The Photographs?

You can, of course, take pictures with any camera. Probably the most important factor would be ample light and a steady hand, which will bring out the colors clearly.

I use a Canon Elan 7 SLR. The type of film isn't as important as the look you want. Different films will "enhance" certain colors. Some of my favorite print films are Kodak Royal Gold and Fujicolor Superia. Both are very fine grained with excellent color rendition. For slide films, I like Fujichrome Velvia or Sensia. I'd recommend trying different ones until you achieve the results you want. Take your photos in the morning or afternoon, which will eliminate the harsh - bright midday light, bringing depth and warmth to your pictures.

Since most cameras and lenses will only focus down to 1 meter (3 feet, if you're lucky), you may want to consider a set of close up filters or a zoom lens with a "macro" setting.

Finally, a helper can hold a white piece or paper or card and reflect some of the light into the flower to help light it up. Caution! Don't do what I did by holding too many things and falling backwards into a cholla. Not recommended.

Digital?

After you've sorted out the good ones, you can take them to a photographic service and have them scanned or digitized into digital images. These can be stored on various media, including ZIP disks and CD ROM.

There are two basic digital formats you may want to consider: The best quality is a "Kodak Photo CD". This will run you about $10.00 for the CD and $1.50 US for each image. The images are scanned and "burned" or digitized to a CD ROM which will hold around 100 images. This quality is excellent and recommended for publishing in print or digital media.

The other format is called a "Picture CD". Images are scanned and saved to the CD ROM disk as "jpeg" files. Each CD will hold about 40, 1000x1500 pixel images. This method will allow you to print out a 5"x7" image (or less) with decent photographic quality. Each CD is around $ 9.00 and around $1.00 per image.

Of course you could scan your own and save the images as JPEG or TIFF, etc., and then save them to a ZIP disk or "burn" them to a CD ROM. To do this you need a scanner that will scan slides or negatives in the strip form. Many scanners either include a film adaptor or have it as an option. Keep in mind, that regardless of the type of scanner you have, unless it is a professional slide scanner costing $1500.00 US, which can scan at a higher resolution, your images will not provide photographic quality. In other words, they will be fine for electronic Web based images, but will lack the detail for print.

Digital Cameras?

The newest addition to the world of photo is the digital camera. Digital cameras are similar to film cameras in use, however rather than exposing the film, they save the image as a file on a memory card or media. Images can be saved with several "quality settings" up to a fine detail or high resolution. The higher the resolution, the bigger the image file will be; and the more space it will take up on the memory card. Higher resolutions will allow you to print out bigger pictures with more detail.

As a general rule you need higher resolutions for bigger prints. For instance, a 300 dpi 2160x1440 pixel image that is 1.5 meg in file size will allow decent quality 8"x10" print.

To have your "electronic" images printed you have a couple of choices. With a decent printer (1200 dpi resolution) you can print your own using photographic quality paper. Besides the wear and tear on the printer, you have to consider the cost of the ink and paper which can add up quickly.

Another neat method is to submit your images via the internet to a web based photo printing service. Once the photograpic service receives your image files, they will print them out and mail the photos back to you. You can also use the same procedure locally by taking your memory card into a photographic service and either have them printed out or saved on a CD ROM.

Last modified on February 8, 2007