19 Apr
2004
19 Apr
'04
10:36 a.m.
I find that
hard to believe, the Xerox process is essentially
electrostatic. I've never heard of it being used in a normal camera.
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 plate/paper is conventional silver-based film normally, I think.
AFAIK the process is fairly different from Xeroxography -- Kirlian
photography does not depend on toner sticking to charged areas of an
object (the photoconductive drum in a copier or laser printer).
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.
Apart from details like 'which way round to these 8 wires go', I never
have a problem putting things back together with quite minimal notes. I
did my first ASR33 (total strip-down) without any official manuals, and
the only notes I made were things like the order of the rails in the
stunt box. I think about 4 sheets total.
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
I also mentioned I keep well away from modern electronic cameras!
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
Normally the front panel (used to be a casting, presumably plastic now
:-() and mirror box come out as a unit. Assuming this is a
vertically-mounted metal shutter, it'll then come out from the body (OK,
a few Minolta and Leica SLRs have the shutter on the back of the mirror
box). You'll almost certainly have to peel off the leatherette covering
from the body first, and you may have to desolder wires
and/or the
flexiprint.
Another really good use for [admittedly very-high end]
digital cameras:
Sports Photography. Sports shooters generally toss a lot of photos anyway,
I didn;t say that digital cameras have no uses, just that I have no use
for one. I take almost entirely static subjects, and I want high
resolution (to be honest 3.1 M pixels is worse than 35mm (I estimate that
as being about 12M pixles), let alone medium or large format).
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... ;-)
Plus the PC and printer, and software. It's getting towards 10 grand. You
can get a very nice large format camera, enlarger, and a lot of sheet film
for that amount of money!
-tony