Surprising facts, film is digital and your DSLR is analogue

[Kym]

Based on an article I just read over on Luminous Landscape...

A digital camera's sensor is an analogue device.
When light hits a pixel an analogue signal is generated (a voltage).
The voltage is proportional to the amount of light received by the pixel.

It is not until that voltage is processed by an analogue to digital converter does
that pixel (and the rest that make up your image) become digital.
Refer to the first diagram here: http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for..._White_balance

Film is digital in nature (or at least binary (on/off)).
A molecule of silver halide when exposed to light and is then developed turns black,
or it doesn't turn black, depending on various factors including, but not limited to,
the amount of light that it receives along with the amount of development.
Tone happens as a function of area, i.e. when the number of silver halide molecules
in an area are (say) 30% black and 70% not black then that area appears as a grey.

Confused? I hope so


Next time you see someone with a film camera, maybe suggest they switch to analogue?


So what other surprising facts do you know about photography?

[nightbringer]

I think my brain exploded :P

It was an interesting read, and some food for thought.

[JM Tran]

Another interesting FACT

-Olympus DSLR users always stop working/shooting and pack up to go home once it hits 6PM, or whenever it gets dark really

[Xebadir]

The number of shots taken with camera equipment decreases at a rate inversely proportional to the rate of increase expenditure on more and more expensive gear.

*Statistics may be subject to other factors.

[arthurking83]

Fact!
99.71% of all statistics and 99.69% of all facts are either guesstimations, assumptions, suspicions, theories or simply plucked out of thin air!
(including this one)

.....

Film is digital in nature (or at least binary (on/off))......

LOL!

[Xebadir]

Thanks AK for allowing me to use my favourite line. "Lies. Damned Lies and Statistics"

[Scotty72]

I guess it is little different to microphone / speakers. Sound traveling in waves hits a membrane/sensor which 'interprets' that into digital form (then reverses at the other end).

So, digital devices (that interact with the natural world) are only digital in their storage or transmition of the information they capture.

I can remember some idiot salesman trying to convince me I needed to buy 'digital' speakers - as if the 'zeros and ones' would flow better into my ear-drums than the waves from regular speakers.

Scotty

[fillum]

So what other surprising facts do you know about photography?

When you upgrade your camera/lens by 500%, your photographs increase in artistic quality by approximately 0%.



Cheers.

[BecdS]

All of my thanks in this thread are 100% proportionate to the amount that I laughed. Some funny people here!

Also, interesting info.

[Rattus79]

Fact!
99.71% of all statistics and 99.69% of all facts are either guesstimations, assumptions, suspicions, theories or simply plucked out of thin air!
(including this one)






LOL!

7 out of 10 people know that already.

[tcdev]

A digital camera's sensor is an analogue device.
Film is digital in nature (or at least binary (on/off)).

Just like any 'digital' process can be considered analogue at some scale, any 'analogue' process can be considered digital at some scale. The terms analogue and digital are terms invented by humans to help us describe processes, rather than some intrinsic property of nature.

The author has simply chosen to examine photography at suitable scales in order to expose an apparent paradox in each process.

On a quantum scale, you could argue, the nature of all things is 'digital'. The light hitting the digital camera's sensor is comprised of a finite number of discrete photons (considering the particle properties of light), which ultimately causes a (proportionate) finite number of electrons to flow into the circuit that measures the light. The so-called 'analogue-to-digital converter' could be thought of as a counter of sorts, a digital process.

OTOH, computers aren't really 'digital' at the macro level either. Small collections of charge are used to represent binary information; the computer chooses some threshold of the 'analogue' value of the charge to differentiate between zero and one.

Film is 'analogue' in a sense that the size and arrangement of silver halide is arbitrary and there is no way to quantify the number of particles in each state; hence no way to accurately reproduce the *exact* same picture.

All still interesting but still I feel the article a little 'sensationalist'.

[Scotty72]

My hand is definitely digital

[Kym]

Not sensationalist but humorous and thought provoking