Shawn's new Camera

FTLComm - Tisdale - Tuesday, May 21, 2002

The digital camera is well on its way to becoming the simplest and most convenient way for families to record their lives and for people of all ages to capture those magic moments. We started using a Digital camera in 1997 after several years of working with a video camera to capture stills. Our first 640 x 480 Epson 500 is still turning in fine pictures that you see on the this site from time to time and the Epson 650 I am using is still soldiering onward even though it is now several years old. Last fall we began seeing 2.3 megapixel cameras like the one used by Stu Innes and now look what Shawn Ratushniak is using. Shawn's new Minolta Dimage 5 has the capability of capturing images with amazing clarity because of the improvements in the size and numbers of pizels on the CCD that serves as the film in a digital camera. Shawn took this fabulous picture at Canora Beach this past weekend and it is not only a stunning image but it is a whopping 1600 by 1200 pixels. (The original image was 96dpi 1600 x 1200 we can only display 72 dots per inch on your computer screen and the standard image on this web site is eight inches wide or 576 pixels wide) The the camera looks huge in this image it is really very compact and has the look and feel of a single reflex lens camera that most of took most of the images we ever took on 35mm film. The camera has manual settings but reviewers and Shawn complain of the camera's hunger for electricity as it is very hard on batteries. Actually with the kind of power and capabilities the camera has it is to be expected that its power consumption would be high. If you would like to take a look at this remarkable camera drop by TSL computers in the Tisdale Mall. Oh yes, and if you want to carry one of these away with you to take some great pictures be prepared to pay close to $1,000 for the privilege.