Anybody researched or purchased a digital camera recently? The technology in cameras has been moving at lightning speed in the last few years. In fact, there's not a week that goes by without a few new digitals being announced. With the glut of information online and at Borders it's giving me a headache! Just wondering if anyone else has been going through this?!

Hi Glenn,

I have three, all of which are made by Sony. My earlier camera, which stored everything on a floppy disk, was relatively low resolution by today's standards, and the ones I use professionally are only 2.0 megapixel, but that's more than sufficient for newspaper and magazine work. The key ingredient is the camera's lens, which even in some of the new, very-high resolution cameras, are just plain lousy. The best ones utilize TTL viewing through standard 35-mm camera lenses, but they're fairly expensive. I just purchased a point and shoot Nikon for my wife, she loved it for about a week after Christmas, and has not picked it up since.

Software is also an important aspect of digital photography, some of which is very sophisticated. The latest version of Adobe Photoshop is outstanding and will do anything that needs to be done to enhance the photos, as well as some incredible editing.

Good Luck,

Gary

We're in the graphic design business. Just last year, we went digital for most of our work. On the high end (think 90 meg-the film equivalent of an 8"x10" negative), we use a digital back on a view or bellows camera docked to a PC for catalog and studio work.

We use Cannon Rebel digitals for lower end
and smaller image work ( newsletters, flyers, etc.). They operate like an SLR, and we can use our exiting Cannon lenses. They are $1,000.00 and are fine, with some resolution limitations.

I'd suggest you look at the Rebel, which is 6.3 meg. Gary is right, there are some point an dshoots that are as much as 5 meg, and they produce an image as good as a 35mm.
Some very good ones are in the $300-500 range.

Russ

If you're patient, you can find really good deals on closeouts at such places as Office Depot. I bought mine, a 3 MP, a couple of years ago for $125!. I bought my wife a Cannon 3 MP for Christmas for $99. at Big Lots.
A really important feature is Optical Zoom. The more the better. Digital zoom doesn't mean anything as you can do that on the computer afterwards. Digital zoom results in a loss of quality.
DonM

That's more or less what I've figured out... if I'm gonna use this camera for a promo bruchure pics or putting something online, I need 7 MP like I need a hole in my head. I'm looking at some of the newer point/shoot compacts with 3-5 megs and a good optical zoom range.

I've also been hearing good things about Sony, Konica, and Fugi digital cameras.

Don, good suggestion. I'll start checking out the office supply stores, there's no rush.

Glenn

You're right...a 2 meg image is more than adequate for the web, and a 3-5 meg image is adequate for an inkjet produced brochure. But none of the trade publications, retail or industrial clients I work with would accept a 2 meg image. Even a 2" image offset printed at 600-1200 DPI would be rejected. I wish it weren't so...I could save a lot of money on equipment.

You'll find something that works just fine for you...

Russ

Russ,

I write for more than a dozen magazines and newspapers weekly and monthly, and never send anything higher than 2400 DPI to any of them. Most want far less, and by the time the photos make it to the print stage, even with the glossies, anything greater than 2.2 megapixel resolution is overkill. When I talked witht he photo editors they pretty much spelled out what they want, and I've never had a photo rejected because the resolution was too low using the 2.0 megapixel camera and sending .jpg files. Very few have asked for any other format. I guess it all depends on your particular application.

Cheers,

Gary

Just would like to share some of my photographs with all of you
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/yongvunhao2000/album?.dir=3094

These pics are captured using my Nikon3100 Coolpix (3.1mp) camera during my trip to Bali, Indonesia. Some touch up were also done through Adobe Pshop CS (first time using photo software).

Great pictures and layouts FreeStyle, thank's for the sunny view
GJ

...but it got me even more frozen looking
out the window up here in the cold north...

Great work with Photoshop. Shows lots of creativity on your part. The exposures of some seemed a bit dark, but that could just be my monitor calibration.

Thanks for sharing,

Gary