20,000 Photos

Avi — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:26:23 +0000

Our iPhoto library hit 20,000 photos, 701 events, and 70 gigabytes on Sunday. This seems like a good time for a little introspection into what all these photos are. So I’ve put together some breakdowns.

By Year

Year	Photos	Note
2001-2002	865	We started taking digital photos in November 2001. I’m combining these years because I don’t have accurate data, due to my using the unforgivably crappy Adobe Photoshop Album as our first photo library. When I exported the photos from the library, their EXIF data was mangled somehow.
2003	1,177
2004	2,887	In the summer of 2004 we put our belongings in storage, rented out our house, and moved to Jerusalem for a year. I think the big jump over the previous year is due to our getting our first pocket camera in December 2003, and due to taking more photos once in Israel.
2005	2,379	Living in Jerusalem for the first half of this year, we took lots of photos while there. We returned to Baltimore in June, and moved to Brooklyn in November.
2006	2,559	Our first year in New York.
2007	4,949	Another big jump. This one seems to be due to our getting our first digital SLR in December 2006.
2008	4,515
2009 (Jan 1 – Feb 3)	730	2009 is off to a strong start, due to our new niece Annabelle, an Arc90 event, and Elina’s birthday.

By Camera

Camera	Photos	Megabytes	Date Range	Note
Nikon Coolpix 775	1,455	808	November 2001 – January 2004	I gave this camera to Elina in November 2001, for our six-month dating anniversary. It was her first digital camera – and I played with it more than she did!
Unknown	663	679	May 2002 – January 2009	A combination of photos that were: shot with our Nikon Coolpix 775 and then Adobe Photoshop Album lost their metadata shot with our Nikon N65 35mm film camera and then scanned by the developer copied into our library from email, the web, or other
Pentax Optio S4	2,620	4,300	December 2003 – November 2004	Our first ultra-compact. I actually kept it in an Altoids tin, as in their marketing campaign. And that’s how I lost it; the Altoids tin was slippery, and it slipped out of my pocket in a cab. I got some surprisingly great shots with this tiny camera: a mountain range from a bus; a cicada.
Canon PowerShot SD300	2,132	3,600	December 2004 – February 2006	Our second pocket camera, and the first that took high-quality video, which I used a lot. Fantastic camera. Check this out.
Noritsu Koki QSS-32	166	328	March 2005 – May 2005	Shot with our Nikon N65 on 35mm film and scanned directly from the film roll by a lab in Jerusalem.
Canon EOS 10D	745	1,700	July 2005 – December 2006	This is Sima’s camera, which we borrowed on a few occasions.
Canon PowerShot SD550	399	580	December 2005 – August 2007	I don’t think we owned this one, we must have imported or copied a bunch of photos from some family and friends.
Canon PowerShot SD600	1,515	4,000	July 2006 – December 2008	Replacement for our SD300 after I lost it or dropped it, can’t recall. I think we owned two of these, and in fact I broke both of them by dropping them at concerts. I believe the first concert was Matisyahu and the second was Blind Melon. Following the demise of our most recent SD600, we are once again needing another pocket camera (or two). Decision time, yay.
Nikon D80	9,190	30,700	December 2006 – present	Our first digital SLR, and currently our primary camera. Still thrilled with it!
Apple iPhone	208	111	June 2007 – December 2008	I’m not a big iPhone shooter – I actually think Elina takes quite a few photos with hers though, and they’re not accounted for here, being stored on her laptop.

By Lens

We have three lenses for our Nikon D80, so it’s interesting to compare.

Lens	Photos	Note
28mm	6,143	Not surprising that this one came out on top. It’s fast, small, and light. It’s the only lens we bought used. The focal length, on our D80 with its APS-C sensor, ends up being equivalent to about 42mm – just slightly wide, and very useful.
18-55mm DX II	2,710	Useful when we need a zoom, but it’s big, bulky, and a little slow, so it’s not our default lens.
50mm	337	The least used by far, even though it’s the sharpest. On our D80, with its APS-C sensor, this is roughly equivalent to an 80mm lens on a 35mm camera. That means it’s not very useful indoors, except for posed portraits – which we rarely shoot. Interestingly, this lens is one of the reasons that we bought the D80 specifically, as opposed to the D40; the D80 is compatible with these older lenses. It’s the only lens we had before we bought the D80; we had used it with our N65 35mm film camera, where the 50mm “standard” focal length was very useful.

Metadata

3,155 rated; 16,923 unrated
12,642 tagged; 7,436 untagged
2,826 tagged “Elina”; 918 tagged “Avi”
Uploaded to Flickr: 2,102, which is 10.51% of our library

Backup

Our photo library’s total size is currently 69.61GB, and we’re backing it up to Amazon S3. So according to their Pricing Calculator, we’re paying about $10 a month to back it all up. Hmm.

Methodology

I gathered all the numbers manually using iPhoto’s “Smart Albums” feature. For example, to figure out how many photos we took in 2006, I created a Smart Album with a criteria for the date to be between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2006. I’m not sure if this is 100% accurate but it’s close enough for my purposes. For every Smart Album I created, I also added the criteria “Photo is not Movie” to exclude movies.

For more accurate, comprehensive, and automated analysis, I was thinking of using Metadata Export for iPhoto to export metadata about every single photo in my library to CSV, then writing a Python script to gather all sorts of statistics about the photos using EXIF data. Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance; maybe next time.

Olympus E420: How does it match up?

Avi — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:06:34 +0000

My co-worker Jess recently noted the announcement of the new Olympus Evolt E420 digital SLR.

The E420 looks sweet indeed. However, I’m not sure about it being “the smallest camera with the highest photo quality”.

Let’s compare it with a few other cameras:

	Sensor Size	Megapixels	Dimensions	Weight	Lens	Price
Olympus E420	4/3″ (17.3 x 13mm)	10	5.1″ x 3.6″ x 2.1″ (38.5 cubic inches) (not including protrusions)	550 grams with battery and lens	Olympus 25mm Zuiko fixed (50mm equivalent, interchangeable)	$700
Leica M8	27 x 18 mm	10.3	5.5″ x 3.2″ x 1.5″ (26.4 cubic inches)	761 grams with battery and lens	Leica fixed 50mm f/2.8 ELMAR-M manual focus (66.5mm equivalent, interchangeable)	$6,590
Ricoh GR Digital II	7.38 x 5.54 mm	10	4.2″ x 1″ x 2.3″ (9.66 cubic inches)	200 grams with battery (lens built-in)	5.8mm fixed built-in (28mm equivalent, not interchangeable, conversion adapters available)	$700
Sigma DP1	20.7mm x 13.8mm	14.1	4.3″ x 2.4″ x 1.2″ (12.38 cubic inches)	270 grams with battery and built-in lens	16.6mm fixed built-in (28mm equivalent, not interchangeable)	$800

The M8 has a larger sensor and is smaller than the E420, while the GR Digital II is super-small and super-light, but has a small sensor. If money’s no object, the M8 looks like it might have the best shot at “the highest photo quality” out of this lot. However, it’s quite pricey, and a rangefinder (which is manual-focus only) isn’t for everyone. In that case, the GR Digital II may not achieve quite the absolute quality of the E420, but people have been getting some great results out of it, and it is quite a bit smaller.

BTW, Jess, in case you don’t know, our fellow Arc90-er Alex has the GR Digital II, and I get the impression that he’s pretty happy with it. You might want to ask him if you can play with it, if you’re interested.

Update: Added Sigma DP-1 as suggested by David. Looks like a strong option – although I have to say I don’t know much about Sigma’s cameras; I haven’t read much by people who use them, or even seen many samples.

Update 2: Clarified specs of GR Digital II lens.

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