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Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp Digital Camera: 669.73 UKP
Canon EOS 300D 6.3mp Digital Camera +Lens: 681.48 UKP

• EOS 300D at ISO 50.
• EOS 300D at ISO 200.
• Pro 1 at ISO 50.
• Pro 1 at ISO 200.

Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp Digital Camera: 669.73 UKP
Canon EOS 300D 6.3mp Digital Camera +Lens: 681.48 UKP

• EOS 300D at ISO 50.
• EOS 300D at ISO 200.
• Pro 1 at ISO 50.
• Pro 1 at ISO 200.

Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp Digital Camera: 669.73 UKP
Canon EOS 300D 6.3mp Digital Camera +Lens: 681.48 UKP

• EOS 300D at ISO 50.
• EOS 300D at ISO 200.
• Pro 1 at ISO 50.
• Pro 1 at ISO 200.

Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp Digital Camera: 669.73 UKP
Canon EOS 300D 6.3mp Digital Camera +Lens: 681.48 UKP

• EOS 300D at ISO 50.
• EOS 300D at ISO 200.
• Pro 1 at ISO 50.
• Pro 1 at ISO 200.

Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp Digital Camera: 669.73 UKP
Canon EOS 300D 6.3mp Digital Camera +Lens: 681.48 UKP

• EOS 300D at ISO 50.
• EOS 300D at ISO 200.
• Pro 1 at ISO 50.
• Pro 1 at ISO 200.

Canon Powershot Pro 1 8mp Digital Camera: 669.73 UKP
Canon EOS 300D 6.3mp Digital Camera +Lens: 681.48 UKP

• EOS 300D at ISO 50.
• EOS 300D at ISO 200.
• Pro 1 at ISO 50.
• Pro 1 at ISO 200.

This one for starters. They are out there.

dpreview has an blurb that is much more comprehensive. And, to spread the hits, you can see the original press release The content of the two links is the same, only the background color and periphery information is different. (dpreview is black; toshiba is white)

Thanks. Here's your linkage

Motorola designed this sort of thing in 2000, and it's smaller.

Digital Photography Review lists two* SLRs for under $1000. Click here and select SLR / under $1000. Select under $2000 and you open your options up to nine*.

I plan to buy the Canon 300D soon. Though it is a somewhat crippled (with some uncrippling hacks available) version of the 10D, it is still an exceptional value.

*The HP Photosmart doesn't belong on the list. It's not actually a SLR so I am not including it in my count. Looks like an error in the site's database.

In all seriousness, the really odd bit about this article is that the author doesn't seem to know his audience . . . he writes about the most basic of features at a very high level for the novice (like metering, b&w, & sepia features), but then spends an inordinate amount of time describing camera raw files . . . which would be more appropriate for the more advanced user. Then he goes on do describe digital SLR features which are pro and pro-sumer level cameras. But when the author writes about advanced features, he writes about them in a very condscending way . . . like he is coddling a newbie.

I would guess that the author wrote the article with the entire audience in mind (from beginner to pro), but because of this, the author has created a mediocre article that is not very useful for anyone. It's like building the perfect automobile for everyone, without regard to the needs of specific end consumers . . . you wind up with a single product that is not very good for anyone.

Beginners would do better to read tutorials on Cnet etc. and advanced users would find more benefit at sites like luminous landscape

The author claims that he will write reviews next . . . Based on the quality of this article, I would read these with caution. I'd suggest the reviews at DPReview instead.

I'd LOVE a digitam cam like that,...

Digital SLRs are available starting at US$899 (list) for the Canon Digital Rebel/300D/Kiss Digital (the name varies by region).

Visit here to learn more.

SteveM

Off topic but related and affects many people who are still buying the Nomads thinking they are getting a 4GB microdrive usable in their digital cameras etc. (like me recently burned after buying directly from Creative). Hitachi has followed up on their threats (from http://www.steves-digicams.com/microdrive.html): "Other OEM drives with different part numbers are also not CF compliant and meet the requirements of that customer. All are subject to change without notice as well. So if you have an OEM drive that works now, one from that same mfg may not work later on...."
This thread http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1 019&message=9153930 and others on digital camera forums confirm that the MD in newer Nomads do not work in CF devices (it even says so on the package in fine print) .

A comparison by of a hacked 300D/Rebel with D70 dpreview link

--

some fallacies from the above threads:

noise performance : 300D/Rebel wins :it has ISO 100, D70 has a minimum ISO 200 . (also; at comparative 300DISO 200 vs D70ISO 200, the 300D is rated more like ISO160 )

the only major advantage of the D70 is its CF write speed/buffer, ie: in raw mode, it can shoot at 1fps continuous until your cf card fills up. so is this advantage worth the extra money?

flaw: D70 NEF/RAW mode is NOT lossless, it is visually lossless, but its just 9.4bits vs canon raw at 12 bits.

d70 forum link

NEF lossy compression

[quote] The decoding curve is embedded in the NEF file (and could thus be changed by a firmware upgrade without having to change NEF converters), I used a D70 NEF file made available by Uwe Steinmuller of Digital Outback Photo.

The quantization is a lossy operation, and converts 12 bits into 9.4 bits' worth of resolution (dynamic range is unchanged). This is a fairly common technique - digital telephony encodes 12 bits' worth of dynamic range in 8 bits using the so-alled A-law and mu-law codecs. I modified the program to output the data for the decoding curve (Excel-compatible CSV format), and plotted the curve (PDF) using linear and log-log scales, along with a quadratic regression fit (courtesy of R). The curve is a gamma correction curve, linear for values up to 215, then quadratic.

In conclusion, Thom is right - there is some loss of data, mostly in the form of lowered resolution in the highlights. [/quote]

A comparison by of a hacked 300D/Rebel with D70 dpreview link

--

some fallacies from the above threads:

noise performance : 300D/Rebel wins :it has ISO 100, D70 has a minimum ISO 200 . (also; at comparative 300DISO 200 vs D70ISO 200, the 300D is rated more like ISO160 )

the only major advantage of the D70 is its CF write speed/buffer, ie: in raw mode, it can shoot at 1fps continuous until your cf card fills up. so is this advantage worth the extra money?

flaw: D70 NEF/RAW mode is NOT lossless, it is visually lossless, but its just 9.4bits vs canon raw at 12 bits.

d70 forum link

NEF lossy compression

[quote] The decoding curve is embedded in the NEF file (and could thus be changed by a firmware upgrade without having to change NEF converters), I used a D70 NEF file made available by Uwe Steinmuller of Digital Outback Photo.

The quantization is a lossy operation, and converts 12 bits into 9.4 bits' worth of resolution (dynamic range is unchanged). This is a fairly common technique - digital telephony encodes 12 bits' worth of dynamic range in 8 bits using the so-alled A-law and mu-law codecs. I modified the program to output the data for the decoding curve (Excel-compatible CSV format), and plotted the curve (PDF) using linear and log-log scales, along with a quadratic regression fit (courtesy of R). The curve is a gamma correction curve, linear for values up to 215, then quadratic.

In conclusion, Thom is right - there is some loss of data, mostly in the form of lowered resolution in the highlights. [/quote]

Here are some of the photos I took, if anyone's interested. These were shot with a Fujifilm S2 Pro and a Nikon 28-200mm lens. I was surprised how well they came out.

There is a great picture of the event posted by a Canon 10D owner from Digital Photography Review website. He used an expensive filter and telescope.

The books about digital photography seem to assume you can't even take an autofocused picture with flash without help

Heh. I think a lot of people do have a problem doing even that, at least until they grasp the fact that they have to press the shutter down halfway and wait for the camera to focus before taking the picture.

I can recommend a good book that I've been borrowing from the local library for the past few weeks: Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Digital Photography: 107 Lessons on Taking, Making, Editing, Storing, Printing, and Sharing Better Digital Images. It is chock full of excellent examples of everything you're looking for. The printing is high quality so you can actually see the differences in pictures when he's showing what different settings will do. Every example has accompanying explanations so you know how and why he changed something to improve his pictures. There are lots of fun exploratory ideas throughout the book.

It's really one of the best digital photography books I've seen, and would serve as an excellent introductory book for anyone just getting into digital photography, or someone transitioning from film photography, or for anyone who's been at it for a while and wants to get better. There's also a lot of hands-on and very well explained Photoshop projects for enhancing or playing with your digital images.

This book is so fun and informative that I'm thinking of actually buying it, and I can't remember the last time I payed money for a book that wasn't work-related instead of just checking out websites (which I still do, of course, and there are some damn good photography websites out there). The cover price is $60 but as you can see it's available on Amazon for around $30. I feel it will be a good investment.

I've seen a few posters here who seem to think this stuff has all been done before with film, but there are some definite differences between film and digital that you will want to understand. For one thing the dynamic range of digital sensors doesn't come close to film yet, which makes photographing high-contrast scenes difficult (scenes where there are both really bright things and dark things in the picture). In turn, film never came close to the dynamic range of the human retina. There will be many cases where you will be disappointed if you aren't aware of this potential problem and know how to compensate for it. Even if you understood the problem with film, digital will have new gotchas.

There are also issues with file formats (RAW, TIFF, or JPEG?). Each choice will slightly (or strongly) affect the resulting photos. If you actually want to get into this stuff beyond point-and-shoot, it is helpful to have an understanding of how all the "old" film rules translate into the digital camera world, including how the affect of different lenses will be different due to the size of the sensor in the camera compared to the size of "standard" 35mm film. Etcetera.

I mentioned there are some good websites, so I should probably throw in a few here:

Some EXCELLENT in-depth technical articles here. I like the ones that explain why digital SLRs are better even though most only have 3MP sensors (hint: the sensors are bigger so each pixel can gather more light, meaning more signal and less noise than in a consumer chip and thus cleaner pictures and greater ISO ranges). I was stumped by that for a good long while. Couldn't understand why a 3MP DSLR could command 4-12 times the price of my 3MP compact. Lenses are important, sure, but the most important thing in digital cameras is the characteristics of the sensor.
The learning section at DPReview. Good technical and non-technical stuff here.

Not a book, but I've found it to be very helpful - dpreview has forums covering most digital cameras. You can ask questions or search for topics you're interested in. Also, if you read the in-depth review of your camera on the same site, the complicated settings are usually explained in detail.

dpreview forums

And make sure to look for other cameras at Digital Photography Review

I've got a coolpix 5400. I chose nikon for a digital camera because all my film equipment is nikon, and, more specifically, I can use my SB-25 -- it's a serious flash* and because it's about 150% of the size of the coolpix, it looks totally funny when mounted. But, it is bright (138 ft at 35mm setting, ISO100) and is less prone to redeye (because it's so far away from the lens), so I'm pleased with the combo.

My only complaint is that nikon doesn't do a good job of communicating with the flash, which is why I bought it (argh!). My n90 will tell the flash the zoom setting and it will adjust the light ouput angle accordingly; the 5400 is far more advanced, but the combo doesn't do that. I guess it's a marketing thing to sell newer flashes or pro cameras.

(*as serious as nikon gets; pros tend to use third-party flashes that are larger, don't overheat with constant use, and recycle faster)

When you are looking at "reviews," don't pay any attention to the ones that have nothing bad to say about the product. This is your first indication of a vendor-sponsored review. Even with the best product, everyone (except the mfgr's marketing dept.) will find something they don't like about it, due to individual tastes and experiences.

What I like about Digital Photography Review is that their reviews are comprehensive, they do repeatable laboratory tests using industry standards (in addition to subjective field testing), and they don't accept payments or gifts from manufacturers.

They went for a CMOS for the Rebel;

That's true. CMOS is also used in Canon EOS-1Ds, Canon EOS-1D which are the digital SLRs for pro users.

They're cheap to make, but even a good CMOS has significantly poorer sensitivity than a good CCD; hence you tend to get more noise.

I must get some of the stuff you're smoking! First, compare test shots between Canon EOS-300D ("Digital Rebel") and Nikon D70. Also check the noise test results. I'm not saying that Nikon D70 is a bad camera, the other way around. It's just that Canon CMOS cameras have from the start had less noise than most CCD cameras. CMOS technology has better battery life but usually slower burst shooting. I think that D70 has a bit better lens than the one that's bundled with 300D. One can get better lenses for a SLR, of course, but it needs to be taken into the consideration while you're comparing the features and price.

I still think that a second hand Powershoot G3 or G4 would be a better choice for a beginner. It's much cheaper and even G3 is far from a bad camera. By the time you've learned to shoot great pictures, the price of the entry level (or a bit higher) SLRs have dropped much more than the value of your second hand camera. Spend the money on a larger CF card and possibly to a good flash system instead (Note that investing on flash has vendor-lock effect as TTL systems usually require that the camera body and the flash system are from the same manufacturer).

They went for a CMOS for the Rebel;

That's true. CMOS is also used in Canon EOS-1Ds, Canon EOS-1D which are the digital SLRs for pro users.

They're cheap to make, but even a good CMOS has significantly poorer sensitivity than a good CCD; hence you tend to get more noise.

I must get some of the stuff you're smoking! First, compare test shots between Canon EOS-300D ("Digital Rebel") and Nikon D70. Also check the noise test results. I'm not saying that Nikon D70 is a bad camera, the other way around. It's just that Canon CMOS cameras have from the start had less noise than most CCD cameras. CMOS technology has better battery life but usually slower burst shooting. I think that D70 has a bit better lens than the one that's bundled with 300D. One can get better lenses for a SLR, of course, but it needs to be taken into the consideration while you're comparing the features and price.

I still think that a second hand Powershoot G3 or G4 would be a better choice for a beginner. It's much cheaper and even G3 is far from a bad camera. By the time you've learned to shoot great pictures, the price of the entry level (or a bit higher) SLRs have dropped much more than the value of your second hand camera. Spend the money on a larger CF card and possibly to a good flash system instead (Note that investing on flash has vendor-lock effect as TTL systems usually require that the camera body and the flash system are from the same manufacturer).

"Why digital?"
Film development costs.

I've taken 5000 pictures with my digital camera.
Development costs: $0
Experience: priceless

What if I had a film camera?
5000 pictures / 24 pictures per roll ~ 208 rolls.
208 rolls at $8 for developement = $1666
Experience: Chapter 11 bankruptcy

I've only had my digital camera for a year. I agree, however, that if the poster is new to photography, a digital SLR is overkill. However, a simple digital camera with manual settings in the sub-$300 range will suffice. But, for a learning photographer, digital cameras and pictures allow them to take as many shots they want, get instant feedback on how they did, and allow them to correct their mistakes instantly and try again....*without* having to develope all of those crappy shots! Digital is definitely the way to go. I mean, even Kodak is getting out of the film industry.

"SLR" stands for Single Lens Reflex. This means that light passes through the lens, off a mirror and/or CCD, and into your eye. It means that there is no parralax error due to you and the camera seeing your subject from different angles. It doesn't necessarily mean you have the ability to change lenses, nor does it mean it's a "professional grade" camera. It doesn't even have to be much more complicated than your average point-and-shoot, though I'm assuming you want to be able to grow as you learn.

In the lower class of Digital SLR bodies with interchangeable lenses, you've got the Nikon D70 and D100, the Canon Digital Rebel, and a few cameras by Sigma and Fuji. These cameras (bodies with interchangeable lenses) will allow you the most flexibility, options, and quality. However, they are also much more expensive, starting at about the $1000 mark. For the moment, I'll assume this is the area you're looking at.

First off, the Canon Digital Rebel is not the only camera in its class. Nikon just released the D70, which seems to kick the Rebel's ass. I spoke to Nikon Digital Support (800-645-6689), and they said the memory buffer was so fast that you could pretty much keep shooting continuously until you ran out of space. Compared to older models that would only do "burst mode" for up to five seconds, that's quite a feat. The D70 is only about 3 frames/second, but the D2H can do 8 frames/second for five seconds before the buffer gets full. Of course, the D2H is about $3K, but I can dream. ;-)

Second, you are not limited to (and may not want) a camera with interchangable lenses. The Nikon Coolpix 5700 and 8700 are pretty decent (the latter being 8 megapixels!), and the Canon PowerShot Pro1, G5, and S1 are also options. One definite advantage the cameras without interchangable lenses have is that they are going to be much smaller and lighter.

As per several recommendations already posted, definitely check out DPReview. Great site, lots of info, full testing, sample shots, menus and interfaces, etc. Think about what your priorities are. How high of a resolution do you need? 6 megapixels is plenty for an 8x10. (4 can actually get you by.) If you aren't printing anything larger than that, you're fine. Do you care if there's a proprietary battery, or do you need the flexibility of "standard"-sized batteries? (AA, AAA, etc.) Do you have a preference for media type? (I prefer CompactFlash, as it tends to give the best cost/size ratio, and the card size options are larger.) Do you need lens interchangeability? Do you want it? Regardless of what you want *right now*, where do you want to take your photography eventually? Make sure your camera choice now will not limit your goals later.

Personally, I'd lean more towards the larger SLR bodies with interchangeable lenses. They're bigger, heavier, and *can be* more expensive... though this is by no means true any more. However, the options you have are incredible. Of course, you may well just be leaving the camera in automatic mode all the time, which makes those options useless, overpriced oversized, etc. However, if you *want* those options later... you may not have to "upgrade" anything other than your lens options. Now that

Be careful with the Muvo drive swap. It looks like Creative is now using microdrives that only work in ATA mode. The owner of Digital Photography Review has just run into this problem recently. Here's the thread.

...buying something like this. The FlashTrax is probably the nicest portable hard disk card reader but you can also get cheaper ones without the screen; for example I got a USB2 X-Drive 20gb, which reads all memory formats but xD card, for around €150. Which is a lot cheaper than 20gb in memory cards.

I don't know how much this card will retail for and anyway it is MMC. I don't think the Zaurus takes MMC. Why not get a 12GB compact flash card? A snip at $14,999.

You're mostly right. That is, it's the same ground-breaking low-noise sensor as the Canon 10D, except Canon claims they changed the manufacturing process to make it a little cheaper to produce. One of those changes was manufacturing them in Taiwan... The materials may not be exactly the same, and they might not be as well made, but it's definitely the same technology. If you're really interested, I highly recommend heading over to DPReview The Digital Rebel review goes fairly extensively into comparisons between the 10D and 300D. Also, there is a forum for Canon DRebel users and they talk a lot about the firmware upgrade (what works, what doesn't, and all kinds of other things- it seems no one has had their warranties voided).

Just look at the DPReview message boards for the 300D.

You underestimate the dramatic rise in intelligence (or at least willingness to invalidate warranties) of someone trying to save a buck. Not to mention that digital SLR users are, at least at the moment, a bit more technically inclined than your average 7-11 counter worker.

Just look at the DPReview message boards for the 300D.

You underestimate the dramatic rise in intelligence (or at least willingness to invalidate warranties) of someone trying to save a buck. Not to mention that digital SLR users are, at least at the moment, a bit more technically inclined than your average 7-11 counter worker.

Just look at the DPReview message boards for the 300D.

You underestimate the dramatic rise in intelligence (or at least willingness to invalidate warranties) of someone trying to save a buck. Not to mention that digital SLR users are, at least at the moment, a bit more technically inclined than your average 7-11 counter worker.

not CCD, CMOS

btw, here's a short comparison between these two babies

not CCD, CMOS

btw, here's a short comparison between these two babies

The 10D and the 300D/Rebel have the same sensor. And the sensor is a CMOS not CCD chip.

See the review here.

Steve

Glad to see GIMP getting an award. The new version is excellent on Windows XP, too. Amazing! If you need a program to edit photos, GIMP is all you need.

While it's nice to see GIMP getting an award, GIMP is NOT all you need.

It lacks 16-bit-per-color (48-bpp) editing support.

"Why is this stupid feature necessary?", you ask?

It's needed because of cameras like the Canon EOS-300D/10D (see the other slashdot article). Canon's RAW format is wonderful for people who need to squeeze every last ounce of performance out of their camera, at the expense of possibly tedious, extra post-processing. RAW gives you more headroom to avoid blown highlights (along with a possibly higher S/N ratio), and more shadow detail, among other things. Canon's in-camera JPEG processing also seems to throw away nearly half (yes, supposedly "one-half") of the sensor's dynamic range, whereas you get access to the full range with RAW. Unfortunately, GIMP can only handle 8-bits per color (24-bpp), and RAW requires 16-bit (well, 12-bits, actually, as Canon's RAW only has 12-bits per color). What's worse is that, if you read the GIMP lists, 16-bit support is probably years away (I think someone mentioned "2006, maybe").

Cinepaint, a fork of GIMP, can supposedly handle Canon RAW files, but I haven't tried it (I haven't gotten around to building it under Linux, and win32 support is minimal).

The D70/D100 comparison chart is actually pretty free of annoyances -- have a look and see what you think: here's the DPReview D70/D100/DigiRebel comparison.

I'm looking forward to the arrival of the D70 I've ordered.

Yes, undoubtedly this voids the warranty. To repost a letter received by CYM in this thread.

"Thank you for contacting Canon Technical Support.

We are sorry to inform you that Canon does not supply specifications to other manufacturers nor do we test with other manufacturers' products.

Therefore, there is always the possibility that they will not interact properly with our cameras. Installing this third party firmware upgrade will indeed void the warranty.

I hope that this helps. If you need further assistance, please respond at your earliest convenience.

Thank you for choosing Canon."

The question is whether Canon will actually make a big deal about the hack if a camera is sent to them for warranty repair. I submitted my rebel under warrany and just reflashed the firmware to the original version before sending it without any difficulty. Other have even reported submitted the camera with earlier versions of the hack installed and have still had it serviced.

The differences between the Rebel and 10D weren't all that great to begin with..... Mostly button customizations and whatnot.

Are you joking? Image quality, focusing abilities, speed, manual control and body construction are just a few things that are different. This hack, old news for anyone in the photography circle, enables a few nice features to the 300D, but really doesn't improve it very much. Noise levels still remain higher than that of the 10D, 2.5fps 4 shot burst is still much slower than the 3fps 10(?) shot burst of the 10D. I could go on and on and on about how much the 300D lacks in comparison with the 10D.

Granted, Canon just priced to Rebel low to grab up market share in the prosumer sector (and encourage loyalty to its lenses, especially since a lot of the old third-party compatibles won't work with the Rebel), but it's still not bad.

Excuse my bluntness, but DUH! It's buisness. It's not like Canon was planning on charging $1500 for a plastic piece to play alongside the already popular 10D. They realized that there was a lack of any semi-affordable DSLR on the market and sprang to action, even releasing the camera months sooner than anyone expected them to in order to take advantage of the basically bare market for such a camera.

You do have a good point with the lenses, as it is a huge part in camera sales, even bigger than the bodies themselves.

As far as the impact this hack has on Canon's sales...it's negligible. I see people asking for opinions on how good the hack works, and if it really makes it that much better all the time over at DPReview. Responses are pretty much the same. "It works; I like it and won't go back; It's still no 10D, but it's cheaper." People will buy this camera because its affordable to them, not because they can tweak it a bit to mimic it's much beefier brother.

If you're in the market for a nice cheap DSLR, its definately a good choice. I own one, and am glad I bought it. Would I prefer a 10D, 1D, 1DMkII? Hell yes! But I don't have that kind of money, and for what I do with it right now, it works for me, and it works for those other people just like me who bought it and love it. Regarding me earlier statements on image quality, the 300D makes great shots (check out the 300D forum over at DPReview, even when compared to the 10D, and noise is still very low. The hack won't make your images any better, or turn your 300D into a 10D. The only thing that can make your images better is the person behind the camera, it's not a magic trick.

The differences between the Rebel and 10D weren't all that great to begin with. See the chart a little way down this page. Mostly button customizations and whatnot. And how often do you really need "release without a CF card"? And that firmware crippling (plus the plastic body) does come with a $600 reduction in MSRP, so it's not as if it was a completely bum deal.

Granted, Canon just priced to Rebel low to grab up market share in the prosumer sector (and encourage loyalty to its lenses, especially since a lot of the old third-party compatibles won't work with the Rebel), but it's still not bad.

I am highly suspicious of the Nikon Coolpix 3200 and 2200 pair. Possible 2.0 to 3.2 megapixel upgrade, save about $100?

I think this is what the iRiver H300 is for:
Product link (Japanese text), English summary.

I've been looking at this sort of stuff recently. I found a couple of things that look cool.

The first is a USB Master Portable Hard Disk / Media Player which can connect directly to Digital cameras and memory card reader devices and copy images from the camera.

The second is a USB Bridge which you can connect two USB slave devices and copy files from one to the other without the need for a separate pc. I think that there are also some other portable hard drive cases that have a built in memory card reader to perform a similar function.

Steve.

See the following site

Cannon beats 35mm
It puts 10 MP (specifically a cannon, which may be important, as lense and CCD design do have profound effects on the digital camera) as being the superior to 35mm film in every possible catagory, hence a 20 MP camera like this one fujifilm camera> would outperform a 70mm film in every possible catagory

With the added benifits of digital (being able to review the pictures, delete unnessassary photoes, send photos without the need to scan over the internet, one step adding photoes to photo editing software, cheaper cost of prints, no development costs; no one who has enough money to buy a good digital camera should be using a non-digital; The only remanining reasons are cost (because you allready own 70mm photo equipment, which is not cheap to replace), inability, and lazyness; But the cost issue is mostly a misnomer- Even though a 20MP digital costs a lot; the savings from not having to make extera prints to make sure that the client likes it, or having to piss off clients with prints they don't like and the development costs on those prints (assuming you do photography professionally, but why else would you have a 20mp camera or 70mm film camera?) will pay for itself soon enough.

The only people who should not have digital cameras RIGHT NOW, are, ironically, home users- who can get a good 35mm for $200, but would need to pay $700 for a good ~10MP digital camera, the difference of $500 would pay for a LOT of photo development!

Who needs photos bigger then 3-5 mega-pixles? Any bigger and they cant be displayed on a monitor at full res. no printer can match the resolution and the files are bloody HUGE

A printer such as a Durst Lambda can print a 50" wide roll of continuous photographic paper more than 100ft long in a continuous sheet at 300DPI with RGB lasers. The continuous tone images come out almost indistinguishable from photographs - the print shops with these machines can have them running jobs almost 24/7. The demand is there, they make a mint for their operators, and they need high quality imagery to produce high quality prints.

Some jobs printed on machines like those make mincemeat of 10 or 14 megapixel images.

Not much use for Home Digicam Users, but for people doing the high end stuff, the need is there. Digital backs like a Creo Leaf Valeo 22MP could fit 8 photos in a gig, perhaps 100 in 12GB on a good day. Don't be surprised to see near 30MP in 2005.

Sucky link don't work.
A working version: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0405/04052601pretec12 gb.asp
More info at the manufacturer's website: http://www.pretec.com about this, also.

Sucky link don't work.
A working version: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0405/04052601pretec12 gb.asp
More info at the manufacturer's website: http://www.pretec.com about this, also.

Your reference for this? The first few references I found on Google all disagree with you:

• the human eye is more sensitive to luminance than chrominance
• We know that the human eye cannot perceive differences in color as well as it can differences in intensity.
• The human eye is more sensitive to brightness (gray scale data) variations than to hue variations
• the human eye is much more sensitive to luminance than chrominance
• the human eye is much more sensitive to brightness variations in gray-scale than to color variations