A couple of weeks ago, I purchased two 2 gigt SD's here in town for $39.99 a piece. On one of those, I can store 567 photos. Film cost about $6.00 per 36 exposure roll. I would need 15 rolls of film to capture the same number of images. Now, processing for a 36 exposure roll runs $7.00 to $16.00 dollars per roll. It would cost me $90.00 to buy the film and $105.00 to get it processed into a bunch of prints that I would have to put into a shoebox or yet another album. The living room is filled with shoeboxes of photos and stacks of albums! Now, I keep my photos on hard drives and I use a box in the den that puts them onto the TV when I want to see them. Therefore, my cost for processing is generally $0.00!

I can reuse the 2 gig SD's forever, or at least a long time. Cost of photography is way down. Used to be that it would cost a good $300.00 for a decent 35mm SLR. I bought my Nikon digital for $450.00, so cost of the basic camera is up. How long does it take me to offset that initial digital investment in film and processing savings? At $195 cost for fifteen rolls of film vs 39.99, it won't take long and the 39.99 will buy me thousands of photos, no processing fees. If you do still print from digital image file, the cost is something like $0.50 per 8.5 X 11 inch sheet of glossy photo paper. So there is a residual cost if you still print. Actual cost for printing depends on the printer you have and the cost vs yield of the ink/toner. That has to be figured on a case by case basis. I've done it dozens of times for documents, never for photos.

The presentation device that I use in the den did cost $136.00 plus about 7.00 for shipping and I had to buy a 300 gig drive to install in it, so the cost to present is something like $143.00. The thing is that the 300 gig drive will hold something like 85,050 photos! It is the size of a double thick paper back book and I can find almost any photo instantly and it is displayed as a 37 inch enlargement. Try paying for a 37 inch enlargement, then think of the cost of 85,050 of them!Now, it does take a computer to do most of what I do with images, but I have had a computer on board since the first Commodore 64 that I bought in 1981. If you are thinking about going digital from square one, you can get a pretty good PC for $500.00 and the vendor will throw in a printer pretty quick.

If you insist on printing every photo you take, you are still ahead using digital because it costs less than $.08 cents per 3X5 print using an ink jet printer.

I would continue, but I have been called to breakfast.

I would like to ask a question on the digital camera.. yes, I agree on the price, but what should one look for in the field of "Mega Pixels"? I know this is an old thread, but a new question...

Mine is a 6.1 MP, but I have been wondering if I should upgrade to a 10? Is the bigger the MP the better the picture, or does it really matter? Yes, I am new in the digital camera field, and yes, I have been MIA for a while, and will be again in the near future, but some things cannot be overlooked.. Thank you in advance for any insight on this.... Just something I have been wondering...

:thinking about it:

The larger the number, the bigger the picture. And better quality too. But for posting on the internet and sending via e-mail, 1.5 to 3 MP is about right. Otherwise it will take forever to upload the image. Especially since you & I both have old reliable dial-up connection. :starwars: