ePhoto 307

Agfa's digital camera gives you direct-to-NT images

In everybody's house, you can find a shoe box, carton, or drawer filled withclippings of memories we call photographs. Aunt Edna with her Salmon-colored1958 Edsel, Uncle Walt standing in front of his Oklahoma grocery store, thetwins getting into trouble--they're all there and probably somewhat less thanorganized. Today the shoe box is giving way to digital media, such as Agfa'sePhoto 307 digital color camera.

But people are using cameras for a lot more than family photos. Forexample, a prospective client or partner's first impression of many companieswill be through their virtual presence on the Internet. The struggle to keepthis presence interesting and attention-getting--one that people will want torevisit--is helping to usher in the new era of digital photography. Similarly,digital presentations are fast becoming the way to convey your idea,whether in the conference room or convention hall. Adding photographs to thecharts and graphs in a presentation helps companies differentiate their productsand corporate identity from those of competitors.

One of those modern digital memory makers landed in the Windows NTMagazine Lab recently. We put it through the paces to see just how thetechnology fits in today's workplace. Agfa's ePhoto 307 is similar to manydigital cameras in its class. It stores up to 72 standard- or 36high-resolution, 24-bit color images (any combination of the two resolutions ispossible), easily transfers information to any desktop workstation, and includesa flash with red-eye reduction. This camera has an optional AC adapter and a43mm glass lens.

Other niceties include a self-timer, the ability to immediately erase thelast image in a series, the ability to switch between standard- andhigh-resolution images with the press of a button, a place to attach a tripod,and an automatic flash that knows when you need it and, more important, when youdon't. Desirable options available on similar digital cameras (but not on theePhoto 307) include removable memory, an LCD display, zoom, SCSI-2 interface,wireless connectivity, and even the ability to include handwritten notes withimages.

To get images from the camera and into your Windows NT computer, you needto install Agfa's PhotoWise software. Fortunately, this effort is painless. Anespecially nice feature is that the software recognizes the camera once youconnect it to a serial port, and you don't need to identify or configure theport. After rebooting the computer, you can run PhotoWise by clicking on acamera icon in the system tray or by opening the program through the Startbutton. Either way, with one end of an adapter cable fitted to the camera andthe other end connected to a serial port on your machine, one click lets youdisplay a series of thumbnail images that appear in filmstrip fashion. You candownload any or all of these images to the desktop.

The camera uses 2MB of internal flash memory for storage and transfers theimages at 115.2Kbps. A camera filled to capacity takes roughly 4 minutes totransfer its image information; the camera requires no minimum number of imagesbefore you can download them.

From the minute the 32-bit PhotoWise software opens, you know it isn't askimpy program designed to do little more than get the information out of thecamera and into your machine. Complete with a Tip of the Day window, which Ifound to be a great introduction to the software's features, the PhotoWisesoftware quickly worked its way to my good side. Some bells and whistles includethe ability to output images in .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .tga and .pcx formats; fourdifferent flavors of .jpg compression; zoom; resizing; rotation; conversion tograyscale; color; hue/saturation; sharpness and contrast/brightness controls;the ability to select groups of images using the shift and control keys with themouse; the option to send images via email; the ability to make an album intoyour screen saver or an image as the background (wallpaper) of your desktop;pop-up descriptions of toolbar button functions; and a TWAIN-compliant driver.The software even installs as a plug-in for Adobe's Photoshop. As if thisfunctionality weren't enough, Adobe's PhotoDeluxe software is included.

If you're not used to digital photography, viewing images in PhotoWise canbe a pleasant surprise. The nature of digital images is that they're infinitelyreproducible and endlessly malleable. But there's more: The software tracks thecamera settings for each image you take. By right-clicking on an image displayedin PhotoWise, you can track its properties, including resolution, shutter speed(ranging from 1/8 second to 1/4000 second), flash setting, file size (standardresolution images are roughly 22K, and high-resolution images are roughly 45K),and the date and time you snapped the photo. I've taken hundreds of photographsfor publication, and I recall the often awkward task of tracking camera settingson paper while juggling a bulky and rather heavy 35mm monster. The much lighterand more compact ePhoto 307 even takes pictures in low light without a flashrelatively well. Perhaps more important, I discovered that using the flashmanually when the camera's automatic setting determined a flash wasn't necessaryproduced images with a decidedly green hue.

Something you need to be aware of when using the ePhoto 307 is a littlequirk it develops when the power from the four AA batteries gets painfully low.After I took about 400 pictures (using the flash on at least 200), the batterymeter indicated the batteries needed replacing. I ignored the warning and shotan additional 20 or so pictures; everything seemed to work fine until I tried todownload the images from the camera. The PhotoWise program didn't see the imagesin the camera, and it detected and downloaded them only after I replaced thebatteries. Fortunately, I didn't lose any images.

The real advantage to digital cameras such as the ePhoto 307 isn't so muchthe money you save by not purchasing film or paying for developing, but the timeyou save not developing film and then scanning the images into a digital format.You can display images you have taken with the ePhoto 307 five minutes aftertaking them, faster if you are working with a few images. By comparison, thescanning time alone for an entire role of film can easily take hours, to saynothing of time spent processing.

For Web developers and those who find themselves building PowerPointpresentations with any degree of frequency, I can't think of a more valuabletool than a digital camera, especially as the price of these devices continuesto drop. Agfa introduced the ePhoto 307 in September 1996 at a list price of$549. At press time, that price had been slashed nearly in half, to $299,batteries included.

An impetus to the recent discount price could very well be the emergence ofthe next wave of digital cameras that have LCD viewing screens for less than$400. And who wouldn't want a view screen? If you know immediately what theimage you just captured looks like, you can save time and memory: You don't needto take several pictures of the same view just to be sure you get a usable shotframed the way you want it, with everybody's eyes open and smiles on theirfaces. Fortunately, the ePhoto 307's 36 high-resolution or 72standard-resolution images offers more than enough opportunity for even novicesilicon shutterbugs to get the pictures they want.

Although the ePhoto 307 lacks an LCD viewing screen, many models that havea screen and are in a comparable price range don't support 640*480 resolution ordon't have a flash. I'd rather not make the tradeoff. I want my flash, my640*480 resolution, and my pictures--and I want them now. And let's not forgetthat wonderful PhotoWise software that any art department could install and run.

After I took all my pictures and manipulated and messed with them, one thing became apparent: I want one. All of us here at Windows NT Magazine want one. The camera went everywhere I went, and everywhere I went, someone wanted to borrow it. For business in the 90s, digital cameras have moved beyond the realm of curiosity and into the realm of necessity; we're simply beyond the point where we're waiting for the technology to develop.