scanners vs digital cameras

[TrailblazingScot]

What makes a good scanner or a good digital camera?

I saw my Uncle with his groovy digital camera that had 4.3 million pixels (I think), did small videos and is an mp3 player...you could resize pictures aswell...

Now my experience with (admittedly rather cheap scanners) is that taking an image takes decades...the digital camera takes no time at all!

For scanning in a book lets say into your computer would a scanner or digital camera be better?

Any suggestion for a cool scanner/camera would be great (I don't really want to spend more that 150 pounds...I'm a poor student <img src="graemlins/blushing.gif" border="0" alt="[Blush]" /> )

<br />thanks for any help/stories/tips <img src="graemlins/king.gif" border="0" alt="[King]" />

 

[G-Man]

I have a scanner, and I hate it! Whenever I scan something from any sort of paper (Books, newspapers, fax paper) all pictures become unclear. It look like someone painted a colorful spider net on the picture. I hope D-cameras are better.

 

[BlueMonday]

I'd say that in ease of use terms a digital camera is better than taking a picture and scanning it into the computer. But saying as I've spent the last four years of my life taking black and white pictures and developing them myself, I hate digital cameras. They're as pathetic as those point-and-shoot cameras. You've got absolutly no control over the f-stops, exposure time, film ISO, depth of field, focus, or lens effects. Doing something like a silhouette, or long term exposure night shot, or wide angle (fisheye) is impossible. You lose all the creative elements that make a SLR camera great.

So for me, taking pictures in Black and White film, processing them myself, scanning them into a computer and then doing small re-touches is better. Maybe some day in a few years they'll develop a digital camera based on the single lens reflex design where you can interchange lenses, play with the f-stops and exposure times, alter it's sensitivity to light, and veiw in the viewer exactly what you're taking a picture of. I will buy a digital camera ONLY when they manufacture one of those, not before. Untill then, just give me my Canon AE-1 and a roll of Kodak T-MAX.

 

[drake]

They're as pathetic as those point-and-shoot cameras.<hr></blockquote>

Hate to say it, but blues right about this. I have an olympus camera with 3.1 mp and 1600 x 1200 res. (It was $550) And while it does take nice pictures, it is far from the quality of a good 35mm camera. Not real crisp, hard to get a really good focus.

BUT, not having to pay for developing and having the ability to drop your media on your pc within minutes is key.

Anyway, you can get a good scanner on your budget. The maximum resolution you scan at, the color depth and whether its a one or two pass scanner are factors in the cost and obviously you're going to get what you pay for. I have a UMAX (got it for $199) and it scans beautifully.

With digital media, its also essential to have a good image editing program. (unless you're not really interested in image quality) Something like photoshop would be great...of course it's kind of expensive <img src="rolleyes.gif" border="0">

For scanning in a book lets say into your computer would a scanner or digital camera be better?<hr></blockquote>

For anything 2-d, definetly go with the scanner. Taking pictures of pages in a book with a camera would be a lesson in frustration.

Get a scanner.....buy it at a store where you can ask plenty of dumb questions <img src="smile.gif" border="0">

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: drake ]</p>

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Only reason I ask is that I accidently THREW my scanner down the stairs...and now it is not working <img src="icon8.gif" border="0">

My uncles cool camera got me thinking though! <img src="icon27.gif" border="0"> <img src="icon27.gif" border="0"> <img src="icon27.gif" border="0"> <img src="icon27.gif" border="0"> <img src="icon27.gif" border="0">

P.S I have photoshop...does your scanner take ages to do stuff (the reason for my scanners demise!)

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: kittenOFchaos ]</p>

 

[drake]

I have a one pass scanner. On web-level resolution (72 dpi) i can scan a whole page in about 20 seconds. For something I might want to print? (300 dpi +), it's probably close to a minute for a whole page.

You sacrifice quality for time and vice versa.