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Author Topic: Digital Camera Question Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 05-12-2003 06:04 AM                        That should also apply to the camera itself, which is seen by the computer as an external drive. But XP asked me for a driver when I first plugged the camera in. However, since I had the CD ready, I didn`t try not installing the driver to see if it worked with the in-built function anyway.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-12-2003 01:45 PM                        Kodak on-line digital picture services: http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2/3/9/151&pq-locale=en_US http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/pictureCenter/index_flash.jhtml Even if you don't have a computer with you, some photo stores now offer services to upload pictures from your camera or MMC / SD memory cards. Many also offer Kodak Kiosks that can burn a CD of your image files.  |  IP: Logged Scott Jentsch Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1061 From: New Berlin, WI, USA Registered: Apr 2003 posted 05-12-2003 05:29 PM                        For storing your photos so that you can re-use your memory cards, you may want to investigate the various portable "digital library" devices. They are basically hard drives with the necessary software/hardware to facilitate dumping your photos onto the hard drive from the memory card. DPReview is an excellent site that covers digital photography, and I was able to find an article on one of these devices: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0304/03042901iomagicdrive.asp There are more like it, but this was the first one I found. I recommend picking up a 256MB or 512MB card if you can, and maybe two so that you can keep shooting if you need to. I have a Canon G2 (4 Megapixel) and a 256MB card lets me shoot 120-140 photos.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-12-2003 06:37 PM                     Here's a pretty good deal if you're into SD/MMC cards. E-Cost is selling a SanDisc USB Crusier for $69.99. You get a 256MB SD card included with the device. Most 256MB SD cards cost more than that on their own. Devices like the USB Cruiser are, thankfully, forcing computer manufacturers to stick the USB and Firewire ports on the FRONT of the machine (along with including more of them).  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-13-2003 08:00 AM                        Out of curiousity: what's the size of a full-resolution, uncompressed color image from a typical consumer-grade digital camera (say, 2-4 megapixels)? For the moment, I'm going to stay with film photography, as I like film better and recently bought a new (used) camera, lenses, etc. Also, I like to shoot slides and B&W negative, which seem to be weak points of the current generation of affordable digital cameras. I'm also concerned about the storage and archival issues with digital; Kodachrome slides will last for decades when stored in a box; digital seems to require more care with respect to copying media and converting to new formats as old ones become obsolete.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 05-13-2003 08:28 AM                        A 3MP camera will give pictures with up to 2048x1536 resolution. The pictures are usually stored in the JPEG format, and therefore compressed to a certain degree. But you can select from different levels of compression. An image of that size with a low compression rate can be between 1 and 2MB depending on the complexity of the information in the picture. A picture with that resolution would be 9MB when fully uncompressed. I don`t think you should be worried about your data. Standards do change, but they don`t change so quickly that you won`t have a chance to rerecord your data in whatever storage media we will have in 5-10 years. True, some archives are faced with such problems, but they have amounts of data not comparable to what even the storage happiest private person will amount in a few 100.000 years!  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 05-13-2003 03:17 PM                     The 3.1 megapixel digital cameras we use typically capture up to 2160 X 1440 pixels in an image. That's fairly decent resolution but nowhere near close to a 35mm camera using a good lens. Most cameras store JPEG images with varying levels of quality. Some out there take crappy looking JPEGs with severe compression and noticeable artifacing. Some digital cameras will shoot images in RAW TIFF format. Our Kodak DC4800 will do that, but the new Kodak DX6340 we purchased last week will not. TIFF image capture yields the best looking results. However, you should use a tripod when in that mode. Film cameras still have a lot of things on their side, particularly with unusual shooting conditions like time exposure photography and very fast image photography. For most average consumer purposes, digital cameras are really trouncing on film.  |  IP: Logged John Pytlak Film God Posts: 9987 From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922 Registered: Jan 2000 posted 05-13-2003 03:51 PM                        I own a Kodak EasyShare DX3700 digital camera. Very good camera that takes nice pictures. Very convenient, especially when I need pictures to e-mail or use in PowerPoint presentations quickly. But for really important photos and the best print quality, I still shoot film! Even a 4K scan (about 12-megapixels) of a 35mm motion-picture negative doesn't capture all the detail in the film image. And film is hard to beat for latitude and tone scale.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-14-2003 02:28 AM                        I agree. I have a 2-megapixel digicam for work which is fine for taking pictures for our website and the odd publicity leaflet. When I'm researching in other archives, it's also useful simply to take pictures of documents for reading on a PC screen later. But none of these pictures would stand enlarging beyond 15x10cm really, and so where quality is important, film wins hands down. On the subject of which, my 10 year-old Minolta manual focus SLR recently died. The problem is something electronic (annoyingly, the shutter release is electronically operated, i.e. not separate from the exposure meter system, so when the electronics go the camera is useless), and the cost of fixing it is not much less than the camera body is worth. And now, to change the topic to 'analogue camera question'... I am therefore thinking about an upgrade, and starting to look around. I'm after a 35mm SLR in the UK£250-350 bracket. It would be used mainly for the usual holiday and amateur snapshot stuff, plus (in the short term at least), taking some photos to illustrate a book I'm in the process of writing (including illustrations of original documents and enlargements of film frames taken over a light box). Therefore a lens with a good macro facility is absolutely vital. Automatic focusing and exposure would be nice, but the ability to manually control everything is more important. Some photography-minded friends have advised me to look carefully at Nikons, believing that the quality of the bundled lenses is a lot better than with other SLRs in a similar price bracket. I'm starting to think in terms of the F55, which seems to be available from online retailers for around £320 bundled with a 28-80mm and 70-200mm lens. Does anyone have any experiences of using one of these, or any other thoughts? Many thanks.  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-14-2003 07:08 AM                        Leo--I just went through this process when someone stole a bag that contained my Minolta and lenses, and I ended up switching to Nikon. Here's what I learned: If you already have a big investment in Minolta lenses, etc., you might want to stick with that brand; their products are very good and relatively inexpensive on the used market (in the US, at least); if the thief hadn't taken all of my Minolta stuff, I wouldn't have switched Nikon seems to have the widest selection of lenses and accessories available and there is a thriving market in used equipment (unlike, say, Minolta or Canon manual-focus lenses, which are essentially dead products and can be hard to find). Unfortunately, the low-end cameras that Nikon currently sells have plenty of features, but use rather light and flimsy plastic bodies which clearly aren't designed to last for more than a few years. From what I could tell, the "good" Nikon bodies in current production are: F5, F100, FM3A, and (possibly) F80/N80. The recently discontinued F90/N90 is also worthwhile. Unfortunately, all of these are fairly expensive, but they seem much more likely to hold up over time than the lower-end models. The F100 seems to be the best "value" in that it has most of the F5's features at about half the price. The good news is that there are lots of good models available on the used market in good condition. If you want a manual camera, the F3, FM2, and FE2 are all good options. I'm not as familiar with the autofocus models (which didn't interest me), but there are some good options there, too. This isn't to say that low-end cameras can't take good pictures; I just personally can't stand plastic stuff that is only built to last for a short time. I ended up with a practically mint F3 (the standard 1980s newspaper photographer's camera) and an assortment of lenses, etc., and I couldn't be happier. The Minolta lenses were pretty good, but the Nikkors that I've used are noticeably sharper.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 05-14-2003 08:48 AM                        Many thanks for this. The second-hand market is probably worth a look. I'm not in a tearing hurry and so can keep my eyes open for a while...  |  IP: Logged David Stambaugh Film God Posts: 4021 From: Eugene, Oregon Registered: Jan 2002 posted 05-14-2003 11:16 AM                        The most annoying thing on some consumer-grade digital cameras is the operation of the motorized zoom lens. Some cameras zoom in and out way too fast, making it hard to frame the shot just right. You always overshoot what you really want and have to keep futzing with it.  |  IP: Logged

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