Re: Film SLR or Digital Camera?

Sam wrote:
<snip>
Now coming over to my question, I was wondering if some experienced
people out there can tell me what the best strategy should be. Should I
explore film based camera first and then move on to the digital
counterparts.

Digital is current wave for many reasons (some of which are listed
below). However, I recommend you should learn some film. While many
low-end cameras are available, like the Meade DSI or DSI Pro, they
suffer from an extremely small chip size. This means only a few small
arcminutes (13' x 17') can be captured when the celestial TFOV is
scaled to an image on the chip through an f/8 or even an f/4.5. That
isn't very practical, for example, when working with large objects in
lunar photography.

To purchase any digital camera like an SBIG with a chip of of
appreciable size has a relatively high entry price point. It was and
is an entry barrier to me.

So, I still use my film camera, which gives me a low price point but a
cheap large detector size. Mostly I use my Meade DSI, a low-end
camera, to study image processing techniques.

The advantages of digital are enormous and outweigh film. They
include:

1) effectively ultra-high ISO speeds - like 3200-6400. This allows to
you take several pictures in the same time a single film image could be
exposed. Exposures can be adjusted on the fly instead of taking a
picture and guessing the settings are right - only to find out they
werenot when the film is developed a couple of days later.

2) poor man's adaptive optics or "lucky adaptive optics". The
implication of ultra-high ISO speed and very short exposure times is
the ability to take several photographs, one of which might - by luck -
have occurred when the air is calm and the image is crisp.

3) image processing. If you can get two or three crisp "lucky
adaptive" optics pictures, the images can be combined to produced an
even clearer image.

- Canopus56

.

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