[Scribus] quality images for press (digital camera? cheap/freeonline stock s? scan?)

[Craig Ringer]

On Thu, 2005-05-05 at 01:19 -0400, Marvin Dickens wrote:

> I second Leica lens quality. In the event you can't afford/get a Leica lens,
> Nikon is my second choice.

My work had a Nikon D1 before we got the more recent Canon EOS 10D. The
Canon was a massive step up in quality, performance, and reliability.
It's not as solidly built or "nice" a camera, but unlike the D1 it works
reliably.

It wasn't just one particular faulty D1 we got, either. Before we gave
up on them we had three TOTAL replacements. They all just went flakey
and died.

I was also never particularly happy with the D1's ability to handle
weird lighting. It was extremely prone to colour casts and incredibly
sensitive to exposure in some lighting conditions. I had to "fix" some
truly ghastly photos at various points, especially things like shots
inside art galleries. Unfortunate, as it *did* produce beautifully
sharp, clear shots when it wasn't playing funny business with the
lighting.

Perhaps Nikon have improved the D1 since then - we did start out with an
early model. Hopefully they've improved the software too, since it's was
worse than the Canon software we have (but don't use) now.

Ah well ... it's entirely possible I was unlucky, or that the
photographer at work is somehow intrinsically destructive to Nikon
digitals. Still, my experience with the D1 wasn't a good one.

> Also, as someone else pointed out, digital zoom is absolutely worthless. This
> technology, like image scanners that claim 2400 x 2400 DPI resolution (Or 
> better), is based on digital algorithms that enhance by guessing what the 
> image should look like if enlarged - In fact, the algorithm produces an 
> enlargement that is hocked off to the user as a magnification. The quality,
> as my high school aged nephew would state: 5ucks.

The worst thing is it's just one of the many dodgy scams in the
business. Those resolution claims don't usually even come with a little
(* interpolated; physical resolution 2400x1200 dpi); similarly dodgy
scanners rarely say (* theoretical; measured dynamic range approx 3.0).

I laugh when I see scanners claiming "Dynamic range of 4.2!". For why:
http://www.scantips.com/basics14.html
http://www.photo.net/learn/drange/

It seems scanner manufacturers really must have discovered the "new
black" and "new white" :-P

-- 
Craig Ringer