Kayo Parsons-Korn on sun 21 feb 99
John is right about the flash, you will eventually want one. But, the
Nikon Coolpix 900 has a sync-connector to plug in an external flash.
Only problem is you have to use a special Nikon cable and its only about
4 inches long. Its meant to be used with a Nikon flash that mounts to
the camera, although the other end hooks into any sort of flash. But you
can buy a third party cable to connect with this one to attach to any
standard flash which then could be mounted in a soft box. Other problem
is, it still flashes the internal flash too, so you have to cover it up.
Quite a kluge, the next model, the Coolpix 950 will let you turn the
internal flash off.
I took a couple of pictures of pots just using floodlights and they
turned out pretty good. See if you could pick them out from the ones
taken with a traditional camera and external flash.
http://www.europa.com/~rkorn/pottery.html
The Coolpix 900 does 1280 x 960 pixels in Fine mode. This gives you a
picture that is huge. Can't remember right now, about 17x11. You can
then resample this in Photoshop or some other photo imaging software to
take the pixel count up to 300 for a standard 3x5. When printed out on
my 720 dpi Epson printer, it looks pretty good, but not quite photo
quality. I'm thinking of taking one of these files to service bureau
that has a higher dpi output device to see if I can get true photo
quality. The Coolpix comes with some software for achieving this. I
didn't download it since I have Photoshop.
We bought ours for $699, $100 less than the advertised price. You have
to look around for the best deals. But you may want to wait as Nikon
just announced their new Coolpix 950 which has 1600x1200 pixels. Also
has selectable aperature and shutter priority, and as I previously
mentioned the ability to turn off the internal flash.
http://www.nikonusa.com/products/new0218/cp950/coolpix950.html
But the Coolpix 900 is still a great camera. All sorts of controls for
exposure, metering, white balance, brightness/contrast, zoom and macro
modes and the ability to add other lenses. We bought ours from a
reputable camera shop in Portland. There were only a couple left and now
they're on backorder. Seems the professionals are using these now to set
up their studio shots instead of Polaroids.
As far as scanners go. Do get a flatbed. My recommendation would be the
Hp Scanjet 4p. They are now down as low as $300. You will still need a
scanner if you have to get traditionally taken pictures into an
electronic format. But you can also use them as an OCR scanner, (scans
text and creates an editable text file) and as a copier. So they are
really versatile. Don't fool around with hand scanners.
So, if you shop around a bit, you can get both the camera, $700 and the
scanner $300 and still be in your budget.
Good Luck,
Kayo
--
Kayo Parsons-Korn
Kayo Parsons-Korn Design
kayo@kayodesign.com
http://www.kayodesign.com
(503) 647-5464
P.O. Box 436
North Plains, OR 97133
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