I agree with the always save the original before doing any editing. I have an old Sony that only has a 64meg memory stick. It only takes about 175 pictures to fill it. I usually take my laptop along on trips and download the pictures each day. I also save a copy to a 512mb flash memory for backup.

Experiment with your reduced pictures and see how large you can print them clearly. Then you can use the stitch function in your photo editing program to put two or four pictures together on one 8X10 sheet.

Another question for you photographers/computer experts:

If you convert a JPG original to a TIF format, does it improve the print quality?

 

Olympus 6 megapixel - probably uses xD cards? I've got an Olympus point-and-shoot for times when the Nikon is just too big to haul around, and those sizes sound about right - I always use SHQ - less compression. Don't recall off the top of my head if the camea has a RAW mode; will have to look when I get home...
xD cards on sale at Best Buy, atm - 1gig for $60, 2gig cards for $99. These should hold a ton of images at 6 megapixels.

Dave

 

No, because you cannot create what was not there.

The same goes for color space (sRGB vs. aRGB).

 

^
You guys are over my head now.

 

Regarding the TIFF format:

Some cameras offer the option of recording in the TIFF format, which is uncompressed. It would yield the best quality image.

However, there are some drawbacks which are significant. First, the file sizes are very large. Secondly, with some cameras, once you take the picture, the camera is "frozen" for a few minutes while the digital information is written to the memory card. When I had a Nikon Coolpix digicam, this "frozen" state would last for a little over a minute. During this time, I could not snap any other pictures. So, I quickly stopped using TIFF and instead started using the highest quality JPEG that the camera offered. Enlargements up to 8 X10 with a 3 Megapixel camera are no problem (assuming minimal cropping).

The Canon digital SLR I am currently using offers users the option of creating both a JPEG and RAW file simultaneously, so you get the best of both worlds: JPEG for quick viewing and snapshots and RAW files for quality enlargements. I don't know if other camera brands offer the same feature.

 

Lainey, the stitch function should be a part of your photo editing program. Maybe you can find instructions in the help page. It will put pictures together for you so you can print multiple pictures on one sheet. Here are a couple of examples. For all practical purposes the top two are one picture and the group of four is one picture.

 

^
Neat! Thanks for the hint. I just took at look at the program and found that. Very easy to do!

 

Has anybody had any experiance with a Tamron lens? I'm looking at a Tamron 28-200mm F/3.8-5.6 XR For SONY and Minolta Digital SLR Cameras to go on my Minolta SLR. The camera came with a 18-70mm, and I haven't invested in any additional lenses yet. I was looking for something that would give me a little more distance. The price is right on this one at $149/new with an American warranty.


dvh

 

Lainey,

Sorry if I got too technical. Your camera uses a small memory card. Most Olympus use what is called an xD card. You can swap these out, kinda like changing a roll of film to have greater storage capacity. Once you download the contents of a card to your computer, you can reformat it, of course, and start over.

For the first time I can remember, xD cards are on sale at Best Buy - gonna grab a big one for our Olympus.

Do you download your pics to your computer? If not, you should start doing so - Photoshop Elements is also on sale at Best Buy this week, and is pretty decent.

Dave

 

Dave,

That lens in Nikon mount gets terrible reviews for sharpness. The Tokina seems to be the best 3rd party in that zoom range. But I have no personal experience with any of these lenses - just what I have read.
Apparently, it is not sharp enough to autofocus easily on the Nikons.

28 may or may not be wide enough depending on the size of the sensor in the Minolta. My advice - see if you can try it out - make a few test pics, print up some of them, and see how it looks to you. It may be great on a different mount.

Dave