Digital Photography of Plants and subsequent manipulation
Antennaria@aol.com (Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:10:36 PST)

This is a most interesting subject. John Lonsdale has done a terrific job of
thoroughly "covering the bases" and sharing lots of useful information. I'm
impressed both by the detailed scope of coverage, and by the description of
his personal computer management and backup strategies that far surpass my
hack-job attempts at organization (it's certainly ad hoc chaos here). For
those that operate more by the seat of their pants, I have a few suggestions
and opinions:

True enough, the memory cards that ship with cameras are mere tokens. You
must always separataly purchase higher capacity flash cards that hold 60 MB
or more. With the larger capacity cards, you can easily take an unreasonable
quantity of photos! ;-)

It should be noted that printers have come a long way, and now come
predisposed ready to deal with digital camera flash cards as an industry
standard. When you purchase a printer these days, they are remarkably cheap.
I bought a color HP Photosmart 1115 last year for less than $200, and as
with most printers today it comes with support for digital photos, including
built-in slots/readers for flash cards including the newer ultra-thin cards,
buttons on the printer to automatically download the photos from the card,
and software bundles such as ACDsee and Photo Imaging software. So there's
little need to buy a separate flash-card reader to download digital pics...
just buy a new printer and it's all built-in.

I agree with Dave Fenwick that Paint Shop Pro is an excellent solution. At
work I have Photoshop, Photoshop Elements (lite version), Paint Shop Pro, and
other graphics software. I like Paint Shop Pro best. I think that
inexperienced graphics-software users will do very well with the VERY
affordable yet undeniably powerful Paint Shop Pro (about $70) versus
Photoshop (+ $700). Photoshop is tremendous overkill for some users who
could suffice with a simpler program like Paint Shop Pro. Unless you're a
grahics pro, or have the dollars, Photoshop is like having a sledge-hammer to
trim a hang-nail. Paint Shop Pro is eassier and more "user friendly", yet
surprisingly powerful and comparable. For imaging professionals however, or
for very specific Photoshop capabilities, Photoshop is the way to go. I'm
not a pro yet, so I'm quite satified with Paint Shop Pro.

Regarding JPG file format (the 72 dpi JPG format is certainly universal for
the web), it should be noted that 20%-25% compression is typical.
Compression ratios higher than that usually results in visual image
degradation. Images in JPG format with compression suitable for web viewing,
are completely non-suitable for printing purposes. JPG files with
compression print poorly, the compression resulting in noticeable image
distortion and "artifacts". For printing purposes, images should be saved in
TIF format or JPG format WITHOUT compression.

Regarding time of day to take digital photos, digital cameras do a really
fine job as compared to single lens reflex cameras. Under very low light
conditions, digital cameras are more forgiving and deliver better quality
photos than one might expect. As someone who has a 1-1/2 hour commute each
way to work, I almost always end up photographing early morning or late
afternoon/early evening when light is low (drat). Yet in full sunlight,
digital cameras do better than SLR cameras at mitigating strong shadows and
contrast, and yeild consistently better results. With digital cameras, John
is most defintely correct, photos taken in full sunlight are preferred.

The only frustration I've experienced with digital cameras, and it's a major
frustration, has to do with the camera itself. I borrow from a fleet of
digital cameras we have at work, the cameras selected to service our
Architects and Engineers that need to take longer-distance jobsite photos.
The cameras we purchased are excellent in general, yet terrible for close up
macro photography. For photographing narrow, thin plants such as Alliums (my
main area of interest), general digital cameras are extremely difficult and
frustrating because the automatic focus looks beyond the narrow target and
blurs the image. Attempts to manually correct the focus and depth of field
are difficult and unsatisfactory at best. One apparently needs a digital
camera specifically designed for close-up macro photography such as the Nikon
Coolpix camera. It's on the horizon for me... I must buy my own camera with
macro photography capabilities in the new year.

Happy Holidays all!

Mark McDonough Pepperell, Massachusetts, United States
antennaria@aol.com "New England" USDA Zone 5

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Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 21:19:39 -0800
Subject: Re: TOW Digital Photography
From: Douglas Westfall <eagle85@flash.net>
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
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Cathy,

Check your manual. That problem can be avoided.

Doug