What are the "on the road" limits? I am trying to decide if it is feasible to take a digital camera on the road for long term travel in South America. My main concerns are durability and memory/power issues. My use will be both professional (magazine work and web content) and personal.

Is there anyone who has experience with this? Can it work?

Thanks.

-- michael yoder (miyoder@yahoo.com), August 17, 2000

Answers

I suppose it really depends on your budget, I think the one thing a digital camera would offer as an advantage is if you had a deadline for images and could directly transfer them to the magazine, and certainly the minimum for quality magazine work would be a Nikon D1, even then you are WAY pushing it to pull off a full bleed cover. Traditional film will still give you the best and most reliable results. Compared to a digital camera, a film camera will seemingly last forever between battery changes. I'd take an EOS or F5 if it were mission critical and maybe a consumer digital camera for some less important personal shots...

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), August 17, 2000.

Well, it's possible, though perhaps not ideal for press uses as Cris pointed out. Depending on your magazine's requirements, 300 PPI is usually considered the norm for professional work... With a 2048x1536(3.3MP image) that gives you about a 6.8" X 5.1" image in print at 300PPI. You might be able to stretch that a bit with Genuine Fractals, but I think going from a 5x7" to a full cover might be a serious stretch as suggested by Cris. Perhaps you should check with the art department staff, or pre-press, and see what they know of Genuine Fractals and what they'd consider to be acceptable. Or better yet, look into it for yourself and then talk with them. You can find an article on Genuine Fractals on www.imaging-resource.com under Articles.

You can find a number of power solutions. There are solar rechargers for NiMH camera batteries, as well as AC chargers with a 12VDC option.

See: www.thomas-distributing.com

You can also get longer lasting external rechargeable battery packs that can be worn on your belt. Most are very light and last several times as long as a set of NiMH rechargeables. You can also greatly minimize your need for batteries by keeping the LCD display turned off and only using the viewfinder.

Some cameras are more adept than others at this. For instance, I have a Toshiba PDR-M70 which with the LCD turned off only activates it if you request controls which appear onscreen, and then kills the display about two seconds after you've stopped accessing controls which require it.(like if you were adjusting shutter speed in shutter priority mode) Other units may be able to operate without the large color LCD display and show all changes on a small LCD display.

As far as storage goes, for a longer trip I'd want a small lightweight laptop with a TFT display and a DC power input for charging. I have a Mitsubishi Amity to which I added a 4GB drive. It doesn't have a TFT display, but it's adequate for my purposes. It uses a charging voltage between 12-15VDC @ several amps, so I just made up a cord with a cigarette lighter plug on it and can run the laptop as well as charge it from any working cigarette lighter jack. You can get auto/airline adapters for most laptops, or even a DC inverter that puts out 120VAC from 12VDC input and can power the charger that comes with a laptop.

You might also consider the new Digital Wallet device which stores up to 6GB of images on a built-in 2.5" laptop hard drive. You can slip your memory cards into this device and transfer your images at the press of a few buttons.

If you go the laptop & camera battery charger approach, then I'd also get a Y adapter cord so I could plug both into the lighter socket at the same time.

If you're staying at hotels, most usually have a shaver outlet in the bathroom, unless you're literally in the middle of nowhere. In which case that 12VDC or solar stuff will come in VERY handy.

As far as using a Nikon D1 for such an assignment goes, if it were me and I was planning on doing any romping around on South American roads with a jeep or similar I'd hate to have that 10-ton Goliath hanging around my neck. But, I suppose you'd be hard pressed to find a better digital in most other respects. The quality from better, larger lenses is certainly a good reason to consider it, but once again the limitation may be the resolution.

For personal uses, or professional uses 5x7" or lower I'd say go for it! A digital solution is a possibility. It'll also make film storage a bit simpler as environmental concerns won't be quite so critical.

Good Luck!

Good Luck!

-- Gerald M. Payne (gmp@surferz.net), August 18, 2000.