>My school plans to buy a camera to use for multimedia
>production using Mac 5400s and 7200s or 7500s. One person said we'd be
>better off with a regular camera, and to just have the pictures
>developed onto a CD. She said we could take unlimited pictures
>this way by just taking extra film along, and that the quality
>of the pictures is much better. However, that would give us
>the added expense of buying film and having it developed, along
>with the wait time for developing. I would be interested in
>hearing opinions on this. I would also appreciate
>recommendations for which digitzed camera to buy with a small
>budget. If anyone knows of any articles that have rated them,
>please let me know.
I've used photo CD a lot, and no doubt the quality is superlative. But for
most school digital photgraphy uses it is overkill. Plus, you're right, it
takes too long, and incurs additional expense for film and processing.
I'm sold on using VIDEO for capturing still photos. If your school has a
video camera, you don't need to buy anything else. You already have macs
that can "grab" still images off video, either live, or from tape. 7500s
do this out of the box--I'm not sure about the other mac models you
mention, though all can be adapted. I've even used a Classic to do this
with an inexpensive Computer Eyes box plugged into the modem port. With
video you can also take unlimited pictures, and then even use the same tape
over again--NO film expense. It is instant--you can set up a hot key on
the mac to open the bundled Apple Video Player program on the 7500.
Camcorder plugs right into the video input on the back of the mac. You
just freeze and copy the image, name it, and save it to disc as a pict file
that can be used in all mac graphics-capable programs.
I also use an odd, special video camera designed specifically to capture
35mm negs (yes!), and slides to video for import to the mac. (Fujix FV-7
about $700). It works fairly well, and also is great for copying photo
prints and book/mag pictures. Not as high res as a scanner, but fast, easy,
suitable for many uses.
Using video as a digital image source is highly versatile and very cheap
but not high res. The quality IS adequate however for screen uses like
multimedia, and the kids will be quite happy placing these pics in word
proc docs as well. There are shareware programs to convert picts to gifs
or jpegs for web page use, or to send as photo attachments to email.
You'll get better and better results as you work with it. The most
important thing to remember with video (indeed with all photography!) is to
have good lighting initially! Most rotten video, and bad results with
video captures result from poor lighting of the scene initially. Even
those that tout their low light level capability will produce MUCH better
results given more light--don't scrimp here.
Gay Wiseman
Alta-Dutch Flat School Computer Lab (and professional photographer, BTW)
rustybel@foothill.net