[olug] Digital Cameras and Linux

[Jeff Hinrichs]

Congrats on the good news.

As to digital photography, stay away from connecting your camera to the
computer.  Get a media reader for the particular media your camera uses. 
Make  sure you can operate the media reader via linux by mounting it as a
removable drive.  Copy the pics off and when happy delete them off the
media.  Let the camera format the media when necessary.

Most media readers are USB or firewire.  Go fire if you are going to be
shooting alot as it is faster but $$.  USB is still faster than serial.

This way you don't have to fool with getting your camera to work with the
OS or take your camera out of the action to download pics.  You get more
cameras to choose from.

Go for at least 2megapixels, 4-5 is mid range now.  I've got a 4Mpx Nikon
that I'm happy with.  Uses compact flash.  Cheap media, slower write time
than film.  I'd also recommend to go with a few smaller (32/64mb ) cards
instead of a big 256MB.  The bigger the card the longer the access time.

Have fun and do your homework before you buy.

-jeff