Digital Photography

[glennmac]

One obsession leads to another.

Photography was once an active hobby for me, but I have completely ignored the advent of digital cameras. Since joining this forum I have been very impressed with the ability to move pictures into cyberspace, but I don't know how it is done.

Could someone explain how you post pictures here. Can you do it by having a regular camera's film "developed" onto a disk and then somehow uploading pictures from the disk? That sounds time-consuming. Some of you seem to be able to take and post pictures almost immediately.

If that requires a digital camera, could you give a rundown of what features to look for on such a camera, who the leading manufacturers are (the traditional camera companies?), and what the price range is.

Glenn

 

[Harv]

Glenn -

I'm practically on my way out the door now, so I can just touch on this subject, which is dear to my heart.

When you have your film processed you can request a Photo CD instead of, or in addition to, prints. Photo CD's ain't particularly cheap, but the image quality is superb and each picture image is presented in several sizes, or resolutions if you prefer. You're all set for posting to a web site or having prints made up to 8 x 10 inches. Give it a try -- then we can all see your tractor 'n' stuff. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I can elaborate on the digital camera market when I get back from our camping weekend, but just as a guideline, a decent digital camera will cost you about the same as a nice 3-pt implement. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif And, of course, bigger (more pixels) is better.

More when I return,

- Harv

 

[Kelvin]

Glenn,
The short answer is that you need your picture to be in a digital format.

The expanded answer is as follows:

From a film camera you can...

(1) Have the picture developed normally and then scan it into the computer
(2) Have the developer create a Picture floppy-disk or Picture CD with the digital images on the disk.
(3) Send the film off to a remote film developing company that'll send you back prints and also post your pictures to an internet site somewhere for you (and anyone else you choose) to view them via the internet.

From a Digital camera you can take a picture and immediately download the image into your computer via cables supplied with the camera or floppy disk (some camera models). Now, what kind of digital camera? A few questions...

(1) What resolution do you want? For most people a 1-megapixel resolution camera is sufficient. These are available in the $299 price range (my family has both an HP and a Kodak brand). Really low resolution digital cameras are available for under $100 and really high resolution cameras that supposedly rival 35mm print cameras are available for over $1000. Most cameras have more than one resolution mode that allows more pictures to be stored in the camera. This leads to...

(2) What type storage do you want the camera to have? There are 3 types of storage typically available: 1.44 floppy disk, CompactFlash Memory cards, and some other kind of memory card (can't remember the name). Sony cameras typically use the floppy disks; very convenient but holds less than 10 pictures on a single floppy in high resolution mode (you could have more floppies available). Most other brands use the CompactFlash Memory (available in 4MB, 8MB, 16MB, 32MB and greater??). With a 16 MB card in my HP I can store (34/79/159) pictures in (high/medium/low) resolution modes, respectively. For most of my GENERAL pictures, I use the low and medium resolution modes (the quality is sufficient and they take up less space and transfer faster via email). If I want to print off a picture a using a full size 8.5x11 piece of paper then I'll sometimes use the highest resolution.

(3) How do you want to transfer pictures to your computer? As mentioned earlier, the floppy disks are easiest. The memory card cameras use a cable to connect. I recommend the order of "cable type" preference to be (a) USB connection (only if your computer has a USB port with supporting Win98; most newer ones 1998? and newer have this port), (b) serial connection then lastly (c) parallel (printer) port connection. The USB port is significantly faster than the standard serial port.

This should be enough information to get you good and confused (kinda like buying your first computer and first tractor!).

With digital cameras I really go "snap" crazy when using the camera because there is no such thing as wasted film. Take as many pictures as you want, view the resultant pictures in the viewfinder, then delete the ones you don't like. Download the good pictures (or good and bad) into the computer, delete all the pictures on the memory card and then start over again. If you have a picture that you really like and want a super-high quality print, you can take the memory card to most developers and they'll stick the memory card into their machine and make a print for you on the spot.

After you digest this information I'll be glad to answer any further questions the post generates.
Kelvin

 

[scruffy]

GlennMac, in addition to Kelvins post, their is one more option for downloading the 'flash-card'. You can also purchase an add-on flash card memory reader, at which you remove the flash card from your camera, load it into the reader, and directly download from the card rather than the camera. Some camera's also utilize small hard drives, such as the Canon PowerShot 600's (which I have two of) the h/d's are 170meg and 340meg in capacity and will hold thousands of pics.
Our method of storage on the computer is to take the highest pixel exposure possible, (thus having available for prints), and saving those that we don't wish to delete. When the pic is wanted for internet use, we convert it to .jpg format and send it off. Our storage medium is the computer hard drive, until the file has enough to warrent copying to CD-R or CD-RW. My wife has scanned all family photo's and created a few different CD's for family distribution. Works very nice.

 

[glennmac]

Kelvin, thanks for that thorough introduction. I can see that this will be a lot to digest. It is apparent that I can get digital images on a floppy with either my regular cameras or a digital camera. What is the procedure for getting a picture from the floppy into a post on this board? I've never done anything with pictures on my computer, just text........Glenn

 

[RobertN]

I have done as Harv mentioned, having film put to CD. Much clearer than paper. To shoot film, I still believe slide film is the way, even if you have it developed onto good paper.

What I do not understand is how to get GOOD quality prints from a digital format. I have not seen a way to get a high quality digital printout. I use Tek Phaser printers at work, which are nice. But, not like a good quality slide printed on good paper.

What do you do?

RobertN in Shingle Springs Calif

 

[Kelvin]

RobertN,
Confession Time: I am not into professional photography (by the time I get through with airplanes and tractors there isn't enough time left). For film cameras I typically use a Canon point-and-shoot 35mm. Since getting the digital I use it almost 95% of the time and the film camera sits a lot.

I have never printed a digital photo at higher quality than what my nearly top-of-the line HP inkjet printer can print. I have seen scanned images printed at 8x10 look as good as the original. The majority of my "printing pictures" tasks involve printing family calenders where the calendar facing page is full of various family pictures (current and ancient) obtained from the digital camera and scanned images.

My daughter works at a CVS pharmacy that has a 1-hour photo developing center. They apparently can take photos off of either the memory card(s), CD or floppy disk and make a print using the same printing machine that prints their film prints. My daughter had one digital picture printed in an 8x10 size, but she had them do it in black & white for the effect she was looking for. I recommend trying the print quality from one of these shops.

The photo lab on the base where I work uses very high quality digital camera extensively. I'll go and ask them what kind of printers they use.
Kelvin

 

[Kelvin]

Scruffy,
I was going to mention the "card reader" method, but decided that my post was already too long.

I actually use a variant of that method...I have an HP P1100 inkjet printer that has memory card slots built into it that can read (& write to) both type of digital camera memory cards. I bought the printer because of its print speed and automatic double-sided printing capability. All of its advertising touts its ability to print directly from the card to the printer but fails to mention that the card reader looks and acts like an external disk drive to the computer.


It sounds like you are into high quality digital photo processing and may be better suited to answer RobertN's concerns regarding high quality printing of digital images.

Kelvin

 

[Kelvin]

Glenn,
This will be my first time trying to attach a picture to a post. It should be easy, but we'll see.

While typing in a post, you'll notice two boxes below the area that you are typing. The first addresses whether you want an email copy of any replies to your post. The second addresses whether you want to preview your post and/or attach a file .

After pressing the "Continue" icon you'll see the preview of the post and a box below the post to type in the name of the file that you'd like to attach. EXAMPLE: To attach a file on the A: drive named "picture1.jpg" then you'd simply type in "Aicture1.jpg" (without quotes). If you don't remember the name or don't want to type in long filenames, you can use the "Browse" option and navigate around the hard drive, floppy drive or CD as necessary to locate the desired file (picture) to attach.

To test the system, I'll try and attach a picture that I took with my digital camera of my smaller Kubota B7100D right after I had the rims refinished (compare the color of the faded tractor and mid-mower to the color of the newly painted rims). I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure that the picture was taken with the camera in the "medium" quality mode.

Here goes...
Kelvin

 

[scruffy]

Kelvin, I must confess....NOT ME!!! The spouse stole my Canon PowerShot 600, HP880 Color printer and my scanner. I bought a new Powershot 600, scanner, and an HP935 color printer, but then she 'broke' her scanner and hi-jacked mine. The HP 880 does a better job on photo's than the 935, but its close. The best print you will get is from a dedicated (and designed) photo printer ($300 to $500 for a decent home quality). Keep in mind, paper quality is a very important factor in the looks of the finished product.
For my purposes, a low to medium quality glossy paper is great for presentations, although I would rather use whatever the contracting employer has on hand than my own materials, it's cheaper!
P.S. I had looked at the 1100, but I already had two readers hooked up and running when I bought the 935. Still looking at it, and thinking about passing the reader and 935 down to the 12 year old for his 450...

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by scruffy on 9/29/00 11:19 PM.</FONT></P>