digital cams for photos?

[gobrob]

Has anyone used the newer dig cams for still photos?I can't decide whether to spend$1000-1500 on a digital cam with resolution of 1600x1200, or spend $2000 on a cam like the canon elura which is supposed to be able to take photo quality pics.The only problem is I can't find any specs on what the photo res is supposed to be like,they kind of brush past those details.Anyone tried the photos?
gobrob

[Brian Ellis]

I'd guess it depends on what you want to do. I have been using an old Panasonic mini-DV with a still photo feature. It is reasonable up to 800 x 600 and quite adequate provided you do not want 10 x 8" glossy prints. I've used this feature a lot for small (up to 8 cm wide) illustrations in Instruction Manuals, web sites etc. If you want as high a quality as poss, my idea is to try not to combine video and stills but to buy separate cameras.

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Brian (the terrible)

[gobrob]

Basically I want to know if I can get a decent enough quality photo from a cam,for printable 4x6 snapshot photo.Maybe someone wouldnt mind sending me a file created as a photo so I could check it out.Im interested to see if it captures details like individual hairs,as opposed to a lump of color.If you can gobrob@yahoo.ca
thanks,gobrob

[Joe DeFuria]

Hi Gobrob,

Maybe I'll post or send a few pics later if I take some good ones. . I spent U.S. $1800 on a Sony PC-100 very recently, precisely because I wanted to avoid getting both a mini-DV camcorer, and a digital camera. I wanted one product that could do both "pretty well."

I'm very happy with my purchse. The PC-100 is an exceptional 1 CCD cam-corder, and at the same time produces among the best stills of the "video cameras" on the market. (Now, I'd be extatic if they coulda knocked off $500 from the price tag....)

As far as I know, the PC-100 is the only camcorder that takes megapixel size stills. Others (including Elura) are 640x480. Also, the PC-100 can use either DV tape or a memory stick to store photos, whereas the Elura is strictly tape. If you're interested using the photo feature on a DV camcorder, I would not recommend a DV camera that ONLY uses tape for photos like the Elura. Not a very friendly / convenient format for stills at all.

If you're willing to spend $2000 on either a camcorder or digital camera, and you really want to do both, I think the Sony PC-100 is a pretty clear winner. However, if your primary interest is photos, and video is just kind of a nice "extra" for you to play with, then I'd go for a separate digital still camera and camcorder. Spend the money on what's most important to you. Like Brian said, if the "ultimate" in quality is what you want, none of the video cameras have the features or quality that can compete with a high quality digital still camera.

So it's time to decide what's really "good enough" for your needs.

I'm not sure if 1152x864 (PC-100 photo resolution capability) is good enough to create "quality 4x6" prints from. Again, I'll try and post some shots for you in the next couple days, and you can judge for yourself. I would say that if the PC-100's still quality isn't good enough for you, then you should forget about getting a DV camcorder for stills. If the quality is good enough, then you still have to consider that a straight digital camera is likly to give you many more exposure options. I don't have much experience with expensive digital cameras, but I have to believe that a $2000 digital camera is much more versitile than any camcorder for making manual adjustments for specific shots, etc.

Hope this helps!
-- Joe

[gobrob]

I believe I will take you're advice joe and get both.I believe for the $2000cad i'm willing to spend, I can get a dv cam and a 2mega-pixel seperately.I don't believe,from the research ive done that any cam on the market now is really capable of decent photos(at least for the price diff).
I found a jvc-dv3 for $1000 at costco that seems like it has really good features(inc a still mode that I can try)and there are lots of 2mega-pixel cameras for under $1000.The whole reason for me going dig is poor results in re-printing scanned photos with my cheap scanner.everything I try results in no detail and oversaturated colors.
Thanks,gobrob
p.s. i'd still appreciate seeing your results joe,the pc100 is supposed to be pretty close to photo quality.

[This message has been edited by gobrob (edited 08 February 2000).]

[rei]

note the pc100 can only store megapixel on memory stick. it goes to 640x480 if you don't use it.

[Stewman]

Personally, I am waiting before I purchase a digital camera. The reason being is that the current crop of digital cams do 2.1 megapixel. That's okay, but 4 megapixel is very close to the quality of traditional film cameras. That's what I'm waiting for. I expect these to be available by the end of the year.


-Stew

[gobrob]

nikon coolpix 990 should be out in April.It will be capable of 3.3 mpxl http://www.nikonusa.com/products/detaila.cfm?id=282
gobrob

[Jerry Jones]

DV = 720 x 480 (NTSC).

Digital still cameras offer much higher
dimension sizes. (Higher quality.)

In addition, what is often misunderstood
is digital still cameras sometimes offer higher DPI measurements. (Also higher quality.)

(Right click on any digital photo in a
capable image editor and the software will
reveal the DPI of the photo.)

KEY: Spend time in Adobe Photoshop or
Corel Draw and learn the inverse
relationship between DPI and image dimension + how DPI needs to be matched to your output.

INTERNET: 72 - 96
COLOR PHOTOS: 150 - 200
GRAYSCALE: 300
BLACK & WHITE: 600

I haven't seen a DV camcorder yet that doesn't produce a captured photo with a default DPI of only 96.

720 x 480 at 96DPI translates into a relatively poor quality printout on your desktop printer and it will have a size---
I forget exactly---of around 4 x 6 or 5 x 7.

Unfortunately, you can't really resample
an image at that low of a default DPI and
expand the output size without dropping
the quality even further.

The default DPI of digital still cameras will vary from camera to camera.

Our expensive Olympus digital still camera
has a default DPI of 144.

My cheapo FujiColor has a default DPI of 72.

When you consider 72 - 96 is the perfect
DPI for Web page photos... then you can see
why digital camcorders and still cameras
are great for that application.

But if your target output is print... buy the best digital still camera you can. The bigger the frame size and the higher the default DPI... the higher quality the printout will be.

Even veterans often fail to understand the inverse relationship between DPI and frame size where digital photos are concerned.

They tell me "My service bureau scans all of my photos at 1200 DPI."

That's much higher than necessary---IF---the output photo's output frame size is the same as the original photo's frame size.

The only way a DPI setting of that magnitude would be necessary would be when you want to resample the photo to create a larger print than the original photo.

[Brian Ellis]

Sorry, Stewman, must contradict you.

A top class lens will resolve 500 lines/mm, as will a very fine grain chemical film (e.g. Ilford Pan F). Taking a 35 mm camera with an image size of 24 x 36 mm, the resolution is therefore 24 x 36 x 500 x 500 pixels = 216 Mpixels. If you take a Hasselblad, this becomes theoretically 900 Mpixels (in fact a little less, because of the difficulty in keeping the film exactly in the focal plane).

Under more practical conditions, taking, say, Kodachrome and a good 35 - 105 zoom lens, 200 lines/mm would be about as good as you could hope for, giving 35 Mpixels.

Even this is a far cry, nearly an order of magnitude more, than the 4 you quote.

It stands to reason, taking the example of Pan F, the silver bromide crystals in the film are held in a suspension of a modified gelatine and have an average size of about 1 micrometre (it needs at least 50 x magnification to even discern them). I won't talk about colour film, as that involves dye-coupling to silver which is then bleached out). However, a colour CCD is much smaller than 24 x 36 mm, typically 1/3" diagonal, perhaps going up to 1/2" (12,7 mm), as against 43 mm of a 35 mm image. This means that, to achieve a similar resolution, you would need to have each element of the CCD (monochrome) of a size of 1 x 12,7/43 = 0,3 micrometres. CCD technology is nowehere near that today: I believe 3 - 5 micrometres is pretty well state-of-the-art (compare this with the 100 micrometre typical pixel size of the CR tube in a computer monitor).

Sorry, if you want a studio blow-up to poster size, you will have to wait a number of years yet: and have a multi-Gb hard disk to record each frame on!

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Brian (the terrible)

[Mark F]

I too have heard in varius places and varius times that average consumer 35MM film (not the pro stuff you were talking about) is about equivelent to digital at 3.5 MPixels.
Many of todays digitals are quite capable of producing exellent 4x6 print. And the better consumer models, aprox US$700-1000, are good for 8x10s.
Surtainly not even the top quality digitals, useing NIKON and CANON bodies and lenses, can truely compeat with the mentioned Hasselblads and Ilford Pan F. But they aren't meant to. And the consumer digitals previusly discused even less so. The lower end digitals are meant to compeat with instant cameras, and the better consumer digitals with lower end consumer class 35MM and APS cameras. In those terms I beleive they are competative and viable alternatives that are only getting better.

Mark F.

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OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a CD



[This message has been edited by Mark F (edited 09 February 2000).]

[Stewman]

ACK! I wasn't specific enough! I'm referring to colorspace. If we're talking sheer resolution, I've used the high-end Kodaks that give film quality resolution. Excellent cameras (@ $15,000 U.S.), but the color left a lot to be desired. The current 2.1 megapixels cameras (at @ $900 U.S.) capture a far, far better image in terms of color, but their resolution is lower.

So, if your looking to get a digital camera, understand that you shouldn't by a camera based on resolution alone. That is essentially my point.

[This_Idiot]

I'd like to chuck something in at this point.

One day the digital domain will be almost perfect and produce the quality that we require at a price we can afford. But we aren't there yet by a long way.
Digital cameras are great for producing web-ready images, or for an electronic "album". For producing good quality prints, the right tool is a reasonable 35mm camera. Now look at the financial side. Even a cheap digital camera costs more than a mid-range 35mm film camera. If you already have a "cheap" low-range digital, switching to high-res is going to cost FACTORS more than buying a mid-range (or hi-mid) 35mm. In other words, if the elctronic medium is important then by all means invest in a digital. But leave prints in the domain of the proper tool for the job

[Fred H]

Hi,
how can you insert pictures here (small, ofcourse) in .GIF, .JPG ?

[gobrob]

Stewman sums up this discussion pretty well.
Don't get fooled by dpi or high resolution #'s. I bought my cheap($100) scanner thinking that it's 1200x600 dpi would deliver bountiful pixels to manipulate digitally.
Boy was I wrong! The only diff between scanning at 300 or 1200 dpi is the size of the file which would be better for enlarging.I still get muddy,oversaturated colors and lack of detail no matter what res I scan at.
Thanks for your insight too Chris,I agree that for prints 35mm is the way to go(I have been known as a pro photographer).I think most of us shutterbugs are wondering what is going on with digital cameras.
thanks, gobrob