More number games
16/10/08 18:37 Filed in: Personal
Image processing by humans
A most intriguing number appeared recently in the magazine Wired. The human eye/brain system processes in one year the incredible number of 120 million images. The precise base for this calculation is not known, but I assume it refers to the number of different views that an average human can handle in a day’s time span. On the credible assumption that a very good photographer can generate a handful of really memorable pictures in one year one could argue as follows. Even a very enthusiastic photographer needs sleep and is not always active on every day. Let us say that ten hours a day at 6 days a week is reasonable. Then we have 52 weeks times six days times ten hours times 60 minutes times 60 seconds equals eleven million two hundred thirty-two thousand (11232000) seconds. My HP50g tells me this. Then we are processing ten images every second and have to select when to press the shutter. How big is the chance that we do select the right moment? This is 10 divided by 120 million or one in twelve million. In other words: for every twelve million images we process, we must decide which one of these twelve millions is worth recording!
The dreaded R-word.
Reading The Economist is always good for thinking as the articles are often intellectually challenging and, how awful!, very often correct. It seems that the world economy needs between five and ten years to recover from the financial crisis. Read for this word simply recession. The only solution to get out of this mess is saving and not spending for many years. This is bad news for the high-end and expensive cameras that have been launched at Photokina 2008. Amateur photographers will hold back their money and money earning users of these cameras (aka professional photographers) will have to adjust their investments to the expected volume of orders, which will be less than it was in recent years.
The new Leica S2 has been targeted by various sources at a price level between 10.000 Euro and 25.000 Euro, less lens. If it is true what most cognoscenti claim to know that a new M and a new R will surface from the Solms engineering department in 2009/2010, then these cameras with undoubtedly a hefty price tag will hit the market when the recession is at its worst. Well I am saving already. Do not want to miss the boat.