I have been going back and forth on this.. Under $1000.00, being a Landscpe Designer,we take many before and after shots of our work, and we put 8X10 and 11X14 in our portfolio..PORTFOLIO. Rich,crisp,clear true to life color is very important. I also prefer a view finder. The digital is great,for I can send some of our work via email in a flash and at the same time use these images to print for our portfolio,but so far have yet to try one that seems to do both picture perfect......Am I dreaming? Help! Ps..My apologies for shouting on the first run..Have tolook fora new keyboard too!

-- Eileen (setdesign@pioneeris.net), July 26, 2000

Answers

Sorry Eileen, You're dreaming on your budget--you can get something good for e- mail, but true photographic quality just is not there yet. I use consumer level (Kodak) up to the multi $k canons. Still the best quality (digitally) comes from scanned negatives. You are looking for too much from too little.

-- fred (fdeaton@hiwaay.net), July 26, 2000.

I would agree with Fred completely, film scanning is the way to go for portfolio quality pics. You could use the digicam to take shots for the quick turn-around AND take a film shot for the quality. I disagee that you can print even perfect 8x10's off 3.3MP cameras. They only give you about a 9MB file and if your used to slide film and own some decent lenses, a digicam will still look very digital compared to film. I have done some more artsy 11x14's with a Nikon 950 but I didn't worry about perfect quality as it was more painterly, in fact I added grain in photoshop to the final product. But crisp 11x14's, nope, heck I didn't even like the $24,000 LightPhase Mamiya I used in Orlando 6 months ago. Currently I'm using a Polaroid SprintScan 4000 with Silverfast and pull 19.5 Megapixel images (4000dpi) off film, pin sharp 13x19's is easy.... just food for thought...

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), July 26, 2000.

Fred raises a good point, digicams are pretty good, but some people insist on film quality -whether digital will do, or not. Let me make the suggestion that you simply download a few sample images that accompany the reviews for various 3.3MP models and print them to judge the quality for yourself. Make sure you get images taken at the lowest compression level -which provides the largest file size. Try www.imaging-resource.com and www.steves-digicams.com and check out the 3.3MP cameras reviewed there. You might also consider a program called Genuine Fractals to increase the output image resolution if you want large prints beyond 8x10", or so.

If I dropped the ball before or in any way implied that a 3.3MP has all the resolution of a 35mm negative, I'm sorry -I really didn't mean too. An image scanned from a 35mm negative at 2400PPI has better than double the pixels. What I meant to convey is that many people feel a 3.3MP image is fine for an 8x10", and some people blow them up considerably larger for display. It's really a question of subject matter, detail, the quality of the output device, etc.

Try it for yourself, but print the images on a good color printer.

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@surferz.net), July 26, 2000.

I agree, I meet many people that are nuts about their 3.3MP cameras and think its the greatest. Thats fine, if it suits your needs thats all that matters. I agree with Gerald in that you should really just print one and see just exactly what you can get and if it serves your purpose. One thing that is important with the digicams is to take the shot with some logic, the worst thing you can do is take a lazy shot, crop the hell out of it, and be left with a 2MP shot. If your going to use the digital camera its important to frame each shot the way you want it in the final version since its a one time deal. I haven't messed with APS but I know you can buy some APS scanners and an APS camera under $1000 and APS shoots panorama mode giving you a wide shot, maybe thats what you should think about...

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), July 27, 2000.

I agree with Chris's response, especially the comments about framing properly when taking a shot with a digital camera so that cropping is kept to a minimum. I do want to add some comments regarding the APS option and its panorama format. I have a Nikon F50 SLR, a Kodak Advantix APS and a Canoscan 2700F scanner. I get better results (sharper pictures, whatever the size)scanning negatives (or slides) taken with the Nikon 35mm SLR than with the Kodak APS (negs only), not because it's a better camera but because the film is bigger. A frame of 35mm film is 36mm x 24mm and APS is 30mm x 16mm, something Kodak and others often forget to mention. The panorama format uses the center 30mm x 10mm area for printing so the final resolution suffers even more. APS is great for convenience, but for quality stick with 35mm.

-- George Ayer (grayer@home.com), July 27, 2000.