to home page

BWRS
SEARCH

HOMETUTORIALSLINKSFORUMGLOSSARYNEWS
 
PICTURES >Cameras & Scanners  
The worlds hottest posters
advertisement

Creating Website Pictures

CAMERAS & SCANNERS

©2002 A. Duncan (re-edited Nov 2002)

Nowadays digital cameras come in all shapes, functions and sizes. You can get Digital equivalents for expensive 35mm SLR cameras right down to cheap fixed focus basic ones.

Take these 2 canon cameras

ISUS II ISUS V
IXUS III (APS) & IXUS V2 (DIGITAL) cameras. Images courtesy of Canon UK. www.canon.co.uk/

Both are high end compact cameras & have similar features (~2 optical zoom, multipoint autofocus various flash modes) but one uses APS film the other is digital.

The only differences between them is that with a film camera the picture is chemically stored on film (which will require processing), whilst in digital cameras a device called a CCD (charged coupling device converts the image into a digital one which is then stored in the cameras memory/ memory card. Obviously this adds cost to the camera (our digital canon is almost twice as expensive as its APS cousin (1) in 2002), but this can be less of an issue when you consider running cost which we'll discuss later.

The other issue is resolution. This is the "graininess" of the image. Film is very, very high resolution allowing pics to be blown to large sizes. Most consumer digital cameras have much lower resolutions (<5 Megapixels (M) or 5 million pixels per image). Some (<1Megapixel) cameras will not produce good standard sized prints due to this (e.g. Jessops recommends 1.3M or higher for 6x4 prints(2). However for most people with a 1.3M or higher camera massive picture enlargements are not an issue and print quality will be satisfactory. There are now several high end digital cameras with over 10 Megapixel resolution, if this is an issue.

Resolution is not a major issue for web pics as we'll see later but if you want to create or get prints from a digital camera you will need to consider one with a higher resolution (1.3M or higher).

Obviously digital images can loaded up to your PC and used right away Digital cameras will come with leads - check you have the appropriate ports on your PC e.g. USB or parallel). By default cameras usually store image in the .jpeg format, which is convenient for us as this is the standard format for pictures in the web as well as being a usable file format for most image editing software. If you want prints you can take your image files into a small but growing number of digital print processors (either on your camera, on memory card and even if saved onto floppies or CDs). Cost in some outlets such as Jessops in the UK (2) is identical to that of having the same number of film prints processed and developed

Traditional film will need to be processed first and then converted (e.g. by a scanner) into a digital image before use. If you already have expensive film cameras this is a good option to think about. Your film processor may offer a digital scanning service (sometimes for free) at time of processing unusually putting your pics on a CD

Alternatively you could invest in a Scanner. Home scanners come in 2 forms. The commonest ones are flatbed scanners like this canon one where you put photos in like a photocopier. You can also use them to copy documents



Canonscan n640. Image courtesy of Canon UK. www.canon.co.uk/

You can pick up a USB scanner with a 600 x 1200 dots per inch resolution 36 bit colour depth (that's 25 megapixels on a 7 x 5 inch 35mm print !!) for less than £30 GBP.(3)

Alternatively you may wish to consider a specialist film scanner but these are more expensive & limited to scanning films and transparencies. There will also be some small image degradation in the act of scanning but this is not a major issue for most.

In terms of running costs digital cameras start to catch up with their film counterparts. With film cameras you must by a film which can only be used once. You can take poor pictures (e.g. over exposed, thumb over lens etc.) but not know until the film is processed wasting space on your film. Digital cameras however use reusable built in memory or removable memory cards, which can be used hundreds of times. Most cameras will have a LCD viewer allowing you to see pics immediately after they have been taken (and therefore can be deleted straight away if no good). Even if they don't you will be able to review pics when you hook it up to your PC.

This means although digital cameras and memory cards are more expensive in the long run they will eventually work out cheaper. For example a 32MB Fuji smart media card (which will store around 64 jpegs at 2M) cost the same as more than 15 rolls of of Fuji 24 exposure 35 mm film (e.g. 360 pics) on the high street (4). Given processing & print costing being the same if the memory card was used & filled just 10 times over 640 pics could be created (remember that you can use these cards again and again so 100 uses would equal 6400 pics and so on) and that's not including the fact you won't get any dud photos by the time you get them printed

The only area of increased cost is in battery usage which is higher in digital cameras (although most use or will take rechargeable batteries)

Which ever route you use you can get great results.

This picture was shot on a APS film camera and scanned as a picture

sunset dominican Republics
Sunset Dominican Republic Aug 1997. Image ©2002 A. Duncan

Whilst this was done on a 2 megapixel digital camera


Isle Of Barra Sept 2002. Image ©2002 A. Duncan

PAGE 1

page 1Page 3

PAGE 3

Page 1 intro
Page 2 Cameras
Page 3 Photoediting
Page 4 Adding to webpages

Copyright ©2002 Alan Duncan. Rewritten Nov 2002

(1) Price quoted from Jessops catalogue summer 2002 http://www.jessops.co.uk/ IXUS III £189..90, IXUS V2 £398.90 inc vat)

(2) Resolution print size and cost of routine diamond service for both film and digital prints quoted fromJessops catalogue summer 2002 http://www.jessops.co.uk/ )

(3) On line quotations from DABS at http://www.dabs.com/ Jan 2002 Relisys scanner MF6599 600X1200DPI USB A4 £29.37 inc vat.)

(4) Price quoted from Jessops catalogue summer 2002 Fujifilm 32MB smart media card £32.90 GBP Fujifilm superia 35mm 200 ASA 24 exp 3 for 2 packs £5.99 http://www.jessops.co.uk/ )