Questions re. my old digital

Lon Haverly · 03-23-2002, 01:35 AM

I have a three year old Ricoh. It's capabilities are surprising, and I wonder if I would benefit by upgrading. It is capable of taking non-compressed 4 megapixel eps file, and is compatible with the Smart Media cards. It has all the white balance settings, and has 3x zoom and a swivel lens.

That in mind, is there any benefit to taking pictures in the uncompressed eps format if you are just going to convert it to a JPEG? Does it maintain the higher resolution after compression? Is there any reason to upgrade?

I am frustrated with the digital reproductions of my oils. I don't understand how these things work. Could it be that the cheesy lens prevents a higher resoultion image, even if it is many pixels in size? Perhaps I need a Ricoh guy to show me how to get better results.

Cynthia Daniel · 03-23-2002, 06:36 AM

I can't comment on camera issues, but I can tell you that having an uncompressed version of an image is always good if you're planning to do any printing from it. Also, if you create an image for the web and later decide for some reason you want a larger version of that same image, you'll need to go back to the uncompressed version to make that larger image. You don't ever want to resize a jpg file up in size. The sacrifice in quality is too great.

Michael Fournier · 04-04-2002, 11:51 PM

What model is it? would it be the RDC-4300? I can't judge if it is your camera or not but general advice is this. Lenses matter a great deal

I found that 3 Megapixel (Max res of around 2000 x 1400 or better) or even better to get a 4 or 5 megapixel model if you can afford it. If yours is the RDC-4300 then you have a 1.2 Megapixel with max res of 1280 x 960). I had a 2.1 Megapixel for a few days but just was not happy with it.

Lens: Bigger is better also quality optics are a must. The mid to high-end Sony's with the Carl Zeiss lenses or the med to high-end Nikons or the mid to upper range Olympus as well as the Canon mid range to pro level models.

I lean toward these three only because I know that Nikon Oly and Canon make great lens and Carl Zeiss are used on top of the line German large format cameras like the hassenbald. But they are not the only makers of good lenses.

And yes any of the mid to upper range cameras of today are better then all but the most expensive models of 2 years ago.

But that said, my advise is check out this site:http://www.dpreview.com/. There is enough info to make your head spin but just look at the better models (you can tell which ones they are the ones that cost over $600 bucks.

You can find deals on these models for around $499 and I just got a open box special for $299 on a C-3000 Olympus. That said buy the most expensive you can afford you will not regret it latter. (My plan is to buy a Pro level digital SLR after I finish my home/studio addition so I did not spend a lot on this camera and right know, with the construction bills, $299 was all I could afford).

Lon Haverly · 04-05-2002, 12:12 AM

Michael, mine is a 4200, but it can take a 4 meg eps non-compressed file photo. Doesn't that mean it is 4 megapixels in size? But I think it must have a cheesy lens, explaining my trouble with clarity. If the lens is cheesy, it doesn't matter if the pixel resolution is good, it can only record what the lens allows it to.

Well, I will probably get a new one with more megapixels when I get some more megabucks.

Thanks for the clarification!

Lon

Will Enns · 11-19-2002, 05:37 PM

Lon,

By way of explanation...

A 4 megapixel digital image is comprised of (roughly) 4 million pixels.

The 4 meg (megabyte) uncompressed image file (aprox 4,800,000 bytes) you refer to is about 1280x1024 pixels in size, and equals roughly 1.3 megapixels.

The camera that took it is known as a "megapixel" camera, that is, its capacity is over 1 megapixel. In '98, this was considered pretty good; by today's standards 5 megapixels is considered good, but still not professional.

In other words, image (megapixel) size does not equal file size (megabyte,) although the two are directly related according to the file type and level of compression used.

As shown above, a 1.3 megapixel uncompressed image will generate an uncompressed tif file of 3.79 megabytes.

The same image saved as a jpg file at 100% quality generates a file of about 1.1 megabytes.

Saved at 75% quality (common web standard,) that same file shrinks to 240k, or about 1/4 of a megabyte. The price of this compression is loss of image quality, and that's why the jpg format is referred to as a "lossey" file.

As a matter of interest, the same file saved at 50% quality shrinks to 157k; at 25% quality, it shrinks to 97k; at 10%, 43k, all without compromising the image *dimensions.*

I've attached an image below that demonstrates the effects of compression. The one on left is from a jpg file compressed at 90% quality; the one at left is from the same file compressed at 10% quality (not recommended - I did this to show the effect of quality loss due to compression.)

Notice the extreme pixelation and loss of detail. Higher compression of a lossy file results in this effect, proportionate to the level of compression.