My mistake

Even those of us in the PR world get swanked.

Remember this geeky looking Fujifilm instant-film camera I shared a few weeks back?

I'm told it's from 1998.

Still homely, however.

Casualties in the megapixel wars

Seriously: how long did you think camera companies could churn out higher- and higher-megapixel cameras before consumers became fatigued with it all?

They're figuring out that a new 12- or 14-megapixel camera isn't a necessity when jobs, hours and salaries are getting cut.

That 6- or 8-MP camera most of us bought a year or two ago will do fine, at least until the recession moderates.

As a result:

• Ritz Camera filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection this week. Hundreds of stores, stocked with Fuji, Nikon, and Olympus cameras that no one's buying. Most Ritz stores were mall-based, within easy clobbering range of the Target or Best Buy across the parking lot. If you bought a camera from Ritz, I hope you didn't pay extra for a Ritz warranty.
  
  
• Ritz's court filings say they owe Nikon USA more than $20 million. That kind of liability isn't going to make things easy at Nikon. Take good care of that D90 or D300; customer service may get whacked.
  
  
• Olympus downsized a portion of its U.S. sales and technical staff this week. The last Olympus digital camera I adored was the C-5060. Today's crop of pocket Olympus models have a few interesting bells and whistles. But no one raves about the quality of their photos, and it's all about getting great photos.
  
  
• Kodak's 3,500-4,500 layoffs by mid-year have a lot to do with the recession, but fewer shoppers in fewer retail locations don't create an optimal situation for the inventors of the digital camera.

Bottom line: I'd expect the digital camera business to re-set in 2009. Slower shipment of the new models announced at CES and PMA, in order to preserve pricing. That may mean more deals on current inventory, but I wouldn't be the first person in line to buy a new Canon D10.

Photo Marketing Tip: bigger call-outs

Blundered into a Wal-mart this week, and found a clerk and a customer in the photo department, sorting through cameras. The customer wanted a camera that would stitch together multiple photos to make panoramas. (Many Canon and Kodak cameras do this, or come with stitching software that makes it a breeze to do it on your computer.)

The customer and the clerk were baffled. This feature wasn't in the little camera cheat book that Wal-mart gives its photo departments. Because I've actually used this feature on a Kodak Z1285 camera, I picked up a box. After a good 5 minutes of squinting, I found the "call-out" on the box -- in a type-size that an ant would have trouble reading.

I helped sell Mr. Customer a camera that met his needs, and that's a good thing. But here's a word of advice to all camera manufacturers: USE BIGGER PRINT on your packaging! The people buying your products do not walk into Wal-mart with magnifying glasses or photographer's loupes. Want to sell a feature? Make it easier to find the features they're looking for.

End of rant.

Review beat: Objectivity, where art thou?

When you're researching a digital camera, there are many sources of independent, serious reviews: Stevesdigicams.com, dcresource.com, dpreview.com. If you can wade through the tech-geek speak, you'll come away more knowledgeable about your particular camera.

Want real-world customer opinions? Try Amazon.com. Semi-professional video reviews can be found on YouTube, although it's sometimes painful to put up with the shaky video quality.

But I draw the line when sites such as Buy.com and TigerDirect.com tout their videos as "product reviews." There's no objectivity involved when the video clip features a sales rep from the camera manufacturer talking about the "great features" of his or her employers' camera. In the real world, this is simply an infomercial, and not a good source of objectivity.

Full disclosure: I work for Kodak. I like some Kodak cameras, and don't care for others. When I offer an opinion, I try to keep do so with a minimum of hyperbole.

Loose screws

One of my favorite little digital cameras is the Kodak V603. It's nothing extraordinary -- 6 megapixels, 30 fps video, and a pretty standard 36-108 Schneider zoom lens. But it was the right size at the right price, and captured great photos.

My one mistake: giving it to my daughter, who dumped the camera into her bag along with her iPod, cell phone, and Lord-knows-what-else. All that jostling around resulted in a problem: loose screws. Cruise around the web, and you find the V603 earned a reputation for losing the screws that hold the metal alloy covers on the camera.

Last time I saw that camera, it was held together by yellow duct tape at the corners. Not pretty.

Most digital cameras have tiny screws that might work their way out. So, get a set of precision screwdrivers (usually $1 at the Dollar Store). Tighten up any loose screws. Then, place a tiny dab of clear nail polish on any screws that felt a little looser than others. (Be sure to keep the nail polish away from buttons and the lens mechanism; if you're worried, mask the buttons and other sections with easy-to-remove tape before handling the nail polish.)

And you can skip the yellow duct tape.

Separated at birth

Camera companies spend loads o' cash designing cameras. They do studies. They make clay models, churn out non-working prototypes, and show 'em to would-be owners to see what'll work.

Everyone wants to have that breakthrough design.

So, I'm moseying around the camera universe one afternoon, and I spot:
























And I've got to ask: was there a saloon in some European city where the camera designers get looped and take home the wrong USB drive?

Size matters -- not megapixels

In my film camera days, a roll of 35mm film gave you a negative of 36 x 24mm. That area was the "recording surface" for the images I shot.

Digital cameras today are promoted for having 8, 10, or 12 megapixels. That's not the size of the recording surface; it's geek-speak for the number of tiny recording cells on the sensor.

You can squeeze millions of these cells on a sensor. But if the sensor itself is only 7.2 x 5.3 mm -- typically the size found in a pocket digital camera -- you have less overall area in which to capture an image. Add megapixels, and you're just squeezing more tiny cells on a small sensor, which leads to image degradation in the form of "noise."

So, when you're looking at different cameras, megapixels are irrelevant. It's the size of the sensor that really determines image quality. There's a semi-technical explanation of this at this web site, and a simpler (and somewhat exuberant) discussion on Ken Rockwell's website.

Most times, you don't find sensor sizes printed on the camera package. You find megapixels. But here's what I've found:

• A 1/1.8 sensor generally captures more-detailed, less-noisy photos than cameras equipped with a 1/2.5 sensor.
• Cameras with 1/1.8 sensors include the Canon A630, the Kodak C875, and Panasonic FX-150. They cost a little more than cameras with smaller sensors.
  
• Cameras with (smaller) 1/2.5 sensors include the Canon A590IS, Olympus FE-350, Casio EX-V8 (a personal favorite), and most ultra-compact pocket models from Canon, Kodak, and Nikon.

Deal alert: Canon's factory-refurbushed A630 (a camera I own and enjoy) can be purchased from their web site for $149. That's much less than I paid for it new.