[PLUG] Digital camera -- wrong choice?

[Rogan Creswick]

On 5/28/06, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at kl-ic.com> wrote:
>
> I have a Canon A2, BTW.  Going off topic, the 2M pixel count is
> fine on this older camera, I've rarely needed more.  OTOH, more
> pixels use more power and memory.  What I would really like in a
> camera, if I could find it in the same size, is (1) lower shutter
> delay (2) longer battery life  (3) customizable persistent settings
> (4) lower light levels (5) physically robust (6) 2 Mpix, not more(!) .

For web publishing, 2mp may be enough, but if you intend to print
photos, you will want significantly more. (figure the dpi you want to
print at -- 200 or 300dpi usually, and divide the max resolution of the
camera by that number: eg, if the camera generates 1024x768 images,
then you can't print images more than 5.12 inches wide at 200 dpi)

I don't mean to imply that megapixel ratings are the holy grail when
choosing a camera, I just wanted to point out how different the demands are
between digital and print publication.

> One geegaw that would be nice to have on a camera would be audio
> annotations - push a button and say what the last picture was
> about.  Do any cameras have something like that?   Another feature
> would be a "shallow suspend" mode - push a button, drop to low

The Nikon D200 allows up to 60 seconds of audio to be recorded with
each image, iirc. (You can also plug a gps into it and record your coords.
with each image too)  For what it's worth, digital slrs are much, much more
battery efficient than  point-and-shoots (generally because you don't shoot
from the lcd).  They are, of course, much larger.

-Rogan