Wow!!! Guys, all very intereting stuff. I love it when a thread gets kinda
highjacked and the result is more and better information. You're all
forgiven. :=)

Excellent point on the photo printer. I have been leaning toward the Epson
PM280 @ $200 or so for the on board capabilities plus the ability to burn a
CD on board. Plus, it's pretty portable. Based on what you've said,
however, I'm going to try the lab route at first and see if it's not a
better solution.

As to software, I can see I need to look into that a little more. That's
just too much information to absorb immediately.

I've always liked SLR film cameras and used a wide variety back in the late
fifties and early sixties. I don't think the EVF will bother me as I used a
Rollie (2Xlens reflex) 2 1/4 X 3 1/4 with 120 roll film for a while and
liked the large image.... next best thing to a Graflex with a ground glass
back. I thought the Graflex was the absolute best and most versitile but it
got heavy after a bit of time. Add that weight to the old and enormous
Honywell strobe with wet cell batteries and the Rollie became a great
device. Assorted 35mms were wonderful, too, but the strobe was so large we
attached the camera to the flash head. I still own and use a Kodak Retina
II but it really needs to be overhauled. Where to do it is going to be a
problem, I guess.

Back then we did all our own black & white printing but the color work went
to Technicolor Labs. I used to love darkroom work and waching the prints as
they came up. Enlarger work was fun too and I became a reasonably talented
"dodger" befor joining the Army and giving all that up. I was just a kid
then and going hungry and sleeping on friends sofas didn't bother me much.
I'll tell you something for nothing.... free lance press work was a very
tough racket in those days. But, on my goodness all the girls we used to
meet.

Butch
"Reginald P. Smithers III" wrote in message
. ..
Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:03:29 GMT, "RG" wrote:

At any rate, you will most certainly enjoy the transformation from film
to digital, no matter what camera you end up with. The combination of a
digital camera, digital editing software, and the internet has made
photography much more engaging and satisfying than film photography ever
was for me. Enjoy.

I agree with one exception.

Paint Shop Pro by Corel is more than adequate editing software. The
full boat version is $99 and does what Photoshop does only
differently. If you are just starting off editing digital photos, PSP
is probably the way to go - most bang for the buck. Photoshop
Elements is nice, but it's not comparable to the complete version of
PSP. It's only limitation is that is doesn't handle all versions of
RAW and you wouldn't be shooting in RAW anyway.

I think Eisboch uses Paint Shop Pro - maybe he can chime in.

PSP and PS Elements has had MAJOR problems with RAW and using Dual Core
processors, especially AMD processors.