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>Im thinking about getting a Digital camera here......any suggestions? I have >heard the Sony Mavica series are great cuz they can store your Images on a >floppy. >John Howdy from another John' Here is a little essay of mine that I hope may save you some time or perhaps even maany... For the newbie It is absurd to state that digital imaging will some day render film obsolete. Discrete features are different from continuous ones. Any math nerd would die laughing if someone tried to convince him that, some day, finite differences will replace derivatives. It is quite OK to completely ignore the previous sentence. Do not make a camera selection based on textual information found anywhere even if it was sent to you by an adoring family member. After a thorough perusal of the information included or described here, go to (a) camera or computer store(s) or a Walmart, for that matter, and play with all the cameras, to find which one you seem to like the most. You may later compare their price with mail order companies. Be sure to visit the camera WEB site to carefully review the detailed specifications of the camera you plan to buy. There are three types of cameras 1 -Professional cameras. Digital backs for professional film cameras (tens of thousands $$$), the newly announced Nikon D1 (5700$). 2 - Prosumer cameras. See 'Windows Magazine' article described below. >From 250 to 2000$ list price. Street prices are much lower. Equipment obsolete in 6 to 12 months. If you wait another month you will get much better performing hardware, but under no circumstance pay attention to the preceding statement. Newest, fanciest naturally means most expensive. If you do not need all the latest gadgetry, there are some real bargains to be had out there, for instance Fry Electronics (in big D where I live) sells the Toshiba PDR-M1 for 249$. 3 - The point and shoot variety for family/personal events pictures. 100 to 300 dollars. Issues, concern Research these carefully before committing your hard-earned dollars. Storage of picture:cost, capacity Accessories:flash, filters, etc... Electric power/batteries. For some cameras with LCD viewer, a set of batteries may last no longer than 15 or so minutes. Best place to start on the Internet http://www.dcresource.com/ http://photo.askey.net/default.asp?/reviews/ http://www.imaging-resource.com/ http://www.shortcourses.com/ and of course this listserv and the various newsgroups of Usenet if you can afford/tolerate the noise to signal ratio. Also read http://photo.net/photo/digital/choosing.html (considerably out of date) The mail order place with whom I do business for camera equipment Adorama http://www.adoramacamera.com/ B&H http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ Calumet http://www.calumetphoto.com/ Freestyle Graphics http://www.aristagraphics.com/ And others... These are companies that were there in the days of film photography and there are many computer/software and other firms that are specialized in digital imaging. Cave canem, there is a lot of sharks in the muddy waters of mail order business. There are mail order evaluation sites, one of them being http://www.mai.liu.se/~behal/photo/photographic_mail_order_survey Latest news At the PC show in NY, Toshiba announced the PDR-M5, a very nice camera. The August 99 version of the magazine 'Digital Photographer' is their annual review of 70 models of cameras. The 'Windows Magazine' July 99 issue has an excellent review of current prosumer cameras http://www.winmag.com/library/1999/0701/fea0046.htm P.S. If a 'not newbie' cares to comment about this posting please address it to me directly. - Please: Stay on topic. Trim quoted messages. http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.
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