The Online Photographer

Not to nitpick (well maybe a little), but in spite of what the text on Vincent Borelli's site says, The cover price for The Americans is clearly $7.50 (bringing up the appreciation level to 2333X).

I stumbled across the work of Henk van Rensbergen last year some time. The images are haunting and a little chilling. As I recall the site itself was very well done and the images are well worth a look.

Gee, thanks Mike. I didn't know about Vincent Borelli. Now I will be perpetually broke.

Whatever happened to A Photographer's Place in NYC? I'm still kicking myself for not buying from them multiple copies of Larry Clark's "Teenage Lust" at very low prices. In those days, there was a real likelihood of being visited by the Mounties for importing such a title, so I didn't do it.

Sean Reid's website describes John Milich's G1 to M-mount adapter, price is $150 US.

regards

Bill L.

Is there anybody out there who can comment knowledgeably on RF interference, both outgoing and incoming -- especially the latter? I assume a powerful enough electromagnetic field can interfere with a digital camera's sensor, but I have absolutely no idea, either theoretical or empirical, of what's "powerful enough". High voltage lines? A rock concert's PA system? Do magnesium alloy bodies provide significant RF shielding? I'd be interested in any knowledgeable comments.

The registeryourcamera site looks very dubious to me. What's to stop somebody from either maliciously or mistakenly registering someone else's camera as stolen? Since the site allows partial matches in serial number searches, you don't even have to know the exact serial number. And if false registration is possible, then a real thief who gets caught can claim that s/he is the victim of a false registration. Granted it won't happen all the time, but it is easy to imagine circumstances in which one person would know the serial number of another person's camera -- e.g. in a divorce, or if person A bought the camera from person B. Or person A got a look at person B's equipment at a camera club meeting. Or who knows?

And there is also the possibility of a person of basically good will who makes an honest mistake, then never learns about it or doesn't have the time or patience to correct it. If a potential buyer comes to believe that a potential seller is selling stolen equipment based on some third person's mistaken report, there's no necessary reason why the third person would ever learn about his or her mistake. For starters, the buyer might never report the goods as stolen. S/he might just refuse to go through with the sale.

I haven't gone over the site with a fine comb, but the faqs and terms of use are not encouraging:

"We do not control the information made available by our users that is posted online or otherwise made available through our system. There may be risks involved when relying on the information posted, or transacting with users based upon such information.

Registeryourcamera may use techniques to attempt to identify our users when they register to use our site. However, due to the difficulty of verification over the internet, Registeryourcamera can not and does not claim to have confirmed each user's identity as submitted.."

This looks very dubious to me, particularly since the publisher is trying to make money on supposedly safe classifieds, and has chosen not to identify him- or herself. If you find that a camera has been "stolen", all you really have is the unverified claim of a person whose identity is unverified, based on a web site whose anonymous publisher is trying to make money by encouraging you to believe that there are a lot of stolen cameras out there. And real thieves can cite these issues in their own defense.

I am not a security expert, but these concerns seem obvious.

The mere thought of clicking on an "Add to Cart" box to buy a $17,500 book just blows my mind. So I do it just for fun. Lets see, I have $22,800 available credit on my Visa. Proceed to checkout? Don't think so.

When I got home, I checked out the Mars pictures using my 3D glasses, and I can report that some definitely work better than others. For me the most impressive is this one:
http://tinyurl.com/7kpwee
I swear it looks like part of the topography is rising high above my computer screen.

Mr. Burday,

Nothing is guaranteed in life except death and taxes. I can understand some of your concerns about a thief posting a serial number out there. However, Anyone reporting a stolen camera most likely will have proof of ownership. I know there are malicious people out there trying to scam people out of anything they can. But this just seems like an effort to help out those who have lost a camera.

Also, the terms and disclaimer are pretty standard for sites with contributing members. If you search most sites which publish information posted by members you will see in one form or another some sort of statement indicating we have no control over what he or she said.

One last thing, you state the publisher is trying to make money on ads when in fact, all ads are free and clearly stated.

Overall, I see registeryourcamera as a decent free service to quite a few photo aficionados. Most of all, I like the fact that no personal information is needed to register or that the serial number is only needed if reporting stolen. So to pre-empt those who would say they want too much personal data, I would argue that. It's a lot less than most forums out there require.