OFF: digital cameras

[Paul Mather]

On Sun, 23 Jul 2000, Andy Gilham wrote:

=> > The Sony Digital Mavicas are even easier: just take out the 3.5" floppy,
=> > put it in your floppy drive, and view the JPEGs (or BMPs)!  No messing
=> > around with cabling or extraneous software...
=>
=> I looked into those, but the trouble is that the storage capacity of a
=> floppy is too low - I took about 15 Mb worth of jpegs on Friday (I've
=> cropped and resized the ones I've published).  What I got in the end was the
=> Sony Cybershot dsc-f505, which has a fantastic Zeiss lens (10x optical zoom)
=> and 2.1 Megapixel imaging, and jacked the memory up to 64Mb, which I hope
=> will be more than I'll ever need.  The USB link is great, you just plug it
=> in and it's like an extra hard disk, and almost as fast.

I guess the advantage of floppies is that the limit on the number of
photos you can take is the number of floppies you're willing to lug
around.  But, the mechanical floppy drive does drain the battery faster.

The Mavica to which I have occasional access belongs to a school system,
and so is ideally convenient for classroom and field use.

=> > Paul (diehard 35mm film user).
=>
=> It's a lot like vinyl vs CD, I feel that in a way I really prefer film, but
=> digital is just so much more convenient!  Especially when you're putting
=> most of your pictures on the web anyway.

I agree totally.  But, it seems that most I've seen have inferior optics
and lens support compared to 35mm SLR cameras, though I don't keep up
with either scene, really, so digital cameras might be a lot better now.
The impression I have is that digital cameras are equivalent to
those point-n-click all-in-one 35mm cameras (which aren't bad).

Sounds like yours is really nifty, and I really like the photos you put
up.

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa