Re: Digital Cameras

[Jim Bernier <jrbernier@hotmail.com>]

Andrew,

  I have a friend that got a nice digital camera for a birthday present
last year(about $ 900 nice!).  This fellow also does some
semi-professional photography(like weddings) and has won a lot of awards
at local fairs, shows, etc...  We did some railfanning last summer; I used
my Nikon N2020AF, he used his new digital 2.1 mega-pixel Olympus.  The
camera came with an 8MB flash card, LCD view panel on the back, and cables
that allow it to be attached to the serial port or into the diskette drive
of a Windows PC.  The 8MB flash card will give you the equivalent of 3
rolls of 36 exposure film.   He also bought a 16MB flash card later.

  Standing side by side, we took the same pictures that day.  I have a
28-210 zoom with Kodachrome 64.  His pictures were excellent!  Both roster
shots and 'moving at speed' shots were good.  I think my Nikon did a
little better job, but this new technology has made me think.  The same
camera is now in the $ 600 range.  I suspect that these cameras willl be
in the $ 300 range in the next year, and the mega-pixel ratings seem to be
climbing.  He was so impressed that he shot his daughter's wedding last
fall using the digital camera!  He uploaded the shots to his PC, and
printed out 'thumbnails' on photo quality paper(HP deskjet) that night for
the guests to take home the next day.  In two evenings time he built up a
nice wedding book, and burned a CD he gave the new couple.  They took the
CD to a professional photo printer and had a permanent album published.

  One of the nice things about this technology is that he can take
multiple shots of the same subject with different exposures - then 'view'
them in the field with the LCD panel.  He can delete the losers right on
the camera, keeping his supply of 'shots' available on the flash card.  He
only goes home with the 'winners'!

  Right now I would not invest in a digital camera as the price is still
too high, and the quality still is not equal to the best SLR's.  But this
is changing, and in the next couple of years I WILL be buying one of these
cameras.  When Kodak 'gave away' the film market to Fuji, and went into
digital media I thought they were crazy.  Now it appears that they could
see the writing on the wall long before the rest of the industry.

Jim Bernier

Andrew Price wrote:

> Can anyone advise me on a replacement for my excellent twenty year-old
> German single-lens reflex camera, which has become unusable because
> the battery it uses is no longer manufactured.
>
> I had thought of purchasing a digital camera, but I was told by
> someone who bought one about a year ago that although it sufficed for
> his web-site needs, the image quality was not brilliant.
>
> Have digital cameras improved since, or would it be better investing
> the same money in yet another SLR and a slide scanner?