First off, I would like to thank everybody that responded and to all of those who wanted to share in my responses, here goes. I have included all of the responses, important parts, for your review. In case anybody has any other info, please email me your additional comments. Thanks Dave Williams Montgomery Watson Original Message: Does anybody have any good experiences with digital field cameras,specifically for rough, possibly wet, field work tasks. If so, I am trying to get information for purchasing a decent digital camera for engineering field work for the purpose of uploading photos into a GIS database, hyperlinked or whatever. I would like to get feedback on praise or dislike for certain models based on your experience. If you could include a general price that would be helpful also. Cheers Dave Williams Montgomery Watson Responses: For land use, I would use the Sony Mavica. It's ease of replacing the floppy disk is extremely helpful. I used one on a vacation and I loved it. They're not real cheap though. For wet use, the SEA and Sea camera line and of course Nikonos. Neither are digital, but you can get your pics processed directly into digital format. The Nikonos is the more reliable and sturdy model. I haven't heard of any digital camera that has any water-proofing capabilities - sorry. Layne Seely Alan Plummer Associates, Inc. 841 West Mitchell Street Arlington, TX 76013 817-461-1491 817-860-3339 Fax ------------------------------- I have found the easiest camera to work with for the price: Sony Mavica FD-73. $500 www.ecost.com Sony is the only camera (or one of a select few) who use floppy disks as storage for your pictures. Makes handling them so easy. Wet weather? Well, as with most cameras, you'll have the usual issues. ------------------------------- I've used the kodak DC240 (and we built a rugged case to protect it) Worked like a charm. To save lots of time look into the kodak fis265 It integrates a GPS with the DC and also comes with an AV extension to easily bring the data into ArcView. Very easy to use but I don't think I'd call it "ruggedized" Hopefully kodak sells protective casing for field work. Cheers If your interested I posted a review on our site http://www.spatialnews.com/newsletter/issue12/demofis265.html Glenn ------------------------------- I bought 2 set of the Kodak DC265 coupled with a Garmin GPSIII Plus. The neath thing is that you can save the GPS coordinates in the JPEG's header, and then geocode and associate the photo to the point with only a few clicks. There's a complete kit for ArcView, wich includes an extension to retrieve the coordinates, create the points and link the photos. I use MapInfo, and with a few click, you can accomplish the same results. But its not a waterproof camera, and digital cameras are usually more delicate than traditional cameras. You'll find all the info on the Kodak web site. Hope this helps you. Marc Pelosse Conseiller en g�omatique Services conseils, Biens immobiliers Centre d'expertise SGLB-SBI R�gion du Qu�bec Travaux publics et Services gouvernementaux Canada T�l.: 514-496-3895 Fax: 514-496-3766 Courriel: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------- David - I will pass this note alone to my marketing group. We have a software product that creates GPS referenced photos, video, audio and other notes at time of capture. For higher end studies we can add a laser to provide offset to image as well as compass orientation and azimuth of the camera imaging direction. The software also can create HTML pages of maps with your photos, video, and audio. As to hardened digital cameras we too are interested and one of us may know what and where to go. For video we have put them inside compatible underwater shells. If you would like to call - 970-493-3952... http://www.redhensystems.com/vms Red Hen Systems Neil ------------------------------- i saw your message on gislist regarding digital cameras for field work. i dont know if you can purchase these in america, but the following two links show digital cameras made by fujifilm which are specifically designed for the construction industry. they have a specialized casing to guard against dust and rain. i dont believe you can totally submerge them in water, but a bit of rain shouldnt hurt them. these are 1.5Mega Pixels and have 3x zoom lenses. made for outdoor use. http://www.finepix.com/ds260hd/index.html http://www.finepix.com/ds230hd/index.html you may want to check for an english website and ask them if they have similar. i am sure you could get one somehow if this is want you needed. a couple of years ago konica was producing a regular 35mm slr tied to a gps. it is still listed on their homepage. the cost is described as 220,000 JPY. i am sure there are some options, etc. this is not a digital camera. http://www.konica.co.jp/allgoods/camera-0013.html but it will print the gps location of when the picture was taken on each frame. i dont recall seeing a digital camera and gps unit. here in japan. if you are specifically interested i could keep my eyes open. there may be some other makers offering strong cases or similar cameras. i dont know off hand. i have also never used these cameras, but i did see them at a show. i realize these pages are in japanese, but you should be able to see the pictures and follow the links if you are interested. please let me know if you need additional information. best regards, -- reese w. plews plews consulting tokyo email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------- If you have a palm Pilot you could try out Kodak's Palmpix. It is a small camara that you connect to the bottom of your palm Pilot. I've had a digital camera for 3years, and I can tell you this, my next one will be a Kodak. I'm not sure which model but the ease of use and the clarity of the images is very high. I would suggest the Kodak DC5000, it is rugged enough to take into the field and has a 2 megapixel resolution, zoom lens. The body is weatherproof. Cheers JIM ------------------------------- We have had a good experience with Kodak DC290 - a 2.3 mexapixel Camera - good zoom and clarity and depth of field - very impressive - roughly $1600 Australian. There is a slighty cheaper version which is rubber armoured/weatherproof calledthe Kodak DC 5000, 2 MegaPixel - AU$1250 Check out the image processing software that comes with it - the Kodak driver was slow and difficult to use - but MAGIC pictures - we can ID mozzie larvae in a bucket of water! Alistair Hart Dengue Action Response Team Queensland Health Cairns, Australia. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------- i will address two different issues. the first is the rugged issue. this was discussed recently in rec.photo.digital. search for fire on deja, since the request was for a fire station. there is a camera that has been ruggedized, but i don't remember what it is. also, there is a new digicam with an underwater kit available as an option. don't remember the manufacturer, but it was probably olympus or cannon. it's not a housing, however, just seals up the openings. the second issue is the gps. if you go to digita.com, and follow the links, you can find a guy that sells an adaptor that lets you plug your gps unit into particular models of kodak digicams. it will print the gps info on the bottom of the picture. bob rogers south carolina ------------------------------- Weather dependency. Can't help there. But... Sony's line with floppy disks are wonderful. Quick work with unlimited space (if you have diskettes). There's also a new camera by another company with a zip floppy. It has higher resolution and basically unlimited space with the zip. We use the Sony and have had tremendous success. The appraisal dept has 28k+ images on the system, adding to this daily. Good luck with the weather. I'm sure you will get some responses. Ray Chilcote, LG Senior GIS Specialist GIS/Mapping Lincoln County, NC (704)736-8538 ------------------------------- Hello, from my experience you should use a professional system for the purpose discribed in your request. As a geographer and prof. photographer I would suggest: 1. Use a SLR system like Nikon D1 which uses interchangeable high quality zoom or prime lenses. The build in zoom lenses of most digital cameras - even if resolution of the camera itself etc. is good enough for the internet - will be disappointing as far as distortion etc. is concerned. 2. The Nikon D1 is widely considered as the only digital camera system reliable enough for hard day to day press photography. If you plan to use the camera on a regular basis under rough conditions you should spent the price for a professional system like the D1. The D1 body is about 10.000 DEM here in Germany, body only. I suppose that the price will go down a bit because new systems are released at photokina fair in Koeln this week. As far as I know some interesting new modells in the mid price segment are released which could be interesting for you. With best wishes Frank Swiaczny By the way. I'm not affiliated with Nikon or any other brand. ------------------------------- We have had good luck with the Sony Mavica line. Prices and specs vary. Battery life is great and they record onto a floppy for lots and lots of shots. No GPS. We are also using the Lynx Photo Database system for storing and cataloguing the photos. I haven't tried to incorporate Arc or ArcView with that yet. Steve Whitaker STEP, Inc ------------------------------- We have an Olympus Ultura Digital Camera that we use for capturing Photos in the field. This is in our opinion an excellent camera. We have purchased some extras: software to download to the computer - I highly reccomend this!! makes the download faster, extra batteries and battery charger, extra 16MB memory cards and a Pelican travel case. The photos are captured in a .jpg format and I convert them using Adobe Photo Delux Business Edition 1.1 (this came witht the camera if I remember correctly) to a .tiff format for hotlinking in Arcview. Hope this information is useful to you. Shaun McGee Phone: (902) 564-3313 Information Technologist Fax: (902) 564-4681 Conestoga-Rovers & Associates 295 George St. P.O. Box 1234 Sydney, N.S. Canada B1P 6J9 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------- David--we just bought a digital camera for home use, a Kodak but I understand Kodak has a model that prints the GPS coors on the photo. As for extra memory, cables, etc. Check the Egghead website-we found their accessory items to be the cheapest by far. Check the Kodak website, that's how we found out about the camera with the GPS. Star Lakavage Star Lakavage AEgis Services [EMAIL PROTECTED] Telephone 865-457-8242 P O Box 160 Clinton, TN 37717 ------------------------------- We use the SONY Maciva cameras for our field work. They cost $600-$800 dollars. No auto upload features. But they are simple to use for the field techs. David Koberlein GSW & Assoc., Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from this list, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put "unsubscribe MAPINFO-L" in the message body, or contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
