I have a T410 and thought there weren't any compatible ultrabay batteries. Could you link to one?

Something I've realized in my career as a photographer is that newer isn't always better. I started off doing it as a hobby with a Canon point-and-shoot with CHDK firmware, and eventually I bought an entry-level Canon DSLR when I decided I wanted to focus on photography.

My photos taken during the period when I was using the DSLR were generally crappy. I experimented some, learned about aperture and shutter speed, but mostly kept it on program mode. I had a few good photos, and thousands of bad ones.

In late 2010, I decided to take a black and white photography class at college. It required a film camera, and we would learn to develop our own film and print photos with enlargers. My friend happened to have a camera he wasn't using, which he very graciously gave to me: a Mamiya 645 medium format SLR.

Being limited to 15 shots a roll helped my skills immensely. I started carefully considering each photo I took, since I could only take a few at a time, and each one cost me money (in film and chemicals). My compositional skills went from "occasionally lucky" to "I can look at and evaluate my own photos and use elements I like later on". I learned how to expose correctly (the camera is manual with a built-in light meter), how to take great landscape photos lit only by the full moon, and (later) how to scan and process my film photos on the computer, so I could put my Photoshop skills to use and show my photos to people.

One of the most helpful parts of switching to film, though, was the quality. The 645 format (each photo is 6 cm by 4.5 cm on the negative) inherently gave me better resolution than my DSLR. Photos that would have turned out disappointing on the DSLR turned out great with the Mamiya, because film has so much more dynamic range than digital (no matter how hard digital tries with new sensors and HDR gimmicks). I learned to use the grain structure of each kind of film to my benefit, and to create specific effects.

I now use a Pentax 67 camera for a great deal of my work; an Olympus OM-4Ti and various film point-and-shoot cameras fill in when I don't want to carry around an enormous chunk of steel and glass. Not only are the 35mm film cameras smaller than their digital equivalents, but they cost less (for the cameras and lenses both), and especially with the point-and-shoots, take better photos than equivalent digital cameras.

I have abandoned digital photography entirely. I have spent, in total, less on my entire ensemble of cameras, lenses, film, chemicals, and equipment than I would have spent to buy a prosumer DSLR and one or two lenses of lesser quality than the ones I own now. I have to spend 45 minutes to an hour to scan each roll of film, much less process each photo, I had to upgrade my computer to hold twelve gigabytes of memory to process the biggest photos comfortably, and 190-megapixel photos occupy most of my hard drive space; my best camera is hard to transport easily without a suspension backpack, and I love it. With Kodak Alaris continuing Kodak's film lines, and with Fujifilm and Ilford still devoted to upholding film photography, I do not think me switching back to digital is in the cards in the foreseeable future.

Well, it doesn't take video, but a Pentax 67 medium format film camera can be had for less than $200, and will take shots that come out looking better than those of any DSLR. :P

>Really, 2 choices for film cameras? Is the ghost of Ansel Adams present on /.? The Kodak (and Fujifilm, and Ilford) film businesses are almost kaput, mostly limited to art and technical markets. Well, some of us are artists and like to get the best image quality for our buck!

Your full-frame digital camera still can't compete with my Pentax 67.

Which ways?

Computers are used in crimes much too often. The best thing, of course, is to just ban computers from the country. Grab them from every household. The computer nerds can easily get a different hobby, such as gardening. And government can train them to not live in constant isolation from humanity, like we luddites do.

Should someone really have to buy a very expensive satellite phone + plan, or move somewhere else, because their telephone company wants to replace their (perfectly fine) POTS connection with something that stops working a little while after the power goes out?

I live in California, in the Bay Area. In 2001, our power went out for a week after a big rainstorm. The telephones worked fine the entire time. We wouldn't have been able to check on my grandparents if we had had one of today's fiber telephones.

It's also useful for anyone who wants a sensor area larger than 35mm without paying thousands and thousands of dollars.

I don't think Kodak's film division has anything to do with making or repairing film cameras.

I shoot Neopan Acros 100 for most of my B&W landscape work. Acros is still available in 135, 120, and 4x5 sheet film, and Neopan 400 is still available in 35mm. From what I recall, Plus-X is garbage compared to Acros.

Biting the hand with its own teeth! The metaphor is collapsing!

I dunno. I became a ham radio operator because radio is cool, and there's something magical about talking and communicating over the air, without help from a big cell phone network.

Computerized human simulators!