Digital photography is coming to the masses.
But not all of the masses, and not all at once.
It’s already a hit with those who need pictures right away, such as photojournalists, real-estate agents, insurance adjusters and police.
They want to take a picture now and, to get that speed, they’re willing to pay extra for the equipment and sacrifice some picture quality.
Because once a picture is in “digital” form–represented as a bunch of bits in a computer–you can send that picture anywhere in the world.
But digital photography has been too expensive and too crude for most people. The cameras have cost double or triple what a typical 35-millimeter camera runs, they take pictures that are far less sharp and clear, and often don’t allow the easy attachment of lenses and other important paraphernalia. Besides, you’ve needed a pretty powerful computer to view and edit the pictures.
What about the savings on film? Digital camera owners don’t pay film or developing costs. It’s nice, sure. I’ve been so stuck on digital cameras that when I recently had to load a standard camera, I winced at paying $5 for the roll, remembering that I’d soon be paying $10 more to develop it.
The pain isn’t so immediate and obvious with a digital camera, but it isn’t entirely missing either.
You give a little of that cost savings back on batteries, for example. Some of these cameras suck four AA batteries dry every 60 pictures or so. At up to $1 per high-quality battery, that’s 15 cents per picture just on batteries.
You give a little more back when printing. The marvel of today’s color inkjet printers is that they can nearly match the print quality of photos you get back from the developer. There’s a cost, though, for the highest-quality paper and ink. A cost of 25 cents or more for each three-by-five print.
Don’t forget that you should assign some portion of that $1,000 to $3,000 you spent on the personal computer to your digital photography habit, especially if it was the pix that made you opt for a larger hard drive, faster processor, better monitor and more-expensive printer. Not to mention the more-expensive camera itself.
Nor is a digital camera required for digital photography. You can take and develop photos the old-fashioned way–as prints or slides–and then “scan” them into a computer.
For $500 to $750, you can buy a film scanner that will give you yet more resolution by directly scanning photographic negatives or slides, instead of prints. The downside of scanners is that you’re still paying for film and developing, and the scanner isn’t portable.
Then again, if you’re going to pay for film and developing, you don’t have to buy the scanner at all. Let the photo developer do it. For an extra charge of around $5 to $10 per roll of film (on top of the regular developing and printing charges) you can get a floppy tucked in with your prints or slides. The pictures are then computer files you can view on screen, change, print, or e-mail around the world.
So if scanners grab prettier images, and don’t cost much any more, why would you want a digital camera?
For the portability. For the immediacy. For the control. In fact, the key to choosing digital photography over conventional “chemical” photography is personal control: You take, “develop,” alter and print the picture yourself. If you want something changed, if you want another print, if you want an enlargement, you do it here and now, not in an hour or a week.
If you’re interested in that control, but don’t have the corporate cash or bulging “early adopter” wallet, there’s good news. Not only have scanners dropped in price, so have photo editing programs Base-level programs now typically come free with scanner or camera. And the cameras now cost $300 to $900, instead of $500 to $1,500.
What makes a good digital camera? In order of importance:
– Resolution. Absolutely don’t buy anything less than 640×480 (the dots across the picture and from top to bottom).
– Insist it works with your computer. Many connect with both PC and Mac, some with only one or the other.
– Don’t buy unless it has an LCD viewscreen. This lets you preview the pictures in a small window, so you can delete images stored in memory that you don’t want. That’ll also let you free up storage space when you’re out in the field shooting. But the screen isn’t enough. Some cameras don’t let you selectively erase images. Avoid these.
– Image quality. The optics, the light-capturing chip and the software that compresses bits into a saved picture all vary from one camera to another. Poor ones end up leaving odd colors, anomalous spots and muddy images.
– Make sure it has an optical viewfinder. Some cameras only let you see what you’re shooting on the LCD screen.
– Large storage capacity, preferably removable. Some cameras store as few as eight shots. That’s simply silly. Others hold 64. That feels fine. When you ask, make sure you’re quoted how many of the highest-resolution shots can be stored. Also, prefer a camera with a memory chip that you can remove, swapping it for another, empty chip.The chips let you hold another 30 to 64 or more shots before you have to dump pictures from camera to computer. You should figure the cost of a couple into your initial camera purchase. My single biggest complaint about digital cameras I’ve used is that they fill up so fast.
– Comfortable shape, size and weight. The shape thing is personal, but most of us like compact over clunky.
– Easy transfer of images. Nearly all cameras give you cables to connect to ports on the back of your computer. That’s OK. The next step up is to work not just with a serial port but with the new, faster, though-not-yet-on-most-computers USB (Universal Serial Bus) port. And beyond that, to also offer a cable to show pictures on a TV, for when a computer isn’t handy.
– Optical extras. Look for a zoom lens, or a small minimum focal distance–say, two to eight inches.
– A built-in flash.
