Nate Downes

If you have the PD, use the PD. Stop with this illusion of "Filmlook" because, frankly, it's nothing but a gimmick. I've seen great looking footage on cameras without "filmlook" and horrid from cameras with "filmlook." The secret I've found is familiarity with the equipment. If you know what you are doing, you produce better looking results. So, if you know the PD170, use the PD170. Teach yourself every trick in the book for it, and the results will show for themselves. If having a film-like image is of concern for you, teach yourself color grading and correction. That will do far more to deliver a film like visual than a particular model camera will.

HVX200, XL-H1 or EX1 would likely be your best bets in this regards.

I found a V yesterday for $150 and that is what prompted me to ask this, really.

Kodak's maneuvers are making little sence as of late. "We turn a profit with this division... let's axe that division!"

any suggestions for the cheapest that will do the job? Most of the meters I find have more features than I need. I just want a no-frills needle. dial the ISO, press the button, needle tells me where to set it.

Untrue, both of my 70A's are dual-claw.

The feds current interest rate policys are keeping the market from siezing up as it did in 1929, but it is also threatening to force the market into Hyperinflation as seen in Germany after WWI or Argentina in the late 90's.

Oh, they were bailed out... well the CEO's and executives were. Now that the R's are not the majority party in congress, such naked payouts are not given rubber stamps, so the exec branch has to bail out the whole company else wouldn't get a dime for it.

There are CCD's with a wide variety of aspect ratios, ranging anywhere from 1x4000 to fully square. Now, 4:3 is the most popular, for the reasons Nate up there already said. But yes, there are more options than just 4:3

There are CCD's with a wide variety of aspect ratios, ranging anywhere from 1x4000 to fully square. Now, 4:3 is the most popular, for the reasons Nate up there already said. But yes, there are more options than just 4:3

Oh my goodness! Dude! Next time, call me!... I'll bring the camera gear over and make it a real event!

I cashed out my 401k in Febuary, just in time before I was layed off of my job in April. Starting to put my money back in, due to seeing how low everything has gotten. Oct 2nd is my first date of insertion of funds.

I'll admit, this is one of the few honest discussions I've had as of late. We have the guy that doesn't want his taxes raised, and I don't blame him. We have the folk that are distrustful of government spending, also understandable. And yet we all are talking, rather than just yelling at each other. I call this a sign of the solidarity of america. Sure, I might not agree with everything some others might say, but you know what, I love hearing them say it in a responsible and equitable debate such as we have here.

You already voted to raise your taxes actually. Weither today or tomorrow, they will be raised due to the votes of the people. We've been running on the US's Credit Card since 2001, and the bills are coming due. To say "Don'/t raise my taxes" after already voting to raise them by electing people who were fiscally irresponsible is the height of arrogance. We made this mess, we need to clean it up, period, the end. You owe $87k+, thanks to the wasteful spending of the past 7 years, they will take your payment now. We owe, I'm not paying for your issues, you're not paying for mine. All of us owe. Every man, woman, child, and it must be paid. We cannot cut government spending because the government has already begun cutting bone. (eg Minneapolis Bridge Collapse) Like it or not, you will be paying higher taxes. The only alternative is even more horrid, Hyperinflation. Think $4 for a gallon of gas is bad? How about $40? $400? $4000?. That is the other option. Now, these taxes may not be directly assessed to you, but through higher costs such as toll roads, property taxes, and state sales taxes. The money will be wrung from you one way or another. I would rather have it be honestly assessed directly, rather than through indirect and painful bleeding of the system. Face the pain, and it will hurt a lot less.

Not really, I shoot Tri-X on Super8 and find it less grainy than the 35mm equivelent. They reformulated both Tri-X and Plus-X reversal a few years back, to a dramatic improvement in gain.

No.... actually you haven't if you ever read the documents on Probate. The "Death Tax" is on assets which are pre-taxed, such as capital gains from stock sale upon death. nobody has paid taxes on those assets yet, hence, to propose eliminating the tax is to claim that those that make over $10 million should have everyone else pay for their share of the pie. You've not done your homework there, and I can understand that. Too often in todays era we only get the sound bites, and fail to do our own research. And nobody has even addressed the $87k+ Birth Tax. They're so worried "Oh no, the elites will have to pay taxes on their income" that they're ignoring that these same policies have given them a tax on merely being born in this country. You can't just ignore this debt, it has to be paid. Welcome to higher taxes, regardless of income rate, due to this meme of "death tax" and "tax breaks". Well, nobody is getting a tax break now, we have the largest tax in history in the room, and nobody else seems to be talking about it.

But then the issues do not get addressed, do they?

Well, considering there has never been a "Death Tax" this is a moot point.... OH! You must be referring to the Probate taxes applied to those worth over $10 million! (Yes, those are the only "Death Taxes" that have been discussed) I don't know about you, but if I die with over $10 million in liquid assets, I think my son will understand if the government has a cut of it as income, just as if I had gifted it to him in my lifetime.... Incidentally, how do you feel about the new Bush Birth tax of $87,465 given to every person born into this country as of last monday?

Oh, so the wealthy will not care if someone breaks into their house, rob them blind, then set it on fire? Fair taxes make sense until you break things down. Ok, so let's do a Fair Tax on corn being put into a bottle of Coke. (98% of Coke's non-water ingrediants is corn-derived, so, bear with me) Farmer sells corn to wholesaler - TAX Wholesaler sells to canner - TAX canner sells to Processor - TAX Processor sells to Bottler - TAX Bottler sells to Distributor - TAX Distributor sells to retail - TAX So now, let's say it's a 10% tax. We now have a single bottle of coke taking over a 100% price jump. Now, the usual responce is, "Well, don't make companies pay those taxes" which is just having consumers now bearing the tax burdon, while currently they only bear 40% of the tax burdon (yet, in the 50's they beared only 10% of it, but I digress) *AND* all I need to do in order to legally live tax-free is file a DBA ($40 per year) and buy it for my Business. The various hybreds of VATs that are being touted as Fair Tax just don't work. It is an option, but one which needs a lot more work to, well, work. Now, I am 100% for giving people that make jobs an advantage... and that advantage is called "Capital Gains". The problem is that we redefined the tax rates that you get a better tax rate for breaking your company (15% for stock sale) over making your company work (20% for dividends). I would inverse this, and push it harder, making stock sale work as normal income tax but dividends getting a lower tax rate. Would then encourage companies to push for profitable, and long term stability, rather than short term gains which hurt the economy in the long term (eg Enron, Leimann Bros, Beher Sterns...). If someone could make a sales based tax which would not gut the consumers, I'd be 100% for it. Perhaps by switching only personal Income Tax to such a system, but keeping the Capital Gainss taxes (inversed as described above) which would then discourage the kinds of schenanigans as I mentioned, as now you'd be double-whammyed for using business assets for personal use.

Hear hear. Want to grow our economy, build up the infastructure, and charge according to use. The reason why progressive tax rates make sence is because those with more assets have more to loose, hence need more to protect it with. They have more of a stake in maintaining the roads, firehouses, police, and military than a person with less means.

The statement is also misleading, the banking crisis stems from the Gingrich era proposals for all forms of deregulation. I'd not put the fault squarely on Clinton, nor on the Congress, but consider it equal between the two of them. Congress proposed the changes, Clinton went along. The current crisis, in the end, is caused by a quite old problem, called laissez faire. Assuming that capitalists shall watch over themselves is the height of niativity, yet that is exactly what has happened here. Strange when I'm arguing for a Conservative core value, letting the government regulate key markets within the US.

To clarify for those that don't understand that there are lies, dirty lies, and statistics, in 2000, our employed rate was 67.9%. As of August 2008, our employed rate is at 62.1%. (source, Bureau of Labor and Statistics) You are pulling the "percept of people collecting unemployment benefits" number, not the direct unemployment number. Our employed number hasn't been this bad since the 1930's. (which dropped to 51.2% at its lowest point, same source) The problem is, we gain an extra 150k potential employees every month. Kids turning 16, or people graduating colleges, roughly. Bush has added, on average, 100k new jobs per month during his tenure as president. 150k new employees, 80k new jobs == shortfall. And these new employees do not pull unemployment benefits due to working part time, low wage, contract, or just having never worked before due to lack of opportunity. So, reading the unemployment benefits number is misleading at this time in the marketplace, due to the unusual nature of the current employment field.

Just remember folks, former Senator Grahm claimed that this is all a "mental recession" and is all in our minds....

Chinon 200/12XL is my main camera, very undervalued here in the US. I picked mine up for $50. My Chinon 1206SM I picked up for $20, almost as good.

I laugh when I hear that statement, "match the res of film." Movies are not about pixels, resolution or any of the sort. It is about the look and feel you want. RED offers one look, one radically different from Super8, 35mm, or any other filmstock. RED no more kills off Film than 1" videotape did. Film is not a fixed standard, it grows, matures, changes over time. RED might not, say, match EXR stocks from the 1990's, but it might not hold up to Vision3. And if RED did match Vision3, well, Kodak's developing new stocks... who knows where film will be in 10 years. And that is the investment. RED, in 10 years, it will be a paperweight. Film cameras, still churning along, likely running something like Vision5 or some such. And all of us here in camera-land are better for it.