Digital Cameras Really Are Cheaper, Better Than Film--Know Your Options
Jan 30 '01 (Updated Jan 04 '02)
The Bottom Line Digital cameras can save you a lot of money when you factor in film developing costs. They come with a lot of different options--important to know before buying one.
I've been using a digital camera (Olympus C2000-Z) for over a year now. I can't think of a more useful -- and fun -- device since the home computer debuted just over twenty years ago. I've been so excited by the technology I had to get one for my parents (Kodak DC290) and my sister and brother-in-law (Casio QV3000 Plus). Purchasing the right digital camera for you involves several factors. In the article below I talk about how digital cameras are used versus film cameras, the costs involved with digital versus film cameras, memory card options, battery options, the benefits of having an LCD screen, ways to display digital pictures cheaply, how to compare picture quality between digital and film cameras to figure out which resolution you need (i.e. megapixels), and special features.
Digital cameras are slightly different from film cameras. With film cameras you take pictures and take them to a developer, who gives you prints or slides. Digital cameras, on the other hand, record pictures typically in the form of JPEG files which you simply copy from your camera or removable memory card (called digital film) to your computer. That's where the cost savings comes in and is easily illustrated below. I also talk about why traditional prints and slides are largely today no longer necessary (prints can be obtained from digital pictures from film developers if they are needed for some reason, for example see www.kodak.com).
While digital cameras seem expensive at first, in the very short term they pay for themselves in savings from purchasing and developing film. To give you some numbers, a 32MB SmartMedia card (I talk about digital camera media in detail later in this article) is good for about 75 pictures in my Olympus C-2000Z which takes pictures at 800 speed. Each of these cards now run for $59.99 (www.sandisk.com, choose the "Online Store" option). Ignoring sales which, admittedly are frequent, the lowest price per exposure I can find for film at www.walgreens.com is $0.14 (at a lousy 100 speed). I'm estimating at this point that you probably can't develop a roll of 36 exposures for less than $7 (check my article later for a more exact number), so for now we'll say that developing costs about $0.19 per exposure--bringing our total cost per exposure to a minimum of $0.33 for film cameras. Those previously mentioned 75 exposures would run to $24.75 with film. Use that 32MB SmartMedia card 3 times to capacity, and it's paid for. This is not hard to do. Most people I know who've started with digital cameras take pictures like they never had before. In one year, I took nearly 1,100 pictures which by our conservative estimates brings my cost savings to $363.
Up front, digital cameras look kind of frightening. I bought mine a year ago for $800 plus about $200 of additional expenses for rechargeable batteries, a camera case, and SmartMedia cards. Now, you can jump in at almost the same level for about $400 for a 2.1 megapixel camera (I'd consider the 2.3 megapixel Toshiba PDR-M60 which is currently marked down to $379.95 at www.wolfcamera.com), $59.99 for a 32MB SmartMedia card, $32 for a recharging unit and two sets of batteries, and $25 for the camera case--or a total of $517. This seems a lot, but your camera will grow on you like a film camera (for most people) never could, and over time it will save you money. For example, my parents went to Europe with a digital camera and took over 800 pictures in about two weeks. In addition, over the course of a year with my digital camera, I took over 1100 pictures on a number of small trips, holidays, festivals, etc., so even around home I'm getting very good usage. Finally, if you're not looking at digital cameras for the artistic or touristy aspects there are plenty of utilitarian purposes that will keep you just as busy, such as doing a home inventory for insurance, photographing items for repair to convey information to a repair person or to make an insurance claim(what's really great is that when you print your picture--you can write on it to better illustrate what the problem is), recording the move-in condition of a rental house or apartment, assisting with complicated repairs by photographing each step as the item is disassembled, or taking pictures while shopping for things like a new house, boat, or car. More recently, I got tired of rental car companies trying to stick me for vehicle damage I didn't do because they didn't get all the dots indicating damage in the right places on the paperwork. I photograph rentals with a small digital camera attachment for my Casio Cassiopeia E-125 (a PDA--or Personal Data Assistant) and send the printouts to myself in the mail to get a time/date stamp from the post office (to be handed over to my insurance company--if necessary). I guess I can't say more loudly that almost no matter what you spend there are plenty of reasons that digital cameras will save you a lot of money over film cameras. Now, we are going to try to save you even more money buy looking at your digital film options and other features.
The two most common digital film options are SmartMedia and CompactFlash. SmartMedia is very small and thin. It's about an inch by about an inch and a half with a thickness of about 1 millimeter. They come in 8MB, 16MB, 32MB, 64MB, and 128MB sizes (no cameras supporting 128MB SmartMedia appear to be available). My camera is limited to the 32MB size (and lower) at $59.99 which for me at 2.1 megapixels turns out consistently to be about 75 pictures. CompactFlash is a much more flexible standard. My next camera will probably be CompactFlash. CompactFlash comes in different standards which I will try to explain. Products that talk about having a CF memory feature are usually only CF Type I (limited to CF cards as large as 192MB), CF Type II appears to be limited to cards no larger than 300MB (and has backward compatibility with CF Type I), and CF+ Type II can use CF Type II cards or IBM microdrives (1GB microdrives can be found at www.ibm.com for $459, while 300MB CF Type II cards are only available for no less than $734.99 at www.sandisk.com through their "online store"--all prices do not include shipping and taxes). The key here is really that the IBM microdrive is much cheaper than the other memory options. For vacations, you will want lots of memory to take pictures. Some other options have started to appear, such as the IOMega FotoShow ($299.95 at www.iomega.com) which allows you to transfer pictures from your memory card to Zip disks ($55.95 for a 4-pack of 250MB Zip disks, i.e. 1GB of storage) and even display them on your TV or transfer them to video tape; you can also use IOMega FotoShow as a Zip drive on your PC. On price alone the IOMega FotoShow is very competitive even when including the cost of the drive, and it has the multiple uses I just discussed. However, if portability is your main concern, the best choice still seems to be either buying lots of SmartMedia or CompactFlash or buying an IBM microdrive (probably the 1GB version if you really like taking pictures). And, yes, ouch! It's expensive--just remember all that film you're not buying anymore.
There are other digital camera memory options that I don't recommend such as those that support floppy disks, use only internal memory, or use proprietary memory cards. Floppy disks only store about 4 pictures at 2.1 megapixels, and cameras that use internal memory also only store a very small number of pictures--and worse you can only use it again after unloading it at your computer (or deleting some pictures). Neither of these types are good for vacations or, possibly, even day trips. Lastly, cameras that use proprietary memory cards lock you into buying them from only one manufacturer and seem to be more expensive than either SmartMedia or CompactFlash.
At this point, I'm not sure what to think of batteries. I seem to be getting very different usage from my batteries versus what my family members are getting in their cameras. I don't use my batteries conservatively at all. I view almost every single picture on my LCD display, yet I'm able to snap about 120 to 160 pictures before running them down and having to put in a fresh set. The rest of my family seems to be reporting about 70+ pictures before having to change the batteries. They have CompactFlash cameras, while mine uses SmartMedia. Also, my camera will only take up to 2.1 megapixel pictures, while their cameras will take 3.3 megapixels (however, my father frequently takes pictures at a much lower resolution). I'm wondering if it simply takes more power for higher resolution cameras to store pictures or if it is simply the brand--more recently, I have noticed that I'm getting about 70+ pictures when I leave the LCD screen on all the time, using it instead of the view finder to take pictures. Another thing, my manual is almost paranoid about telling me to recharge my batteries just before use. I found sources on the web that assert that the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries have a high discharge rate (i.e. they discharge even when not in use). The rate given ranged from between 7% to 12% per day. Yet, I've taken over 60 pictures with my camera from a set of NiMH batteries that had been sitting around for over a month--and should have been at least half drained from previous use. By the way, NiMH are extremely resistant to memory problems (one recommendation is to run them all the way down before recharging at least once every three months--other than that you can supposedly recharge them at will). Lithium batteries, on the other hand, are supposed to have a very low discharge rate of about 1% per day and don't have any memory problems. If you're interested on more technical information about how to care for batteries, www.igo.com has a very good FAQ on batteries.
The short of it is that you can buy a camera that takes AA batteries, in which case I highly recommend using NiMH rechargeables--lithium disposable batteries are available if you feel NiMH just won't get you through a vacation somewhere (away from your recharging unit). I like the AA battery option because you can buy AA batteries almost anywhere (and if you're in a pinch regular alkaline batteries will work for a short time--about 18 pictures in my camera--and the higher drain alkalines seem to be commonly available in grocery stores). The alternative is to get a camera that takes a custom battery which is going to cost a bit extra. I wouldn't even consider using custom batteries, unless they were lithium.
When it comes to changing batteries, most digital cameras are difficult. The Casio QV3000 is the best one I've seen for this feature. The battery door slides cleanly open and shut. With my Olympus C2000-Z, however, I have to clamp it shut with one hand and lock the door using a lever with the other hand. Frankly, the door looks wedged even when fully closed. I thought the Kodak DC290 was also a bit awkward, but my soon to retire parents don't seem to have any trouble.
If saving money or small camera size are a top priority for you, that may mean doing without an LCD screen--something you should think about carefully. Every time I encounter and start using a new technology, I go through a period of discovery. The digital camera is no different. One thing I've always hated about taking pictures with film cameras is that it's so hard to get people to smile. I know exactly how they feel. When someone is trying desperately to photograph me, I feel really strange trying to smile at a glass lens. Well, with a digital camera, I accidentally found a way around this problem. I was photographing staff at the Kerrville Folk Music festival. Some people were just darn shy (at least in front of a camera). So, I turned on the LCD screen and held the camera away from my face. I gave them a person to smile at, instead of a camera. Another use for the LCD screen was that it let me hold my camera far above my head to photograph what I simply couldn't get at eye level. The LCD screen also gives me instant feedback. I can tell faster than you can with a Polaroid instant film camera whether I got the shot I wanted--and usually I have a chance for a few more if I messed up the first one.
The LCD screen is also used to display the options menu for the camera. This is a major item to look at before making a purchase. You should be able to learn a lot about the camera just by looking at this. Also, I found a lot of cameras with really bad, hard to use options menus. This seems to vary camera to camera, as opposed to maker to maker--so make sure you checkout exactly the camera you want to buy. Good menus will be displayed in English. Sounds funny, doesn't it? Well, my Olympus C2000-Z displays all its menus in symbols without almost any English. They did this to make the camera easy to internationalize. You read the manual in your native language to find out what all the symbols mean. If you hate reading manuals, forget it. To be fair to Olympus, once you learn the symbols, most aren't hard to remember. However, I saw other cameras where the options were just difficult to see because of the fonts and color--even though they were in English. On other cameras, the menus and controls just seemed awkward in general.
Digital cameras can be big money savers--the trick is finding new ways to display your pictures without creating a traditional set of prints. The pictures, themselves, are typically stored in JPEG format and can be copied to your computer from the memory card using the camera or a memory card reader (essentially just like copying files from a floppy disk). JPEG files can be opened as a file in a web browser and viewed, or they can be opened in other software (which usually comes with the camera) where the pictures can be manipulated or changed, such as cropping, fixing red eye, reducing, or even turning them into something that looks like charcoal or colored chalk drawings. To display them or share them with friends, I use several inexpensive methods. First, I use digital pictures for Windows Wallpaper (for those of you not familiar with this, right-click on a picture in Microsoft's Internet Explorer and select "Set as Wallpaper"). This is a great way to enjoy them, since I'm at a computer almost every day of the week. Second, late on Christmas Eve, I realized I was out of Christmas labels for my Christmas presents. I simply took digital pictures from the year before and printed out tiny Christmas labels. They were a big hit. Third, sharing digital pictures with friends is as easy as sending e-mail or making a CD-R (CD-Rs now typically cost $0.50 each and the half-sized jewel cases also run $0.50). I gave a bunch of CD-Rs (for those who don't know, CD-Rs are like a CD) to friends at the Kerrville Folk Music Festival. I used a digital picture to print the label. I gave away 50 of them with about 150 pictures on each one. I will be giving another 50 away next time. This would be just too expensive with prints. Finally, I also carry around my photo albums on my Casio Cassiopeia E-125 to show friends, family, and co-workers. Other PocketPC and Palm OS PDAs can also do this. You can also do fun things like print iron-ons for T-shirts using special "paper" you can buy at your local office supply store for about $20--great for the kids! Using these various methods to display your pictures, you can enjoy them like you never could with a regular photo album.
If you do decide to print some pictures for display, I'd recommend considering 2.1 megapixel cameras and higher (see next paragraph for more details). So far, I've been extremely pleased with the results. I printed 8" x 11" pictures on my HP DeskJet 970Cse printer and have them (along with regular sized prints) hanging on my wall in picture frames. When you look at them, you can't see any difference between those pictures and those from a film camera, except close up the digital ones look sharper (my film camera had a cheap lens) and the colors seem better.
Now, let's talk about megapixels. Most cameras now range from the 1.0 to 4.0 megapixel variety. Megapixels determine what resolutions you can use to take pictures. My camera supports 2.1 megapixels which means the highest resolution supported is 1600 x 1200 pixels. Kodak's website (www.kodak.com) advertises what resolution pictures they need to print digital pictures on photo paper (i.e. you would get a set of prints just like you do with a film camera). While I would argue that this doesn't make much sense given all the options described above, they claim they need at least a 1.3 megapixel picture to create an 8" x 10" print. In general, the higher the resolution you take a picture the higher your number of options. With photo editing software you can always downsize images without any distortion, but you can't go in the other direction without picking up graininess. 1.2 megapixel cameras start at less than $200 and 4.0 megapixel cameras are nearly $2000 (www.bestbuy.com). Consider this option carefully.
Resolution is the single most important feature of a digital camera, except for the lens. A lot of the lower end digital cameras come with really small lenses. If you just want to build a photo album, these might be okay. However, if you're thinking about displaying your pictures on your wall--avoid them. The bigger the lens, the more light gathering power it has. The lens is a major factor in determining the price of a camera.
Finally, digital cameras come with several differentiating features. Some take additional lenses (such as a wide-angle lens). This is no problem for digital cameras because you can use the LCD screen to see exactly what you're photographing. Other cameras offer a remote control. Many cameras can now take small MPEG movies. My brother-in-law used this feature to make a movie of my Christmas tree, so you can see the changing light patterns. A few cameras can record sound, usually allowing you to associate some sort of recording with a picture or provide sound for a movie, but be warned that some cameras only make silent movies.
Update: My sister and brother-in-law have been having some trouble with the Casio QV3000 Plus. When their IBM 340MB MicroDrive gets close to filling up, the camera when turned off at some point goes into a processing cycle that lasts a few minutes (obviously, this could cause you to miss a shot--however my brother-in-law thinks the camera is defragmenting the MicroDrive to make space for more pictures). They are still relatively satisfied with the camera, since it has some neat features such as automatically detecting when you take portrait shots and flipping the images so they appear as landscape (in other words with the same orientation as your other pictures). I have had no trouble with my Olympus C2000-Z and my parents report no problems for the Kodak DC290.
About digital film readers, my brother-in-law reports that on Windows Me the Sandisk ImageMate USB CompactFlash Card Reader (not sure about the model number) sometimes corrupts files as it transfers them to his computer; he had no trouble when transferring his files directly from his Casio QV3000 Plus via the camera's USB connection. I have also had trouble with the Sandisk ImageMate reader on Windows 2000. I prefer the Lexar Media Universal USB Reader ($59.99 at www.bestbuy.com) which I have been using now with Windows 2000 for about 7 months (or nearly 1000 pictures transferred). I usually view my pictures after transferring them and have noticed no trouble.
Finally, a new type of digital film is emerging called CD-R and CD-RW--the 3 inch diameter variety (156MB). Sony appears to be the only manufacturer to offer this option. I was recently walking around in a local retailer and noticed that Sony now offers two models, the MVC-CD200 (2.1 megapixels at $799.95) and MVC-CD300 (3.3 megapixels at $999.95), with a CD-R/CD-RW drive (see www.sony.com for details). CD-R and CD-RWs are so inexpensive and convenient compared to the other options (I've seen 3" CD-Rs available at about $1 to $2 a disk at Fry's), that I'm almost certain this will be the wave of the future. The 3 inch CD-R should be readable in most CD-ROM drives (i.e. most PCs). The CD-RW disks would require a CD-RW drive which has been commonly available in PCs sold over the past year or so. The down side is that 3" CD-Rs and CD-RWs seem to be hard to find at this point, and cameras supporting this technology may not be as durable as those supporting CompactFlash or SmartMedia which have no moving parts.
Update: Prices for CompactFlash and SmartMedia have been drastically reduced since I wrote this article (by about 40% to 60%). In addition, 1GB CompactFlash memory cards are now available (www.sandisk.com). They appear to cost about twice as much as a 1GB IBM MicroDrive--but they should be a lot more durable. Also, while many devices still do not support the IBM MicroDrive, as far as I can tell devices supporting CompactFlash Type 2 (fairly common now) should support the 1GB CompactFlash memory card.
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