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Kodak's recent announcement that it plans to make several thousand workers redundant from its global operation signs the final writing is on the wall for wet film type photography. Granted, to the critical eye, a picture run out on even the best colour laser printer still lacks the depth of a good photographic print. And you don't need a computer to figure out that digital cameras are more than twice the price of their conventional film counterparts.
But prices are tumbling, quality is improving and if you'll pardon the pun, digital photography is developing very rapidly indeed. Suddenly, taking high quality, digital images in for both business and pleasure is now possible without doubling the national debt.
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Click small image to view larger JPEG image - all taken using Olympus C800L |
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C400L & |
Close up on C400L |
C400L & package |
So just how good are today's digital cameras? Olympus, a big player in the world of conventional film cameras has just released its first digital series, in a model range of three. Top of the range C800 L which takes images of up to 1024 x 768 pixels. This almost delivers images of sufficiently high resolution to rival scanning directly from 35 mm negative - which we currently scan at 1500 x 1000 pixels.
Both the C400L and C800L boast a colour LCD screen - which is great for framing an image properly, but is very heavy on batteries. Rather annoyingly, you have to hold down a very awkwardly placed button to keep the screen active.
So how do digital photographs compare with conventional ones? The first thing you notice is that on screen, pictures have a harsh quality about them.
Although the C series looks like any film-filled point-and-shoot, fixed focus camera, one must remember that it is a very different beast. The absence of film means that the image must be stored somewhere - in a chip called flash RAM. A tiny lithium battery provides the power that keeps this memory alive - even after you've killed the main batteries.
The C800 will store 30 high-resolution images at 1024 x 768 pixels or 120 images at a barely useful 512 x 384. It has the equivalent of a 50 ASA film speed, means that light levels have to be high to obtain a decent quality image. However a standard tripod mounting thread fitted to the camera allows it to work at very low levels indeed providing you can keep it still
Its fixed-focal-length 5mm lens is approximately equivalent to a fixed 36 mm lens on a 35mm film camera - fairly wide angle. Unfortunately the lack of zoom facility is frustrating. It does have a macro facility, and thanks to the very wide angle of the lens, some very interesting pictures may be produced.
Like many digital cameras, the C series feels flimsy. However, we've used it hard, and so far nothing has snapped or fallen off.
Considering the C800 L is a piece of kit that will set you back the best part of a grand, we were disappointed to find that there is no carrying case! And if you have western rather than Japanese sized hands you may find the buttons are slow and awkward to use.
The camera can be fired from your PC. The software also allows you to upload pictures to the camera, as long as they're not too big. When downloading, you have to down load the whole lot. This is seriously irritating since should your computer loose contact with the camera near the end of a download, you have to down load the whole lot again in order to download the missing few images.
Like most digital cameras, the C series gobbles batteries - especially if you use the built in LCD screen. Olympus recommends its own brand mains power supply available but it costs an additional £21. If you want to run the C series from an external supply, it must be 6.5 volt DC. This oddball voltage means you HAVE to use their product. Would it not be more useful if the camera could run from say a standard 12 volt car supply?
Software is smooth and easy to install. It is bundled on CD ROM for C800L, but ships on floppy disk for its little brother. There are versions Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, as well as for Apple Macintosh. The Windows 95 software works perfectly well on Windows NT - although it doesn't say so in any of the documentation. Running in NT has the advantage that you can continue using your PC while pictures download from the camera.
Unless you have the latest in-out card in your PC it can take up to 1/2 hour to download all the pictures to your PC. It uses the COM Port, and on a decent PC, download times tumble to just over 10 minutes. Camera has to have the shutter open to download., thus exposing the lens unnecessarily.
The connecting lead to your PC only comes with a 9 pin and a Mac connector. This is really annoying since on most PC's the socket known as COM 1 - the 9 pin socket - is usually occupied by the mouse. The COM 2 socket is usually a 25 pin type - which means you need to buy an additional adapter so you can use the camera with your PC. And don't bother asking your average camera shop for the adapter because chances are they won't have it. It's the type of component only available from a PC specialist.
Unfortunately, the price is still a hefty £900.00. Its little brothers, both scanning at 640 x 480, go for about £600.00 for the C400L and C400 - like the C 400L, minus the LCD screen can be snapped up for under five hundred quid.
