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This is a piece about the modern consumer-grade digital camera.  What it can do. Amazing piece of equipment.  A Panasonic DMC – FZ50 for less than $500. Records to postage stamp size 4 gig SD media card.    I have used large format film and 35 mm film cameras all  through my years.  Today film cameras have nothing on digital.  Film cameras are relics.   I bought my first Sony Mavica digital in 2001.  2.2 megapixel maximum file size recorded to pocket CDs in the camera.  That camera cost $1,000 and worked great – even after I dropped it out of a tree.  But now, 6 years later, digital cameras with file capture 5x’s larger (10 megapixel) are available for half the cost of the 2001 camera.  That is a success story from the mass production economy.   And Moore’s Law is borne out again.

You can’t see it in the image above - because this image had to be crunched to get it on the web - but in the virgin file you can actually see the details through the glare of the glass of the blonde lady in the RH passenger seat.   If I saw her on the street I could probably identify her.  Even the pilot’s faces are distinguishable.

This shot was taken – hand held - from a half mile away.  The 12X optical telephoto burned into a 10 meg RAW file.  RAW files allow a much broader latitude of color and exposure manipulation than JPEG files allow.  As I took the shot my naked eye couldn’t see any of the details – I couldn’t even tell it was a Cleveland Clinic helicopter – just that it was blue and a helicopter. The 4 blades are almost stopped in this image.  If I had upped the ISO I could stop the blades cold.  A no blur stop-motion is possible with a 200MPH object. And you can ad a 5 second audio clip to any still image.  In the audio clip you can describe the image that you just captured.  Then, when you view  the images later, the audio reminds you just what that shot was you took in East Overshoe last summer.  Alzheimer’s can be held at bay. 

This helicopter flight didn’t appear to be a med-evac.  The copter was setting down on the  Clinic’s heliport on the west side of Euclid in the Cleveland Clinic hospital complex – adjacent to the power plant.    To what uses does the Cleveland Clinic dedicate this preferred mode of transportation? Who gets to ride?  Where does it fly?  Is this the chopper that comes over my house at 3:00am and wakes me up?  How is the cost of this machine distributed on the books of the non-profit Clinic?  Any plane spotters out there?  Who is the owner of N980ME? Is there a Google list of aircraft registration numbers?

With transportation perks like this available, why does the Clinic continue to lobby for the Disadvantaged Triangle Corridor and continue to build 5000 car parking structures?  Let’s all FLY!