[lug] Digital cameras

[Sean Reifschneider]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2003 at 02:44:28PM -0600, Elyse Grasso wrote:
>Any special comments for or against brands and models of digital 
>cameras? 

Most cameras will work fairly well with Linux these days -- at least one
way or another...  Though you probably want to plan to upgrade from 7.1
-- lots of updates to USB have been done that might help with talking to
the camera reliably...

One of your alternatives is to use a USB adapter that allows you to
mount the camera memory card on your computer.  This works particularly
well for cameras that require a big-ass adapter to talk to the laptop.
Like my Casio camera, the base is nearly the volume of the camera, and
you have to have the base to connect via USB.  Not that the base is
really big -- more that the camera is really small...

So, what I do is: my laptop has a CF slot it in and I just plug my media
in there and download the pictures via the PCMCIA bus.

On the camera note, I'd definitely recomend looking at one of the new,
small-ass cameras.  Evelyn got me a Casio Exilim EX-S2 back in November,
and I carry it in my pocket all the time.  It's *NICE* to have a camera
that can so easily be carried.  What good is having a camera if you
don't have it when you'd like to take a picture.

I've decided that my ultimate camera is actually two cameras -- one
that's just super small, and one that's bigger but has more features,
etc...

Right now there are quite a few cameras out or coming out that are
really small.  Mine is the size of a credit card, and 11mm thick.  It is
2megapix, with a flash and LCD, and will do a good 220 pictures on a
charge or more (I've never run out of charge in a day of shooting, yet,
220 is the most I've done).

There is also one about the same size, but twice as thick that includes
a 3x optical zoom.  Casio has one, which uses the optics from the Pentax
super-small camera (they say it will fit in an Altoids tin).  These are
all 3mpix and all seem to be about the same price as a regular 3mpix
camera.

I have a friend that got a Canon 3mpix camera a few months ago and now
he's feeling like it's really too large to carry easily in the summer.
Oh, and another word of wisdom -- don't underestimate the importance of
a short power on time...  My friend's Canon has to extend the lense and
stuff, and it takes like 5 seconds from being turned on to when it can
take the first picture.  I found when using it I would constantly miss
pictures because it took too long to power on.  My camera takes about a
second from pushing the power button until I can take a picture.

You can compensate for this by leaving the camera on when you think
you'll be taking many pictures, but this really eats through the
battery.  My friend gets about 150 pictures on a charge, probably partly
because of this.  Despite the fact that his battery is nearly half the
volume of my entire camera...

That's all the wisdom I have on cameras right now.

Sean
-- 
 The body is AMAZING!  Cut your hand, and a few days later you can't even
 tell.  What's wrong with the brain though?  I'm still pissed at my parents...
Sean Reifschneider, Inimitably Superfluous <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995.  Qmail, Python, SysAdmin