Fwd: Re: [at-l] Trail Camera?

[bennettk@wfu.edu (Ken Bennett)]

>Although I agree with much of what has been said regarding trail cameras, I
>must disagree with the assertion about digital cameras.  As a longtime avid
>amateur/semi-pro photographer, I have made the transition to digital in the
>last year.  At this point I cannot envision going back to traditional film as
>my primary photo tool.  There are in fact a great number of very high quality
>digital cameras that produce very good results for $500 and less, depending on
>what you want.  There are many $500 and less digi-cams that produce 2.1 MP
>images which are very suitable for printing, even as large as 8x10.  In fact,
>the digi-prints at 4x6 and 5x7 are virtually indistinguishable from film
>prints.



I've had this discussion with several people. I make pictures for a living,
and I shoot both digital and film (and almost all my film is scanned into
digital images anyway.) Digital photography has a lot of advantages over
film, and I use a professional digital SLR  now for most of my work. And as
James pointed out, there are lots of good digital cameras out there for
five or six hundred dollars.

That said, I would strongly recommend _against_ a digital camera for a
thru-hike. The battery requirements alone are too much for long distance
hiking. Storage is another problem -- while it is nice to be able to reuse
the memory cards, you have to download them to a computer or mail them home
to be downloaded, and these cards are quite expensive (and you need 3 or
4). Finally there is the issue of printing, archiving, and the longevity of
the digital storage medium. I'd be happy to spend hours writing about all
this, but your collective eyes would glaze over <grin>.

(Note that there are some people out there who have had success with
digital cameras and long distance hikes. I am not denigrating their
experience.)

For long distance hiking, I carry either an Olympus XA, or an Olympus
Stylus Epic Zoom 80. If I expect a lot of bad weather, I carry an old Nikon
Action Touch, which is completely waterproof to 10 feet, but it is quite
heavy. The little Olympus cameras are lightweight, easy to use (and the XA
lets you have some manual control over the exposure), and get me great
photos. You almost can't go wrong if you go to the camera shop and buy a
new lightweight 35mm zoom point and shoot camera for about 150-200 bucks.

Hope this helps.

Ken