I want to buy a digital camera but I am lost. My friend tells me to go with a Sony because of the ease of the floppy disk. But from what I have read on the review on this site it is not a good choice. Can someone tell me if it is a problem or hassle to download without a floppy? Also, I plan on using the camera for regular pictures not as a professional camera. Most of the pictures I take will be of my son. Then I plan on printing them on my printer. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

-- David Miles (dmiles@wf.quik.com), January 28, 2000

Answers

David:
One big questions is: "how much would you like to spend?" No matter the answer, if you are very comfortable connecting wires from your computer to whatever camera you buy then your choices are much greater. Also there are card readers you can purchase that makes it very easy to insert a memory card into a slot and read it like a disk drive - if your computer can accept one - then you would have both convenience and a wider choice.
I have a Sony - but I'm particularly fond of the Olympus line. Now that the 3030 is out you might find some bargains on the 2020 in the near future.
By the way - the Sony cameras are maligned mostly because the floppy models don't offer more than modest resolution - and getting cameras for review is like pulling teeth. Sony certainly has the resources to do better in both categories ... but it's not clear why they don't.

Des

-- Dan Desjardins (dan.desjardins@avstarnews.com), January 29, 2000.

David, if you stop and think a minute you understand Sony's problem. How do you use a 1.44k floppy disk to transfer 4 meg images? Seems like you don't start with 4 meg images... 1600x1200 .... uncompressed or you really gotta compress a lot... or both!

Why did Sony stay with floppy disk? Could be they were not ready to bring out the memory stick? Now that it's out, wonder what will happen to their floppy disk cameras?

Don't even think about a tether for your digital camera..... too slow. Get a card reader. $7 - $80 Much faster... minutes for 32 meg of photos! Oh... $7 card reader is for a pmcia port like in a notebook while the $80 is for a usb or parallel or ?

-- Dave Clark (daveclark@mail.com), February 02, 2000.