[at-l] Digital VS Slides

[janl2@mindspring.com (Jan Leitschuh)]

Hi,
I've been following this discussion and also, being impressed with Spur's
slide show, went directly to the horse's mouth to ask what he used. I don't
think he would mind me sharing this technical info:

Hi Jan,
The digital I bought just before my PCT hike is a Minolta S404 (4
megapixel, 4X optical zoom). It's available for $499 various
places. I got mine at Ritzphoto.com.

It uses Compact Flash storage cards. Shooting at full resolution
(which I usually did) I could fit ~207 images on a 256 MB CF card.
Word on the street is that the Compact Flash cards are the most
robust as compared to SmartMedia and Memory Stick. I had no
problems with my memory chips.

I selected this camera because at the time I bought it just before
the hike, it was the only reasonably lightweight (<12 oz.) 4
megapixel camera which had more than a 3X optical zoom. On my AT
hikes I used either an Olympus 140 zoom or a Minolta 150 zoom film
camera, and did not want less than the equivalent digital. The 4X
zoom is about equal to 140mm. BTW the 404's optical lenses are
topnotch.

My guess is you'll get the best deal on a camera if you wait and
buy it shortly before your hike rather than long in advance. OTOH,
allow enough time to get familiar with it before the hike starts. I
was still climbing the learning curve when we left the Mexican
border in April.

Batteries are a big deal with a digital camera on a thruhike. I
strongly recommend one which uses AA batteries because of their
availability. I sometimes carried a few sets of rechargeable AAs
which I could recharge when I met up with the 1-hour charger in my
bounce box. However, whenever possible I used AA lithium batteries,
which have at least 3X the life of alkalines and weigh half as much
as alkaline or rechargeable (they weigh only 1/2 ounce each). A set
of lithium AAs outlasted the charge on a set of rechargeables
(1700mAH) by about 50%. The lithium batteries are harder to find
than alkalines. I had good luck at camera stores and Wal-Mart as
well as some drugstores. Wal-Mart will only sell you four 4-packs
at a time though. For some reason there's a restriction on them.
Other sources were unaware of any restriction. A 4-pack usually
costs about $10, still price-competitive with alkalines considering
their long life. OTOH, you could go the whole way with
rechargeables probably for less money. I found I was carrying a lot
of battery weight though when I relied on rechargeables.

I rationalized the expense of camera hardware and batteries by
considering how much I usually spent on film processing during a
thruhike. I tend to take a lot of photos, so unless I decide to buy
a new camera for every hike [  ;-)  ]  I'll probably save money in
the long run. Also, since you can take a look at your results on
the spot, you can shoot several variations of the same shot and
delete all but the best. I really had a blast with my S404 on the
PCT.

The projector I used at the Gathering is a NEC VT45K.
(
http://www.projectorpeople.com/projectors/projdtls.asp?itemid=1143
) It's available right now for $1550 freight prepaid on a rebate
special which includes a spare bulb (regularly $295 extra). I've
been very pleased with it even though it's a relatively low-end
digital projector.

I would have just borrowed someone else's projector at the
Gathering but no one else seemed to be bringing one. I decided to
go ahead and spring for one since I'd like to be able to show the
slides to friends, Scout groups, etc anyway. Flyin' Brian borrowed
mine for his show on Friday night. Naturally if you're considering
buying a projector it would be better to wait till you get back
since the price/quality ratio will surely improve over the course
of your hike.

BTW, when I was researching digital cameras I found a great online
info resource:
http://www.stevesdigi-cams.com . Pretty much everything on the
market is there, and you will find comparison grids plus
nicely-presented illustrated in-depth reviews of each camera, along
with a subjective evaluation. It made it much easier for me to
compare cameras.

Best of luck,
Spur

Jan,

The link I gave to Steve's Digicams was incorrect. It's actually:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html


Spur


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