DVC Summer 08

My final project consists of using historical photos from Pleasant Hill scanned from an archive book, laying out old photos of locations/stores and comparing them to what is in present day Pleasant Hill. In doing my final project, I found it fascinating to see the changes that have come about in this city over the past 50 years, the changes in the landscape, the stores, and the population growth that has occurred in this city over that period of time. The first picture points out the locations of landmarks and how they have changed over time side by side. The second picture shows a map of Pleasant Hill in 1950 and the landmarks and establishments at that time. The third picture shows a map of present day Pleasant Hill and the current landmarks and establishments in the same areas. Enjoy!

There are many advantages of having photos in a digital form because one can instantly view the photos that he or she just captured instantly instead of spending time in a darkroom to wait for photos to develop. Digital photos are also very economical, as one can take as many test photos as necessary under different settings. The bad photos can be replaced instantly with new photos in the camera's memory card, something that cannot be done with single use film.

The ease with which digital photos can be transferred to and modified with computers is also a great asset. Should the brightness or contrast be off in a digital photo, it can usually be modified quickly and easily using a graphics program such as photoshop. In order to alter the properties of an image on actual film, one must expend much effort in developing them differently using different objects, select a different grade of paper, or use a filter in a predictable fashion to modify a print. Once an image has been captured, one has to perform the painstakingly time consuming task of painting the picture's surface with a pencil or airbush, something which can be accomplished much more simply in a digital RAW file by pixel modification. These great benefits allows a photographer the ability to modify the properties of a picture even when it was taken in less than ideal conditions.

Digital photography allows a user to take photographs in extremely high resolution, which allows a user to create large prints from portions of a digital picture file taken in high resolution such as 10 Megapixels. This is because analog cameras are generated in a process by manipulating objects, while digital photography is composed of a complicated set of relationships with binary digital data.

Digital cameras are also much more compact and portable as digital camera technology has evolved and gotten more advanced over time. Digital photography also allows for the ease of the distribution of photos and can be sent to anyone at great distances apart at the speed of light through electronic networks and can be duplicated infinitely with at low or not cost, with no change in the quality of the image.

There are very few disadvantages with digital photography, but one big disadvantage would be that the camera used to capture images in a digital form requires batteries to operate, whereas in a film camera, batteries are not required and one can always fire a shot without worrying about battery issues. A digital camera's battery may tend to malfunction in extreme hot or cold weather conditions, which prevents a photographer from capturing epic shots in extreme circumstances. An analog camera will tend to operate under more extreme conditions than a digital camera would. Another disadvantage of digital photography is that it uses a Charged Couple Device (CCD) to generate an image converted into binary digital form. The simulation of the actual image is based on the quality of the CCD in converting the image into a digital interpolated format, so it is not an actual mechanical reproduction of an image.