"Chris. Aubrey-Smith" <cas194@???> asked:
> > On Monday 17 November 2008 18:10:05 Peter Alefounder wrote:
> > > Does anyone have any advice to offer on digital cameras? There are
> > > a lot of web sites about this, but many appear to be out of date.
> >
>
> Could you confirm that you mean a pocket camera rather than a single-lens
> reflex, since with the latter most of your concerns would not apply?
I don't see why my concerns would not apply to an SLR, but then I
am not an expert on cameras. I haven't seen any digital SLRs come
to think of it: I would not have any objection to one in principle
provided it met the requirements and was not too expensive.
alan c <aeclist@???> said:
> with the last two purchases I was careful to take a laptop and live
> cd in to the shop
Good idea, and if I had a laptop I would do that. However, a laptop is
something for the more distant future.
> In practice we find that the memory cards are used in external card
> readers to copy stuff off,
Yes, I have seen card readers with USB connections. Is the file
format on the cards standard? I would regard this as a less
convenient solution for image transfer, but it is a possibility if
the camera won't do it.
Gordon Scott <gordon@???> wrote:
> > 2. At least 10 megapixels.
>
> It seems this is not necessarily a good thing.
Maybe so... but that is what I want. Some old documents can be
quite hard to read, even the original item. What I want to achieve
is at least 300dpi for an A4 page, or a little larger (these
documents are not always convenient sizes), because I might have to
join several images together. I expect to have to re-size, rotate
and change perspective: for that, I find it is best to start with a
higher resolution than I want to finish with.
> It seems the demand for more
> pixels has resulted in a recent and marked degradation in
> performance.
>
> Unfortunately I can't remember where I saw this report, but it's on the
> 'Net somewhere.
That's exactly what a review [1] for a 13.6 megapixel camera I
might otherwise have been interested in said! (Page 3 of that
review suggests that 10 megapixel cameras can give "decent"
quality, though.) Looks like it doesn't have a good close-up mode
either, or not one the reviewer thought to mention, so on those
counts, I won't be getting one of those.
Gordon Scott <gordon@???> wrote:
> One other thing of note .. with compacts, think carefully about a
> viewfinder.
To which john lewis <johnlewis@???> replied:
> on the other hand, for the intended use of this camera (copying
> documents), using a viewfinder is likely to be a bit hit or miss.
My thoughts exactly. No problem with a viewfinder for a distant
target, but close-up I would rather see exactly what is on the CDD
- particularly if the item needs to be done in sections. I've come
across manorial court rolls with some pages several feet long. How
do these cameras cope with things that are not flat? - not just
because they've been rolled up for centuries, but parchment that
wasn't flat to start with? Is there sufficient depth of focus?
There are reviews on the web for various cameras, and I have been
able to eliminate some from consideration. Reviews often include
sample images, but no information on compatibility with Linux
systems. So far, I have found nothing better (for my purpose) than
the Fuji Finepix F20fd. The main problem [2] is saturation. From
what I can gather from one out-of-date web site [3] Fuji USB
cameras (which this is) all appear as USB Mass Storage, so as far
as I can tell, it should work with Linux.
Another one I would like to see is the Olympus MJU 1040 (so far,
all I've seen is a bogus one attached to a shop display). Again, a
review [4] suggests some problems with image quality; according to
[3], earlier MJU series cameras all appeared as USB mass storage,
so I expect this one would do so as well.
Thanks to those who have made comments, here or by email: all have
been carefully noted.
Peter.
[1]
www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2008/10/29/Samsung-L310W/p1
[2]
www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=3573&review=fuji+finepix+z20
[3]
http://www.teaser.fr/~hfiguiere/linux/digicam.html
[4]
http://www.cameras.co.uk/reviews/olympus-mju-1040.cfm
