We have had a Fuji 300 digitial camera since Dec.1997. It has functioned flawlessly and has taught us alot. What I hope to do in this short article is to give you some thoughts, leave some questions in your mind, and give you some questions to ask.
Why do you want a digital camera? Are you like a friend that wants one just to have it and may be use it some for business? Film is far from dead and will be around for longer than most people think. At this time there is a lot of hype encouraging you to buy digital. It was the same thing when the110 camera came out, then again for the disc camera, and the supposed new APS film. Cameras seldom wear out so the only way the manufactures can get you to buy is to make you believe that you need someting new! Not all is bad with the digital cameras and in fact there are many very good features.
A standard 35mm negative when scanned on a good scanner will yield 20 to 30 times the detail that a typical personal digital camera can yield. What you must decide is how much detail, digital computer file size you will need now and in the future. A quality scan of a good 35 m slide will yield at least 30 meg's of data, whereas a normal personal digital camera will capture a 1.5 to 3.5 meg file that will then be compressed. Compression can cause loss of detail.
Before going into details on digital, lets look at some costs. The big selling point for a digital is that you won't have to buy any more film. A roll of 35mm 24 exposure film costs about $5.00 to buy and about $8.00 or less to process. It is often on sale for even less. Good point and shoot fully automatic cameras cost from $100.00 to $500.00 where the equivalent digital cameras start at $500.00 and go to $1300.00. On the average the difference is $600.00 dollars which at $12.00 for a roll of 24 exposure will buy 50 rolls of film. How many years will it take for you to shoot 50 rolls of film? That is before you figure in the cost of storing the digital files.
One major problem that hasn't been resolved is how to store and retrieve digtal images. You can put a lot of sheets of negatives in a small box or file them in a small 3 ring binder where any normal person can quickly look for the desired negative. The search frustrates most of us, but believe me it is far easier than finding a lost digital file. For the computer to find an image file, you must have first taken the time to give it a unique name that you remember and also remember where you saved the file. It is a very time consuming process that requires good computer skills and someone dedicated to filing each and every image. Then a back-up should be made and stored. Just be aware of the logistics and effort involved before jumping into digital. Also check out the cost involved.
Another thing to consider is what happens if a computer file is damaged. We have printed and restored or copied and restored some very badly damaged negatives and prints. In most cases a damaged computer file will be worthless.
Let's look at some of the positives! Digital cameras are fun and you can do some great things with them. In industry, they provide a quick image that can be verified at the time it is taken. The image is already in digital form that with some sizing is ready to e-mail to another office. At home, the image is easy to send to friends or grandparents when both are computer literate. We find that for simple commercial shots which are going to be reproduced at a 4"x5" size or smaller in an ad; for a web pages; or even for passport images, the Fuji DX 300 provides excellent results.
There are three points that one should study carefully when buying a digital camera. All are very basic.
1/ The first is file size and how much compression is being done. The more pixels the bigger the file and the better the image that can be produced. It takes a very small file to fill a computer screen, but try and zoom in too see some detail and you will get one large blur. The first cameras were sized to fit the computer screen. The newer and better cameras are using a chip with more pixels and thus producing a larger file size. How you use the image will determine what file size you need. For the monitor for basic viewing 700K is enough and will print not bad on a bubble jet printer at 5"x7" size because both mediums blur the output. To make a decent 8"x10" photographic quality print you need a file of between 14 and 23 megs. We can get a good 5"x7" print off our Pictography 3000 with the 3.66 meg file from or DX 300 but it is not photographic quality. Given a 23 meg file to print the Fuji Pictography will produce a 8"x10" picture of photographic quality.
One person's reason for liking a given camera was that it would store 50 or 80 pictures before you had to download them. To save this number of images on a 21/4 floppy or a 3 meg smart card, the camera computer must compress the image file. The standard format for this is JPG which reduces the file size by discarding information and using formulas to recreate the picture. On a good camera with a 3 meg card that stores only 30 images, it means that each 3 meg picture is reduced in size to 1/10 of the origianal size, ie: 90% of the data was removed. As a result the quality is reduced.
Once you have 50 pictures in the camera, you must start over. That means you must save the pictures to a computer disc. That brings up the questions: what disc, and what backup? Then you have to consider how long will it take you to open each image in a graphics program so you can identify it and give it a unique name. Then you have to decide where will you keep a list of these names. Will it matter to you if you can't remember what you called an image. You can't look at the negative and have your brain remember the picture as it sees the negative. The file name must bring the image to mind. Does it sound like I am familiar with the problem? We have a CD writer and the pile of image storage CD's is getting very large. I must come up with a cataloguing program and then spend many hours creating a data base and file box for the CD's.
2/ The next question to check out is the term zoom. Is it a real lens zoom or is done by using less of the cameras image chip? Optical or lens zooming is just the same as with a regular camera. The lens changes as it zooms in or out but always covers the full CCD (charge couple device) image and gives you the best image of which the camera is capable. Then you will hear of electronic zoom or some such glorious words. It is a trick! The cameras' computer only collects data from the centre of the CCD and expands it to look like a full-sized image. ( Less pixels equal less data, equals a poorer quality image.) If in doubt find a sales person that knows these cameras.
3/ The third thought involves batteries. Our camera can consume the rechargeable video camera battery it uses in far less time than one expects. It appears to drain the battery even when shut off. A camera store owner that is very familiar with video and digital cameras at the personal level and pro level says two things. First, that like video cameras, the computer in a digital camera continues at a low level even when shut off; therefore, you should remove the battery when the camera isn't in use. Second, he recommends againt cameras that use AA batteries because they can eat up a lot of money.
SUMMARY:
Many people can use a digital camera and be very effective with it. The point I have been trying to make is: read all you can; ask many questions; try out the camera; and then do alot of thinking before you jump in.