>  Without the benefit of hardware
> dedicated to downloading the images you are generally at the mercy of a
> serial cable.  Given that 24bit (colour) images from these cameras can be
> in excess of 2.5 MB you are looking at a long wait before you get the final
> product.  If this isn't the case then you have to buy a card reader and
> remove the card for reading which isn't that fast either considering
> manufacturers still use compression algorythms to cram images on the cards.

        O.k., just to add to the confusion.  Regarding dowload times of untethered
cameras.  Serial and parallel cable downloads are horrible!  Just forget them.  The
new IEEE-1394 (aka Firewire in the Mac world) is VERY fast - 12.5 to 50
megabytes/sec), and the adatper cards for inside the machine are very reasonably
priced ~ $240 (See http://www.adaptec.com/products/solutions/1394.html for more
info).

        For cameras with flashcards, there are flashcard readers for them that connect to
desktops ($45-70), or adapters for using the PCMCIA ports on notebooks ($15).  I
have been playing with a Kodak DC120 and DC220 lately using a flashcard reader
(attached to a WIn NT box) and speed is NOT a problem.  The reader/flashcard
appears as a drive on the computer (just like a zip disk or CDROM) and image files
can be copied from the flash card as fast as the harddrives (or across the network)
can write the file - over 5MB per second, since the flash cards are solid state
memory chips (DO NOT delete the images with the flashcard readers however - use
the camera to erase the cards).  The DC220 stores the files directly in TIFF format
(3.6MB) so surprise compression isn't a problem.  The DC120 stores the images in
kodaks KDC format which results in a compressed (895KB) file.  Now the Kodak
software supplied . . . ah, sucks ? . . . it is incredibly slow!  I wind up using
ACDSee32 ( $40 http://www.acdsystems.com/index.htm ), which deals with the
KDC files just fine (~12 secs/image decompresion on a 100MHz pentium!) and then I
re-save them in whatever format I want.

        I am not re-commending ANY cameras, just discussing download options.  I
borrowed the Kodaks just for some quick web-page shots and for that they work fine
but I wouldn't try to use them on a microscope. (The Kodak cameras are actually
used for a Plant Taxonomy class where the students go out to the field with the
cameras and notebook computers, and capture images to use for their identification
characteristics instead of chopping off samples - so they do work for scientific
applications and are user friendly).


        Conclusions:  (1) Get the "hardware" needed to really download images from
ANY untethered camera, its WELL worth the money.  (2) Don't rely on the camera
manufacturer to have the best software - they want to sell cameras not software.

        O.k., my 2¢ worth.



Richard E. Edelmann, Ph.D.
Electron Microscopy Facility Supervisor
352 Pearson Hall
Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056
Ph: 513.529.5712        Fax: 513.529.4243
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

"RAM disk is NOT an installation procedure."