[Techtalk] getting quality photo scans

[Carla Schroder]

On Friday 17 November 2006 15:44, Conor Daly wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 17, 2006 at 01:27:55PM -0800 or so it is rumoured hereabouts,
>
> Carla Schroder thought:
> > Thanks everyone! That's a lot of very useful information to digest. I'm
> > scanning prints, not negatives, since the negatives vanished long ago. If
> > I still had them I'd send them to a photo lab and have a bunch of prints
> > made.
>
> If the photos are that valuable to you, would you consider having the
> prints photographed?  I believe you might get better results from that
> than from a scan.  

What a great idea- it's faster than scanning and the results look really good. 
Teh techtalk geniuses strike again.

I love the Panasonic Lumix cameras. Fie on digital zoom- my babies have 12x 
and 10x optical zoom. The first one I bought is the DMC-FZ20. This looks like 
a traditional compact SLR. It accepts filters and a lens hood, but it's hard 
to find any actual filters to buy. It's a little slow, and the LCD viewfinder 
is dim compared to the next Lumix generation, but it sure takes great photos. 

Then I got a DMC-TZ1, which is one super-nice compact camera. It fits in a 
pocket, so I carry it everywhere. The Lumixes have superior optics (Leica, 
for y'all optics geeks). The little DMC-TZ1 puts the lenses sideways inside 
the body, so the outer lens assembly protrudes maybe a half-inch at maximum 
zoom. It's faster than the older FZ20, and has a lot brighter viewfinder.

Both use rechargeable batteries. Both nice sensibly-arranged controls and 
menus, so you don't waste all your time fumbling with settings.

Both are 5 megapixel, which is plenty good for first-rate prints, even 
enlarged. In my experience anything over that is wasted. It slows down camera 
performance, and you get these huge image files that aren't better quality.

-- 
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Carla Schroder
Linux geek and random computer tamer
check out my Linux Cookbook! 
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxckbk/
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