Accessorize
Your Digital Camera!
by Patty Hankins & Bill Lawrence
© 2003 Hankins-Lawrence
Images, LLC.
Are you getting
or giving a digital camera for the holidays? Perhaps
you’re planning on getting one in the after Christmas
sales? Don’t forget, to get the best out of a digital
camera, there are some other things you might want
on your shopping list. We have listed a few things
we think are essential below.
In camera storage – the “film” for your digital camera.
There are a number of formats, though compact flash
is probably the most popular (others include smart
media cards, secure digital cards, and Sony memory
sticks). Almost all digital cameras are sold with
a storage card that is way too small for them – if
you can fit a number of photos on the card that comes
with the camera, there is a good chance you want to
consider reducing the file compression.
The more you files are compressed on your card, the
lower the quality of your final images. Price per
megabyte of storage varies by format of the card and
by how large the card is, but plan on buying something
reasonably large, and preferably at least one spare
card. How big is large?
Many camera manuals will tell you how many photos
fit on different size cards, plan on something that
you can afford, but will take more than you imagine
you could possibly take in a session.
We have three 1-gigabyte (1,024 megabyte) microdrives,
which fit in most type-II compact flash compatible
cameras, and an emergency 128-megabyte compact flash
card (which also doubles as our digicam storage card)
for our main cameras, and we are due to add to our
storage supply soon.
More is definitely better here – it is better to
have too much storage rather than having to stop taking
photos when your storage is full.
Spare batteries
– Digital cameras are notorious battery hogs, especially
digicams which use the LCD on the back as a viewfinder
to take your photos. It is always a good idea to have
a spare rechargeable battery around (if your camera
uses them). If your camera uses AA batteries, look
into a good set (or 2!) of NiMH rechargeable AA batteries.
A case – Large
or small, depending on how much you carry, it’s nice
to have something to protect and store the camera,
and to carry around all the necessities like spare
batteries.
A computer – Normally, this would be considered a little expensive
to be a digital camera accessory, but the rest of
our list requires one.
A CD or DVD writer
– All those photos add up in the amount of space they
take in your computer storage. Back them up to a CD
or DVD. We recommend at least two copies, preferably
stored in different places.
A card reader - Some come free with storage cards,
others will cost you up to about $30. These devices
allow you to insert your camera’s storage card into
the reader, which is attached to your computer (we
recommend getting one compatible with USB 2.0). You
can then treat the card as another disk drive, and
copy all your files to your hard disk or to CD. We
have found this much easier than trying to link the
camera directly to the computer.
Photo editing software – How powerful depends on
your level of comfort, but you should at least have
software for viewing, cropping, and making basic adjustments
to your photos, such as lightening or changing the
color balance.
A photo printer – A printer designed specifically
for printing digital photos is optional, but if you
plan on having prints of a good number of your digital
photos, is much easier than going to your local Walmart
or 1-hour photo place. There is a learning curve to
doing this right, though, so if you haven’t done much
photo printing, you will want to pay attention to
the printer’s manual and look at its settings. “Why
don’t my printed photos look like what’s on the screen?”
is a very common question on the newsgroups (say .
. . not a bad topic for a future article!). There
are many good printers out there in reasonable price
ranges, but we have found the Epson C82 to be a good
entry-level printer that can act as both a good photo
printer and a document printer.
You may also find information in these articles we’ve
published previously to be of some help in getting
started with your digital camera. You may also find
information in these articles we’ve published
previously to be of some help in getting started with
your digital camera. They can be found in the newsletter
archives at www.hankinslawrenceimages.com
Digital Photography: Avoid Too Much File Compression (Feb 03)
Digital Photography: File Size Matters (Jan 03)
Get the Noise
Out of Your Digital Images: Neat Image (May 03)
Printing Your
Digital Images: Q-Image Pro 2003 (Aug 03)
Software to Organize
Your Images: BreezeBrowser (Apr 03)
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