Digital Camera Recommendation

Exploding picture tubes can be as interesting as a shotgun blast at close range. And as lethal in some cases.

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie

I heard a lot of scary, scary stories about how bad CRT implosions were, but whenever I tried it ;-) it was a bit underwhelming.

I think the shutter tape material may have cracked, but that might be a different camera. I have a few old nice ones.

Anyway, no point to trying to actually use it anymore, digitals do the job quite well, and a lot easier to store and backup the images.

Jon

Agfa is out of business, and Kodak has scaled back quite a bit, but litho film lives on. My current source is eBay Kodak image recorder film PRD from the printing industry. You can get barely out of date film for $50 a roll or so. Xpedex sells the developer and fixer for this film (my old Kodak print fixer turned the backing of the PRD film orange, but the Xpedex Color-Lok chemistry works fine).

The only problem with laser printers is they are not terribly accurate. Print the same two images, one mirrored, and place them face to face and observe with backlight. You will likely see a lot of mis-registration. If you are doing two-sided circuits, this can be a big problem.

20 years ago I built a laser photoplotter with 1000x1000 DPI rsolution, and it works MUCH better than a printer. It writes raster to the red-sensitive litho film with a 670 nm 5mW laser diode and some lenses. The film is wrapped around a drum that spins at 10 revs/second, so it produces 0.6" of image per minute.

Jon

"Now where did I put that flywheel? Here it is!"

I used to stick the neck of color CRTs in an old dry well and slam the center of the faceplate with a 20 pound ledge hammer. Most barely made a noise, other than a slight pop.

The thing most people don't understand is that the dangerous place to be is in front of the faceplate. When a CRT implodes, the force drives the electron gun into the faceplate. If the speed is high enough, it passes through the crumbling glass, and into whatever is in front of the faceplate. The electron guns have been found embedded in a wall 25 feet from a damaged TV.

"Michael A. Terrell" on Tue, 11 Dec 2012

20:21:56 -0500 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Cool. My buddy was shooting his computer monitor with the lead pellets. Which just flattened. Then he shot it with an arrow. "Thunk!" - arrow sticking out of monitor.

-- pyotr Go not to the Net for answers, for it will tell you Yes and no. And you are a bloody fool, only an ignorant cretin would even ask the question, forty two, 47, the second door, and how many blonde lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb.

Here is a nice old digital camera:

I've got a Canon Power Shot A2000 I like. It was $199.00 on sale. It has zoom capabilities, but I suggest using a tripod for better clarity if you use the zoom features. I purchase cheap batteries, and they don't last very long. One thing I don't like is that there is no viewfinder. All there is for viewing is that screen on the back. I'm considering upgrading to a camera with a viewfinder; maybe a range finder camera? btw, for taking photos of tools etc., you might not even need zoom capabilities unless you want to show maybe the sharpness of a drill bit etc.

You should go with the one that you feel most comfortable mounting on a decent tripod and not touching, because that's how you'll get sharp photos.

A rangefinder has its own problems -- parallax. It is viewing out a different hole than the photo is being taken through, and the closer you get to the subject the more error this introduces. (For extreme examples, say you are taking a photo of the head of a 10-32 screw (for whatever reason). The center of the viewfinder window is typically about an inch and a three quarters (based on measuring an old Zeiss Contax) from the center of the taking lens, so you can't see the screw head in question when it is close enough to get a good sized image on the film.

Using the lens, sensor, and display as a viewfinder eliminates this problem -- but it introduces other problems -- not typically a real problem with this kind of work. Things like much slower response to the pressing of the shutter button, because it has to first close the shutter (it has to be open to use as a viewfinder), wipe the last old image off the sensor, open and close the shutter to take the picture, and then open the shutter again to return to viewfinder duty. And this is ignoring the time required for the autofocus to do its job.

A SLR (film) or DSLR (digital), however uses the lens as a viewfinder, to an eye-level eyepiece, and it does not have to play the games with the shutter. It does have to move a mirror out of the way prior to opening the shutter, but they have been doing this for decades (at least since the time of the Nikon F film cameras), so they have it well under control. :-)

Depending on the tools, of course.

Enjoy, DoN.

For digital cameras that use AA cells...dont bother with anything other than Nmih (Nickle metal hydride). Enerloops or the equivelant.

They recharge forever, will give you full power up to the last shot..and they have far more capacity than do even alkalines.

All you need is a cheap charger that will do Nimh and a spare set of batteries and they will last for years.

The reason Ive settled on Olympus cameras is that they do have a small LCD screen on the back, a regular view finder, zoom and wide angle, close up settings (to 1") and are equiped for external power with a cheap wall wart for studio type work. Never have to worry about the batteries going dead. And they are cheap as can be these days..

I have multiples of all 3. Work very well, nearly all are metal bodies and are GREAT utility cameras.

I think the most Ive ever paid for one was $35 including shipping and the last 2 were NOS in the box.

Gunner

The methodology of the left has always been:

1. Lie
2. Repeat the lie as many times as possible
3. Have as many people repeat the lie as often as possible
4. Eventually, the uninformed believe the lie
5. The lie will then be made into some form oflaw
6. Then everyone must conform to the lie