Stephen Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > Add to this the fact that the room I was allowed to use was pretty dim, > most of the exposures were 1/2 to 1 Second at F8.
I think normal indoor lighting can be expected for the type of documents I am likely to be taking pictures of. > As for a 6.1MP DSLR being to expensive, you have not (AFAIR) quoted your > budget I had not really decided what would be reasonable, but having seen a few cameras and read a few reviews, I would hope to get a camera plus whatever else was needed (memory, battery) for 300 pictures for no more than 200 pounds. Something the reviews never mention is how well the cameras work with Linux, hence my question to this group. I am reassured on this now: mass storage (no problem at all), PTP (I can install digikam), and in any case I would probably do better to read the memory card directly via a USB connector. Other comments from the experts here have been a bonus: I am now persuaded that I should get a good quality camera that will work well in general use. However, I think a DSLR would be too expensive and I would prefer something smaller and lighter anyway. Also, in spite of what has been said, I still want 10Mp. From various reviews, I have reached the conclusion that good quality can now be achieved with a 10Mp camera. True, the cheaper ones have problems in this area (saturation, loss of quality with increasing ISO), but with the more expensive ones what problems there are appear to be from the lens or optical system generally (barrel distortion, loss of focus at edges, colour fringing). So, I am now looking at the better-quality compact cameras. Another thing never mentioned in reviews is the field of view. I can't tell from a review how far away I would need to be to get all of an A3 document in view. A record office would not be happy for people to put items on the floor to photograph. Is there some standard meaning for "wide-angle lens"? Does anyone know the lifetime of Li-ion batteries (how often they can be recharged)? Peter Alefounder. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------