Here's the deal: -I'm a dad of 2 kids, we take LOTS of pix of our family -We want ability to print up to 8x10 GREAT pix -have used Olympus p/s always on Auto (aperture? what's aperture?) -would like to learn more about photography by experimenting (aperture? that's....) -am getting bewildered about "what to buy"--more expensive ($800-900 max) 2mp or less expensive (later to upgrade) less pixels -am considering all current 2mp models--esp. Kodak dc290 (Have iMac) and Nikon cp950, also Fuji 2900, Toshiba M5, Olympus 2000; like the Kodak color -got some adv

-- Christopher (christojb@aol.com), November 12, 1999

Answers

I'm afraid that digital cameras will teach you nothing about photography. None of the current models under #3000 ($5000) allow control of depth of field by aperture, or allow the user to set a shutter speed. Digital photography is still at the "You push the button; we do the rest" phase. Higher price cameras only provide you with more pixels and perhaps better optics. Creative control just doesn't feature at the moment: That's been relegated to post-camera manipulation. If you want REAL quality, and control over your pictures, you still have to use good old film & wet chemical technology, and then either scan the film or the prints. That way you get control at the taking stage, AND get the opportunity to improve the colour balance, saturation, edit out that idiot who walked into frame, etc, etc. I know this probably isn't what you want to hear, but that's the present situation. Give it another five years and hopefully we'll have decent digital cameras to compare with todays top quality film cameras, at an affordable price. Roll on the next millenium!

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), November 12, 1999.

There are many reasons people take photographs and about the only time it is free is when you are asking for advice. The selection of the camera is important and may be the most expensive decison. Be sure you 'feel' test your final decision. I think it would be terrible to pay out all this money and then not like taking pictures with it. The Nikon CP 950 that I selected was the 4th model I selected from specs. Get what ever you decide on and play with it! Take the spouse along, get her opinion. It might make buying that extra model with a few more bells and whistles easier. I use the lcd a lot on composing pictures, etc but it is close to worthless in bright light. The swivel design is unique to the 950 and allows you to shoot in one direction while looking in another. Great for taking candids... especially if the subjects are camera shy!

Check out the free digital photo course on NYIP. (Link on my web page) Only takes a few hours and you will learn the aperature is the size of the hole the light comes thru. The bigger the hole the more light. While the shutter speed is how long the shutter is open. It is measured in fractions of a second... 1/100 etc. Fast shutter stops action while little holes improves sharpness! Only when you have a lot of light can you have both.

Be sure the model uses 'AA' replacable batteries. Most do, but I've notice some notes thinking larger batteries are better. I have a movie camera that takes $80 nickel cad batteries. Typically have to be replaced every two years... and you need two! One as spare. Good 'AA' set cost only $10. So replacing these every so often should not be a burden.

I've documented a lot of the decisions, I went thru when I bought my stuff on my web page. Take a look, http://pages.prodigy.net/daveclark

-- dave clark (daveclark@mail.com), November 12, 1999.

I'm salivating over digital but I'd say: Don't go digital yet! Unless you are completely awash in disposable income. If nothing else prices will continue to fall, there are some announced and/or anticipated units on the horizon that might change the equation but for my mind, it's not time yet. There are photographic and "logistic" issues that aren't solved yet if you truly want to do "lots" of big pictures. Memory management (how often will you really be able to screen and dump "unwanted" photos from the memory in use) and cost of memory (you are talking wanting 8x10 so you will need to take and store at highest resolutions) Memory is still expensive. If you will be on an extended trip or big event you will need lots of not-cheap memory, or a laptop to transfer to. (And that's time and money to consider.)(And I have a fair scanner and really good printer so I'm part way there anyway. Along with a significant but not huge investment in 35 mm gear, just so you know my frame of reference.) Printing LOTS of GREAT 8x10s is expensive no matter how you start by capturing the image. The basic photo capacity of the digital units just doesn't approach the flexibility and photo taking capability of a good 35mm outfit yet. The just above low-end Canon, Minolta, Nikon, etc, SLRs with decent lens selection will outperform price similar digital camers. Check out photo.net and read the basic articles on beginning, etc., watch the forum for a while, etc. Your "great" photos can be selected from the so-so, etc. then be scanned and digitally printed or just blown-up the old fashioned way. (Compare costs of film, developing, scanner services (cheap home scanners may not make you happy but then again they might) batteries, photo printers, etc. Just a little alternative view, I'm budget challenged so I've not been able to justify moving away from 35mm.

-- Craig Gillette (cgillette@thegrid.net), November 12, 1999.

I just wanted to set straight some misinformation by Pete Andrews above, when he said you couldn't manually control shutter and aperture priority for under $5000 on a digicam. Most every manufacturer does both today for under $1000. Some examples: Agfa CL50, toshiba M5, Epson 850Z, Nikon 950, Oly 2000, Fuji 2900, Casio 2000, Sony 505 (just bought one). His idea that digital photography "will teach you nothing about photography" is thus similarly wrong, as is the idea that you need chemical photography to have "real quality" and "control over your pictures". Bad Pete, no biscuit.

That said, digital photography does fall apart against chemical when you go above 8 X 10, and a cheapo Pentax ZX-M ($150) still has more control than prosumer digicams.

Craig pointed out memory costs. For myself I got around this by using a laptop. If you already have a laptop, any old cheapo laptop, your memory problems are solved. Nothing is faster or easier than transferring images via PCMCIA adaptor.

When considering memory costs you should also consider money saved on film. You might save a little on printing too -- with film most people print everything, with digital you can pick and choose a few from many to print. You can do the same thing with film using proof sheets. If you print most of your digicam shots this won't really be a savings.

I really like the fact that I can snap zillions of pics with almost no incremental cost (assuming rechargable batteries), and then show them to my folks in hawaii via the web for no cost, the same day. I use my pentax ZX-M though. :)

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), November 12, 1999.

I agree with Benoit, Pete's attitude is diapointing. There is always an opritunity to learn from anything we do. I find the instant feedback of the digital camera is actually helping me to improve my photography skills. For example when I first got my digital camera I was treating it like a video camera. Why not? It has a live image display like a video camera. Then when I noticed some of my shots were blurry I realized I needed to start using the optical viewfinder and hold still! Other things like a black locomotive behind people in bright sun might require some exposure compensation. With my film camera I might have missed this or have been uncertain how much to compensate for. Not a problem with the digital camera. Another would be "nuts they closed there eyes in that shot" and then be able to retake it. My problem now is when I go back to my film camera I feel like I am trying to run my computer with the monitor turned off. Where is my LCD viewfinder to review the shot?????

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), November 12, 1999.

Ok the gist of the situation is that you want to learn about photography, but you also want to go digital and have great printouts at 8x10 size. I also skimmed through everoneelse's replys. Here is my solution. Get a 35mm SLR AND a USB scanner. Learn to use the SLR camera, and Scan your photos into your computer. Now you have digital images to playwith and print out at 8x10 size.

dave

-- David Erskine (davide@netquest.com), November 13, 1999.

It is fun when there are so many different opinions. Recently I took a auto trip with my wife and granddaughter. I set my Nikon CP 950 /32 meg card on 1024x786 with normal compression. This allowed about 150 pictures. Each evening I would review the pictures for the day and toss all of the 'bad' ones. I am sure that at least half of the pic were pitched. Now if I were shooting 35mm (my wife was... she did not trust the digital) I could only spend the evenings wondering if I took enought back up shots. Did I bracket properly? Was the composition the best? Did I turn off the friggin panarama button? Turn that button on the first pic of your trip and forget it... all of the pic have their heads cutoff! What a bad bad feature! At least for the forgetful. My wife talked me out of taking the notebook because most of the time we would not have a hotel thus the car would be too hot. I am not sure this is true, but it sounded good.

I got a lot of good shots. I printed one at 10x16 on my Epson 1200 and it came out really great. Most of the prints were at 3x5 with about 4 pics per 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. I use MS power point to add pics to the sheet, sprinkle some witty sayings, and print the sheet. I also am working on a CD-ROM of my work. Hopefully, by Christmas I'll have 100-150 pics with navigation on a CD that I can give the kids. They all have computers and located 1000 miles apart. Sure I will even include some film shots, but my digital pics are really much better than what I done with scanner. Even the Seattle film works scans are not that great.

Of course you can always wait and get everything cheaper. You can always take pictures of your grandkids!

-- Dave Clark (daveclark@mail.com), November 13, 1999.

Christopher,

How about 2.11 MegaPixels, manual control like a 35mm SLR, USB downloading, and less than $700? The Epson 850Z can give you all of this. I went on a 10 day trip 800 miles from home resently. I used my Epson 750Z exclusively. My Olympus 35mm sat in the car with 4 new rolls of film. Each night I downloaded my pictures to my laptop and made a backup copy to a zip drive. Do I have any regrets about how things went, yes. I wish I wouldn't have waisted the money on the 4 roll of film and the space in the car for the 35mm camera. I sold half my Olympus 35mm gear when I bought my Epson 750Z. The rest of my 35mm gear is going to be sold soon so I can so I can buy the Epson 850Z.

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), November 13, 1999.

The upper end "zoom" digitals do have more significant photographic control features. There is some aperture/speed control ability. They don't have inherent lens speeds like a 1.7 50mm on a 35mm. There are also some limitations going wide or long. If your current camera is a fixed focal length P&S, the typical 3x digital will add a lot of flexibility. If your current P&S is a typical 3x zoom, then the range you have now is pretty much what you can expect in digital. If you need more reach.... or wider...., etc. (I'm generalizing that the typical zooms go from roughly 35mm to 105 or so, moderate wide to 2x magnification) Supplemental lenses won't equate to the added lens choices available in 35mm's. A good tripod will go a long way towards helping reduce some of the digital speed limitations on some types of subjects. Having a suitable available laptop would be a major consideration element in making a decision for me. (In fact it is. I don't have one, so it can't be a memory bank for me.) The other really significant advantage if you have a good laptop is a larger screen to do "editing' with on the fly. I would suggest that the laptop used be reasonably current and capable. At least 200MMX pentium (or equivalent) or faster, 32 at min. or 64 meg RAM, healthy harddrive with lots of space, etc. A kilobuck laptop is probably a better choice than $1000 in memory cards!

-- Craig Gillette (cgillette@thegrid.net), November 15, 1999.

I know this isn't a debating forum, but I object to being treated like a dog! (No biscuit indeed!). I'm not being a stick-in-the-mud. I'm as excited as anyone about the possibilities of digital imaging; as a matter of fact I've been scanning and manipulating my film images for the last 3 years. I just don't think that digital photography should be at the expense of quality and creative control. The problem with the present generation of digital cameras is the small size of the CCD array. Even given control of aperture, (a choice of 2 stops in most cases) the short standard focal length of ~ 10mm means that everything from 8 feet to infinity is "sharp" at only f4. Stop down to f8 to get a reasonably short shutter speed and you effectively have NO control over differential focus. So your "full manual control" is totally bogus and meaningless. Just take a look at some of the most moving and memorable photographs to see how many of them rely on selective focussing for their impact.

I'll gladly argue the physics with anyone, but 6mm by 8mm is too darned small for an imaging area. (Also, a 5 micron pixel size is pushing the limits of lens design, leading to over-expensive optics) "The only way is up", in both image size and resolution as far as I'm concerned.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), November 22, 1999.

How many photos have been lost over the year do to the lack of depth of field? Not all of us are looking for the most moving and memorable photographs that rely on selective focussing for their impact. Many of us are glad that their child take their first steps is in focus along with grandpa several feet in the background. If I want to blur the background I will do it in post processing. I for one and happy not to fight with shallow depth of field.

-- Bob G (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), November 22, 1999.

You're missing the point(and shoot ;->). What's the use of manual control if the lens settings you choose make no visible difference to the picture? Selective focussing just isn't available with these piddly little lenses. Sure, you can apply selective blurring in the computer, if you've got half a day to spare to do it well; but it wont be a smooth, gradual change from subject to background.

Christopher started this off by saying he wanted GREAT PIX, not run of the mill snapshots, and I dare say he wouldn't be too happy if all of his lovingly taken pictures instantly dissappeared in a hard-disc crash. (My 30 year old film-negatives are still as good as new.) There are many pros and cons to digital cameras, and it's simply misleading to merrily point up the pros and gloss over the cons.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), November 23, 1999.

Pete, You said, "Selective focussing just isn't available with these piddly little lenses". Selective focus IS NOT the only reason to take a picture. Selective focus is only for dramatic effect. Many of us would be happy with an accurate reproduction of what we wanted to take a picture of. Christopher said he wanted great family pixs. Great family pixs do not require selective focussing. For family pixs he is more likely to miss a good pic with a film camera a result of shallow depth of field. That for me is a weakness of film cameras. An example of this was when I was taking pictures of a small local circus last summer. The first half on the circus I used my digital camera with slave flash. Since this was my first real test of the slave flash with my digital camera for the second half of the circus I switched to my 35mm SLR. I was using the same flash as before just without the slave module. Since I was stretching the flash range I was using f4 on the 35mm and f2.8 on the digital camera. Guess what, when I got the 35mm pictures back the center ring area was in focus but the back and front of the ring was out of focus. The digital camera images were actually better. I wish I would have left the 35mm in the bag or at home. On a recent 10 day trip 800 miles from home I did just that. I left the 35mm in the bag and only used the digital camera. I have no regrets in doing so and am going to sell my 35mm gear in a few weeks. This is not a decision I take lightly either. Over the last 16 years I have accumulated a signigicant amount of 35mm gear ranging from 2 camera bodies, 400mm lens, zoom lenses, macro lenses, and several flashes. All were hand picked after extensive research. But I am tired of the limitations of film and disappointing film processing. Also where is your back up set of negatives? I am not refering to your original negative from 30 years ago, but rather a back up set. I burn all my digital photos on to a CD and make an extra copy on CD for safe keeping at another location. I also back up my entire hard drive to tape on a regular basis. Even when travelling I have a backup set of pictures. The main copy was on the laptop hard drive and the back up set was on a zip disk. Sorry a hard drive crash won't affect me.

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

Christopher,

Here is a web site of a professional photographer. He discusses digital photography and has some nice samples pictures he has taken.

http://www.teleport.com/~glasers/850z1.html

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), November 23, 1999.

Well, what can I say? This is truly one of the gifts of technology. To receive so many great replies to my simple (?) query has been fascinating and enlightening. Thank you all for your advice--both PRO digital and CON. For your info, I purchased the Kodak dc290 online today and am looking forward to using it immediately. I also purchased extra batteries and a cd-rw drive which I can use to store and backup my photo files. Thank you all--I truly appreciate your

-- Christopher (christojb@aol.com), November 24, 1999.

Well I for one am glad you made the plunge. Photography is a very individual activity and while we can relate our own sets of pro's and cons, it truly is something you must make your own decision on. I'm in a career change and am working part-time and going to school for a teaching credential. Incremental additions are all I can swing right now but adding a good printer (Epson 750) was not just a photo only purchase. I had a laser printer so it's not my primary printer and the true photo capability as well as general color flexibility for preparing school material made it a good investment. Likewise, I need to add a good backup system. I'll probably go CDRW. But I have other uses/needs for these. If all I was supporting was a venture into a new hobby, these costs on top of a $1K+ camera would be stunning. But as I increment, the camera prices will continue to fall. I'll get there on a camera. I've got my first test rolls for photoCD in now. All of these things will be integratable into a classroom at any grade. Scanning student work into a portfolio, making a class Hyperstudio/Powerpoint presentation, etc. Kids love having their work on a bulletin board: can you imagine how they will feel at open house when they can show their parents their story is playing on the computer or the TV (from the computer)?

-- Craig Gillette (cgillette@thegrid.net), November 25, 1999.