Sure, you need the camera, but what else? When you think of the incredible convenience built up in the chemical photography world where the cameras are available at discount houses, photos can be sent to mail order processing plants, drug stores or even 1 hour processing centers at your local mall, we easily think that such flexibility must exist for the digital world. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

With digital, you must first determine your desires or objectives. Do you want to collect printed albums of prints? View the photos on-screen? Use them for web or e-mail? Start a freelance photography business? Maybe what you would like is a flexible system that will allow you to do all of the above whenever the need arises. Let's look at some of the components of a digital photography system. Well, all components except the camera!

 

 

 

Storage system #1: Digital Film

The first concern is the camera image storage system, or digital film. Each camera must have a storage system, a way to store the images you take in the field. You have to decide if you wish to invest in the storage system the camera is designed around or buy a different camera. For example, the Sony Mavica series (FD91 in particular) uses ordinary floppy disks that are readily available and somewhat cheap. Other cameras use SmartMedia, Compact Flash or other similar systems where the images are stored on removable memory chips (similar to EPROM memory, Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) about the size of a credit card and a little thicker. This system is handy because they come in different capacities. Each specific camera brand and/or model requires a certain type of storage and they are not easily interchanged.

Below is a simple chart to compare the prices of some of the digital camera media. Use this chart for reference and comparison only to help you understand the cost of digital film. Don't put too much faith in these prices for they are for perspective purposes only, do your shopping carefully.

 

 

But how many pictures can you put on a card? This is difficult to tell because each image is compressed differently. Pictures with a large clear sky of the same density will compress to a smaller size than a picture of trees with leaves where the image is always changing. Each manufacturer must decide on the compression scheme which will translate roughly into the number of pictures per megabyte. Most offer different compression settings, lower quality produces noisy pictures but smaller files. Higher compression equals higher image quality (less compression losses) but larger files which results in less image per megabyte. Images can also be saved uncompressed and you will need lots of the largest cards!

The Sony FD91, for example will usually store about 4-5 1024x758 images at Fine setting on a single floppy disk. At 640x480, 10-15 can be expected. Do not compare this with other cameras because the Sony compresses quite a bit to make use of their floppy disk system. On the other hand, images can be saved uncompressed but you can't use it at 1024x768 resolution because one uncompressed picture will not fit on a single floppy!

When researching cameras, try and get some idea of how many pictures can be contained on the cards. Divide this by the size of the card and you have a rough size of each image. But finding this information is rather difficult. Not because they don't want to tell you, but because the image files are all different sizes.

Why is this critical? You have to think about how many pictures you might take before returning to your computer. If you only plan to take a few pictures then the card shipped with your camera may be enough. If you can be satisfied once your card is filled that you don't care to take any more pictures, then one card is enough.

But if you plan to go on a vacation, consider that the Sony FD91's high resolution will require 8 floppy disks where an old chemical camera will require a single 36 exposure roll of film. So if you like the idea of going on a vacation with 5 rolls of film, consider the Sony would require 40 floppy disks. With other cameras like Kodak or Nikon, you may need to buy several larger media cards! Do some math and then reflect for quite awhile on the high cost of digital film!

P.S. Don't lose any of your media cards! Did we mention that they are reusable? Unlike chemical film you don't have to buy more and more cards. They can be classified as a capital investment rather than an expense. To determine how many you need you have to figure out how many pictures you plan on taking in a given session. You really don't want to run out of digital film, it's a lot more expensive to buy than chamical film.

 

 

Batteries

Digital cameras are actually computers that come complete with computer chips, a CCD sensor and, obviously, memory. The Sony actually has a 2X floppy drive built into the camera. There are all sorts of electronic controls, sensors and even motor control for the zoom lens. There has to be a way of viewing the scene through a viewfinder. Many cameras have LCD viewing screens for composing your picture or simply deciding if you want to keep them or delete them. On the Sony FD91 both a small viewfinder anbd LCD viewing panel is provided for your choice.

All of this uses electrical power. Not such a bad thing if your camera will hook up to an electrical outlet but that defeats the flexible purpose of a portable camera. The answer is that the camera must carry its own power supply. This means batteries.

Some cameras use disposable AA batteries and this will be a very expensive item to add to your already huge list. There is no doubt you're going to have to face the battery problem sooner or later.

Most cameras have a rechargeable battery system. Now you can expect to deal with the incredibly inconvenient recharging problem. On the Sony, the battery takes an hour or two to recharge and will last for about 80 minutes of use. Sony gives a measure of remaining battery power in minutes. It is nothing more than that and should be learned as a perspective of remaining power. With a little experience you will learn to "read" and manage the battery level as you work. Conservation of power is a must! A camera that gives you no idea of the power remaining will require you to buy spare batteries, just in case.

Eventually the issue of buying a spare battery or set will have to be faced. An additional Sony battery is $59 and that may be what is needed for vacations or longer shoots. Each camera has its own options and prices. None are cheap. Do you need an additional battery charger? You have to answer how quickly will you be using up the batteries and how much time do you have to recharge them. Since the Sony battery recharges in 1-2 hours, two would recharge in 2-4 hours. Four in 4-8 hours. Or, four can be recharged in 2-4 hours if you have to rechargers. They're not cheap, either. Since the batteries and chargers are so specialized, you may have few options. The cameras that use the AA batteries may allow you to find third party solutions. You may even buy a power inverter from Radio Shack which converts 12 volt DC car power (from your cigarette lighter) into 120 Volts AC to run your charger. While you drive or while you're using one battery the other is being charged, ready to go when you return to your car.

In all, consider the battery problem when selecting your camera. Although it is not and should not be the reason for buying or not buying a particular camera, it, along with other components of your system should be taken into consideration.

 

 

Transferring Images to the Computer

Digital film is easily manipulated on a computer and this is one of the greatest advantages of digital photography. You can view, store, adjust and even print them. Digital files (what an image actually is) cannot be seen or touched without the aid of a computer or other device. This is why many cameras come with small LCD displays.

Getting images into your computer can be quite a problem. With the Sony, you simply pop the disk into the floppy drive on your computer and open them from the disk. Save them (under a new filename) on your computer or print them. Very easy, very convenient but also slow. The images are transferred at the speed of the floppy drive and that's going to take a long time if you have a vacation's worth of pictures on a pile of floppies a few inches thick!

Many cameras will transfer images to a computer using serial cables. Kodak likes to use the new USB interface. Someday, Firewire, the IEEE1394 standard used for digital video may be available and that will minimize the bottleneck. There are card readers available which will transfer images to the computer faster but they add to the cost of your digital system.

In all, you must face the problem of transferring images to your computer. Most likely, you will have few options because your camera will be designed to provide a specific transfer system, like it or not. The choice of camera brings a transfer system so therefore, study the transfer system and decide if it is acceptable. If not, consider buying a different camera.

 

 

The Computer & Software

True, you don't need a computer (PC or Mac) as part of your digital photography system. But without it your options for adjusting and editing your pictures is eliminated. You have no more control than you do with traditional photos sent to the local drug store. At this point, why bother with digital?

Besides the computer itself, which can be rather expensive, you also need image editing software. Most digital cameras provide some basic software that will allow you to do basic adjustments and minor editing. Over time you can get to be very good at it and produce excellent results. But Photoshop is the most flexible and extensive photo manipulating software available and is probably necessary if you are doing serious digital photography. Costing almost as much as your camera or computer, Photoshop is not cheap and should be avoided until you decide you actually need if for your work. There are other programs that are about as good as Photoshop, so shop around.

The Sony FD91 shipped with ArcSoft's PhotoStudio, SE version. It certainly isn't Photoshop but a beginner would be overwhelmed with its power and find it an enjoyable challenge to adjust and correct pictures. Do other cameras come with better software? You probably should not base your camera purchase decision on the bundled software, but try and find a camera that includes some bundled software because adjusting, editing and correcting your images is one of the biggest advantages of digital photography. If you'r real serious, consider abandoning the bundled software and investing in Photoshop or equivalent.

 

 

Storage system #2: computer storage for images in progress

The next problem in your system is that of storage for your images on your computer. Although they are often times compressed to very small file sizes, they will start to accumulate quickly! Most of today's computers are equipped with gigabyte drives and that is more than enough for a nice collection of photos, perhaps a thousand or more. If your images are not compressed, larger resolution images can be rather large and fill a gigabyte disk shockingly fast. You will soon realize why JPEG compression was invented!

There should be little need to consider adding additional drives or upgrade to a larger drive. You might give this consideration when buying a new computer that you might like one with a few gigabytes and that anything with "megabytes" is simply too small.

Your computer storage is divided into two tasks, short term storage while you process a bunch of pictures (or save them till you have time to process them!) and long term storage of finished pictures (see next section). For short term, you need enough space for the pictures you take and will process and then move to long term storage. Decide on how many pictures you might take at a session and measure how much space that requires. Then multiply that by two or three at the least to determine a practical computer storage size.

For example, 20 disks of Sony FD91 images will take up about 24 megabytes. If, as you work, you save the file under a different name, you now need 48MB. If you don't get to processing these pictures before adding another group, you now need 96MB. This, by the way, does not include the scratch disk requirement for your image manipulation program which, for Photoshop, can be annoyingly high. Once you finish the adjusting, delete the original camera images and transfer the finished images to your long term storage system. This frees up the disk space for your next batch of pictures.

 

 

Storage system #3: long term storage

Once you buy a digital camera you will be amazed at how easy it is to take pictures. A collection of pictures will accumulate almost instantly. This will quickly become a problem, the managing of a large number of images.

If you use your computer's hard drive for long term storage of your images, you're going to be very surprised at how fast your drive will fill up! After all, you bought this camera to take lots of pictures and not just until your drive is filled. It's time to think about a long term storage system. There are many options available and there may be more in the future. Two are some particularly attractive to digital photographers.

The writable CDRom is about the best. For about $3.00 you can have up to 650 MB of storage. Since you are simply archiving pictures, you don't need the more expensive rewritable CD. It's probably a matter of accumulating 650 MB of pictures and then transfer them to a CD. There they will stay forever (no kidding, they won't fade, either). Consider the rewritables if you might occasionally sift through and reorganize the collection. Otherwise, a CD of just "flower photos" or "Summer '99's work" will do nicely.

Another option is the Zip disk. This very handy system will store 100 MB of photos on a single cartridge for about $10.00. More expensive than CDs, it offers better filing and organization where files can be added, deleted or moved around very easily. If your other computing needs could use a zip disk, or you have one already, this is an excellent way of storing pictures.

Besides other systems for storing a large quantity of pictures including Jazz or tape cartridges, there is one more to consider: the trash can! Sure, each and every image you shoot is a precious memory. If it wasn't, you wouldn't have taken the picture in the first place. But now that you have so many of them, might you not consider getting rid of some of them? Excuse me, it was just a thought!

 

 

Printer

Making a hard copy print of your picture is very nice. It can even be the final destination for your image which may be discarded after printing. But there is a very, very serious problem with printing digital pictures: it's very expensive. Expect prices approaching $1.00 per print, and that's for small 4x6 size. It's amazing that you can have 24 or 36 pictures printed for under $10.00 and that includes processing the film. Why is that photographic paper can be manufactured so cheap that they are almost disposable and good computer paper is so very expensive. Let us hope that the expanding digital photography will make our supplies more commonplace and therefore as cheap as chemical photographic paper.

Slowly over the years printers are getting better. The inkjet printers can produce excellent results if you don't look too closely. They will rival pictures printed in a magazine if you use the best papers. Dye sublimation is the best printing system for quality. The prints are about as good as conventional pictures and make for a wonderful album. Color laser printers are also a possibility to consider as part of a production system.

There are a number of small format dye sub printers that cost just under $500 that will produce excellent results. Coincidentally, they are sold by the same manufacturers of the cameras, Sony, Olympus and Cannon as just three examples. There may be more. The problem is that you have to buy refill kits, and you can figure that cost at around $45.00 for 50 prints worth of paper and ribbon. That's about $21.60 for the equivalent of a roll of 24 pictures. Not the kind of thing you would do all the time. Consider that you would only print only your very best pictures. At that, you would (or should) carefully adjust the densities, color correct and even do some minor editing before your print. Unlike the cheap drug store prints, each of the 24 prints you would make for $21.60 would be absolutely perfect prints!

If you want larger dye sub prints, there are some 8x10 size dye sub printers available but they will be expensive. Expect prices around $10,000 for the printer and materials cost of up to $3.00 per print. If this is your desire, you may find a service bureau or photo finishing store that will make prints from your files from between $10-15 each print. Quite expensive, but a lot less than buying the printer only for occasional use.

Another practical type of printer is the inkjet printer from HP, Epson or others. They're relatively inexpensive, much less than the dye sub printers, but they do have their costs. You must buy additional cartridges even when one of the three primary colors runs out. The secret to successful inkjet printing is the paper you use. While it is possible to use premium quality inkjet paper, your digital photos will look best if printed on Glossy Photographic paper. This sells for about $1.00 per 8-1/2x11 sheet. Careful print management might allow you to print two to four per sheet to cut the cost of printing. Two on a sheet will provide prints that are the same size or slightly larger than the dye sub prints. This makes the color inkjet paper $.50 per print compared to the dye sub print at $.90. But be careful, the $.90 for the dye sub includes the cost of the imaging ribbon and the $.50 does not include the cost of the inkjet cartridge. Do not be misled, you will use up cartridges quite quickly!

Another similar system is the dry toner printing from Alps that should be investigated before deciding on your print system. This system is in the price range of the inkjet. Color lasers are probably not that practical for occasional use but will be excellent if you make a lot of prints form an image for some kind of commercial application. If you were to photograph houses for real estate agencies, a color laser might be the best to print a dozen pictures of a house and the type and graphics at the same time.

And that's some information about printers for digital photography. Expect that there are two expenses, one for the machine itself and a second (often hidden) expense for the materials to make the prints. Whatever you do, don't skimp on the materials. Feed your printer the best possible paper or film and you will get the best possible pictures. Using inexpensive paper will not produce acceptable results at all because the surface is not intended for high quality photos. The traditional office inkjet paper or even premium paper is totally unacceptable.

 

 

Additional photographic equipment

Once you buy your camera you will realize that you will probably want some of the available accessories. Available are telephoto and wide angle lenses. These will extend the range of your basic camera lens making for a more flexible photo system. Some are inexpensive but others are very expensive.

Filters are available, most notably UV and polarizing. We have found a polarizing filter very useful with the Sony FD91 for improving skies. The same should hold true with other cameras for this is the purpose of polarizing the light. The UV filter is very helpful for conventional cameras but its use should be explored more with digital cameras. Until someone explores carefully how UV light affects CCD sensors found on digital cameras, the need for a UV filter may be limited to protecting the lens. One will have to take two photographs, with and without a UV filter and carefully analyze the results in a program like Photoshop. If it helps, buy it.

Other useful accessories may include a tripod, carrying bag or camera case. This is not out of the ordinary from any other conventional camera.

 

 

To Buy or Not to Buy...

It is hoped that by now you are simply more informed about all the components of a digital photographic system. It is not intended to intimidate you into purchasing all sorts of stuff, it is meant more as a discussion of the need for some additional equipment (usually computer related) than the camera itself. You are on your own to decide what capabilities you want to purchase. With digital photography there are even other possible system components including a nice television set to view the pictures. Consider also computer to video hardware for taping or presentations. In all, this is an exciting hobby and you should be informed about the costs of a system.

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