Dh bought me a new digital camera for Christmas and I am finally playing around with it today and trying to get it ready for use. I should add that we already had one, so that is why I have kind of put off getting this one ready! That and I am lazy! LOL But I have to set the image size and I am not sure what to choose. I have 4 settings

2592x1944
2048x1536
1600x1200
640x480

Which one is the best one to use? I will most likely be taking the card in to be developed and also printing some at home with a scrap booking program that I have. I did notice the lower the number, the most photos you can take, but will the print quality suffer?? If it matters, it is a Konica 5.0 mega pixel with 3x zoom. Not that it means a darn thing to me, but it might to you in telling me which setting to use!! LOL Thanks for any help you can give me. I know nothing about these cameras!!

By Brandy on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 02:11 pm:

Okay what size pics are you going to be printing out mostly 8x10's 5x7's or 4x6's it does take away from the quality if you don't use the higher setting i use the highest one all the time then if i need to scale it down i do that on the computer but also you have to make sure your printer quality is good also..anyways the decision is ultimately yours but i would use the highest setting = )

By Brandy on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 02:12 pm:

that way in case you do want a different size in something that you won't have quality loss from it.

By Vicki on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 02:18 pm:

Most likely 4x6 with an occasional 5x7 of something that is really good. Not very many 8x10 at all. He also got me an extra card that is a 128MB and the camera came with a 16MB memory card. If I set in ont he highest setting, will I still get plenty of pictures?? It also has a compression ratio between fine and normal? Know what that means???

By Dawnk777 on Saturday, March 27, 2004 - 02:39 pm:

If you want 8 by 10, you need the highest resolution. If you want 4 by 6 or 5 by 7, you can use the numbers more in the middle.

Jpg "fine" is the best quality. For the 128MB card, with it set at the high resolution and "fine", you should be able to get 40 shots on the card. (Digital camera expert standing behind me as I type! LOL!)

By Karen~moderator on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 06:43 pm:

The higher the resolution, the less photos you will get on a card. I recently took photos using a 256 mb memory stick at the highest resolution and only got 94 pics. I only use the highest resolution if I am taking pics I am planning to print, and most of my prints have been 8X10's for framing. You will need to get ANOTHER memory card at some point if you really get into taking pics with your camera. There is nothing worse than being somewhere shooting pics, particularly high res ones, and running out of memory!

I have 2, 128 mb sticks, 1 32 mb stick and 1 256 mb stick. I am going to by some more 128 or 256 sticks before our cruise in November because I plan to take a LOT of photos and don't want to run out of memory.

By Dawnk777 on Sunday, March 28, 2004 - 07:55 pm:

We have a 128 MB card, which has been more than sufficient for our needs. Sometimes on weekends, DH will use his work Compact Flash cards in our personal camera, since they are 256 mb.

By Vicki on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 08:36 am:

Well, thanks for all the help ladies!! I think I am going to go ahead and set in on the highest because that way, I am covered for anything that I might want to print. Your right Karen, I had better get at least one more card. We take some trips and I would be so angry if I ran out of pictures! But I do usually also take our regular 35 mm camera along too, so I would have that for a back up. But if I use the highest, I am sure 40 pictures wouldn't be enough.Do you agree with setting the compression ratio on fine rather than normal? Again, I have NO idea what that even means! LOL

By John on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 10:17 am:

I currently have a 5MP Sony and 4 128MB memory sticks. I find that it isn't adequate for long vacation trips away from my PC.

I've been hearing about a portable storage device priced around $100-$200 that has a 20-40GB hard drive to allow you to offload your pictures from FULL digital camera memory cards without needing a PC.

I plan to buy one of these instead of more memory sticks.

Regarding choosing the picture size:
I always use the highest resolution setting on my camera. Some of my best shots have been "unplanned" and I hate to not be able to enlarge it because I didn't choose a high enough resolution. But that's just me ;)


Here's a review of one of the storage device I mentioned:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0301/03012801vosonicxdrive2.asp

And a comparison of some others:

http://www.offrench.net/photos/articles/portable_storage_devices.php

By Dawnk777 on Monday, March 29, 2004 - 11:22 am:

Hmmm, maybe will have to suggest that to DH, although, it seems we aren't really all that far from a computer.