digital cameras

It depends on what you want to do. If you are going to be printing photos on your printer. High Res is good. Cost alot to print them though.
If you use it for email, Interenet ect. 640X480 res is about as high res as you want to go.
For the internet you want your photos to be about 60k or less in size. Mine avg 48k with my 640x480 old polaroid PDC640 uses smart media in 8 or 16 meg cards. 16 meg holds 90 640x480 photos.
I have USB card reader attached to my comp via a card reader. Computer thinks its a hard drive.
I use a cheap photo software that came with my printer and srink the size to 80% of original.
This get the 48k size I need to post.
You should be able to find a camara on ebay like this for $50 to $75. Card reader is $30 and the memory is about $15 each. This photo is about 46k in size.

One problem I noticed a few years back is that some "AA" rechargable batteries. May be slightly shorter than some alkalines in overall length. This caused them not to make contact in the battery compartment after using alkalines.

With a photograph the negative will last virtually forever, as will a photograph with the images in the chemical solution on the paper.

I recently came across some negatives that are pristine and are nearly 135 years old. It would be very easy to make a fine photograph from one of these.

So what method will by used to extract a stored digital image in even 20 years? Far too many changes in technology to even think digital images are lasting or can be retrieved at a much later date.

Having said that, if you remember that digital images are temporary and use the camera with that in mind, they are absolutely great. But please, don't take images of the grandchildren and expect your descendants to be able to see them in 100 years.

Depending how you will be using your camera, depending what you demand in being able to obtain an image--it is my understanding that Nikon has a digital that will accommodate lenses which fit their 35 mm cameras. Sounds to me like that would be a right fine camera. Well if a person could afford it.

There are a few of us old geezers that are still running Windows 95. Just make sure a camera will work with your system. I haven't yet found one that will work with mine.

Now, go sit down and write a letter to your grandchilden if you have any. Similar to images, emails won't be around for long, letters will. I recently copied several from 1868.

It is just the opposite! You can take hundreds of photos with your digital cam that you could never afford to take with a traditional camera. I have found that the freedom that digital gives me to just snap photos at will without fearing the cost of development has given me some of the best photos that I have ever taken. You can also zoom in on a good quality digital picture to see details. Ever try zooming in on a 35mm 2 years after it was taken?

As far as prints go, I use Wal Mart's online service. Sort through all the pictures you take, pick the ones you really like, and upload to Wal Mart. I think is like $0.26 per print and you can have them sent to any store you like. My in-laws live over 500 miles away so this works great. We upload the photos to Wal Mart and have them sent to their local store. In 3 to 4 days they pick them up and we didn't even have to pay postage!

A number of years I was on my hometown history committee. I copied several hundred old photographs. I accomplished this with a 35mm and special lens.

On some photographs I would switch to a standard lens, add some magnifying filter lens, and enlarge just certain portions of old photos.

In one photograph of the interior of a general store, you could easily see and read the brand names on products. In a school photograph you could read what the calendar had on it. All because the photographic paper the image was imbeded in had a fine grain to it.

Now that I've been told photographs can be made and not just printed images, I'm excited about digitals.

I really think they both have their places and should be used accordingly.

BTW, I like the idea of sending uploaded images to someone so that they can pick up copies at their local store.

There's many of online retailers offering printing services. Also any photo shop can make prints from digital. Cost is about the same as for traditional photo enlargements.

I stand corrected. I certainly was not aware that photographs were ever made, only prints. I'm certainly curious as to how it is done.

By the way, my inkjet printer does an excellent job when the image is done on proper paper. When they are behind glass you can't tell they are not photos.

Now that I've learned true photographs can be made, I would like a digital more than ever.

Thanks for enlightening me.

• Nikon 2 megapixel

It is easy to use to!

:)

I have used mine for 14 months now with no problems.

• Pricewatch

1 - Megapixels aren't everything. It's a trade off: More pixels = better image. But more pixels = less capacity on memory cards and hard drive. Depending on how you plan to use your images 2 - 3 megs may be more than adequate. If all you are going to do is email or share images online, 2 megs is fine. In fact you're just posting images on line will probably end up REDUCING resolution by 50% or more to keep file sizes reasonable while not sacrificing image quality. I've found I can create excellent quality 8"x10" prints from a 2 meg image. (Punch below for an album shot with a 2 meg camera then reduced to 1 meg before posting)

2 - Zoom. "Digital" just marketing hype. All it does is enlarge the center of the image and discard the rest resulting in a lower quality image. Optical zoom however is good - the more zoom the better. Recommend a minimum of 3x optical zoom.

3 - Batteries. I prefer cameras run on AA batteries as they are cheap and available anywhere. Some cameras however require proprietary rechargeable battery packs. A spare pack may cost $30 - $60 or more, and may be difficult to locate. You cannot buy replacements at the corner store! I use NiMh rechargeables (about $10 a set of 4) in my cameras due to the volume of photos I shot.

3 - Storage media choice. Some of the newer media (Secure Digital, etc) cards are so small I find them difficult to handle. And the small cards are more easily lost. My personal preference is for the more substantial media like Compact Flash. Cards are less inexpensive. And they are physically large enough (about the size of a book of matches) to be easily handled, even with cold fingers. Functionally however no card media has an advantage over another - they all work the same.

4 - Memory card reader. Forget about the data cable packaged with the camera to download images. Buy a card reader and plug it into the USB on your computer. To download images you stick the memory card into in the reader. The card then appears as another drive on your computer - you can copy, move, etc images quickly and easily. A reader can be purchased for about $20 - and sometimes are given away free with the purchase of a large capacity memory card.

5 - Ergonomics. Smaller digicams have a "wow" factor due to their compactness. But I find them difficult to use - and impossible to operate when wearing gloves. Suggest you try a few different size cameras and see what feels best in your hands.

I've used many different brands of digicams. My personal preference is Olympus and Canon. (BTW I work at Kodak. However the competition I feel offers superior digital camera offerings than does my employer...)

Cameras I currently own:
-Kodak DC210+ (1 megapixel, 2x zoom - now relegated to a daughter at college)
-Canon A60 (2 meg, 3x zoom)
-Olympus C2100 (2 meg, 10x zoom)

Good luck and hope this helps... (Incidentally my 35mm SLR has sat unused on the shelf since I got my 2nd digital camera!)

• sample image album

One really cool feature it has is a nice preview mode for taking panoramic shots where it displays the edge of the previous shot so you can take the next shot where it needs to be. The software that comes with it stitches the pix back together. It is a really cool unexpected feature.

Another thing that is cool is the movie mode. With a 256 Meg memory chip, I've found I no longer use my camcorder. Short clips of my kids download right through the USB port for viewing on my PC, and of course they can be burned to DVD or VideoCd.

One thing that is important....get a camera that takes AA NiMH batteries. Some cameras take special batteries, and that is something you don't want.

Good Luck
Steve

PS - when you get one post up some pics to share

• Digital Camera Comparisons