Monday, June 29, 2020

29 June 2020 - Plague Journal Day 109

Yes, your life matters.

We all are still sheltering in place, but I'm here to keep you sane and entertained.
One could hardly ask for much more than that, now could one?

You probably remember cameras. They're like a bulky phone that doesn't text or have apps or make phone calls (if you remember those). Well celebrate those devices, because today is National Camera Day!

I actually still have a bunch of them - mostly film cameras, and two digital cameras. I used to develop and print my own photographs, way back when (I only ever did black and white - color sounded too complicated for me back then).
As to my digital cameras, one is pretty nice - high pixel count, nice lens, large capacity storage, etc. - and the other has a great lens, but it's too early to actually have a good sensor and reasonable storage.
You know, that's an amazing thing about film cameras - even photos from the US Civil War are amazingly detailed (that's from back in the 1860s for the historically-challenged reader). Yes, lenses and film got better and better: faster with finer grain, accurate color, less abberation, all that, but from the beginning was as good as the digital stuff we have now. The biggest difference is that it's easier to fake things now than it was with real film.
Progress? If you're a filmmaker doing special effects, then yes. If you're trying to document something that really happened, probably not.
Just check out these non-existent people if you're not sure things are beyond what a "reasonable person" could determine in the course of everyday life, let alone as a member of a jury in a court of law. (refresh the page for a new "photograph")

Yikes, as they say.


Keep Calm and Stay Away.
I'll be back tomorrow.

No comments: