Businessworld: The crossover to digicams

The digital image revolution hasn't anywhere near finished happening yet. Not by a long shot. That images went digital was in itself enough of a revolution - and then they had to go mobile and shareable too. But there are four fronts on which the digital image has seen very rapid evolution.

First, the consumer mobile phone. Millions have now experienced digital photography, thanks to the camera-phone. Rather than eat into digital camera sales, they actually helped increase the size of the pie by getting people to try digital pictures. And many of these people have figured out that they need digital cameras too if they want better pictures....

Second, the pros have finally and fully accepted digital cameras. Major pro brands like Nikon and Canon going digital with SLRs (single lens reflex cameras) has made all the difference. No pro would touch a non-SLR camera. Now, they can use their family of lenses. They're finally giving in to necessity: they have to shoot digital, or lose out to competition. Digital makes hours, even days, of difference in the race from event to press. So, that's another slice for the digital pictures pie.

The third front is well matured in India: the photo shop. Major players like Kodak and Canon, even HP, have targeted these with digital packages. A passport photo today is more likely to be digital than Polaroid in most cities.

And there's the biggest slice - the 'compact cameras' bought by the masses. They span a range from Rs 3,000 to Rs 30,000 and up, from 2 to 8 megapixels. Not that megapixels alone mean quality. Yet, compact digicams are getting pretty serious. They're shipping with some great optics, electronics, power management and some incredible software inside. Take HP Photosmart R707. This compact and solid package bundles a good Pentax 3x optical zoom lens and 5.1 megapixels sensor with great design and ease of use. Most impressive is the software that brings pro expertise to your pictures. 'Real Life' technologies, HP calls them, let you do things like removing red-eye after the shot, and bringing details out of the background and faces out of shadow with 'adaptive lighting'. There's also its panoramic mode, which takes a series of pan shots and stitches them together digitally. (In a test, we got a print-quality 40MB image, though you can go for lower sizes.) There're a whole lot of user-friendly features. It's pricey, though - close to Rs 29,000. I'll wait till it gets to half of that...

The other camera is Nikon's D70, a digital SLR. A fairly affordable one, compared with earlier digital SLRs: under Rs 60,000 abroad, including the zoom lens. There are three things you immediately notice about this camera. First, it looks, feels and works like any other Nikon SLR, though it's a bit lighter, especially with the specially designed lens. (It also takes standard Nikon AF and manual lenses.) Second, the speed. Switch it on and shoot instantly; no waiting at start up or between shots, unlike regular digital cameras. Which is what you'd expect of a pro SLR. You can shoot up to 144 pictures at 3 frames per second. Third, the image quality. This camera uses a 6.1-effective megapixels CCD sensor that beats Nikon's own 8 megapixels 'Coolpix' non-SLR model in image quality. It has vivid and accurate colour and colour-balance, reduced image noise and amazing tones. Pros consider the D70 among the finest digital cameras, even though it's among the less expensive ones.

There's still some way to go before digital displaces film. Cost has to be addressed: digital remains more expensive, though effective running cost is lower. And quality: pros need even better resolution and bit-depth. And India needs much better PC penetration for a higher interest in digital photography. But the camera-phone is helping, as is cheaper printing. With all these, we could see an inflexion point in a couple of years when, barring a few specialised applications, vendors simply switch over completely to digital.