Re: [APML] Mission Statement Change

["Tim Kearsley" <tim@cirrus.demon.co.uk>]

Hi all,

I've only started subscribing to this mailing list a couple of weeks ago but
I've watched this thread with interest.  My own evolution through
astrophotography has probably been unusual and the reverse of many others,
in that I started out using CCD but have moved on to encompass film
photography also.  Why?  Cost!!  Here in the UK, CCD cameras of any
reasonable dimension are hugely expensive (typically an ST8E is around
£7,500, about $10,500 equivalent).  Even an ST8E "only" gives you 1530 X
1020 pixels.  A 35mm frame can be digitised to give around 6000 X 4000
pixels.  My Starlight Xpress MX516 gives me 510 X 290 pixels and it's great
for planetary and lunar photography.  For stunning wide-field star fields -
forget it!

It was the prospect of a mailing list devoted to film photography which
prompted me to subscribe to APML.  Surely the disciplines of film and CCD
photography are so different as to warrant separate treatment and separate
mailing lists?  A couple of days ago I connected to the Internet and
downloaded 147 e-mails, the vast majority of which were APML.  This was only
a day's worth.  If the volume of mail becomes significantly larger by
including lots of CCD topics then I will certainly unsubscribe from this
list.

Having read what I've just written, I'm sure some will interpret it as
coming from a member of the "anti-CCD" lobby (if one exists!).  Absolutely
wrong!  If I could afford an Apogee 4K X 4K array I would probably not use
film at all.  But I'm never likely to, so I'll go for 35mm (or perhaps even
medium format later) film and reserve CCD for what I can do adequately with
it.  What I object to is diluting this mailing list by including topics
which are fundamentally different from the topics I thought it was going to
be devoted to.  As for those who rattle on about needing to "progress" and
"keep up with the times", well that's clearly rubbish, since I understand
that mailing lists already exist where CCD topics can be discussed.  I
myself have looked at the sci.astro.ccd-imaging USENET group and no doubt
other forums exist.

My vote is - keep this list for film only and keep CCD imaging in its own
mailing lists.  There's room on the Internet for everyone surely?

Tim Kearsley,
Northamptonshire,
England





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