Digital Cameras, for posting pictures.

[AMM]

I'm thinking of getting a digital camera, so I can post pictures of myself in my various skirts.

But, I know nothing about what you need.

I have a Linux box with some USB and Ethernet ports (Red Hat 9.0)

I don't really have a Windows box I can use.

Any advice as to what I need to buy/install/how to do it?

-- Alan McKenney

[crfriend]

I'm thinking of getting a digital camera, so I can post pictures of myself in my various skirts.

And in a Micro$oft-free zone, too! I salute you!

If you're thinking USB, I'm given to understand that Linux has come quite a way in supporting USB (I happen to run an insanely modified DeadHat 6.0 on antique (1995) iron here, so I can't reasonably say). A quick "Google" search on the type of camera you're considering and the keyword "Linux" might yield results. The odds of Linux being listed on a camera package approach zero....

I have (thanks to the "obsolete technology" rule in place at home, my wife being the tech-"update" "driver") a Olympus 3.3 Mpixel camera here that uses "SmartMedia" flash cards. I have a "floppy-disk" adapter for the thing. The driver is available as a source-code RPM which I had to build and back-port into my paleolithic environment; it works just fine, although it is a bit slow.

[Since1982]

I used a Sony Digital Camera to take all the pictures in my trip to Las Vegas. It's not mine, belongs to my S/O Judy, she knows about everything that's neccessary to transfer the pictures from the camera to the Computer. Unfortunately, she's an early sleeper and has already gone to bed for the night. As soon as I awaken tomorrow, (she awakens at 5:00 A.M. Est.) I'll get her to email you with everything you need. Her email address will be sent by me to you so you know when she sends the information she's not a spammer bothering you. She's quite the computer whiz, I'm a computer dumbo. We have a good symbiosis, I pay the bills, she keeps the computers working. I'll email you her email address so you'll accept it. Good Luck! :whiteflag

[AMM]

And in a Micro$oft-free zone, too! I salute you!

Well, it's as much my being cheap (I didn't even buy the RH 9.0, I got it for my birthday a few years ago) and that Windows has always been a mystery to me, full of unpleasant surprises, even though I have to use it every day at work. It's just way too complicated for me. And, unfortunately, the Linux distributions are moving in the same direction.

My boss gave me an earful when he heard that I was using something as antediluvian as RH 9.0. And he never misses an opportunity to make fun of me for preferring "prehistoric" twm to whatever latest whiz-bang window manager is available on my Solaris box at work. He says I obviously can't handle newer technology. (Maybe that's why I'm a Unix software developer.)

If you're thinking USB, ...

Not really "thinking USB", but some newer stuff for computers seems to assume the presence of a USB port. E.g., my son got a "memory stick" that sticks into a USB port to bring his school work home.

Actually, I have no idea how all these people who have digital cameras get their pictures onto computers. The pictures are apparently stored on tiny cards of various sizes that look like flat-pack IC chips, but I haven't seen a computer that has a slot for them (or do they stick on the back of the camera?) And niether the cameras nor the chips seem to have an RS-232 port.

I don't think it's possible to underestimate my knowledge of how this stuff is done. Even the "see Spot run" kind of explanation is likely to go over my head.

-- AMM

[binx]

All digital cameras come with USB ports and a cable to download the pictures. Get the highest megapixels you can afford.

binx

[crfriend]

All digital cameras come with USB ports and a cable to download the pictures. Get the highest megapixels you can afford.

True, most digicams come with USB connections, but they're increasingly showing up with Firewire as well. The mega-pixel count is constantly moving upwards, but that's, in my opinion, a somewhat less-than-useful number.

The basics of cameras hold, whether one is exposing a piece of film at the focal-plane or a CCD -- and that implies that the optics are still of paramount importance. If you don't have a nice sharp optical image at the focal-plane, then it doesn't matter what your pixel-count is.

My advice here would be to get the best optics affordable, with either a very good zoom lens or interchangeable lenses, and worry about the pixel-count later on. "Focus first"!

After focus, one needs to evaluate how the camera is to be used. Do you do a lot of low-light shooting? If so, you'll need a camera with a CCD that handles those situations well. Do you routinely need long focal lengths? If so, interchangeable lenses will probably be a must. Are you just shooting for web images and aren't planning to do either printed enlargements or post-processing? If so, you can probably make do with a $50 cheapie; typical web images are 640x480 and below -- why bother with a multi-mega-pixel camera when you'll just throw all that extra definition out when scaling to web size?

Sorry for the rant; I used to be an amateur photographer and still take my gear pretty seriously (for high-definition work, I shoot film and then scan a print or even an enlargement; the results are infinitely better than most digicams can do).

[AMM]

True, most digicams come with USB connections, but they're increasingly showing up with Firewire as well.

And I though USB was pretty "modern." No RS-232?

The basics of cameras hold, ... and that implies that
the optics are still of paramount importance. If you don't have a nice sharp optical image at the focal-plane, then it doesn't matter what your pixel-count is...

I used to take a fair number of pictures. I still have two Pentax SLR's with a total of 4 different lenses. I just haven't gotten around to taking any pictures for 10--15 years. (Part of my life I have to get back now that I'm on my own.) So the optics side is familiar to me.

What's not familiar is all the stuff that's different -- I know about the speed vs. grain trade-off, but not so much how that translates to digital. And I have no idea how you take the chip and turn it into hard copy or into a JPEG on a Linux box (other than going to the local CVS -- but if I felt comfortable letting CVS look at my pictures, I would stick with 35mm.)

I also don't know much about things like: how critical is lighting? Film is relatively forgiving of poor exposure or high contrast (e.g., sunrise over Lake George), video is not. And what do I have to watch out for? (One salesman said optical zoom was more important for digital cameras due to the limited resolution.)


I also don't want to put down a lot of money at this point, since I'm not sure I'll want to use this as my main camera -- I still have the prejudice that for good pictures, you need to use film (and good film.)

-- AMM

[crfriend]

And I though USB was pretty "modern." No RS-232?

RS-232 was never used for camera interfaces. Personally, I've used it for lots of things it was never designed for, but transferring images from a camera to a computer isn't one of them.

"Card adapters" do exist for USB; I installed a couple for a good friend of mine when I was last on vacation. They've got all sorts of slots in front for various common card formats and a USB-2 jack in the back. They're pretty quick, too -- much faster than the "floppy-adapter" I use with my paleolithic kit.

What's not familiar is all the stuff that's different -- I know about the speed vs. grain trade-off, but not so much how that translates to digital. And I have no idea how you take the chip and turn it into hard copy or into a JPEG on a Linux box (other than going to the local CVS -- but if I felt comfortable letting CVS look at my pictures, I would stick with 35mm.)

Typical consumer-grade CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) imagers aren't usually all that good in poor light; hence, the blindingly brilliant flashes that digicams use. Professional-grade kit will be a bunch better in that regard, but very pricey.

The CCD is an array of photosensors, grouped in either rows or colums of three, with an optical colour-mask (red, green, and blue) applied over that. Each "pixel" in the array is actually a triad of sensors, one for each primary colour. These get scanned from the chip and then compressed, in the camera, into any number of formats; mine does JPEG and TIFF, with various levels of compression-aggresivity available for JPEG (it also shoots "Quick-time" movies). These get stored, on the camera's memory card in a DOS-like "file system" so when the card gets accessed either via USB (or in my case, the floppy-adapter) it looks like a normal disk; one just copies the files (pictures) from one place to another.

I also don't know much about things like: how critical is lighting? Film is relatively forgiving of poor exposure or high contrast (e.g., sunrise over Lake George), video is not. And what do I have to watch out for? (One salesman said optical zoom was more important for digital cameras due to the limited resolution.)

Lighting, with consumer-grade kit, will make or break any shot you do, and fill-flash is almost universally a good idea; most of the CCDs don't do terribly well for linearity at the bottom of the light range. Now that's not to say you can't take low-light shots; just don't expect them to look like film footage. You're dealing with a technology far closer to video than chemistry -- on the plus side, you're dealing with "modern" video so you don't need to worry about Vidicon idiosyncracies.

And, yes, your salesman is correct; the better your zoom optics are, the better your long-range shots will be. My camera is a 2048x1536 model -- which is more than enough for web-work. But, it turned out to be woefully inadequate for very long-range work when The Wife and I visited Kennedy Space Center to see the last Columbia launch -- I should have brought my "chemical cameras". The digicam I have only has a 3x zoom -- which is not the same as what one would expect from, say, a 70 - 210 mm zoom lens on a 35 mm film camera. Comparing the limited resolution of the CCD (which is an absolute) to the grain structure in film (which can be upwards of hundreds of thousands, or even millions for some emulsions, in either dimension) shows up why, once again, optics are king.

I also don't want to put down a lot of money at this point, since I'm not sure I'll want to use this as my main camera -- I still have the prejudice that for good pictures, you need to use film (and good film.)

My advice would be, then, to get a upper-low to midrange camera that has a decent zoom to it and comes from a company that's known for good optics; you'll find yourself using it in ways you wouldn't use your chemical camera, too, and sometimes that's a "good thing".

[Bob]

I use my digital camera with SuSE Linux 9.1 (now ancient). There are two ways to get photos off of it:

1. I use Digikam, which is part of KDE. You plug the camera in via the USB cable, and it works for most cameras.

2. My camera records onto CompactFlash cards (SD cards are similar). Get a "flash memory reader" that fits your card --- about $10-15 max. Plug that into your computer via the USB port, and it works just like any other USB mass storage device. Copy your files off, and you're done!

[AMM]

Many thanks for all the advice!

Some last few questions:

1. Any specific recommendations for a camera?
2. What software do I need on my Linux box to take pictures off of the CompactFlash or SD (or whatever) cards and make them into JPEG's? Do I need to install all 50 terrabytes of whiz-bang dancing-baloney-and-Rockettes graphics software that comes on the Linux distribution disks and which I usually don't install in order to do it?
3. crfriend mentioned "USB-2", from which I infer there was a "USB-1". Are there different, incompatible flavors of USB that I have to watch out for?

-- AMM

[Since1982]

I use a Sony Mabica which has a flash that is able to be used or turned off. It has a removable USB cable for plugging into the computer. Worked great for me in Las Vegas. Areas where they didn't allow flash cameras were well lit anyway and I got lots of shots of Celebrities and a couple of celebrities actually posed with me with people from the Poker courtesy suites taking the pictures. I got autographs of Tobey Mc Guire aka Spiderman, Ben Affleck aka DareDevil, Jennifer Tilly and James Woods + a ton of Poker celebrities including the last 3 years main event winners. Chris "Money800" Moneymaker, Greg "Fossilman" Raymer and Joe "Pass the Sugar" Hachem. Joe Hachem won the main event in 2005 for a top prize of $7,500,000.00...WOWZIE.

[Bob]

USB drivers are already installed on Linux. On my Linux, the USB disk you plug in looks like a SCSI hard drive (/dev/sd0, etc). Automounting is SUPPOSED to happen when you plug in the USB drive, but it usually doesn't. Quick work with the mount command can remedy that.

Pictures should already be on the flash memory cards, stored as JPEGs using the FAT (MS-DOS) file system.

USB 2.0 is faster than USB 1.1. There's backward compatibility involved here. Most likely you won't have a problem.