Ken, DPI generally refers to the print, not the photograph. It stands for dots per inch. Theoretically, the more dots per inch, the finer the quality of the print. I've never heard of a DPI setting for a camera. Maybe if you could give a little more background on why you're looking for this setting. Are you sending a digital photograph to a professional to print and that person asked you to do something with dpi or? If it's too hard to get straightened out by exchanging messages with any of us here on the forum, feel free to contact me by email and I'll give you my phone number. You could call me either at home (but I'm not going to be here tomorrow evening and I'm headed to bed shortly tonight) OR you could call me at work. I don't see any problem with that either. Or, I'll be around Friday evening and most of the weekend. I'm not a great printer person but I'm a pretty good problem solver/trouble-shooter and I'm good at finding answers. My email is jel48@charter.net.

thanks gel ....

the reason i ask .... is that the conifer journal wants pix at 300 dpi [wouldn't surprise me that the hosta journal has the same requirements].... and i usually save pix much smaller for the sake of crashing my computer ... and i usually only post them on the web ....

my new camera is [Xmas gift from dadinlaw] ... is at the link below .....

here are the options for my camera
3264 x 2448
2592 x 1944
2048 x 1536
1600 x 1200
640 x 480
it is obvious to me.. that the biggest file.. will give the best picture.. BUT THAT IS SOME SERIOUS MEMORY storage issues.. if i took all the pix at that level ...

and i suppose [correct me if i am wrong] ... that if i want to print pix at wallyworld .. from the digital .. i need the same basic info ...

of the above choice... which is the best 'general' file size

thanks.. ken

Here is a link that might be useful: a630

Ken,
3264 x 2448 = 7,990,272 pixels...so you have an 8 meg camera.
Nowadays digital cameras can be purchased at a very low price. The catch is that included with your camera is a very low capacity flash card. For the Cannon A630, the MultiMedia Card has only 16MB. So you are very limited in the amount of pics you can take at the maximum resolution of 3264x2448
BTW you have an excellent camera. However I would recommend that you buy a new 500MB flash card...which should cost you about $80 US
If you can afford a 1 gig flash card (much more expensive) all the better...but a 500 meg will handle thousands of pics even at maximum resolution.

Papou

Ok, I think I can at least make some sense of the request from the conifer journal for 300 dpi. I really have never heard dpi used to refer to digital photographs (from a digital camera, that is). BUT... scanner resolution IS measured in dpi (which, again, is dots per inch). When you scan a hard copy photograph (or anything else) more dots translate into a sharper image. So, if you were scanning photos, a good rule of thumb might be to scan a master copy of your image at 300 dpi, rather then say, 80 dpi, which would result in an image file of much lower quality.

I think the conifer journal folks set that requirement (or guideline) before digital cameras were in common use. Back at a time when people generally had to scan an actual film/developed/hard copy print (or negative) to create a digital image. The primary purpose of this image would probably have been to print more hard copies from, or in the case of the conifer journal, to print high quality images in a journal (probably in book or magazine type format).

That's a start. I have more information for you, and I am typing it up right now, but will post this much so if you check in the next little bit, you'll see I'm working on information for you. Just check back at least half an hour or 45 minutes after the timestamp on this post.

Next installment...

Now, when you are posting photographs online, DPI means nothing. It doesn't apply in any way. When you are displaying photographs on a PC monitor, pixels are what determine how big the image displays. When you posted this information, you are posting photo 'size' in pixels.

3264 x 2448
2592 x 1944
2048 x 1536
1600 x 1200
640 x 480

640 x 480 means 640 pixels by 480 pixels and so on.

How big that image looks on a monitor depends on the resolution of that monitor. If you're not quite sure what your monitor resolution is, you can do a right click on your desktop, then select properties from the list that is displayed. In properties, go to the 'Settings' tab. You'll see screen resolution listed along with a sliding scale. Many years (say 12-14 years ago) 640 x 480 was a common resolution. Now, many monitors won't even allow that setting. For example, the lowest resoltion that the monitor I'm typing on now will allow is 800 x 600 pixels. The higest resolutiont this monitor will allow is 1600 x 1200. And this is an older monitor (about 5 years old). Newer and better monitors will allow even resolution settings.

The way this translates to pictures is...

A 640 x 480 image will fill a monitor that is set to a resolution of 640 x 480. I can't give exact figures for that image on montiors with higher resolution, but I can give some numbers that will kind of display the difference. For example, that same 640 x 480 image might fill only a quarter of a monitor where the resolution setting was 1280 by 1024, while that same 640 x 480 image would only fill a tiny portion of a monitor set to a resolution of 1600 x 1200.

The size of your image file, in pixels, should vary depending on what you want to do with that image file.

If you want to display your photograph online, like in the GW forums, you want to use a small image file. I would recommend using a width of no more then 600 to 800 pixels. There are two good reasons for this. 1) Generally, the larger the number of pixels, the bigger (and now I'm talking bigger in kilobytes or megabytes) the file will be. Bigger files mean more time for the image to load onscreen. This is especially important to those people who don't have a high speed (like DSL or cable modem) connection. If you're connected to the internet with a dial-up connection those large image files will just take forever to load. 2) If you use a width greater then the 600 to 800 pixel range, those people who have a monitor with a low resolution setting, won't be able to see all of the picture at one time. We've all seen those pictures in the forums where someone loaded up a big (large pixel measurment) image file and we had to scroll way over to the side to see the whole thing. That's the result of an image file that is too big (too many pixels) for the monitor resolution it is displayed on. Make sense?

Ok, I'm going to post this part now. Then I'll type up one more that discusses DPI and pixels and megabytes.....

This last post, should get down to what you really need to know.

Let's start again, with the options you gave for your camera, which are:

3264 x 2448
2592 x 1944
2048 x 1536
1600 x 1200
640 x 480

I took the link you gave to your Canon Powershot A630 and looked at some more information there. The first thing I saw was that it is an 8 megapixel camera.

Most people look for a digital camera that has a high size in megapixels. Actually, for most people, (in my opinion anyway) once they get over 2.5 to 3 megapixels, size really doesn't matter :-) A 2.5 megapixel camera will take just as good of photos as an 8 megapixel camera. The difference is when you want to print the photo. A 2.5 megapixel photo will print out a great 4x6 print. It will print out a great 5x7 print. It will even print a darn good 8x10 print so long as you held the camera still and got a sharp photo to start with. But if you want to print 11x14 inch prints or something even larger (like a poster size) then a camera that can only ceate 2.5 megapixel prints is not for you. If you want to print those giant prints then you are going to need that 8 megapixel camera and you are going to want to run it at the higest quality you can. That translates to that 3264 x 2448 setting that you mentioned.

As a side note, if you multiply 3264 x 2448 you get 7,990,272 or roughly 8 million pixels. 8 million pixels = 8 megapixels.

Now, regardless of what the conifer journal folks say about photos of 300dpi resolution, you are right. That is archiac. It just doesn't apply in a world of digital cameras.

I would use the highest quality setting your camera allows. I don't use any other setting on my cameras, no matter what my end use of the photos is going to be. What if you set your camera to 640 x 480 and took a gazillion photos (because at that setting you can fit a gazillion on that small memory card that came with the camera) intending only to use them online ... and then you found that you had an absolutely remarkable photograph... the shot of a lifetime... and it was too small of an image to even make a decent print? I know, it's a digital world. But people still like prints. Obviously the conifer journal wants to print photographs in the journal. Granted, a conifer or a hosta will most generally stand still so you can take another great photo ;-) but we don't always take just conifer or hosta photos. We take family photos and vacation photos and sports photos and so on and so on. It just isn't worth taking the chance of missing out on a good high-quality photo when your camera has the capability of taking that good high-quality photo.

Ok, lecture over.

I'd still take the highest quality possible for the conifer journal. Maybe your photo will be so great they'll want to print a poster from it. You never know!

With all that said, I want to also second what Papou said in his response to your post. The memory card you got with your camera isn't enough. You've got a good camera that will take high quality photos. You should use it that way. You can always make a good digital photograph smaller and of lesser quality. Any photo editing software will do that. But you can never EVER make a small poor quality digital photograph any bigger or better quality.

I just bought a new Canon S5 IS Powershot model to add to the two Canon digital SLRs I already have (yes I AM a Camera geek as well as a computer geek but every one of us is a hosta geek and you are also a conifer geek, so there!). Anyway, I bought a 4 gig and an 8 gig SD card for this cameara. I used the 32 meg card that came with it to put images on to display in a digital picture frame. I know I'll never use that card in a camera because it won't hold enough good photo images to bother with.

Most people may never want or need a 4 gig plus an 8 gig card. But I bought them because I take lots of photos and don't want a good shot to come along and then find my card is full. Also, my new camera (and I believe yours too) will take videos. Videos take a lot of space on a card. I found this out at my step daughter's hockey games. A hockey player comes out on the ice for maybe 2-3 minutes at a time, max. A video of Megan on the ice for a couple of minutes makes about a 250 to 400 meg file. 500 meg = half a gigabyte. So do the math.

At a minimum, I would recommend you get a 1 or 2 gigabyte memory card. The 512 meg that Papou suggested is half a megabyte. That will never do if there is the slightest possibility that you will ever want to do videos with it. You have kids. You will want to take videos. Trust me. Even if you have a separate video camera there are going to be times when you don't have the video camera with you and you have the Powershot and you are going to want to take a vido. I'd go with a 1 or 2 gig card minimum. And if you actually PLAN to take any videos, as well as photos, go with at least a 4 gig card. Also, memory cards come at different speeds. Buy a high speed memory card. Your camera takes an SD card, which is the same kind that my new camera uses. I just ordered my 8GB high speed SD card from www.crucial.com for just under a hundred dollars. You can find 1-2 gigabyte cards for $25 on up. Just don't sacrifice price for speed. You'll want the high speed. Otherwise you'll take a shot of one of the kids, then the kid does something else you want photo of and you're stuck waiting there while your slow card saves the image. By the time it's done, the cute thing you wanted to take the second picture of is way gone.

I hope that some of this is helpful. I'd like it to be all helpful, but I realize that I probably said a lot more stuff then what you really needed or wanted to hear. But you never know... you may be able to pick out helpful bits and pieces throughout.

BTW, I do technical support and I have to put updates in problem records, of what I've done, suggested and so on. I am known among my co-workers for long wordy updates ;-) So at least you know you're not the only one to have to read something like this...

thanks gel .. boy did i hit your GO button ... lol ...

pappy... FILaw did update the camera to a 2gig memory card.. as gel noted.. they are down to near $20 US ....

i have more questions.. but the noodle isn't clicking yet this morning... will be back later ....

ken

Yeah,Ken,I just put a 1 gigabyte card in my camera,and it gives me over 500 pics in the normal setting,but in the fine position only 291 pics,which is OK by me,as I rarely ever take that many pics at one outing. I think your battery would poop out long before that! Phil

i invested in 8 rechargeable batteries .... FIL bought the charger 2 or 3 xmas's ago .... about $16 for the best power ones at wallyworld ....

ken

The 500 MB card that I suggested is half a gigabyte. Two years ago, I helped a friend choose a digital camera while in Florida. I got a Sony 7-meg camera at Brand for only $128. It only had a memory stick of 16MB, so I replaced it with a 500MB memory stick card...and threw away the 16 meg card....which I think is useless.
This digital technology changes so fast...I note that they now make 10MB digicams. As Joyce stated, a 3 or 4-meg camera is all that is required to obtain super nice pics. As for your 8-meg Cannon, I would set it at the max. res of 3264 x 2448...otherwise why buy an 8megs?
A word on videos that your camera can take. Dont get dragged into that feature. Please remember that you have a CAMERA whose prime purpose is to take photos. If you wish to take videos, I would buy a Camcorder whose prime function is video.
OK, now let's play...you want to see full scale details of any pic that you take...Open an Excel file (or any other spreadsheet prog.) and insert a photo that you took of your yard and which has lots and lots of details.
Once you have inserted that photo into your Excel sheet, it will be so big that you will have to scroll down...and to the right...to see it all. The fun part is that while you scroll thru your image, you will see fantastic details...as if you were actually out there in your yard. If you find that the photo is simply TOO BIG, go to the handle at the lower right-bottom and drag your mouse to reduce the pic to a smaller size.
Try it!

Papou

Ken,
Jel48 that replied to you is Joyce Kremer from Minnesota. She's the lady who started my personal website two years ago. She knows her stuff!...so you can rely on everything she said.

Papou

Wow Joyce! Even I could understand the differences by the time I read your stuff! Thank you so much for a better understanding of all this mega-pixel jargon and such!

Hubby just got me a Nikon Coolpix S51 w/VR, 8 megapixels which should also allow me to crop (like I like to do) and still have good quality pics.! He got a really good deal on that one, at $199 as opposed to list at $276. Still, at the retail price it's a good deal. He also picked up a 1 GB card and an extra battery. It has enough internal memory for about 4 pics. so that makes it imperative to get the additional memory!

Now he has the Nikon D80, with an 18-200 mm VR Zoom lens! I knoooow---he's a camera geek, too, and one of those *Nikon-only* (usually) types--he and son-inlaw, who has a Nikon D50 with the same lens. Now he's the one who takes outstanding pics.! He has the eye for a good shot and travels all over the world, always going on a weekend before he needs to be there on business, in order to get some photos in the area and beyond (if he has enough time to travel beyond)! Here's a shot of the moon he took on the evening of hubby and grandson's birthday--last Tuesday evening, actually!

Thank you Papou! That was a very nice compliment. And I have to mention how very fast you picked up how to add to and maintain the website yourself! It is just great :-)

I do want to add though, that while I bought my new Canon camera just so I would have a much smaller camera that created excellent photograps (not for the video), I have found that the video and sound quality is just excellent! With features like that incorporated I don't know why anyone would actually need a video camera, at least not for personal use. I haven't tried this yet (because I don't have the right printer) but the doc with my camera also says that you can step through a video while still on the camera and select a single frame and print directly from the video (on the SD card from the camera) to the printer. So it has some really great video features. I've been using it to take hockey videos and I'm really happy with the quality.

I was really surprised and pleased to get this great bonus feature that I hadn't even thought about before buying the camera. Watching those videos on my PC and listening to them is just almost like being there. I caught may stepdaughter making a goal last night and we ran the moment back (on the camera) while at the game, then several times on the PC after we got home... reliving the moment ;-)

That's gorgeous, Janice! And congrats on your new camera. I've never used a Nikon, but I hear they are excellent cameras.

I may never get to the level of photo officienado, as most of you but with the *influence* in my family, ahem, and now if you/Joyce keep up the tutorials, MAYBE!!

I actually loved my Pentax I had, but it went to daughter and I got my hubby's free Fuji (got it with credit card points after remodel project) and I liked the 3" viewing window. The Pentax eventually had a fatal crash, that could not be repaired so that's why hubby felt like he should give her(daughter) a replacement of it. This Coolpix has that feature as well. Since it's not Hosta Season, I really haven't used it! But then, I just got it last week! :o)

I know LOTS of people love the Canon cameras! You hear folks raving all the time. I guess you can't change some old habits. Hubby started with the Nikons when he was 18 years old, some 46 yrs ago! As long as I can get a good close-up and a fair distance shot, I'm happy! :o)

Joyce, I must be missing out on new digicam developments. I still use a Sony 4-meg and did take a couple of videos when at the AHS convention in Philly last year. Although the audio is perfect, the video is too small when I look at it on my monitor...barely 2"x2". Possibly there is something that I do wrong...
The major drawback with my Sony camera is that it will handle a maximum of 128meg memory stick...
I realize now that it's getting out-of-date....:)
One quesion Joyce: When you take a video of Megan at a hockey game, what is the size of the picture when looking at the video on your PC. Can you go Full Screen?..if so, is the quality of the image satisfactory or is it a bit blurred?

Papou
Papou

Papou,

My Sony Still camera also takes video; however, it takes better photos than videos. Just like many video cameras can take stills, their still shots will not be as good as a still camera.

I rarely use the video portion of the still camera but it does come in handy to capture a video shot. When I take the video, I am not expecting great results, just enough to see/hear what is going on.

In regard to video size on your screen, it may depend on what video program is being used to look at the video. You should be able to see a larger video.

A link is attached to this message of a video from my camera. You can look at different sizes of video by selecting different sizes on the bottom of the screen.

Cowboy

Here is a link that might be useful: Video from my Sony still camera

OOPS!!!!

My apologies, the video in my previous message is only the medium size and you cannot select to see a different size.

I was expecting a different screen to display which displayed the different sizes.

Sorry about that. Anyway, you can see what the medium screen-sized video looks like from a still camera.

Cowboy

Papou, I can easily go full screen with the video. The quality is just excellent. The only thing that I see a problem with is when you zoom in and the action is rapid. The camera has to readjust focus so you get some blurring until it adjusts. This doesn't happen unless you are zoomed for a closeup shot - as in one player (Megan of course :-) instead of several players or a wide angle.

There is a big difference between video capabilities on different models of cameras though. I had a little Kodak Easyshare model that takes very nice photographs, but videos much the same quality as you describe. There is absolutely no comparison between those videos and the ones from the new camera.

I can show you some examples of better video, one from my new Canon S5 IS and one from an earlier model Canon Powershot that belongs to my stepdaughter.... at least if you don't mind downloading some good sized avi files.....

Go to the URL below. The video on the left (fishing) is taken with the earlier model Caonon Powershot. The one on the right (hockey) is taken with the Canon S5 IS. They can both be played full screen but you should notice some difference between the quality of the two. The S5 IS video is a much large file and will take a while to download.

Here is a link that might be useful: Videos to compare

Papou, I can easily go full screen with the video. The quality is just excellent. The only thing that I see a problem with is when you zoom in and the action is rapid. The camera has to readjust focus so you get some blurring until it adjusts. This doesn't happen unless you are zoomed for a closeup shot - as in one player (Megan of course :-) instead of several players or a wide angle.

There is a big difference between video capabilities on different models of cameras though. I had a little Kodak Easyshare model that takes very nice photographs, but videos much the same quality as you describe. There is absolutely no comparison between those videos and the ones from the new camera.

I can show you some examples of better video, one from my new Canon S5 IS and one from an earlier model Canon Powershot that belongs to my stepdaughter.... at least if you don't mind downloading some good sized avi files.....

Go to the URL below. The video on the left (fishing) is taken with the earlier model Caonon Powershot. The one on the right (hockey) is taken with the Canon S5 IS. They can both be played full screen but you should notice some difference between the quality of the two. The S5 IS video is a much large file and will take a while to download.

Here is a link that might be useful: Videos to compare

Sorry about the double post... I didn't think it had gone the first time, as I experienced some sort of error message..

Papou, I forgot to say.. on mine use the option to download avi - it's listed in small print right beside the image that is displayed.

John (Cowboy),
Upon clicking on your link, your peg file filled my entire screen 19"x12"...and the video repeated continuously...and the lizzard kept going and going...lol

Joyce,
I note that you use imageevent to run your videos. That's the same software that John uses. The first AVI at first was 3.5" x 3.5" and increased to 5"x7" (Full screen) The second AVI file...at the ice rink...was really good. The image is clear and it is satisfactory to me to see the video on a 5x7" screen...it filled about 1/3 of my monitor. I can see the benefit of getting a 8 gig card.

Papou

Hi Papou. I really didn't intend to use imageevent to actually run the videos, more just as a means of getting them to you. If you take the link that actually downloads the video to the PC (so that you run it from your hard drive rather then imageevent) you can run it full screen. When I run it off my hard drive, I do full screen on a 19 inch moniter. But even running it online it looks like you were able to see the difference. By the way, the high capacity cards, at least the HD cards, which are called SDHC can only be used with cameras and other devices that are made to use SDHC cards. We (my son and I) found that out today. I took Christmas pictures of him and his new wife of a year (their anniversary is today Sunday) last night, and he took my SDHC card home with him, meaning to read it in his printer. His printer wouldn't read it. He had to come back today so that I could copy the photos from the SDHD card to his smaller 1 gig SD (not SDHD) card. So, I guess we keep learning about the newer technology as we go along.

Thanks Joyce. Always interesting to read your posts.
Take care.

Papou