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Other than the ongoing battle between NetScape and Micro$oft over world domination of the browser market, and the possible discovery of life at Apple Computers, it was a slow news summer on the 'net.

So, I took a little time off to visit friends and family, and took along a Kodak (www.kodak.com) DC-50 digital camera I recently purchased.

Do you remember how your friends, family and neighbors used to invite you over for an evening, only to entrap you into watching thousands of color slides of their trip? "Here's Uncle Ed, relieving taking himself on the Great Wall of China". "Here's Mildred, from behind, blocking out most of a beautiful Tahitian sunset".

Now, through the magic of digital technology, YOU CAN BORE PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD INSTANTLY!!! You, too, can share your Kodak Moments with anyone who has a browser, some reasonable bandwidth, and way too much time on their hands.

This little handheld hunk of ROM allows you to take photographs, then hook up a cable and download them to your PC, where you can save the images into one of many (2) graphic formats commonly employed on the Web, then upload them to your Web site.

The image quality of the DC-50 is quite impressive for a camera that lists at $995 (US), but can be picked up at discount shops. I bought mine in New York City for $880, plus $250 for a six-megabyte PC card to expand its capacity from 7 high-quality (around 170K each) images to 42, or from 22 low-quality (around 45K each) images to 132. Once inside your computer, you can save them in high, medium or low-quality JPEG format to conserve space and bandwidth. My experience proved that the best combination was to shoot in high-quality, then save them in low-quality JPEG format, at about 60K per image.

For comparison, I also tried out the Casio model that lists for about $500 and holds 96 images. While the Casio had the nice feature of using a tiny LCD screen as its viewfinder, the image quality could not be adjusted and the images did not turn out as well as the DC-50. A friend used one of the Casio cameras for all the photos in his Web site at www.swissmedical.com.

Another big plus for the DC-50 was the flexibility of the lens. It provides telephoto and macro capabilities and while the shutter speed was not adjustable, it did a decent job on action shots.

When you consider the entirely digital nature of this technology: taking a photo and instantly uploading it - perhaps over a cellular modem - anyone with a decent credit limit can be an instant digital journalist.

The prolific folks at C|net (www.cnet.com) have a terrific series of reviews of digital cameras, including both of those mentioned in this article.

So, if you're not doing anything later, Uncle Ed, come on over for a visit.

See you next issue

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, August 1996

Copyright © 1996 Jonathan E. Sisk.