Choosing A Digital Camera Printer

There are so many types of digital camera printer on offer that finding the right one for your personal and business needs can be a very daunting task. However, there are a few main points to consider when choosing a digital camera printer that will help make the process a little easier.

It isn’t necessary to have a high-resolution digital camera printer to make great pictures. The higher the printer resolution you use, the more pixels you'll need in your original image file to produce a decent size print with your digital camera printer. The actual file size (in pixels) of the image from your camera, divided by the printer resolution (in dots per inch), determines the final print size. So, if the image file size is 1,478 x 1,280 pixels, and you print the file at 163 dpi with your digital camera printer, the final print size will be 9 x 7.8 inches.

If your digital camera printer resolution is 300 dpi, then you will have a higher resolution with more dots per inch laid down on the paper but a smaller print size. It is therefore important to ensure that you have the image file size to support the resolution of your digital camera printer.

The price of a digital camera printer is lowering whilst the quality is increasing. If you choose the right digital camera printer you can have your own photo lab, greeting card designing and sign making department with just your digital camera, some software and a printer.

The aim of having a digital camera printer is to produce photographic prints that look as close to real photographic prints as possible. This type of digital camera printer was once very expensive to buy and run, but technological advancements and competitive pricing have made them much more accessible to the average buyer. Ink-jet printers are now available that can produce excellent prints and a near photo-quality printer is much easier to find for people with a small budget. You will probably want to have a digital camera printer with a scanning feature built-in. If you want to produce same-size scans of photos you don’t need scan resolutions higher than 300 samples per inch for the scanner.

Your digital camera printer should also have the same interface that you already have on your computer. So if you have USB, then get a digital camera printer with USB, a Firewire printer if you have Firewire or a SCSI printer if you have SCSI. There should be no need to buy a digital camera printer that requires a different interface to the one you already have on your computer or it will cost you more to upgrade if necessary.

About The Author

Steve Gargin is the administrator of http://digital-camera-reviews.helper-guru.com/camera-digital-photography-wedding/index.html which is a great website dedicated to giving free advice on Digital Cameras.

Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 Digital Camera Review

Design and Construction
The sony cybershot DSC-W1 is one stylish looking camera. A direct competitor to the Canon PowerShot S500, the DSC-W1 has been constructed to be a compact, travel ready camera that you can use to take quick snaps. Its dimensions are 3.5 inches by inches by 1.25 inches (weight-height-depth) and it weighs only 7.0 ounces.

One aspect of the camera I found especially impressive was the large 2.5 inch LCD screen. Most compact cameras have small LCDs so much so that you have to quick to look at the postage stamp sized images. Well, not in the Sony DSC-W1. The large screen makes it a joy to do on camera image editing or to show off your pictures to friends and family.

Optics and Resolution
The Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 comes with a 5.1 megapixel resolution, as well as 3x optical zoom and 2x digital zoom. There’s a built-in Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens to allow quick focusing in a wide variety of photo environments.

The optics in this camera are also superb. There are comprehensive focusing options available if you’re more adventurous and want to play around with advanced manual camera options.

If you want to customize the camera to take photos at night, for example, you can change the shutter speed or play with the size of the aperture quite easily. If you need to take a quick shot in the middle of a vacation, you can switch back to auto focus and exposure so that the camera does everything for you. In short, the Sony DSC-W1 has features which give you extreme flexibility in taking photos.

User Controls
The user controls in the Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 are found next to the LCD and on a mode dial at the top surface of the camera. I found the controls easy to use. Whether you want to zoom in on an image, or change to a different scene mode or focus setting, the controls are always within easy reach.

Movie Mode
I also like the availability of a movie mode in the DSC-W1. You know, sometimes when you’re out in the park or on a vacation, you get those moments when you know a video will be more appropriate instead of a photo. That’s where the movie mode is useful. You can capture video at 30 frames per second (fps) at VGA size 640 x 480 – that roughly translates to 90 seconds of video on the included 32 MB memory card.

Direct Printing
As with many new digital cameras, the Sony DSC-W1 supports PictBridge direct printing. This is tremendously useful if you want to quickly print out photos without having to import them to a computer first. Of course, you will need a printer that is PictBridge compatible as well – the Canon Pixma iP4000 is my personal choice.

Storage and Transfer
The Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 comes with a 32MB Sony memory stick– which is hardly enough for serious photo taking, since each image is potentially 5MB in size. I’d recommend getting at least a 128MB Memory Stick to complement the camera. In terms of image transfer, the camera supports USB 2.0 ports. This means that you’ll experience lightning transfer of data between the camera and your computer.

Battery Life
One thing I love about the Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 is the battery system. The camera supports standard AA batteries like those from Energizer. This is pretty rare in digital cameras – most cameras need to use a proprietary battery. The ability to support AA batteries is great because you need not worry about the batteries running out – AA batteries are easily found in any convenience store.

Shortcomings
There are some quirks I noticed in the Sony DSC-W1. Though not serious problems, they did serve to mar my experience with this camera somewhat. What are these quirks? They include:

* Lack of a panorama-assist mode
* Lock of white-balance calibration options
* No way to adjust the camera's automatic power-down time.
* Lack of a good photo editor in the bundled software

Conclusion
I do hope this review of the Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 has been of help to you. If you’re looking for a good travel camera to take fun shots with, this Sony model is tough to beat. I personally own a Canon PowerShot S500, but I’d also recommend this Sony because many of my friends have been raving about it.

Author : Gary Hendricks runs a hobby site at www.basic-digital-photography.com. Read his tips on digital photography and learn to shoot better photos with your digicam.