Digital Photography Forum

Hello Gary. Nice site and one that I will get involved in.
I started with an Olympus D600-L for about a year and have moved to the C3030Z. This is an awesome camera full of features. I have upgraded to a 64-MB chip, but even with this I need additional storage. Olympus (after complaining to them) has told me that a 128-MB chip is being developed. That will end my storage problems, as I like to work with uncompressed TIFF files. Yes, they are big files, but they are what I need for professional images I need for my marketing position at my company.
The ultimate solution to image storage (for me) is an Iomega 650 CD-RW external drive. I like external USB capable devices as I can use them on my PC or take them on trips for my laptop. Everything is USB capable so storage is a snap.
JPEG files are fine for quick posting on the internet, but once you compress a file, and reopen it for use, you loose a lot of the quality. And the more you work with it the worse it gets. A TIFF file on the other hand is uncompressed and looses nothing in terms of quality.
As a side note on the C3030, I am one of the unfortunate who purchased the $450 FL40 Flash unit. What you need to make it work is the cord/bracket (both of special dedicated design for the C3030) and which didnt become available until 3 weeks ago.
If you need the $100 combo (and I do for use in hockey photography, place your order with a reputable distributor and wait. They are in the pipeline, but its first-come-first-serve.

Convert to Tiff files immediately after taking the picture with Corel? Will that affect the picture negatively?
I have also been looking at the C2500L with lustful eyes. What is your take on that one? Looks like the prices are creeping under $1000 in some places. They tend to strip out the 32 meg card, charger and power cord so beware. But if you already have the things they are stripping out it can offer you a way into a nice camera.
Thanks,
Gary

Would you be smart to not manipulate any JPEG file until you have enough of them to burn a CD with all the originals? Seems like that would be a workable solution or to never do anything but view a file without re-saving it until you have a chance to save it permanently. I am assuming just opening it doesn't change it. Is that a good assumption?
If so, can you open it and save it as a new file without damaging the original?
Thanks... Guvner..

From what I understand, once you have saved the file as .JPEG file degradation starts. What I plan on doing is saving as .TIFF then as I need to work with the file (email) let that version go as .JPEG and not worry as the original is still saved.
Another take is the software such as Picture It 2000 which allows you to save as a .MIX and this protects the file until you manipulate it and save as some other format. So to start, open your software and see what your choices are and you may be pleasantly surprised. But for questions on your .JPEG images, why not give the old Help menu a try.

what your exp.with the fl40 flash unit are...as this is an acc. I am considering!
Did you by the way get more spec. info on the 128 MB SM Card...time/price?
I am still learning, having only used it for 2 days, but it sure seems to be a super camera!!!
ChrisB

It depends on how the jpeg was saved originally. The usual convention allows you to set a scale of from 1 to 100 with 100 being the highest quality but the least compression, whereas 1 is the lowest quality but the most compression. The other common settings are 60 for "high", 30 for "medium" and 15 for "low" quality. At the medium and low levels you're into files around a tenth of the original (or less) in size.
Any resaving in the jpeg format of the lower levels gives immediate and often severe degradation. However if you take the original and save it as a .tiff or .mix or .psd or some other non-compressed format there should be little "further" degradation. Make graphic imaging changes to a copy of this and save in the uncompressed format to protect the original and your modified image.
As Carl said it's best to start with the best image and use an optimizer to give you a smaller jpeg when you want to use it on the Internet. If you're saving your images, save them in an uncompressed format.
Not sure if this helps ... good luck ... Gord.

I just read this on the digital photo forum. Several guys recommend taking pitures in jpeg format because tiff takes up too much memory. They say the quality difference is not that great, and unless you're an expert, you won't even notice. Now, if you have to edit the file, then save the new version in tiff. The quality will remain the same, and not be further degradated.

Here are some of the responses I was referring to:
You should save the original JPEG files as the "master" copies. There is no point in converting them to TIFF. When you read the JPEG master files and edit them, you should save the edited version in a new file with lossless compression (e.g.TIFF) if you think you might do further editing, because repeated saves to JPEG format will result in accumulated loss of quality. By all means save to JPEG when you have finally got the image as you want it, or save to TIFF.
The difference is very small. You will be using jpeg in the highest quality setting. Tif isn't worth the memory space and certainly not the extra SAVE-onto-memory time.
No advantage there at all. The best solution to lessen artifact problems wiuld be to open the JPEG, process it, then save it as a TIFF. JPEG artifacts only occur when saving a JPEG file, so once it is saved in the camera as a JPEG the 'damage' is done. Not saving it again as a JPEG would be the solution.
The question is almost irrelevant, because you simply can't use TIFF on an ongoing basis with a consumer digital camera as the camera will be stuck for 30-35 seconds for each shot. That means that for practical purposes you better forget about TIFF. Besides - at least on my camera - there is virtually no difference between SHQ and TIFF.
No immediately visible difference, you meant to say. That's because JPEG tries to remove only the information in the image which is not usually preceiveable. However, if you change the display paramters or process the image, the differences may become very clearly visible. So whether to use JPEG or TIFF is mostly a question of what you intended to do with the images afterwards. If you want to leave them largely unaltered, the visible difference between low-copmression JPEG and TIFF is not worth the extra memory and time, I fully agree.

Hey Chris, great camera choice.
Well, as I said in an earlier post I have a $499 flash and a $1000 camera, but cant use them together yet.
Olympus let the camera out of the bag (I got mine 3 weeks before the announced date) but the accessories were slow to come online which is typical of a lot of high end products. Only within the past 3-1/2 weeks did the two items I need become available in this country: FL-BK01 Dedicated flash bracket and the Exclusive bracket cable. The bad news is that while I have my items on order ($100 for the pair) Olympus is filling the orders for the large distributors first. I am on back order, Hockey season is only a month away and if they dont arrive, I am going to be upset (I like being polite early in the morning)!
Yes, you can use other flash units, but the FL40 and C3030 are interlinked to work as a unit (nothing like dual flash capability).
I have now used this camera on several trips for doing commercial work and had 0 problems. Menu is easy, camera has great balance. I have added a wide angle lens, filters, extra chips (I have a 16, 32, and 64MB) for the TIFF files I need.
The 128MB is in development. Olympus did not peg a date or a price, but my guess is next year @ $200-250; just a swag.
And while there are a ton of settings, you basically set them up once for your style and then modify to conditions..this is cutting edge in this level of camera. Yes there are a lot of other styles out there, but use the C3030 as a bench mark and see what features the others lack. But only if you are willing to sprint to the $900 and beyond price level.

Of course I am not quite ready to forgive the Blues this early in the game for their 1st round exodus this past spring.
Thanks for all the input around here... Guvner..

My Cincinnati Mighty Ducks (AHL) have a working arangement with Detroit (NHL).

And they are fun to root for...
Good hunting... Guvner..

Thanks for info...I bought this camera for both bus. and pleasure as well, hockey being the favourite photo obj. as my son is an eager player.
We live in Norway and had, by the way, a very successful hockey tour with my son's team back in 97, where we played several matches against the best teams in Florida ( won them all ) and even got to play in between periods in a NHL match between Florida Panthers and Toronto M.L....A memory for life for all of the players ( and us parents ).
Chris..

Just got a call from distributor that they have an invoice for my shipment; should have this combo by first of next week. I will let you know if a) it works and more important, b) was it worth $100.