Digital cameras - any opinions?

[PilotsPal]

Off to KL next month and I'm considering what little treat to buy myself for the Millenium. Digital camera came to mind and I'm wondering if anyone has any experience - good or bad - of these expensive toys that might be useful.

Or should I spend twice as much and buy a laptop instead?

[JJflyer]

Picture quality sure is good ... but I have a Canon Rebel G... and that is not bad either.
Don't really know whisvh one you should go for the digital camera or laptop... I'd personally by a cheaper camera and by the laptop too, double fun . That is if you can finance it.

JJ

[Skypig]

Hmmm I have got a Kodak DC210+ and it is a great camera. However if you are planning on taking lots of pics you will need the laptop as well so you can download the flash memory card.

If you do go the whole hog get a PCMCIA adaptor makes it heaps faster to get the pics onto the Hard Disk.

A point to ponder..... I get better picture quality from my $98 scanner than I do from my $1000 Digital Camera, so if you already have a good 35mm cmaera think long and hard.

The only real advantage is that the pics are ready NOW and you don't have to buy film :-)

Just to

[What_does_this_button_do?]

Sony do a digicam that writes direct to floppy - so need for timely downloads from the camera.

I use a Kodak DC220 for work and to download 10 pictures can take upto 20 minutes due to the limitations of the transfer speed.

I know the Captain has one, so Capt. PPRuNe, what one have you got?

[Capt PPRuNe]

I bought an Olympus something or other in Florida but I only use it for pictures on the web so very high quality was not a priority for me.

Since I upgraded to a Mac G4 though, I need to get a new cable to download or a flash card reader.

I saw some really cheap Fuji ones today (640x whatever) for £99 if you only want to publish on the web which is worth it if you want to experiment.

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Capt PPRuNe
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[TwoDogs]

If you want to use it for taking piccies of airplanes then the Sony Mavica fd91 is the only one available at a reasonable price with a decent zoom. It has 14 times optical zoom. Most of the opposition only has 2x or 3x optical. Ignore any reference to digital zoom, it is really only a "cut and paste" function which produces low resolution images.
The fd91 has the additional advantage (or dis-advantage, depending on your viewpoint) of recording directly on to floppy.
Biggest disadvantage is the fairly low resolution, only 850k pixels. This is fine for displaying on a pc/laptop and for publishing to the web, but a little low if you intend to print the results. Better off going for one of the new generation megapixel 1.5 - 2.5 million pixel cameras in that case. Most of the CLK photos on y site http://home.netvigator.com/~pashford were taken with my fd91.

[PPRuNe Towers]

Pal, if dipping your toe in the water I'd recommend following His Airship's thoughts.

Rather than plunging into the expensive megapixel world, grab a cheapie, see if you like it. Fabulous for web based stuff or digital archiving.

However, speaking as a very early adopter (a LEAF 5" by 4" CCD plate from my Linhof Technica paid for my instrument rating in 1989 - yes '89!) the one question always ignored by enthusiasts for the medium is hard copy output (i.e. snaps you can hold) and the utterly hopeless permanance of images.

Without spending a fortune on dye sublimation printing your photos will last a very short time indeed. The naysayers will claim you simply output a new image - tosh! They're really just as new to it as you are and are blind to the very pace of technological change that allows them to possess such lovely toys.

Some of my very best advertising and product work lies at this moment in the loft - on a hard disk - an 8 inch Winchester - bloody useless in other words. Meanwhile the cibachromes from the same shoots, now 15 -17 years old, handprinted from transparencies and left in sunlight for much of the time still look stunning. Think about it......

Now then, how do I set this colour laser printer to stun???

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Regards from the Towers

[email protected]



[This message has been edited by PPRuNe Towers (edited 22 October 1999).]

[PilotsPal]

Thank you all for your input. Mr Mastercard can breathe again - the laptop wins!

Or perhaps should I spend 10 times more & buy a new car?

[Skypig]

PP I reckon you have chosen wisely :)

Towers you have a good point to, I got all worried about how to archive the images from the digi, ended up going and buying a CD writer.....

Glad I did, a week after I had written the CD the hard drive in the lap top expired. Pretty hard to get reprints from a dead disk http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif

[blackadder]

Piggy,
how much did you pay for the CD burner and which model?

[PPRuNe Towers]

Good thoughts on the burning of CD's, even better the use of a re-writable.

However, how many of you will actually have a functioning reader for those discs in 12 - 15 years time?? They'll be beer mats methinks.

Please, take it from a truly early adopter, there are very serious decisions to be made if you have any desire to keep images for anything more than half a generation.

My first full colour ccd generated images go back to 1973, the equipment by Shibaden (5 points for ever hearing of them). Oh how I chuckle as I hold them now - stored on one and a half inch magnetic tape - Now then how do I get a 150 kilo Ampex playback tank into that remaining half height bay in my new PC.......

Please, be careful out there folks. You're making serious decisions on whether or not you'll have a family or business archive that will last longer than a family car let alone yourselves.

Regards from the Towers
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I started out with nothing and still have most of it left......

[Skypig]

Blacky, a Kodak 4802 IDE 4xWrite 2xRewrite cost $439 (but now cheaper as the new model is out http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif) and Kodak Disks are $2.30 each if you buy them in lots of 100 or more.

Towers, I havent bothered with the rewritables as you can make multi session disks and they can be read in any CD drive. The CD/RW are only able to be read by some drives, mostly burners.

I agree with your comments, I mean how many people now have 5 1/4 Floppys..... (Glad I didn't ask that on Jet Blast!!) Hell I even have some stuff on the old 8" floppys, may as well chuck them out as I doubt that there is a functional 8" drive left in the world....

The CD format is just as likley to go the same way, just a matter of someone coming up with something bigger/better/faster/cheaper.

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Thought from the early 80's:

"How will I ever fill up this massive 10 Meg Hard Drive"

Kinda makes you think........Especially seeing that it cost more than my CD Writer and that was in 80's dollars......

[Nightrider]

Skypig....here...CP/M80 still running, 5 MB Harddrive and 2x 8" floppy with DS/DD and 1.2 MB capacity, daisy wheel printer and attached to my pentium via novell.....it works....still...with magic wall as text editor and there is still basic on it, it is now 21 years old...the old Z80 chip, by the way, the HD was in '79 some 1000 U$ and still has the label on it : use in airconditioned environment only with humidity constant at 60%....

[blackadder]

*********,
if you've gone off the digital idea, take a look at the new Canon Classic (35mm) with zoom and fits in yer shirt pocket.
Let us know what you did, and the results :)

[PilotsPal]

Last year's "little treat for myself" was a top of the range Canon Ixus, which I am really pleased with. I chose that over the Pentax Efina because the Ixus has an all metal body (don't need to use the case on it & its small enough to fit in jeans pockets).

[Skypig]

Nightrider, I am Impressed, hell I use to have a machine running CP/M you will get me all misty eyed and nostalgic if you kep talking like that....

I Know what you mean about the HDD, just think now you can buy 5.0gig for less than $200 you have to wonder where we will be in 15 years from here.........

[Nightrider]

Skypig, and you remember that 64kb memory was plenty? Man, was I proud to get the first 8088 with 126 kb.....

BTW, have a mag on my desk and it offers 13 GB HD for 181 U$....

[Feline]

Nightrider/Skypig - Showing our age here aren't we? I'll bet that 5Mb drive is something to behold (hope the disk never comes off its bearings when it has been spun up!) I still have my first notebook computer (Epson PX80)- weighs about a kilo, runs CP/M, word processor, spreadsheet, comms and one or two other programmes from ROM - and the internal rechargeable battery ran it for EIGHTEEN hours! And you could use the internal bulk storage device (a microcassette)(!) to play music ... Ever feel that we're still trying to get back to where we were ...

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Feline
(I Sit, I Watch, I Smile)

[Pengineer]

Here Shanksy

[Tinstaafl]

I still have my first IBM compatible. At least an old girlfriend had it...

It was really highly specified: EGA graphics, fully populated memory (640Kb), 5 1/4" 360Kb & 3 1/2" 720 Kb drives AND a 32Mb hard disk.

It was even a fast 8088 clone chip from NEC that ran at 10 MHz. What little screamer.

I wrote a few company operations manuals, associated documentation & syllabi on that thing.

[OzPax1]

Your all forgetting dedicated film scanners. In a way their the half way house! And also a way around the problems mentioned by TOWERS. They cost about the same as a decent Digital camera too! :)

OzPax1 http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/cool.gif