But I want more.
I have my GoPro video camera, and have just ordered a battery ($55) for a video light for it. It has capability for stills too, but it is a wide angle lens, and video has its own problems. The biggest is that video take a lot of computer disc space, and needs editing. I don't edit well, as it takes too long, and so I have video from Hawaii last Spring that I still haven't edited into a video I can post on YouTube.
What to do? What to do?
Well, I have an older camera, a Canon F-1N which was at the time a professional camera. It is a film camera, using 35mm film. It is limited to 36 exposures per roll too. That means 36 exposures per dive. BUT, I lived with that for decades, and I still have those slides. Here's one from the Clackamas River before I went digital:
Snail feeding on lead006 by John Ratliff, on Flickr
This shows a snail feeding on a fisherman's lead sinker, and I have used it in my video, Getting the Lead Out, to illustrate how lead can get into the food chain.
I used my Canon F-1N with a 50mm Macro lens for this photo. I also have a 24mm wide angle lens for the camera, and both are now under a dome port. In order to get an equivalent in digital, I would look to invest somewhere around $10,000 for a new camera/housing. Also, I like film, as I don't have to see in on a screen, and can choose those slides/negatives to scan. Here's a discussion of film verses digital:
So, I'm getting my Ikelite strobe new batteries at BatteriesPlus, and putting it back into service with my Canon F-1N and lenses . We'll see whether I go back and decided to go completely digital, but this seems the best solution right now.
John
I have my GoPro video camera, and have just ordered a battery ($55) for a video light for it. It has capability for stills too, but it is a wide angle lens, and video has its own problems. The biggest is that video take a lot of computer disc space, and needs editing. I don't edit well, as it takes too long, and so I have video from Hawaii last Spring that I still haven't edited into a video I can post on YouTube.
What to do? What to do?
Well, I have an older camera, a Canon F-1N which was at the time a professional camera. It is a film camera, using 35mm film. It is limited to 36 exposures per roll too. That means 36 exposures per dive. BUT, I lived with that for decades, and I still have those slides. Here's one from the Clackamas River before I went digital:
Snail feeding on lead006 by John Ratliff, on FlickrThis shows a snail feeding on a fisherman's lead sinker, and I have used it in my video, Getting the Lead Out, to illustrate how lead can get into the food chain.
I used my Canon F-1N with a 50mm Macro lens for this photo. I also have a 24mm wide angle lens for the camera, and both are now under a dome port. In order to get an equivalent in digital, I would look to invest somewhere around $10,000 for a new camera/housing. Also, I like film, as I don't have to see in on a screen, and can choose those slides/negatives to scan. Here's a discussion of film verses digital:
The Digital Resolution of Film
So how many pixels does it take to describe all the detail we can get from film?
Fuji Velvia 50 is rated to resolve 160 lines per millimeter. This is the finest level of detail it can resolve, at which point its MTF just about hits zero.
Each line will require one light and one dark pixel, or two pixels. Thus it will take about 320 pixels per millimeter to represent what's on Velvia 50.
320 pixels x 320 pixels is 0.1MP per square millimeter.
35mm film is 24 x 36mm, or 864 square millimeters.
To scan most of the detail on a 35mm photo, you'll need about 864 x 0.1, or 87 Megapixels.
But wait: each film pixel represents true R, G and B data, not the softer Bayer interpolated data from digital camera sensors. A single-chip 87 MP digital camera still couldn't see details as fine as a piece of 35mm film.
Since the lie factor factor from digital cameras is about two, you'd need a digital camera of about 87 x 2 = 175 MP to see every last detail that makes onto film.
That's just 35mm film. Pros don't shoot 35mm, they usually shoot 2-1/4" or 4x5."
At the same rates, 2-1/4" (56mm square) would be 313 MP, and 4x5" (95x120mm) would be 95 x 120 = 11,400 square millimeters = 1,140 MP, with no Bayer Interpolation. A digital camera with Bayer Interpolation would need to be rated at better than 2 gigapixels to see things that can be seen on a sheet of 4x5" film.
Summary
As we've seen, film can store far more detail than any digital capture system.
The gotchas with any of these systems is that:
1.) It takes one heck of a lens to be able to resolve this well.
2.) It takes even more of a photographer to be able to get that much detail on the film, and
3.) If you want to scan the film and retain this detail, you need one hack of a scanner (320 lpmm = 8,000 DPI).
This is why every time higher-resolution film scanners came out back before amateurs could afford DSLRs, we saw more details where we though we wouldn't see any.
Consumer 35mm scanners hit 5,400 DPI (Minolta) before the amateurs went to DSLRs, and even at 5,400 DPI we still saw more detail in our scans than we did at 4,800 DPI.
Film never stopped amazing us as we scanned it higher, and this is why.
5,400 DPI is equal to 212 pixels per mm, or 0.045MP/mm^2. Thus a 35mm slide, scanned on that Minolta 5400 scanner, yielded 39MP images, without Bayer Interpolation. Open these in PhotoShop, and 39x3 = 120 MB files, again, sharper than the Bayer-interpolated images from digital cameras.
Resolution has nothing to do with getting the right pixels and making a good photo, but if all you want to do is count pixels, count on film. See also Why We Love Film.
www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm
So how many pixels does it take to describe all the detail we can get from film?
Fuji Velvia 50 is rated to resolve 160 lines per millimeter. This is the finest level of detail it can resolve, at which point its MTF just about hits zero.
Each line will require one light and one dark pixel, or two pixels. Thus it will take about 320 pixels per millimeter to represent what's on Velvia 50.
320 pixels x 320 pixels is 0.1MP per square millimeter.
35mm film is 24 x 36mm, or 864 square millimeters.
To scan most of the detail on a 35mm photo, you'll need about 864 x 0.1, or 87 Megapixels.
But wait: each film pixel represents true R, G and B data, not the softer Bayer interpolated data from digital camera sensors. A single-chip 87 MP digital camera still couldn't see details as fine as a piece of 35mm film.
Since the lie factor factor from digital cameras is about two, you'd need a digital camera of about 87 x 2 = 175 MP to see every last detail that makes onto film.
That's just 35mm film. Pros don't shoot 35mm, they usually shoot 2-1/4" or 4x5."
At the same rates, 2-1/4" (56mm square) would be 313 MP, and 4x5" (95x120mm) would be 95 x 120 = 11,400 square millimeters = 1,140 MP, with no Bayer Interpolation. A digital camera with Bayer Interpolation would need to be rated at better than 2 gigapixels to see things that can be seen on a sheet of 4x5" film.
Summary
As we've seen, film can store far more detail than any digital capture system.
The gotchas with any of these systems is that:
1.) It takes one heck of a lens to be able to resolve this well.
2.) It takes even more of a photographer to be able to get that much detail on the film, and
3.) If you want to scan the film and retain this detail, you need one hack of a scanner (320 lpmm = 8,000 DPI).
This is why every time higher-resolution film scanners came out back before amateurs could afford DSLRs, we saw more details where we though we wouldn't see any.
Consumer 35mm scanners hit 5,400 DPI (Minolta) before the amateurs went to DSLRs, and even at 5,400 DPI we still saw more detail in our scans than we did at 4,800 DPI.
Film never stopped amazing us as we scanned it higher, and this is why.
5,400 DPI is equal to 212 pixels per mm, or 0.045MP/mm^2. Thus a 35mm slide, scanned on that Minolta 5400 scanner, yielded 39MP images, without Bayer Interpolation. Open these in PhotoShop, and 39x3 = 120 MB files, again, sharper than the Bayer-interpolated images from digital cameras.
Resolution has nothing to do with getting the right pixels and making a good photo, but if all you want to do is count pixels, count on film. See also Why We Love Film.
www.kenrockwell.com/tech/film-resolution.htm
So, I'm getting my Ikelite strobe new batteries at BatteriesPlus, and putting it back into service with my Canon F-1N and lenses . We'll see whether I go back and decided to go completely digital, but this seems the best solution right now.
John
