Issue 14
Contents
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | A Bird's Nest
- | Snap Happy
- | The SCSIDRV programming interface
- | Sprite Editor
- | Atari UK
- | E-Jag Day 2k1
- | Put some Charm in your Chaos
- | Anodyne Competition results
Reviews
- | PhotoTip 3.10
- | AtarIRC and AtarICQ
News
Snap Happy The latest digital camera advice from Dave Barkin This brief little article is not a full description of digital cameras and certainly not a review, but it is a brief introduction. Most importantly I think Atari owners should know they can access these machines with their own Atari computers. So here's how to get the images into your computer and some words, warnings and odds and ends. Atari computers can make use of just about all digital cameras which come with removable memory cards. First there's the shareware program "PhotoTip" which directly supports Olympus cameras through the serial port. I understand this program also supports some other cameras. I neither have nor used PhotoTip (Check out our separate review in this issue - Ed). It's available for trial use and the price of the unhindered version is not going to send you to the poor house. Aside from letting you download photos it also has some image processing features. Now some really good news If a digital camera uses a removable memory card, whether Smart Media or Compact Flash, then you can download the files easily into your Atari. It just costs extra money. This is money well spent. Downloading 20 or 30 large image files through the serial port is a time consuming operation for any computer. Macs or IBMs can make use of card readers. These are devices in which you place the removable memory card and the files are downloaded at a much higher rate than via the serial port. For example, it took me 20 minutes to download 8MB of pictures to my Mac via the serial port. I purchased an SCSI PCMCIA card reader. The same 8MB card downloaded to my Mac in 20 seconds. On my Atari it took 10 seconds. In essence, if you're going to be taking a lot of pictures you'll want the card reader anyway. The USB or Firewire versions, both of which cannot be used with an Atari, have really come down in price and can be purchased for under $50. The SCSI version is more expensive. The cheaper models with one slot (and why would I want more than one slot?) sell from $125 to $175 depending upon brand. If I purchased a model with three slots I would have to pay almost $400 (What am I nuts? I download one card at a time, why would I need three slots?) I own both Minolta and Microtek readers and there's not much to choose between them. These are simple devices that plug into the SCSI chain. The same ease (and problems) you have plugging in any SCSI device holds for these card readers. You will also need the program MEDIACHG which is part of the HD-Driver package. Or you could use BIGDOS, the freeware package. If you use memory cards over 32MB you will absolutely have to use BIGDOS. Otherwise your computer will not recognise the cards. With the smaller cards your drive will be recognized but you will be unable to access the cards because the formatting is different. MEDIACHG can be run from the desktop although I found no conflicts if I ran it from the AUTO folder. Here's a benefit of using an Atari: memory cards sometimes become defective or unusable. The manufacturer tells you to "use another card." I own about thirty of these cards and twice cards became useless. The camera could not format the cards and according to Olympus, whose camera I was using, I should have just thrown them away. I decided to try repairing these cards. My Mac would crash when attempting to use these cards. Using HD-Driver I was able to format the card. The card of course is useless using Atari format, but after formatting I found that the camera could then format and use the cards! I've lost none of my cards and saved over $100 because I own an Atari! Just what is a digital camera? When you take a picture with a conventional camera, a shutter opens which has been protecting the light sensitive film. Your camera lens then focuses this light onto the film. This film, once exposed to light records the image. You then happily trot down to the photo lab and after processing, you can view your pictures. Essentially a digital camera is really identical to a conventional camera with the following important differences: instead of the light focusing on film it focuses on an electronic light sensitive receiver. The majority of digital camera's use something called a CCD receiver (Charge Coupled Device, identical to the receivers on flatbed scanners). These receivers, composed of millions of sensors, then transmit the image to the camera's memory, either fixed or removable. If the camera has fixed memory, you then plug your camera into the computer and download the images or if removable memory, plug the chip into an adapter and once again download the images. Only the cheaper models of camera still use fixed memory. The overwhelming majority use removable memory chips. This makes a lot of sense. You're not vulnerable to replacing the whole camera because the built-in memory failed and you can also think of these chips as "digital film" and carry many of these chips around so you never run out when you're stashed in the Athabascan National Forest. It should also be noted that aside from CCD there's another form of receiver called CMOS (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semiconductor). CMOS uses much less energy than CCD. The problem with CMOS at the present time is they simply are not as good as CCD receivers. However this is changing and we may soon see more CMOS machines. Cautions and expenses To use your Smart Media or Compact Flash card with any card reader you need an adapter. You plug the card into the adapter and then plug the adapter into the card reader. Any Compact Flash adapter will work for Compact Flash cards and the adapter is around $15. With Smart Media cards, however, the adapter must have the right capacity to read the card. The adapters are over $60 and if you have an 8MB adapter it won't read the larger cards. Make sure you get the right one! Files, formats and software Images on digital cameras are stored in a variety of formats. JPEG, TIFFF and a number of proprietary formats. You must own software that can read these formats. PhotoTip, Photoline, ImageCopy, GEM View, Calamus and other programs can all read most of these formats. Most of the proprietary formats are options with the cameras and require special software. However, none of these cameras use just the proprietary formats. Indeed it seems to be something which only high-end consumer and professional cameras use. There are advantages. For example, the extremely high-end Nikon DX1 can take pictures of 17MB (yes, that's one picture). The 17MB represent a TIFF file, which I had no trouble using with my Atari. But they also used a proprietary format of compressed raw data. This is a format which loses no information but still gives a fairly high image compression ratio. The 17MB image becomes 11MB. While I could download this file I could not make any use of it. This is a problem I can live with. Most digital camera's also use the JPEG format. This is a format that does lose image data but in the lower compression ratios this is not noticeable unless you save them over and over again in the JPEG format. In fact, my particular machine, while allowing the use of TIFF as a capture format, also uses JPEG files with different levels of compression. I take all of my images with the highest quality JPEG format. A word of caution here: if a 7MB file is stored as a JPEG at 2MB, the file is still a 7MB file when loaded into your image processing software. Once you've downloaded the image it can be used as you would use any image. You're limited by your software, your imagination and your computer's memory. If all you want to do is crop and rotate your pictures any of the mentioned software will be able to do this. In fact, PhotoTip is a more powerful program than the software that comes with these machines, so you're not out much cash. In addition the Atari has some decent image processing programs that do much, much more than that. Aside from the above mentioned software there is also True Image, DA's Picture and especially DA's Repro which can do marvels with photographs. I'm probably leaving out a number of other programs. PixArt can be used for image processing and there are others. DA's Repro can only load TIFF files, so I convert my JPEGs to TIFF and then load them into Repro. Your main limitations are memory. On the other hand you don't have to purchase a camera that takes 17MB files. What to look for in a digital camera There has been an explosion in digital cameras with just about everyone and their mother-in-law getting into the act. You can, for under a thousand dollars, purchase a camera which comes close to a 35mm in quality. But, these cameras have limitations in lens flexibility and quality which limit their capabilities. Cameras like the Nikon DX1 (which I have used but don't own) overcome these problems by actually using regular Nikon lenses. For under $6,000 you can buy this camera. Some other brands such as Fuji, Canon and others also make cameras which make use of interchangeable lenses and have the same flexibility as a 35mm camera. What about the cheaper machines? You can buy a camera for under $500 that should meet almost all your photographic needs. While the price may be extreme keep in mind that you won't need to ever again buy film (just a good printer, ink and lots and lots of paper) or have to go and get your pictures developed. You can print only those images you want. You can publish them on the internet and e-mail them to friends. And of course some of the best photos in the world have been shot with little 110 cameras. You can actually buy a point and shoot digital camera for $300, just don't expect too much. Things to avoid or be wary about Many digital cameras come with "digital zoom" capabilities. Essentially there's a ROM chip on the camera whose embedded software interpolates the image to give you this extra magnification. This is essentially a useless function if you have software that does the same thing. The Atari program Photoline can interpolate an image and so can the optional filters module of Calamus. It's a great option for printing an 8x10 image without jaggies but there is actually no improvement to the image. Interpolation does not increase the resolving power of the camera. The software enlarges an existing image by "intelligently" adding pixels of intermediate average color as it expands the existing image. If you're paying good money for a camera then look for optical zoom, not digital zoom. Look for TTL. This means "through the lens." Like a real 35mm SLR you are looking through the lens and you will see what you're actually photographing. The parallel view finds distort what you will actually capture on film. Many of these machines can even capture video. If that's what you want, fine, but keep in mind you're paying for this option and the price may hide a cheaper quality camera with a neat trick. Also there's only so much video you can capture on these removable memory chips. If you want video go and buy a video camera. Power consumption. Many of these machines eat batteries. Don't buy a camera with a proprietary battery. No matter how good the camera you're going to be paying for their batteries! Purchase a machine that allows you to use standard type batteries and heck, go and buy some really good rechargeable batteries along with a charger. Four AA batteries will last about 10 minutes with my camera while the high quality NIMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) types will last for 100 pictures and then I recharge them. I actually carry around a few spare sets but I make money with this gadget. Another thing to look for is the LCD screen which displays the image. This is a great idea, you can examine the images you've taken, delete the ones you don't like and so on. However, this screen eats energy. Look for a camera that allows you to turn off the screen. The truth is while I really appreciate this screen I rarely use it. My batteries last three times as long with this screen off. I have enough memory chips to keep everything. I prefer to do my deleting at home. Sometimes a poorly composed image has a detail worth cropping and no matter how good the LCD image it won't show me that detail. Be wary of "near professional" cameras. The Olympus E-20 has a list price of $1,999 and is billed as a professional camera. After using one of these I was not impressed. While better than most digital machines it still had many of the limitations of the lower end machines selling for a thousand dollars less and almost none of the advantages of the really high end digital or 35mm cameras. If you're on a budget (and who isn't) but can afford to spend over $500 make sure the lens you get is threaded for adapters. While not as good as interchangeable lenses you can buy some decent telephoto and wide angle adapters. If there are no threads on the lens barrel you're stuck with what the manufacturer supplies, if anything at all. Just how many pixels are enough? This is the latest thing in consumer level cameras. I've owned four different machines. The latest having 2.5 million pixels. This amount is enough to print out at 5x7. Using software interpolation I've gone as high as 16x20 without serious artefacts. Considering what's out there I would say that 2 megapixels is what you should look for but how good is the lens and the CCD receiver? There's a lot more to image quality than the number of pixels. Canon makes a 1.7 megapixel machine which uses interchangeable lenses and takes much higher quality images than some of the 4 or 5 megapixel machines out there.
Useful contacts Finally, there's a decent web site with quite a few reviews. In particular they've confirmed my opinions of some of the cameras mentioned above. http://www.dcresource.com
MyAtari magazine - Feature #4, December 2001
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