Re: Digital camera and Linux
>>>>> On Fri, 06 Jul 2001 10:39:20 -0400, Peter S Galbraith <GalbraithP@dfo-mpo.gc.ca> said:
Peter> John S. J. Anderson wrote:
Peter> I have wondered about this. I fill up a 32MB memory card
Peter> pretty quickly when taking pictures at 3.1Mpixels. A single
Peter> picture is usually around 1.1 to 1.3 MB, so that would be one
Peter> floopy per picture. I wouldn't want to (1) carry that many
Peter> floppies, (2) to forced to change the floppy after every
Peter> picture and (3) feed-in all these (slow reading) floppies to my
Peter> PC later.
Peter> This made me think the floppy thing was not viable. How does
Peter> it work out for you?
Well, the Mavica I have is 1.3 megapixels (1.6 interpolated). Actual
picture size varies from 640x480 to 1490x1104 or something close to
that. I haven't played with the smaller sizes yet (I've only had the
thing two days!), but at the highest size, one floppy is 3
pictures. Dropping 1280x1024 gives you 5 or 6; 1024x768 is 10/floppy,
IIRC.
(As an aside, there are Mavicas that have more 'megapixels'; some of
them use a CD burner to write 3 1/2" CDRs with the pictures. The Wife
declared that we didn't need to spend that much money ;^/=)
I think the feeding floppies to the computer part is, long-term, going
to be the most annoying part; but it's something that's pretty
mindless and I think I'll be able to do it while reading
mail/news/web.
For my needs (I emphasize: *my* needs), the Mavica is great. I don't
have to dick around with getting USB compiled into the kernel, I don't
have to worry about Linux-based application support, I don't even have
to worry about what sort of computers I'm around -- as long as it's
got a floppy drive and net access, I can mail pictures home to myself.
For the same money, I could have gotten something with a smaller form
factor, and greater resolution. I like the "chunkiness" of the Mavica,
because I don't have to worry about dropping it. I also am not dealing
with any Ansel Adams or Annie Leibowitz issues, so I don't need huge
resolutions -- this is basically a "snapshot" camera, and >95% of the
pictures I take with it aren't going any further than the web.
john.
Reply to: