18 Apr
2004
18 Apr
'04
3:42 p.m.
Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words:
I don't -- I believe it's called Kirlian photography, and it works by
passing a large amount of electricity [I don't know if it's voltage or
current based] thru the object to be photographed, with an
electrostatic-sensitive plate or paper close to that object.
The OP never said that normal cameras had to be involved, only that that
there was an early electrostatic photographic method. I think the process
was discovered in the '30s or '40s...
I remember an article where a person was photographing coins & other
household items using a battery & fax paper...
I thought the
cameras that used glass slides, the photographer coated
the plates with the light sensitive stuff before use.
With the some proceses -- the one nicknamed 'wet plate' for example --
yes you did. The checmicals had to be wet during the exposure. But the
'dry plate' processes used pre-coated plates, you used to be able to buy
these ready-made (in fact when I made the hologram I mentioned a couple
of days ago, the sensitive material was a very slow (and hence fine
grain) plate.
I did read somewhere that one of the early
photographic process used
the same process as XEROX copiers. I wonder if nowdays that could be
I find that hard to believe, the Xerox process is essentially
electrostatic. I've never heard of it being used in a normal camera. Depedns on what it's for. If it's to remind me
which order to connect a
bundle of wires, then I'll want a colour picture ;-)
Which, of course, is another *extremely* good use for a digital camera -
keeping a record of disassembly of an item, especially if you've never had
one apart before.
BTW, when you mentioned home film-based camera repair, you may have never
attempted to replace the shutter in a Canon T50 camera. (My wife put her
finger thru the shutter of mine, 2 weeks before vacation [holidays]). I
have, and I'm not too big a man to admit that I'm not able to do it, but at
least I tried. ;-) I bought a broken T50 on ePay for $12, and used my
Epson digital camera to record all the parts as I took apart my "test case"
- turns out replacing the shutter mech. in that unit is, well, near
impossible. It's at the *very core* of the camera, and getting all the
springs & whatnot correct is not anything I could have handled, and get the
camera back together in any semblance of working order. However, if I could
have, I would have had a perfect sequence of images to tell me where every
part went.[1]
Another really good use for [admittedly very-high end] digital cameras:
Sports Photography. Sports shooters generally toss a lot of photos anyway,
and in the long run it can be a lot less expensive with... say... a Nikon
D1H (which I've had the pleasure to use - at 3.1 megapixels, it will take a
very nice 8x10). Granted, with a couple of lenses, you'll be about $7000
poorer, but hey... ;-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
[1] Unlike many of my brethren, I do not subscribe to the notion that "No
job is complete unless you end up with spare parts..." ;-)
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Randomization is better!!!
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.