BeenThere-DoneThat		The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

Technical details.

My first digital camera was an Olympus 1400L and I used a serial link to transfer TIFF images, with a size of 1.4MB, to my computer at home. The image size, in pixels, was 1280 x 1024 and they were stored on SmartMedia cards.

The 1400L was replaced after about two years with an Olympus E10.

This is my Olympus E10. This camera is a digital single lens reflex with a fixed (non-removeable) zoom lens with a range of 9 - 36 mm which is equivalent to 35 - 140 mm on a standard 35 mm camera.

The narrow knurled ring immediately behind the lens is for manual focussing, if required, as it's normally automatic and the wide knurled ring behind that is to operate the zoom.

The TIFF image size on this camera is 12MB, with a resolution of 2240 x 1680, and these images are stored on CompactFlash cards.

Trying to transfer these images on a serial link was impractical so I bought myself a PCMCIA PC Card Adapter for my Dell Latitude laptop (See update below) which runs Debian Linux). The CompactFlash card appears to the laptop as just another disc drive and, when the laptop is connected to the network via a PCMCIA Ethernet adapter, the images can be transferred directly from the card onto my desktop.

I have a small carrying bag and the E10 just fits in the main compartment with three other small external zipped pockets for extra batteries, CompactFlash Cards and a small notebook. There are two small zipped pockets inside the lid which hold my Polarising filter and some more CompactFlash cards.

When I am on location I can download the images onto the laptop's hard disc and then wipe the CompactFlash card(s) clean ready for re-use but before wiping the camera cards I always make a backup copy of the images onto a CD using a CD-Writer in the laptop's swappable drive bay.

I have recently bought myself a Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100 which, as you can see, is a computer in minature and is shown here, with its wrist strap, together with a standard size computer mouse as a comparison.

It fits easily in the pocket and accepts a variety of CompactFlash based accessories such as a wireless network card so that it can connect to the internet when in range of a wirless access point.

It has a 4 GB hard drive and is supplied with Linux only and, as far as I know, is not supported by any other operating system. I have fitted it with a wrist strap so that it is relatively secure when in the field - it prevents me from dropping it.

One of its uses, as it has a CompactFlash slot, is to view photographs in the field, much better than trying to see them on the camera's postage stamp size screen. I also have a GPS attachment for it which is also very useful for fixing one's position in the field.

It is an amazing little gadget which can also be used one-handed as a PDA.

It has a touch sensitive screen which rotates and folds down with the back of the screen covering the keyboard as shown here. The display on screen then also rotates so that the display is then portrait format instead of landscape formt. Clever eh?

You can see the on/off switch and the slot for an SD card on the right-hand edge.

Because it has a touch-sensitive screen it can easily be used in this mode.

Because the E10 images have a file size of about 12MB some reduction in resolution/size is necessary to prevent a wait of about 3 days while the pages download from the web site to your computer so the pictures on this site are all in JPEG format and are optimised for fast downloading. The largest images have a resolution of 855 x 641 for the Olympus E10 and 855 x 684 for the Olympus 1400L.

All image adjustments were made using The Gimp. This is totally free and has more image manipulation functions than most people would ever need.

Laptop update 2005: My Latitude laptop was stolen on one of our trips and has now been replaced, under my insurance, with an IBM Thinkpad R51. It is a very nice machine and runs Linux very well.

This is the latest addition to the fold - small but perfectly formed as the saying goes. It is a Casio digital camera which hardly notices in the pocket and can be ready for use in about 1 second after switching on.

I wanted something good enough to act as a standby in the event that my main camera went wrong and also a camera that I could slip into my pocket and use easily and quickly or that Amanda, my wife, could use perhaps when we were travelling along in the car and after a lot of research on the Internet I decided on the Casio Exilim shown here.

It has an amazing number of features packed into that tiny frame including 8 megapixels resolution, ready for action in about 1 second, 3x optical zoom, optical viewfinder, flash, an LCD screen that occupies most of the back of the camera and on top of that it is really easy to use. The battery seems to last quite a long time (Casio says for over 400 images) and a single 1GB SD Card takes nearly 200 images at the highest quality.

The large circle is where the lens extends when switched on and the small rectangle in the centre of the circle is a protective metal shutter that covers the lens when the camera is switched off and automatically opens when the camera is switched on - no lens cap to lose.

Oh and did I mention that among the very many features that I haven't mentioned it records video sequences, with sound, limited only by the storage capacity of your SD card. The only still image format supported is JPEG with an image size of about 4-5MB and a resolution of 3264 x 2448.

I'm happy to answer any questions about laptop, Zaurus or camera by email

	This is me, with my trusty E10 camera, helping to support part of the New Forest in Hampshire. If you are a glutton for punishment you can see a large version (You're not really that warped are you?). WARNING: I accept no responsibilty for any ensuing heart attacks, seizures etc. You only want to see the camera? - Oh! - You don't want to see a picture of me? Well - see if I care!
	Here I am, still gripping my E10, doing my best to look like a Bluebell and failing dismally! Yes there is a large version

Photographic sites which may be of interest:

     Stock Image Directory
     Photolinks
     PJSPhotography


Technical Details		Great Britain