Don't Pass A Cattle Truck With Your Windows Down
I've known this rule for a long time, but I was reminded of it anew on a recent trip.
If you have ever watched a cow relieve itself, you know the deluge can be quite impressive. If you haven't been in the country enough to have seen this sight, trust me, the volume of liquid delivered and the length of time it takes to deliver it, are both something to behold.
Couple this bit of information with how cattle trucks are constructed and you should be aware of the apparent dangers. If a cow happens to be backed up against the side of the truck and is aligned just right with one of the slots in the side of the truck, well . . . you can imagine.
On a recent trip to Colorado, I approached a cattle truck on I-80 in Nebraska. My windows were up. As I passed the truck, one of the cows found that to be an an opportune moment for a bodily function. The cow was not well aligned with the slots in the side of the truck, so my car was sprayed with just a little light mist. My windshield wipers took care of the immediate visibility problem and a stop at the car wash solved the remaining problem.
As I said, I learned my lesson some years ago.
I was driving through a small town in western Oklahoma on old U.S. 66 which was the four lane main street through the middle of town. It was a beautiful, drive with your windows down, kind of day. I pulled up behind some vehicles stopped at a traffic light. A cattle truck was in the right hand lane. Two or three cars were ahead of me in the left hand lane. Immediately ahead of me was a couple in a convertible. (I can tell that you are getting ahead of me!)
The convertible was even with the back half of the trailer of the cattle truck. As we waited at the red light, one of the cows let fly. It was an amazing, horrifying, aweful, and hilariously funny sight - depending, of course, on where you happened to be sitting. The cow released a virtual flood upon the unsuspecting couple. There was no excape. They were trapped between me and the car ahead of them. I could not back up because of the car behind me. All I could do was watch with rapt attention. As to the couple in the convertible, it must have been like one of those nightmares that plays out in exceedingly slow motion - with the added agony of being awake. I am sure you can imagine what it must have been like to sit there and watch the whole scene. I can't even imagine what it must have been like to clean out their car later.
A word to the wise is sufficient. Don't pass (or sit next to) a cattle truck with your windows or top down.
"BIG" Canon 10D Prints
So how big a print can you make from a digital file produced by a Canon 10D digital SLR? Good question.
The true but misleading answer is "As big as you want." You can "res up" (or resize) any digital photo file to any size you want, BUT the quality may not be what you want since every digital file begins to fall apart at some degree of printed enlargement.
With my Canon 10D at the "large - fine" jpeg setting, I can regularly produce photo files that can be printed out at sizes up to 12x18 inches with excellent quality. I have sold exhibition prints at this size that are just as good as enlargements from a 35 mm slide. 12x18 inches has been my self imposed limit since that is the biggest size I can produce on my Epson 2200 printer. But I have always wondered how much larger my 2 MB jpeg camera files could be enlarged.
When I open one of the 2 MB jpeg files from the Canon 10D in Adobe Photoshop, or Photoshop Elements, it becomes an 18 MB uncompressed file. Without resizing (at 300 dpi), this prints out at about 6.75 x 10.25 inches. With resizing, I can go up to 12x18 inches with excellent print quality.
Friday, I walked into The Camera Trader on Hampden Ave in southwest Denver, Colorado. This is one of my favorite Denver photo haunts. I found out they have a new Epson 7600 printer which prints on paper up to 24 inches wide. I asked if we could go play. Dave said yes. I happened to have a photo of a zebra with me on a flash card. I popped the zebra file into their computer, resized the file up to a print size of 20x30 inches and we printed it out. I was really surprised at the high quality. Eyes, eyelashes, hair on the head, and chin whiskers all looked sharp. Very impressive. I really wasn't expecting the print to look this good. All this from a 6.3 megapixel sensor and a 2 MB jpeg file. Kudos to Canon for the quality of the CMOS camera sensor and the "DIGIC" digital image processing.
I am not sure I really want to know that I can make prints this large. I will be tempted to make more really big prints. Bob, my brother-in-law and Colorado photo buddy (see a previous post at this site), said to me "You just got me in trouble." "Why" I asked. "Because now I will be down here making big prints" he said. Such is life!
If you have a Canon 10D, go ahead and try a really big print. I should add that the original file has to be of excellent quality. You need to do everything right photographically, just as you would when producing an excellent quality image on film (see my article on getting
Maximum Sharpness).
You need to know what you are doing when you edit and resize an image in Photoshop or your favorite image editing software. You also need to know what you are doing when you use "unsharp mask" to sharpen your image. Your unsharpened image well not look good when printed at large sizes. An oversharpened image will look just as bad or worse. Learning to use unsharp mask takes a little time and experience, but the high quality prints are well worth the time and effort.
By the way, the price for this 20x30 print at the Camera Trader was $17.00.
If you are in Denver, stop in at The Camera Trader and ask for Dave, Kristen, or Frank. Tell them Jim and Bob sent you.
Info on the Epson 2200 printer is
here.
More information on the 10D is
here and
here.
Information on digital photography is
here.
