I am wanting to buy a digital camera, to likely foray into the land of 
Ebay. (And because after all my years on Grex, no one has a damn clue 
what I look like). 

I do not want to spend more than $500, but I would like a camera with 
the floppy receptacle in it (no cable connection). I did see one at 
Best Buy, a Sony, for $500, but I feel I should shop around. 

Is there anyone who has a floppy disk digital camera who can give some 
advice on this?

74 responses total.

I dont own a floppy disk camera, i have a cable one. If you are planning to
use your camera with just one computer then a cable adapter is just as good
as the floppy disk. but, i have no real opinion about either, sorry :)

If you want high quality digital images then use a conventional camera
and get the PictureCD(C) (or PhotoCD(C) - costs more and is not always
available but very high 'photo' quality images) from Kodak when you get
the film developed.
If you really want a portable digital camera, get a video camera and
hook it up to your computer with the Hauppage TV card (or other frame
grabbers).  If you really want a video camera for your computer then get
any number of those available (mostly USB but some parallel port models
- generally in the 30-80 dollar range).  

The Barbie Camera is actually a pretty good digital camera deal - about
50 bucks. (Try Sam's Club)

All the lower cost 'digital cameras' do not produce very high quality
images.  In order to get the same resolution as a PictureCD and
conventional camera you have to spend well over a grand (so called
'megapixel' cameras).  Last time I looked, the digital cameras producing
PhotoCD quality images were in the 5 to 10 grand range.

(Spring '00 Agora #61 <--> Graphics #11

I can't resist techspeak...

The Sony Mavica digicams are the only ones that save pictures to a floppy
internally. And, they're VERY slow.

What you might want to consider, is getting a camera that accepts SmartMedia
cards, and get a floppy adapter for it. You can easily score a 1.3 megapixel
camera that will accept SmartMedia cards for under $300, if you buy online.
And the floppy adaptor is about $30, last time I checked. 

Of course, and 8mb SmartMedia card is significantly more expensive than 8
floppies. (They run about $50) But they're exponentially more reliable and
versatile.

And more convenient.

But if you want to try to WIN a digital camera... :)

http://www.familyshoebox.com/family/games

We're giving one away :)

I got a 1.3 mp, 8 mb Smartmedia Olympus on ebay <$300 (including s/h).  I
see no need for a floppy adapter - the camera itself adapts to a serial
port. I did get a couple of extra 8 mb cards of $18/ea - you have to look
around. I also got an AC adapter on ebay, but mostly because I couldn't
find the required voltage and current capacity for the camera until I got
it - now I'm also adapted to an external battery pack. 

One does not need better resolution than 1.3 mp provides for almost
any web use. 

Ok.  Lets define a few terms here:

PictureCD quality image = 1024X1536 pixels (24bit color depth?)
PhotoCD quality image = 4096x6144 pixels (Trucolor?)
megapixel = one of those slippery marketing terms.
        (640x480 is 'megapixel' even if it is black and white.                 
         
'sub-pixel rendering' of 300x300 to 600x600 is a 'megapixel')

Now, what do you want to do with the 'image'?  

For best quality and economics a conventional camera and PictureCD to my
mind is the way to go.  You get high quality images at a low cost, but
it may take as long as 4 or 5 days to get the CD with the pictures
back.  However, it is a tad expensive over time.  

A video camera and frame grabber board for your PC is more expensive
initially, but gives very good quality images and allows for a lot more
flexability in application.

A digital camera gives you generally the same 'instant' images as a
video camera/framegrabber but the image quality and cost is all over the
map (and rarely approaches video camera quality).

Your average 'web user' has a 640x480 at 16bit color depth display.  

(For what its worth, I own two K1000 Pentax and one SF10 Pentax camera
bodies with a number of different lenses/filters, a VHS-C video camera
with 3 different frame grabber boards of different vendors, three
different 'cheap' digital cameras. and a number of other video cameras
for PCs (USB, Parallel, and composite video), plus a 24bit color flatbed
scanner, and BW paper scanner(HP Officejet).)

My HP camera is a terrible battery hog.  I have to
use lithium batteries.

As usual, bdh is so far out in left field because of his tech background.

Most people want digital cameras so they can put stuff on web sites or email
pics easily to their friends.  Without having to spend money for film
development.

So, bdh's idea of using a convential camera would not only be overkill on the
image quality but a waste of money.

As for the video-camera idea hooked up to a frame grabber.. are you kidding?
That's great.. if you HAVE A video camera, and don't mind only taking pictures
while it is attached to your computer.  Doesn't exactly work out in the back
yard or at the neighbors house or while on vacation.

Digital camera's are wonderfully convenient.  As long as you get one that does
1024x768 pixel resolution at the minimum you'll be fine.

I'd also recommend picking one up with OPTICAL zoom (it works much better than
digital zoom)

Where does one find a lower-resolution used digital camera?  What do used ones
cost?  

Sigh. I don't want anything complicated. That is why I would prefer a 
camera with a floppy drive, even if it is a bit slower. I don't need one 
with a zillion options on it either. My cousin sells a lot on Ebay and 
once stomped a $1000 Olympus camera in frustration. He now has the 
floppy disk camera and says it's a zillion times easier. He just 
downloads it on the camera, pops the disk in the hard drive, uploads the 
photo and BAM he has his Ebay page ready to go. He sells watches and 
such, so a camera that has intricate detail is important. 

Assuming you have a USB port, check out the Kodak DC215 Millennium Edition.
It does 1.3 megapixels, has optical zoom, comes with an 8mb CF card, Adobe
PhotoDeluxe, and a USB CF card reader. With the card reader, all you have
to do is plug it in to a USB port, and install the software. Windows and
MacOS will "see" the card reader as a disk drive. It's very easy, and it's
REALLY fast.

I've found the camera to be easier to use than my Minolta APS camera.

You can usually find the 215 Millennium Edition for $299. You could also go
with the regular 215, but it doesn't include the USB reader, and it only has
a 4mb CF card.

She said she wants a camera with a disk
drive, shitdick.

There probably isn't any difference between "24 bit" and "TrueColor".

The floppy disk version is likely to be a lot more fragile & unreliable
because of all the moving parts.  The solid state memory + floppy
adapter is likely to be just as convenient and a whole lot nicer.
Besides, if you can deal with grex, you probably have a lot more brains
and patience than your cousin.

So far as the video-camera goes, the obvious way to deal with that is a
camcorder.  Resolution won't be as good as a good still camera.

Unless you plan to zoom in on things, bdh's "photoCD quality" above
(4kx6x) is overkill.  You would really want to reduce the size of that
image down to something a lot more manageable (and quicker to download)
before using it on a web page.

Another way to get good results would be any ordinary camera of your
choice, a 24 hr film developer, & a flatbed scanner.  It would be best
if the camera takes 35 mm film and can focus (isn't just a box camera).
The quality of the pictures could be as good as bdh's "PhotoCD" above,
and will certainly be cheaper & faster.

I decided against a floppy adapter because it has moving parts in a
structure easy to knock around or drop - not good for mechanisms. Besides,
the serial connector plug is sitting next to my computer and is very
convenient. I agree that I can't download to a computer away from home but
I'm not away from home so much that that is a problem (if you were on a
world tour and had to send your photos somewhere as you went, a floppy
disk might be the most universal interface). 

I could plug the camera into the composite port on the video card on my
computer, but I understand the resolution is poorer. I use that port for a
camcorder to grab frames. 

I find it both interesting and surprising how quickly floppy disks are
becoming obsolete for me. I use one maybe every few months, and most
recently because my daughter's i-Mac doesn't have one and someone without
a printer wanted her to print a document for them. The file exchange could
have been done over the net, however, which I find is 98%+ of my file
exchange use. I use my ZIP drive for backup more often than I use the
floppy drive.

        Beady's idea isn't out in left field at all.  Truth be told, you'll
get nearly the same quality out of an instamatic Polaroid with a decent older
film size and a good digitizer as you will out of a multi-thousand-dollar
consumer digital camera, and you can haul the former around without fear of
breaking it.  It's a solution worth noting for those ocnsidering a digital
camera.

A couple of things bdh seem off the wall to me:

* 640 by 480 "megapixel"??? 640 times 480 is 307,200. A bit more, or less,
  than a quarter of a megapixel depending on whether you're using a base 2
  or base 10 "mega".

* A video camera for good quality??? I had thought that video format was a
  bit more piss-poor even than VGA - something like 300 hrozontal lines?
  (I like the idea - you get motion picture recording *and* TV viewing on
  the monitor in the process.)

digital video (PAL format) is the way to go.  of course you won't be able to
watch it on any american televisions (unless they're brand-spankin' new)

You can haul a digitizer around without fear of breaking it? (Re #16)

        Digital video still captures at ~ 640x480 (I'm not sure of the exact
specifications), though, doesn't it?

I second twinkie's recommendation of the Kodak DC215.

to find a digital camera that meets your needs, and to learn about the options
between which you'll have to choose, check out:

        http://www2.activebuyersguide.com/

I used it when buying my digital camera, and was very pleased with the
service.  I still had to search for the best price, but I knew exactly what
i was looking for by then, which is key.

Thanks Eric, that's good to know about.

That's an interesting site. I liked its lists of features of products to
consider, but the questionnaire system for finding a product to match your
criteria is rather crude and incomplete. I happen to be choosing a pair of
binoculars and the choices I was led to by my contacts - birders -
included models not even in the site's database. It is nice, though, to
get tables of features of many different products at one site. 

Re #14: The scanner approach has the limitation that there are some colors
that a negative can capture, and that a photocd can store and that a monitor
can display, that cannot be represented by a printed photo.  So using a print
as an intermediate storage medium can lose some color info.

http://photo.net probably has some info that people may find useful.

Everything has that problem - the monitor can't display certain colors
as well, & in fact this is also true of the photocd, & the scanner.
It's inherent in the physics of light -- if you represent colors in
terms of mixing 3 primaries (be they addictive, as in light, or
subtractive, as in paint/ink), there are always certain shades that fall
outside the color triangle defined by the 3 colors chosen.  There are
worse problems - a video monitor has a very limited dynamic range so
cannot represent the same range of detail in lights and darks that the
human eye can perceive, or even that can be photographed.  That means if
you see a person standing in front of an outside window, there's a good
chance you can see both the person's face, & the sunlit tree outside.
If you were to take a photograph, you'd probably end up with a
silhouette, but with appropriate processing, you could probably get
either the tree, or the person, or with additional magic, both.  With a
video camera & monitor, you'd have a simple choice, the tree, or the
face, and you'd be better off avoiding the situation entirely.

The photocd system has the advantage of being designed as an integrated
whole; if you use Kodak film, and your monitor is properly calibrated
against expensive color standards [and assuming Kodak did its homework,
which seems likely], then you will probably get the best color fidelity
possible.  If you did something as simple as used Fuji film instead
(which has slightly *different* pigments), you'd get different results.
If your monitor isn't calibrated (and I don't know anyone who has a
calibrated monitor) your results will be off more.  If your end goal is
to put them up on a web page, about the only safe thing to say about
what *other* people see when they look at your pictures is that they'll
vary.  Your orange may very well be someone else's pink.

Just to make life more interesting, even different *people* see colors
differently.  Color blindness is of course well-known, but what may not
be so well known is that there are several different genes for one of
the pigments in the human eye that all "work", and these genes are
contained on the X chromosome.  This means there is a substantial
fraction (30% ?) of men who really & truely *do* see yellow slightly
differently than the rest of us.  What this actually means is there is
no general solution for how to map real-life color images into a 3-color
representation that will look indistinguishable from the real thing for
all people.  There *will* be slight differences for some people.

The photocd system does have another limitation.  It does *not* store as
much detail as a negative.  It's possible to blow a negative up a great
deal before losing detail.  It's not possible to enlarge a photocd to
anywhere near the same extent.  How serious this limitation is depends
on the use you plan to make of your pictures, and the quality of your
camera.

There are two variants of the gene for red.  Men can have only one.  Some
women have both so see more colors.

I am one of those rare XX chromosome types that has some color 
blindness. Nope, can't see the number 12 in the dots. My father has 
problems with red and green. 

My mother's mother (or was it her grandmother?) was blue-green
colorblind.  She always used to say things like "You can go now, the
light is blue."

As far as using a floppy disk adapter for a CF card, I would recommend
against that if you have a USB port on your computer.  There are USB
readers for CF cards that work great, they show up on your computer as
just another drive letter.  I have a Nikon digital camera with a serial
port that I could use to connect to the computer, but it's so easy (and
faster) to pop the memory card out and put in in the USB reader that I
never connect the camera to the computer.  It seems to me that doing it
that way would be as simple as if you were to take a floppy disk out of
the camera and put it in the computer -- assuming your computer can do
USB.

My impression of the floppy disk cameras is that you pay a big premium for
the convenience -- they seem to run about half again as expensive as serial
cameras of the same resolution.

A video camera plus a frame grabber will only give you about 640x480
resolution, tops -- about the same as a cheap $200 consumer digital camera. 
The color will also be poorer.  Not a good solution, IMHO.

I have a Canon digital camera.It has 5 levels of qualiyt available.

Large fine
Large normal
Small fine
small normal, adn 
Raw ccd

Large fine is 180 KB
Large normal   85KB
Small fine is  60kb
small normalis 30 kb
CCD RaW is 940 KB

The actual shutter speed is fantastic, but the reaction time is delayed.

Ypi

You can either download directly from the camera via a cable, view it on the
tv via a cable, or buy a seperate driver that attaches to the computer.  Works
with either a PC or MAC.  Price is around 300

I have an old HP digital camera.  Works fine, but it
also has a delayed shutter response, which drives me
crazy.  Lots of four-letter words trying to use it at
track meets.

        It's weird that digital cameras can be described as old.  

Anything having to do with pop-culture or computers can be described as old
in a day or two.

I bought an Agfa e-smile camera for $99.95 from an online
store.  Alas, so far it is nothing but trouble.  I chew through
two AA batteries by shooting about 5 pictures.  And so far
I have not been able to make the serial connection between
camera and computer work.  The cable looks fine, the computer
software looks fine, but computer says it can't talk to the
camera.  I am very frustrated.

FWIW, I went on and got a Sony Digital Mavica with a floppy drive. Very 
cool, and quite simple to operate. I have gotten enough back on Ebay to 
have paid for the camera and gotten a profit. And it'll be neat when my 
nephew arrives in August; I can take pics and forward them to 
everyone. :)

I had to start using lithium batteries in my HP camera.
They don't run out nearly as fast and probably cost 
less in the long run.

  considered NiMH rechargables?

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss