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Hi All-

Interesting thread! Digital cameras are great for their ability to snap hundreds of shots without worry of "wasting" film. The capability to catalog electronic pictures according to date/genre, not to mention sharing them, is very handy. Digital cameras do have certain limitations.

My biggest peeve is the "boot-up" time required on my Canon PowerShot S200, which I acknowledge is a compact, entry-level model. To grab those candid, unstaged photographs one needs a camera that can be instantly triggered. My digital doesn't cut-the-mustard in that department, but my traditional 35mm is perfect.

The second concern is image warehousing. Computer performance suffers unless you transfer resource-intensive digital photographs and short movies to CDs or another designated storage device. This cost should be factored when comparing to development costs and maintaining binders.

Lastly, film cameras seem to produce a "warmer" picture in my estimation. This is not at all scientific and can almost be compared to preferences for music from vinyl records as compared to the thinner, processed sound of music coming from CD...

~ Blue Jays ~

The boot-up time can be annoying on digital, along with delays in focusing. But there are as at least as many issues with warehousing conventional film as there is with digital images, besides digital does not degrade over time. As as far as 'warmer' goes, with computer processing you can make digital images as cold or as warm as you like. The quality problem with digital is speed and low-light performance. Getting better, but no match for film.

My biggest peeve is the "boot-up" time required on my Canon PowerShot S200, which I acknowledge is a compact, entry-level model. To grab those candid, unstaged photographs one needs a camera that can be instantly triggered. My digital doesn't cut-the-mustard in that department, but my traditional 35mm is perfect.

Fortunately, today's latest digital cameras have very fast startup times. I've played with the Casio EXILIM EX-Z40 and it starts up really quick, as does the Konica Minolta DiMAGE X50. As for warehousing your shots, given the cheap price of recordable optical discs in CD-R and DVD+R/DVD-R format nowadays that shouldn't be a problem.

The new 8.2 megapixel EOS 20D from Canon starts up in one fifth of a second flat, which makes it very attractive indeed (though a $1500 price tag puts a little bit of a damper on that). It is hot, hot, hot! I think it's the #1 "prosumer" camera in the country right now. Retailers can't keep it in stock. Check out the review on dpreview.com.

Sony Ping!

I have two digital cameras. A Sony DSC-F707 5 mp. It has almost 30,000 photos to its credit. It started to act up and then I bought a Sony DSC-F828 8mp. The 828 has almost 10,000 photos on it. Both are wonderful! I carry the 828 with me in my purse. It isn't the smallest, but it takes amazing photos. I give the 707 to whoever needs it or stick it with a pilot in one of the balloons to take pics. If it gets dropped from 500 feet, oh well.

For loads of photos from both cameras- www.usflagballoon.com