You're in the middle of a desert and taking pictures. You need to get them onto the Web Site - not tomorrow, but NOW! Alternatively you're a journalist - you could send the film home to your paper, but the time it arrives the news will be history. In both cases the nearest develop-and-print laboratory is several hours away anyway.
'D&P' followed by a long session with a flatbed scanner was how we used to do the photos on this Web Site. Frankly it was an absolute pain, but at least there are 1-hour processing labs in Farnborough and they'd usually offer put ours at the head of the queue to shave a few more minutes off - "… as you're Thrust." Another solution would have to be found for overseas use - and that was when we started to look into digital cameras.
The concept is very simple - take a professional SLR camera body, keep all the mechanisms, but replace the film transport mechanism and pressure-plate by a CCD to capture the image - just as in a video camera - and electronics to store the image on a removable PC-Card.
Fujifilm (UK) Ltd's Digital Imaging Division have kindly loaned us one of their top-of-the-range DS-515A Digital Card Cameras - and it has impressed everyone with its ease of use. Based on a Nikon professional body, it takes the same F-mount lenses - which is extremely handy as its normal keeper, Jeremy Davey, already uses Nikon kit. Another bonus is that the controls are very similar to those he is used to, making it an effective tool for this Web Site.
Pictures are stored on ATA-compliant 5 or 15Mb PC-Cards - effectively solid-state disk drives, and Fuji have loaned us two 15Mb cards to go with the camera. Changing film in a hurry can be a difficult process with a normal camera, but with the DS-515A it is incredibly simple - pop one card out and pop another one in. If you're quick it takes about 2 seconds - long enough for ThrustSSC to do about half a mile…
Extracting the images onto computer is simple too - out on the desert Jeremy can plug the cards into the side of his laptop, extract the image files, then wipe the disk for re-use. There is no limit to the number of times a card can be used - the ultimate in cheap film. Take a shot, check it on the laptop or a pocket TV plugged into the side of the camera - if you don't like a shot, just retake it. Fantastic!
Fuji have also provided a PC-Card reader to go with the camera. Plugged into a PC's SCSI bus, it interfaces a normal PC to the camera's cards - and it can take two cards at once - particularly useful after a long shoot away from the Pit Station's servers.
Image formats and qualities can be changed at will - at the highest quality, TIFF files can be used for studio work, while in the desert, lower quality JPEG files maximise the number of images that can be stored on each card. Images of different levels of compression - and hence quality - can be mixed freely, so that when a particularly wonderful picture is seen, it can be captured at its best.
Not having a film to move through the mechanism helps when it comes to action photography - and there isn't much action faster than ThrustSSC! At a continuous rate of 3 frames a second, you can be sure of getting the shot needed for the Internet.
Above all, a camera must be simple to use. Not all of the team are experienced photographers with a grasp of how to handle difficult lighting, or of how to focus on a fast moving object. As well as the more sophisticated modes one would expect on such a camera, the DS-515A can be put into a fully automated mode - setting exposure and focusing at a touch of the shutter release. Even the 'white balance' can be automated. It has been noticed also how accurate its automated metering is - each photo taken is well exposed, and manipulation of the image to ensure a good picture is not required, unlike other digital cameras.
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