As a few of you may already know, I've been looking into buying an intro SLR. I've posted a couple of times already requesting info. I've now made the decision to go digital. As you may remember, I use my DV camera as my voice and, in my opinion, I may as well continue with using that technology. That being said, I will now request even more info! My dilemma is this: I don't have enough money to buy one of the professional series of cameras, so I've looked at a few at the local shops. I'm actually torn between two cameras. One is the Fuji Finepix 4700 for $799. It says it have 4.3 mega-pixels, but it also says 2.3 mega-pixels. At the fuji site there seems to be some conflicting data. They don't even give me the true resolution. I couldn't find it anywhere on the site. It still seems like a nice deal though. The other is the Sony DSC-S70. 3.34 mega-pixels at a res. of 2048 X 1536. It features a Carl Zeiss lens and the Sony accessories(of course!). It doesn't come with any editing software or anything like that though(the fuji does). It can save in tiff format as well as jpeg(fuji is only jpeg). By the way, where do i get a TIFF format viewer, as i don't have one now. Any info about this will be very appreciated! Hey Harkness, sorry I didn't mail you directley, but i thought i should as the collective.

daz

-- daz (aminodaz@mailcity.com), July 09, 2000

Answers

No problem Daz! I think you are 'right on the money' with your decision to go digital. Especially since you are working that way with video. If you have not done so, you might want to start taking a look at the Epson printers. They have some really nice ones, not too expensive, that will give you prints almost 13 inches wide and up to 44 inches long. My favorite is printing photos on watercolor paper. Supposedly the digital cameras you are looking at will not give you prints that 'hold up' to that kind of enlargement. However, I have a feeling that you won't necessarily mind a little grain and 'noise' in you images.

Good luck!

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), July 10, 2000.

If you don't get the answers you are looking for, you might want to try and post on the PDN 'Tech Talk Forum':

http://www.pdn-pix.com/cgi-bin/webbbs/config.pl

chris

-- Christian Harkness (chris.harkness@eudoramail.com), July 10, 2000.

Consider the Canon S-20 digital with the IBM hard drive. My wife took it on our vacation, shot 180 photos and still did not fill the hard drive. It runs over $1000 with the hard drive, but the convenience is well worth the extra bucks.

-- Ed Buffaloe (edbuffaloe@unblinkingeye.com), July 10, 2000.

A site well worth visiting for any digital camera info is HTTP://WWW.STEVES-DIGICAMS.COM It has reviews and comparisons of several as well as user info. Well worth the visit.

-- Brian parsley (bparsley@alltel.net), July 13, 2000.

daz, regarding the fuji camera: the ccd sensor is the size of any other makes 2.3 megapixel sensor. the whole 4.3 thing comes from their new technology, the octagonal (or is hex?) shaped sensors in the array (all others are rectangular). so having more sides, it captures more information withing the same space, if that makes any sense. it is a fine camera. but i also agree with the canon poster above, i used the S-20 at work (local photo store), and did a self portrait of my eyeball that was 'unreal'. very crisp image. -but you cant go wrong with epson printers. i just bought the 1270, and cannot belive the quality of the prints. i still use the darkroom for black and white, however. good luck.

-- jerry hazard (hazard01@earthlink.net), July 15, 2000.

The two cameras that conistently rate at the top of the reviews that I have read are the Nikon Coolpix 990 and the Olympus C3030. Those are the two that I would choose from.

-- Peter Foiles (lightcatcher54@hotmail.com), July 16, 2000.