ith just one week until Christmas, it's clear that digital still cameras are one of the hottest high-tech gifts of the season.
Digital cameras are roughly the same size as a 35mm camera (though the Kodak DC120, at $800, looks more like binoculars). But instead of film, digital cameras use a silicon chip to capture their images. Once digitized, you can easily transfer your photographs to a personal computer, where you can view them on the screen, print them on a color printer, put them on your Web page, or e-mail them to friends.
Last year there were just a few primitive digital cameras on the market selling in the $500 range. Those cameras are still on the market today - often for less than $200.
But if you want to take photographs of lasting value, you may soon find yourself spending $400 or more for a decent system. And there are dozens to choose from.
Store inventories are shrinking fast as the holiday approaches, so I won't recommend specific digital cameras. Instead, here are features to look for - or avoid - when you go shopping.
Resolution. Probably the most important determinant of the quality of the image you get from a digital camera is the resolution of the CCD array that captures the image. Resolution is measured in pixels. Don't buy a camera that has less than 640x480, the resolution of a standard VGA monitor.
If you plan to view your images mostly on a computer screen, 640x480 may be good enough. But if you want to be able to print your photo s on a high-quality printer, or zoom in after the fact and see more detail, you will probably want a camera that offers higher resolution.
Of course, more pixels costs more money. The Vivitar Vivicam 3000 costs $350 and boasts 1000x800 pixel resolution. The Olympus D-600L offers 1280x1024 and costs $1,300.
View finder. Most digital cameras on the market have a matchbox-sized liquid crystal display on the back. This screen is both the camera's viewfinder and a tool for browsing your pictures after you take them. Although these viewfinders make for great demos in the store, I find them exceedingly difficult to use in real-world photography situations. Framing a picture through an LCD display is awkward, especially if you are used to a conventional viewfinder. Another problem: The LCD tends to get washed out in direct sunlight.
Companies have tried a variety of ways to solve the LCD problem. Apple sells its QuickTake 200 ($350) with a clip-on viewfinder. It's clumsy but workable. Some Olympus cameras have both an LCD screen and a viewfinder. The Olympus D-500L ($900) and D-600L are SLR cameras; you actually look through the same lens the camera uses to take the picture.
Image storage. All but one of the digital cameras store images on a silicon memory chip. The more memory, the more images your camera can store. I got 55 640x480 pictures in the 4MB flash RAM of the Sony DSC-F1 ($700) before I had to download the images to my PC.
Some cameras accept replaceable chips. You can swap chips as you would replace rolls of film and keep taking photos. Unfortunately, the chips used by different cameras generally are not compatible. I've seen prices between $80 and $120 for 4MB chips. Some cameras can accept 10MB chips, which cost $250 or more.
The Sony Digital Mavica ($600) has a different approach to storing images. Instead of using a chip, it uses a floppy disk. Thanks to AOL, we all have plenty of these. What's great about using a floppy is that it makes the images easy to transfer to your PC: Just slide the disk out of your camera and into your desktop system. On the down side, the typical floppy can only hold 12 images. Another problem is reliability: Dirty disks lose data.
Compatibility. Nearly all cameras work with Windows 95. A few work with both Windows and Macintosh. The Apple QuickTake 200 works only with the Mac. The Sony DSC-F1 works with Windows 95, the Mac, and Windows 3.1 - although why anybody would want to use Windows 3.1 is beyond me.
Video out. Many cameras will let you display your images directly on a television screen. Some cameras will even let you upload photographs from the computer back to the camera and then cycle through your photos in a slide show mode. This might be useful at a trade show or at a party, but I can't imagine that video out is a feature many consumers are going to use.
Image upload. All of the cameras let you send images to your computer over a serial cable, but the process is very slow. Toshiba and Nikon make cameras that plug into the PCMCIA port common on laptops - it's a lightning-fast way to upload images to your laptop if you have one, but pointless otherwise.
Lens cap. Few digital cameras seem to have them. I guess the makers figure these devices will be obsolete before their lenses are scratched. Don't buy a camera without a lens cap or an easy-to-use case.
Flash. Most of the cameras have built-in flashes. Unfortunately, they all seem to wash out your subject's face while failing to illuminate the background. Turn off your flash and use a well-lit room for best results. Be sure to try this in the store. Some cameras, such as the Apple, don't work well in low light.
If you have found a digital camera that suits your needs, and you are doing something really neat with it, drop me a note. I'll summarize the best stories next week.
Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at plugged-in@simson.net.
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