The average digital camera availble reminds me of the clunky old polaroids, with few features, fixed focus, limited zoom etc.

I have invested a sizable amount of money in my photo equipment and would like to continue using it while going digital.

One solution which I heard about was a drop-in cartridge for 35mm cameras. Unfortunately this design has either disappeared or is being ignored by the press and by retailers.

What I would like to see is a DIGIback for my camera which would work similar to the databacks availble. A DIGIback would contain all the electronics of the digital camera with the sensor on the film plane, while utilizing the lenses and camerabody of the existing 35mm.

Are ther any such designs out there?

-- Rolf Stiefel (stiefelr@hotmail.com), November 16, 1998

Answers

There is one many consider "vapor ware",it is called "imagek". It is a drop-in for any 35mm camera. But..the bad part it is a cmos chip and they usually have lower imgage quality while boasting of higher resolution. For example..one cmos camera says it has 100x800 reso..while it barely looks as good as a ccd camera at 640x480. If u must..use the link below to learn more.

http://www.imagek.com/

-- Mike Valley (cpanthers@email.com), November 16, 1998.

Oops..that is 1000x800..not 100x800..seeya..

-- Mike Valley (cpanthers@email.com), November 16, 1998.

I know where you're coming from. I had a studio for 17 years and I have 2-RB-67, 2-M645, and a 4 x 5 (which I'm trying to sell). The rest of my gear is Canons, but there aren't any reasonably priced digi-cams that can use my Canon lenses!

I was going to at least get into it a little by getting the Canon PowerShot Pro 70, but they keep delaying the release!! Therefore, I'm getting the Sony DSC D700. I figure if I can do a little moonlighting on the side, I can justify the expense until a camera comes out with interchangeable lens. I no longer have my studio and I work full time at a digital imaging company. I work with a true (chemistry and all) digital photo printer and my minimum requirement was to get reasonable 8x10's that I could sell to the average consumer. I downloaded files from the Sony Japanese site and then interpolated them up to 8x10 @ 300dpi and output them and they made very pleasant true photos! When I get the time, I'm going to go in and Photoshop them and see at what level I need to go to provide top quality with a 4 Meg file.

Anyway, if you ever get a digital camera and you want actual photographic output, 8x10 and smaller, feel free to call me, e-mail me or go to our web site (not 100% yet) and we'd be glad to help you out. That site is www.pictureprint.com.

Good luck.

Phil Pool

-- Phil Pool (pep44@mailexcite.com), November 17, 1998.

Don't give up on Imagek. The technology that they are developing is very sophisticated and specifically directed at the professional photograper that has a significant investment in 35mm equipment. From what I have been told, they are still working on it. It's by no means a dead product or company. It's just new technology. Imagek's parent company, Irvine Sensors Corp., in a leader in digital imaging products for the military and government. They have the ability to provide such a solution. It's most likely just difficult to get it to the point that it is commercially feasible.

-- Mark Smith (smithmarkl@earthlink.net), November 17, 1998.

The Imagek drop-in 35mm digital film cartridge sounds like a good idea, but there are a lot of technical problems to overcome, like how to keep a removeable drop-in cartridge from getting a lot of dust, lint, etc. on it's imaging surface and more importantly how to cram all the guts of a much larger digicam into the space of a 35mm drop in cartridge. By the way, does the idea of having to remove the cartridge after every 30 shots, dump it and then re-install it without getting it dirty, appeal to you?

Not to nitpick, but can you see "Irvine Sensors Corp., a leader in digital imaging products for the military and government" producing a consumer product in less than 10 years that doesn't cost as much as a Governmentally specified toilet seat? :) If anything, they will need to produce a higher-end product for serious 35mm users. Once again, think law enforcement, military, etc. -The guys who can afford the expensive equipment. In the meantime we'll have digicams with 2-4 megapixel or higher res. and at/or below the $349 I paid for my Toshiba PDRM1 with 1280x1024 res. But who knows? There are still times we'd all like to believe in Santa Claus...

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), December 13, 1998.