I am a new digital camera user and headed on a trip to Alaska soon. I will have no way to download my pictures to a computer so I am concerned about what resolution setting to use to get the best quality images yet not be too limited in the number of pictures I am able to take. I am taking 3 32M cards and 1 16M card. I would like high enough quality resolution for printing 4x6 to 8x10 prints. I estimate that I may want to take 150-180 images during my 2 week stay. I am confused on which settings might be best for my purposes (TIFF, HQ, SHQ, SQ1, SQ2) I have an Olympus 3030. I would really appreciate some comments and suggestions.

-- Roger J. Anderson (rjabioquest@yahoo.com), August 06, 2000

Answers

Roger--what does your camera's manual or your own experience indicate the 5 different file sizes are? (I suspect the highest-res files are around 9MB). Knowing that, plus the 80MB card capacity, makes it easy to calculate how many pics of each resolution you can store. Frankly, I can't imagine going to such a photogenic place without being able to take hundreds and hundreds of pics. GOOD-LOOKING 8x10s require lots of original pixels to look good. I expect I wouldn't be satisfied with lower resolution than your 3030's 3.3MP. Using the camera's maximum-compression setting might create, say, 500K files. 80MB divided by 500KB is only 160 pictures!

I restarted my long-dead photo hobby this spring with an Oly 2500 (2.34MP) and quickly decided that I was not going to handicap myself by using anything less than the highest-quality setting. The 2500 made c. 6MB files. I'm now using a Minolta 2.7MP RD 3000 that makes c. 8MB files. I carry 2 IBM 340MB Microdrives plus a 64MB CF card for backup, and sometimes it's still not enough FOR A FEW HOURS! That's why I bring a 12GB drive in a laptop.

BUY MORE CARDS (or a Digital Wallet)!!!

-- jeffrey behr (behrjk@uswest.net), August 07, 2000.