I am studying interactive multimedia and was wondering what would be best to use for images, digital camera or film camera and scanner.

-- Lisa Haxton (lisah@nw.com.au), March 18, 1999

Answers

How important is the start-up cost? Going the scanner route may be less expensive initially, particularly if you already own a film camera of fair quality that you can use with some skill.

I have found that the camera was only about 25% of the entry price to digital imaging. After you factor in a decent printer, a card reader, some mass storage, software like PhotoShop or PaintShop, a graphics tablet, a big memory upgrade, you have a pretty big outlay, even if you already own the computer!

Scanning will probably take longer than using a direct-digital solution, but if you're on a budget, a $100 scanner is more than competitive with the image quality you'll get from a $300-500 digital camera, and you'll probably find uses for it even if you buy a digital camera later

-- Matt Chroust (matthew.chroust@mkg.com), March 26, 1999.