TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2001-06 > 0993738517


From: "Kirk Ransom" <>
Subject: [TMG] Re: Digital Cameras
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 09:28:47 -0500
In-Reply-To: <3B3A512F.24697.453E9F@localhost>


I have use a digital camera since 1998. My first was a Fujifilm M700, 1.5
mega pixel, built in recharable battery. Very neat size - fits in shirt
pocket or pants pocket. When it was new it was $800. Now it is about $300.
The Fujifilm Finepix 6800 is the same size but so much better.
http://www.fujifilm.com/tcm.html

I bought an Olympus C-2040 this spring.
http://www.olympusamerica.com/p.asp?fit=13&press=150. I got it because it
has a f/1.8 lens - very good in low light. And very good for longer range
(>10') flash shots. It uses the Fuji 2.1 mega pixel third generation CCD.
(The setup program appears to be Fuji also so I suspect that Fuji is the
OEM.) I am disappointed in that it does not have a built in recharger, and
you have to purchase an AC adapter separately. And the prices listed for
accessories on the Olympus web page are just a joke - three times higher
then they need to or that are available on the street. Companies shouldn't
do that. I found a good Nickel-Metal Hydride rapid recharger at Target and
use that at home and in the car to keep three sets of battery charged. (NMH
batteries will loose about 2% of their charge a day.) The Olympus also has
much longer delay then the Fujifilm between when the trigger is pressed and
the shutter actually fires. That takes some getting use to - you have to
lead a picture by almost a second to get the picture. And the optical
viewer has no parallax correction.

The Olympus has a 7.1mm - 21.3 zoom - about the same as a 34mm - 105 mm zoom
on a 35mm camera. There is now easy scale to covert this relationship
because the size of the CCD determines the focal plane size. I have not
found any (reasonable cost) digital camera with 35mm equilvant of a 28mm
wide angle lens.

I have found that with both cameras I often have to use force flash to get
good color fill.

And all the cameras have really strange setup and configuration systems. It
takes days to understand them and get them to work the way you want.

All the new generation cameras have USB download which on Windows 2000 is
ready to run. On my Windows 98 box I use a Delkin Devices USB eFilm Reader-4
which as soon as I slip a smart media card in it is just another removable
drive device. Then I just Ctrl-A on it and cut & paste them to a folder on
my hard drive. The smart media card is cleared and ready to go back in the
camera in about 8 seconds.

One problem that has come up: Thousands of images that must be adjusted,
altered, cropped, renamed, cataloged, etc. I have tried tens of programs to
organize the images and have yet found something that I like.

For OCR'ing an image it should be saved in the camera in .TIF format. This
gives the OCR program (I use Onmipage) the best detail it can use to exploit
and resolve the image text into fonts.

Otherwise, saving an image in the camera in JPG at about 800x600 gives a
good image for 5"x7" printing and allows it to be further compressed for web
pages


Kirk Ransom
Minnetonka, MN

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