Good things come to those who wait. This philosophy would kill the computer industry. It's not even a good business practice. There are advantages to grabbing some technologies because they work now; they do a job, even if something better is sure to come along. However, some technologies may not be up to snuff.

Of course, the hidden question is, good enough by whose standard? Professionals? Consumers? For several years, digital photography has been growing by leaps and bounds as people discover the advantages of taking pictures that don't need processing and that can be displayed with a home computer or printer. This has already begun a revolution in personal and family photography. However, digital photography at the consumer level has not been good enough for the army of amateur (much less professional) photographers who grew up with 35 mm or larger film formats.

Love Them Megapixels

What was missing from the early digital cameras was good resolution--the ability to increase the size of a picture without it becoming fuzzy. High resolution is important if you're going to project, print, or publish an image. In digital cameras this is, at least in part, a matter of the number of pixels that capture the image in the CCD (charge-coupled device). This is technospeak for the light-sensitive element in a digital camera that acts like the film, captures the image coming through the camera lens, and converts it to digital information. Generally, the more pixels, the better the resolution.

The early consumer digital cameras had 500,000 pixels. This was good enough to make a reasonably sharp 3-by-5-inch image-the typical snapshot photo. Over the past couple of years, the pixel count has steadily risen to 1 million (a megapixel), 2 million, and now 3 million. The 3-megapixel cameras, which began appearing in the United States this spring, are a milestone because they have enough resolution to print or reproduce at 8-by-10 inches with nearly the same quality as 35mm film. In short, this level of digital camera is ready for the serious amateur. I now have a stack of camera and computer magazines with many drool marks upon them. I inhabited the nooks and crannies of the Internet, where photo enthusiasts dwell, and eagerly awaited the reviews of the new 3-megapixel cameras. I was ready to buy.

Battery Blues

A little knowledge and a lot of enthusiasm can lead to a quick purchase. On the other hand, when I saw the $600-to-$1,200 price tags on the 3-megapixel cameras, I decided more knowledge was in order. With technology, more knowledge is often a mixed bag. The more you know, the wiser you may be, but most wisdom cuts both ways--you know the good and the bad. With digital photography, there are several important gotchas that might turn "good enough" into "Hmmm."

The problems start with two related factors. Consumer digital cameras must be portable, so they are relatively small. This leads to a couple of important limitations: Portable cameras need a power source (batteries), and they don't have the room for storage of unlimited images.

Digital cameras--even more than their cousins, the portable computers--are totally dependent on electrical supply, mostly from batteries. Batteries are one of those necessary technologies that hasn't lived up to demand. We still don't have the batteries we need for electric cars, computers, or digital cameras. It seems like the better the camera, the more juice it needs. Certainly, additional pixels require more energy not only for capturing the picture, but also for focusing, storing, and manipulating the image. Consequently, the battery life of many 3-megapixel cameras is measured in terms of the number of pictures it accommodates, not the number of hours it runs. That can be as low as 50 or 60 pictures.

There are differences among manufacturers and models of digital cameras that affect battery life. Some require proprietary (and very expensive) batteries; others favor more common AA rechargeable batteries. Incredibly, many of these $1,000 cameras don't include a battery charger or even an AC adapter. After a quick calculation, based on a weekend outing and shooting roughly 120 pictures (three to four conventional 35mm rolls), I figured that most of these cameras were going to need at least three or four spare battery packs-adding roughly $100 and plenty of headaches in managing the recharger.

getting into a tiff

Storage of the digital images is an even bigger problem than batteries. I would expect that most people buying a 3-megapixel camera want the quality that comes with higher-resolution pictures. Higher resolution means storing more data, which in digital cameras is stored as computer-compatible files in small, removable memory cards. Most cameras allow you to select the picture resolution in much the same way as it's represented on a computer monitor, by pixels: 640-by-480, 1,024-by-768, etc. Images are often compressed and stored in JPEG format files (like those used on the Web), but compression usually compromises some image quality, so purists want the TIFF file format, which stores an unmodified image. The 3-megapixel cameras have a top resolution of 2,048-by-1,536, which produces a TIFF image file of around 15MB. Think about it-at this resolution, how many pictures will fit into the 16MB flash cards typically included with these cameras?

Even using compression (6:1 or 4:1) you'll get only four to eight shots into the 16MB. At highest uncompressed resolution, you'll get about a half a dozen shots into a 64MB card, which costs at least $200. What are you going to do, carry 10 of these 64MB cards around with you in the field? Some cameras can use the marvelous IBM Microdrive, a tiny, removable hard disk with up to 340MB of storage. This can hold a lot more images, of course, but it costs around $400 and quickly gobbles up batteries. Unless your style of photography runs toward fewer carefully orchestrated photos, you can expect to spend a ton of money on image storage. (I'm not even going to explain what you need if you plan on using your computer to store and manipulate these images.)

I have also learned the more precise truth about 3 megapixels; it doesn't really match 35mm film. To exactly match 35mm quality, you need 6 megapixels. This will produce an 8-by-10-inch enlargement at 300 dpi (dots per inch) on a computer printer-the same quality as a 35mm image. I can only imagine the storage, battery, and other costs associated with a 6-megapixel camera. The main point, for now, is that 3-megapixel cameras do produce a very good 8-by-10-inch image, one that looks as good to the naked eye as one from a 35mm camera. Is this good enough?

interest on the line

I researched about a dozen models of digital cameras representing most of the big names in the business: Nikon, Olympus, Fuji, Kodak, Canon, Minolta, and Epson, to name about a quarter of the market. The 3-megapixel cameras are so new that information, especially reliable reviews, is spotty. I made spreadsheets to catalog features and comparisons. I went near crazy with terminology. I hate to admit it, but I blew nearly an entire Sunday shopping. Was it worth it? Not for buying one camera. But as an education in the developing world of digital photography and Internet shopping, it was well worth the time. Just for the record, I've decided to wait at least another six months before buying. The cost of operating these cameras is daunting, and many of them aren't even in stock yet. Besides, I'm not quite sure they are good enough.

Editor at Large Nelson King is ComputerUser's leading industry analyst.