i need to know what to buy for my new company, i want to take sports high speed images, display them on monitors, edit them and print them out on kodak electronic paper, with photo quality...... what do i need to accomplish this?

-- Brandon Rosengren (b.rosengren@sk.sympatico), July 25, 1999

Answers

I personally have an Epson 750Z camera and an Epson Photo 750 printer which I have been very happy with both of them. For you application I would recommend keeping a close eye on the Epson 850 camera that is said to be coming out soon.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/diginews_jun99.html#epson

It offers many of the features of the Olympus 2000 and Nikon 950, but hopefully they will retain the usability and other good features of the Epson 750Z. One thing you didn't mention is if the sporting events will be indoors, outdoors during the day, or outdoors at night. These will effect your camera choices. The Epson 850 solar-assist backlighted LCD viewfinder would be a plus for outdoor shooting. Its ability to change the ISO higher will be important for low light like indoor and night sports. A fast lens (f-stop of 2.8 minimum) and the ability to manually set it to fastest position will also be important. I don't know what the 850 lens will will be but the 750 is 2.8 so hope they will keep that or make it faster for the 850. Also if you get an Epson Photo printer like the 750 use the Epson Photo Paper not the Kodak. I have tried several and all were a waist of time and money except the Epson Photo Paper. Other printers such as several of the new Canon ones do a nice job and may be able to use the Kodak paper.

-- Bob G. (rgreg88721@hotmail.com), July 25, 1999.

Brandon:

If you are going to focus on Sports Photography and are not willing to spend over $3,500 for your rig, get a 35mm FILM SLR CAMERA. Why? Simple: Lens choice. It is also a lot more cost effective for the equipment, although you'll lose that in processing costs over time. In any event, if you are doing sports, you need long lenses to get quality pictures. A decent SLR with a high quality AutoFocus APO 300mm lens would be a good start. Then when you get your images have them processed but not printed. Take those, scan them with a good scanner (for business, the Nikon LS-2000 or the Polaroid 4000 dpi model should be considered) and process the images that way. And there are an array of really decent printers out there, most notably the Epson 1200 Photo or the HP PhotoSmart printer. For business, I'd go with the Epson because you likely have more money to spend and need the Epson's performance.

Good luck...

-- Jeffrey Sevier (jsevier@one.net), July 29, 1999.