ePhoto 307

In everybody's house, you can find a shoe box, carton, or drawer filled with clippings of memories we call photographs. Aunt Edna with her Salmon-colored 1958 Edsel, Uncle Walt standing in front of his Oklahoma grocery store, the twins getting into trouble--they're all there and probably somewhat less than organized. Today the shoe box is giving way to digital media, such as Agfa's ePhoto 307 digital color camera.

But people are using cameras for a lot more than family photos. For example, a prospective client or partner's first impression of many companies will be through their virtual presence on the Internet. The struggle to keep this presence interesting and attention-getting--one that people will want to revisit--is helping to usher in the new era of digital photography. Similarly, digital presentations are fast becoming the way to convey your idea, whether in the conference room or convention hall. Adding photographs to the charts and graphs in a presentation helps companies differentiate their products and corporate identity from those of competitors.

One of those modern digital memory makers landed in the Windows NT Magazine Lab recently. We put it through the paces to see just how the technology fits in today's workplace. Agfa's ePhoto 307 is similar to many digital cameras in its class. It stores up to 72 standard- or 36 high-resolution, 24-bit color images (any combination of the two resolutions is possible), easily transfers information to any desktop workstation, and includes a flash with red-eye reduction. This camera has an optional AC adapter and a 43mm glass lens.

Other niceties include a self-timer, the ability to immediately erase the last image in a series, the ability to switch between standard- and high-resolution images with the press of a button, a place to attach a tripod, and an automatic flash that knows when you need it and, more important, when you don't. Desirable options available on similar digital cameras (but not on the ePhoto 307) include removable memory, an LCD display, zoom, SCSI-2 interface, wireless connectivity, and even the ability to include handwritten notes with images.

To get images from the camera and into your Windows NT computer, you need to install Agfa's PhotoWise software. Fortunately, this effort is painless. An especially nice feature is that the software recognizes the camera once you connect it to a serial port, and you don't need to identify or configure the port. After rebooting the computer, you can run PhotoWise by clicking on a camera icon in the system tray or by opening the program through the Start button. Either way, with one end of an adapter cable fitted to the camera and the other end connected to a serial port on your machine, one click lets you display a series of thumbnail images that appear in filmstrip fashion. You can download any or all of these images to the desktop.

The camera uses 2MB of internal flash memory for storage and transfers the images at 115.2Kbps. A camera filled to capacity takes roughly 4 minutes to transfer its image information; the camera requires no minimum number of images before you can download them.

From the minute the 32-bit PhotoWise software opens, you know it isn't a skimpy program designed to do little more than get the information out of the camera and into your machine. Complete with a Tip of the Day window, which I found to be a great introduction to the software's features, the PhotoWise software quickly worked its way to my good side. Some bells and whistles include the ability to output images in .jpg, .tif, .bmp, .tga and .pcx formats; four different flavors of .jpg compression; zoom; resizing; rotation; conversion to grayscale; color; hue/saturation; sharpness and contrast/brightness controls; the ability to select groups of images using the shift and control keys with the mouse; the option to send images via email; the ability to make an album into your screen saver or an image as the background (wallpaper) of your desktop; pop-up descriptions of toolbar button functions; and a TWAIN-compliant driver. The software even installs as a plug-in for Adobe's Photoshop. As if this functionality weren't enough, Adobe's PhotoDeluxe software is included.

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