Allen, the SmartMedia capacity is actually quite sufficient, but the cost can be viewed as high when something else finally gets on the market. The Sony Mavica puts between 20 and 40 pictures on a 1.44 floppy by using hi/lo JPEG algorithms. Sony claims a 640x480 resolution. Physical size and ppi (or dpi for print), however, affects capacity. A single 20mb n.hand disk will be very important as I illustrate here. Potential camera buyers, pay attention.
'Resolution" is an area which confuses consumers and where the camera mfg.s don't help matters when they simply throw around 'numbers' -- 640x480, 1024x768, 1280x1024. That doesn't tell the whole story. Since 'real world' consumers identify pictures as 5'x7' or 8'10', they should know how this plays into the equation. A 5'x7' image at 72dpi (or more accurately, ppi - pixels per inch) is about 500k uncompressed. How far down JPEG takes this depends not only on the severity of the compression, but also the color density.
If it were a close-up of snow, 'minimum' JPEG (highest quality, lightest compression) can take this down to about 20k. The same image size and JPEG algorithm, applied to a 'dense' picture (maybe a crowd in a bright, multi-colored carnival) will only reduce to about 150k. Now the same 5'x7' image at 144ppi, uncompressed will consume about 2mb. At 288ppi, it becomes 8.3mb!
Why am I bringing up dpi/ppi? Because somebody may actually want to have prints made for Grandma after seeing the image on their computer screen. 72ppi is the quality of computer screens and you can't 'see' above that -- a 144 will look the same, only bigger. But have a print made and you'll notice a tremendous dif. 144 is somewhat akin to a 'regular' magazine (Time?) whereas your 288 is more like an 'artsy coffee table' mag (Architectural Digest?).
2mb can 'suffice' for a roll of film as in the Sony Mavica. But what do you get out of it in the real world? That's what I'm trying to get across! If anybody disagrees with my calculations, I've already got prepared images in spec with the above numbers. I didn't post them here because it would be a pain for readers to unknowingly click on a link and *SURPRISE*, you're getting 8mb shoved in your pipe (and hogging SI bandwidth which could be better used on a "when is earnings?" post). But I'll happily provide my evidence upon request. Did I leave anything out?
"I also didn't see anything on the site to indicate that the 2 MB card would have any special capabilities with regard to capacity. Thus, a 2MB card would hold more like 6 or 7 photographs of fairly high resolution. But I suppose some sort of aggressive compression could be built into the camera's storage algorithms." |
