I have recently discovered the joys of digital photo printing.
I have taken many pictures with our new-ish Canon A-70, mostly at reasonable, non-print sizes. So most of the pictures I take are at 1024x768, and end up getting down-sampled (resized to make them smaller) to 640x480 for posting on this site. Otherwise, they'd be too large to download and take up crazy amounts of server space.
In order to get a print that does not look fuzzy from lack of resolution, you really need at least a 2 megapixel camera with a resolution of 1600x1200. That should produce most commen sizes of printed photos. 4x6 is the most common format, and a 2 megapixel camer will do those nicely. In order to get to 8x10, you need at least a 3 megapixel camera, and our A-70 fits the bill pretty well.
I took a couple of pictures on the beach at hi-resolution when Berta and I were on the beach in Atlantic City. The resolution of the original image was 2048x1563. The picture you see here is only 320x240, about one-sixth of the original size.
I decided to take these same pictures to the digital printer to see if they looked anything like a real photo from a film camera.
The picture content wasn't fantastic. Not that a picture of Berta is bad, just that the picture isn't really anything other than regular-old vacation tomfoolery. Nonetheless, I was impressed with the printout that we got at the store. It looked just like a real photo. I probably should have expected as much, since Mom is getting all of her digital pictures done over at Shutterfly. I think I might have more pictures output to paper, but I need to think about how to make it pay out.
I have shopped around for the best price on digital prints (haven't tried WalMart yet, though) and found a place (Wegman's) that does 4x6 for 39 cents each. Everywhere else is around 44 to 49 cents, including Shutterfly, and I don't really have to wait, since they have two machines. But how do digital print prices compare to film?
If I can get an entire ASP roll (25 exposures) developed for $5, then I get each photo for 20 cents. That's half the price of a digital photo print.
All of this makes sense only if I disregard all of the features that make digital cameras so attractive. For example, if I take only 25 pictures on the digital camera, it will cost me $10 to get them printed. But there are two problems with this way of thinking. First, I can choose which photos I want to print, rather than paying for the whole roll. So if I want a print of only two of the photos I took, I only pay 78 cents.
The second problem is that I will not have taken only 25 pictures. My camera, with the proper memory card installed, can take hundreds of pictures without a "film" change. I have the freedom to erase pictures I don't like even before I get back to the printing station. So I may have more good pictures than I could possibly get on a roll of film.
What I'm lookig forward to, though, is printing out some 8x10's. I want to push the camera limits and see if I can detect grain in the image. What I'll need, though is a good setting and subject. Probably the next serious thing I'll take pictures of is Emma's wedding, which isn't something I would personally want prints from, but maybe we'll see how that goes. Perhaps another B&W of Johsntown from the incline to hang in my office?
