THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 15, 1996 TAG: 9601130118
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: TECH TRACK
GADGETS AND GIZMOS FOR THE NEXT CENTURY
SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
ON FEB. 8, 200 photojournalists and 800 amateur picture takers will fan out across the globe to shoot ``24 Hours in Cyberspace.'' A coffee-table book, CD-ROM and homepage on the Internet's World Wide Web will be filled with the images of people whose lives have been changed by the global computer network.
Befitting their subject, the photogs will tote with them the latest in high-tech photo doodads: digital cameras that use computer chips instead of film to store images.
Eastman Kodak Co. is the key technological backer of this latest effort by California publisher Rick Smolan, creator of the ``A Day in the Life of. . .'' books that have sold millions over the past decade.
Kodak is hoping the one-day event will bring attention to the fact that it's out in front of Japanese photo giants like Nikon in pioneering a mass market for digital cameras.
Kodak trotted out its latest advance in digital photography at the consumer-electronics industry's big annual show in Las Vegas last week. Called the DC50, it's billed as the first camera for under $1,000 that will let photographers store pictures (in this case, up to 88 images) on removable data cards that can then be plugged into personal computers. Additionally, Kodak said by year's end it plans a stripped-down digital camera for under $300.
Significant? You bet. Until recently, digital cameras generally cost between $10,000 and $30,000. And they were studio models - not for carrying in the field.
The quality of the photos produced by the latest field cameras made by Kodak and others generally still trails that of a disposable $10 film camera, concedes David Beigie, a manager in Kodak's digital and applied imaging unit.
But Beigie says the new cameras are increasingly useful to real estate agents, insurance claims adjusters and other professionals for quickly integrating photo images into computer-generated reports. And he says computer enthusiasts use the cameras to insert just-snapped digitized images of kids or pets into letters or greetings cards.
As the quality of digital cameras continues to improve, they will become some people's first choice, Beigie says. But he predicts film will be around for a long, long time.
(The ``24 Hours in Cyberspace'' page can be reached at: http://www.Cyber24.com) MEMO: ``Tech Track'' will appear every Monday in the Daily Break. Readers with
ideas for future columns are invited to contact staff science and
technology writer James Schultz at (804) 446-2599, or via e-mail at
schultz(AT)infi.net
ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kodak's DC50, selling for less than $1,000, stores pictures on data
cards that can be used in PCs. by CNB