dBC-Channel.com

Lately, people have been asking me the same question over and over, "Should I buy a digital camera?" And for everyone that asks, I have the perfect answer. Maybe.

There are many factors that go into the decision about going digital, not the least being whether you are a professional or amateur photographer. You need to ask yourself how you will use your photographs. Will they be for your website, magazine articles, stock agencies, advertising or something else? You then have to do some research and see what each of these markets asks for. Stock agencies love digital, as do many ad agencies, but most magazines want slides.

Do you want to stay with film? Great. Film still gives better image quality than digital. However, in a year or two digital will probably rival film. You also need to consider that film manufacturers are reducing the range of film they produce. I was amazed when a few months ago the owner of my local camera store told me that Kodak is going to discontinue Kodachrome 25 soon, and within two years discontinue Kodachrome 64 and 200. Film manufacturers know that eventually digital will take over, and they don’t want to be caught flatfooted. So they’re making fewer types of film, and starting to manufacture digital camera.

You also need to consider the costs of going digital. A professional digital camera or camera back, will cost between $5,000 and $15,000. These prices are dropping quickly, but they are still high. There’s also the need for a computer (like a Mac G4 at $2,500), PhotoShop 7 ($600), high end printer (at least $500), maybe a scanner ($500 and up) and possible external data storage devices. This along with time spent manipulating each image in a computer, after you learn to use the computer and software, archiving each image on several sets of CD’s so you can store at least one set offsite. An off-site set protects your images from being lost due to flood, fire, theft or some other catastrophe. As you can see, digital will eat up lots of time and money.

One way to get into digital, but save some money, is to go the hybrid route. Shoot with film, make some great prints then scan them into a computer using a flatbed or drum scanner. You can also scan negatives and prints directly. Some photo labs can even do the scanning for you. Many professional photographers go this route to have the best of both worlds. They can use their existing film cameras, while having digital images.

Still not sure which way to go? You could buy a nice digital camera, with at least 3.1 megapixels, for under $1,000 and give it a try. You can even buy a printer that connects directly to the camera, so you don’t need a computer.

If you do decide to buy digital cameras, ask the same questions you would for film cameras. What lenses, shutter speeds, ISO’s and flash sync speed do you need? What subjects will you shoot, in what kind of lighting and how portable does it need to be? Do you need to end up with prints, digital images or slides?

Then talk to photographers that you know, or that you can find on newsgroups, and see if they use the camera you’re looking at, and what they think of it. If you live in a large city, you can probably rent the camera you want, and if you decide to buy it you may even be able to apply your rental fees toward the purchase price.

So don’t jump on the digital bandwagon just because everyone else seems to be doing it. A camera is a tool. Select the proper tool to meet your needs. You will be happier and your pictures will look better.

Want to know what some of the pros are using for digital? Check this out.

Cameras
Canon EOS-ID and D30
Nikon DI

Computers
Macintosh PowerBook G3 and G4
Sony Vaio PC

Scanners
Agfa DuoScan and Arcus 2
Flextight Precision II
Imacon Precision II
Nikon Coolscan 8000
Scanview Scanmate 11000 drum scanner
UMAX PowerLook 1100 with transparency attachment

Printers
Epson 1160, 1270, 1280, 5500 and 10000

Software
Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and 7.0

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Colburn’s books, "The Writer’s Dictionary Of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and Mythology" and "The Youngest Ninja," can be purchased from his site, The Creative Cauldron at www.CreativeCauldron.com. The Creative Cauldron is a site filled with information for writers, photographers, artists and other creative people.

When my old Olympus digital camera got broke while caving during a family camping trip, I had mixed feelings. For quite some time I had felt that the quality of some of my pictures was hampered by the limitations of that camera, but I did not look forward to spending the money on a new one.

The old camera wasn’t bad, but there were certain situations where it was difficult to get good pictures with it. When taking pictures at my son’s basketball games, for example, the camera would slow the shutter down to try to improve the exposure, and this would cause the fast-moving players to just look like a blur. The flash was of no help, because it didn’t work well from that distance. All I could do was change the ISO sensitiviy, and that made the pictures grainy. Also, the camera was slow, so I’d often miss a good picture by about half a second. At football games, I had another problem; the players were just so far away that the camera’s zoom wasn’t enough.

For a while, I tried using my old Yashica 35 mm film camera. I even bought a fairly large telephoto lens off ebay and managed to get some really nice football pictures that way. Unfortunately, though, I found that I wasn’t saving any money by not buying a new digital as the photo processing was so expensive, especially by the time I added the extra cost of asking for cd’s. Also, the Yashica had a manual focus, which allowed maximum control, but sometimes I wasn’t quick enough with the focus and the shot was spoiled. Worst of all, since I couldn’t see the pictures until I’d paid for the processing, a couple of times I found that there were few if any good shots on an entire roll. With digital, I would have simply taken a lot more shots and deleted the bad ones.

So, finally I decided I needed a new digital, but I was spoiled by the control that the Yashica gave me. Simple point-and-shoot was not good enough. I wanted a camera with good optical zoom (digital zoom is just a marketing gimic) that would give me the ability to take control of more of the camera’s features. I also wanted a camera with a quality lens (an oft overlooked feature in consumer cameras), but I did not want to spend a lot of money. I finally settled on the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ3 3MP Digital Camera with 12x Image Stabilized Optical Zoom.

Everybody looking at digital cameras seem to look mainly at MP (megapixels), but 3MP is good enough for photo quality 8X10’s if you don’t do a lot of cropping and enlarging. So, that’s a great area for potential cost savings. Personally, I’d rather spend my money on features that will actually help me take better pictures, not just bigger ones. And the Lumix is loaded with such features. Consider also that if you get a higher MP camera, you also need a bigger, more expensive memory card as well.

This camera is admittedly too large to be pocketable, which may be an issue for some people, and if you use the adapter for filters it makes it even more bulky. However, it’s pretty light weight (due largely to the battery type) and I like a camera that fits into the hand nicely instead of feeling like a toy. Also, there is a reason why professionals lug around those big cameras. It’s because they take better pictures… if you know how to use them properly. Most people don’t realize that a telephoto lens is not just for taking pictures of things far away. They are also great for portraits. And for taking pictures of my son’s football games, the more zoom the better.

One of the great thing about this camera for me is that my wife, who wants things to be simple, can use the camera in “simple mode”. So, she can take great pictures of kids birthday parties and such without having to learn all the features of the camera. I have also used the “simple mode” sometimes, but for basketball games and other extreme situations, I have the option of using shutter-priority or manual modes, and have been able to achieve better results. And with the 12X optical zoom, the camera is great for football games too.

I’ve seen postings on the internet where people who have bought digital cameras are wondering why they can’t seem to get good pictures in certain situations. The answer is simple. Most cameras are made for the average user who wants something small and simple. They aren’t made to work well in extreme situations.

In this article, I have described what my needs were when buying my camera. Your needs may be entirely different, and may also change over time (as mine have). However, if you carefully evaluate your individual needs and take into consideration the pros and cons of different cameras before you buy, you will surely avoid some annoying surprises.

The author, Greg Bonney, is the owner of Bonney Information and E-Commerce and founder of Scoutcamping.com (http://www.scoutcamping.com).

Copyright ? 2005 Bonney Information and E-Commerce. Female Photography