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HelpLine
By Michael Guncheon
Card Readers or Digital Camera Drivers?
Lost Camera Driver
Megapixels & File Size
Mini-DV Problem
Image Transport Via Memory Card
Older Formats
File-Saving Challenges
Lost Camera Driver
I’m in a little bit of trouble. My hard drive was “lost”
and had to be reformatted. I’m now trying to set up my Nikon
Coolpix 880 camera again. I can’t find the disk with the driver
for the camera! I tried the Nikon site and some others, to no avail!
Is there a place where I can get the software to be able to run
my camera again?
One quick solution to your problem is to use a memory card reader.
First question: Why aren’t you using a memory card reader?
That’s the easiest, fastest and most logical solution for downloading
images from a digital camera. Card readers are fairly inexpensive
today. You just leave it attached to your computer, remove the memory
card from the camera (just like removing film), put the card into
the reader, and the whole thing shows up as another drive on your
computer. You just drag and drop the photos into a file folder you
set up on your hard drive.
If you really want to use the camera, keep in mind that attempting
to find support for equipment that’s no longer sold can be
a frustrating, never-ending quest. I realize that sometimes you’re
not even aware that your equipment is no longer the current model
available. I always recommend visiting the manufacturer’s Website
on a regular basis to check for announcements about updated drivers,
tips and other useful information on the products that you own.
As for trying to find software or updates on manufacturer Websites,
there doesn’t seem to be a standard for the location of software.
Often, you’ll find software in the “support” or FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) section, or you might have to use the
Website’s search function to find what you’re looking
for. A number of sites keep software in a group, so you might have
to go to a current model page and look for a software download button.
In your case, I checked the Nikon site, went to the Coolpix 885
page and chose the “download software” button. This selection
took me to a page that listed many of Nikon’s software offerings
available for download.
Megapixels & File Size
Why does a 2.1-megapixel digital camera result in a 5.9-megabyte
file when saved as a TIFF? I thought megapixels and megabyte files
have a 1:1 relationship. Another example is the Olympus E-10.
Bob
Magluyan
Mission Viejo, California |
A pixel is a pixel is a pixel, right? Well, it all depends on the
color depth of the pixel. The pixels that are created in digital
cameras have a color depth of 24 bits. Every pixel has a value for
red, green and blue, each of which is represented by 8 bits. (Multiply
the 8 bits by the three colors and you get 24 bits for each pixel.)
There are 8 bits in a byte, so each pixel is represented by three
bytes. Your megapixel camera should produce a file size in megabytes
that’s about three times the pixel count.
Another difference in this special math for data sizes is that the
term “K,” which stands for a thousand, is really counted
as 1024 in bytes (1K equals 1024 bytes). When you consider “mega,”
which is a thousand thousand, you can see that it isn’t as
easy as multiplying the pixel count by three, but this will get
you close.
Mini-DV Problem
It appears that the heads on my DV camcorder got out of whack.
Video from the last part of my trip breaks up into mosaic patterns.
The extent of “mosaic-ing” is different, depending on
the camera. If I play back the tape in my camcorder, it appears
to have only sporadic hits all over the frame and often a line of
mosaic running down the left side of the frame, top to bottom. The
same tape, when played in a new camcorder, breaks up into horizontal
bands across the whole frame. This leads me to believe that the
tape which was flawed in its recording and played back on the same
flawed heads is less of a problem than the flawed tape played back
on new heads. Is there any way to correct this and salvage the tape?
Your logic is correct. My guess is that the tape path of your camcorder
is no longer “in standard” (we’re talking very small
dimensions for the layout of video tracks on a Mini-DV tape). The
videotape rides in a precision-machined groove and is kept in that
groove by the drive mechanism (pinch roller, capstan and tape guides).
If the groove is damaged or has a buildup of dirt in it, or if the
drive system is out of alignment, the recorder is now “unique.”
The video heads are no longer tracking the proper path on the tape
when it’s making a recording, so other machines have difficulty
playing the video tracks.
If the tape isn’t too out of whack (technical term—I know),
you might have luck playing the tape in a DV deck that has “dynamic
tracking.” With dynamic tracking, the video heads (which are
located on the spinning head drum) are actually mounted on piezo
crystals that are used to move the head dynamically so that it can
follow a non-standard video track. Why would they design something
like that? It turns out that if you want to do good-quality slow-
or fast-motion playback of video, you end up playing the tape off-speed,
which creates non-standard video tracks, so dynamic tracking was
invented.
Professional “studio” DV decks usually have dynamic tracking.
I’d check in the yellow pages for a video duplication or editing
facility and see if they have a DV deck with dynamic tracking.
One caution: It’s possible that the tape could be so out of
standard that it might be beyond the range of the dynamic tracking.
It’s also possible that the tape could be physically damaged
and might not be corrected through the video deck’s error-correction
capabilities. In any case, you might want to make a dub of your
tape using your “out of standard” deck just in case you
don’t have any success using the other method. If the tape
is physically damaged, you should minimize the number of times you
play back the tape.
Image Transport
Via Memory Card
I just bought a digital camera and love it. The only problem
is that I live an hour away from any place that can print professional-quality
(or even regular print quality) photos. Is there a way to put images
that are on my computer back onto a CompactFlash card?
Jon
Hansen
Bay City, Oregon |
See the first question’s answer—check out a card reader
to get images back on your memory card. Card readers are stand-alone
devices that typically plug into the USB port of your computer.
When you plug the card reader into your computer and then insert
your media card, your CompactFlash card will show up on your computer
just like any other removable media. Then it’s just a matter
of copying your files to your card just like you’d copy images
to your hard drive.
Contact the lab that you’re going to take your card to, and
see if they require a specific format for your images and whether
they can read from a memory card. Many professional labs accept
CD or Zip disks, so you might consider getting a CD-R/RW drive or
a Zip drive for this purpose.
Older Formats
I’ve saved hundreds of photos and some other documents on
Imation Superdisks. My Superdisk drive went bad, and they don’t
make them anymore. I had the drive replaced with a 250 MB Zip drive
and need to find someone with a working Superdisk drive who can
copy all the information from them to Zip disks.
Fred
VanderPoel
Via e-mail |
The Superdisk was developed by Imation (a spin-off company of 3M).
Since the Superdisk drive could read a 3.5-inch floppy disk besides
the 120 MB Superdisk, Imation thought the product would be the perfect
replacement for the ubiquitous 3.5-inch floppy. Well, that didn’t
happen. Although Imation no longer makes the drive, QPS (www.qps-inc.com)
is now making a Superdisk. The QPS Superdisk works with standard
3.5-inch floppies and LS-120 MB disks as well as the new 240 MB
disk.
For those of you in a similar situation, I suggest the following
solutions:
1. Take a look at online auctions—you can find used Superdisk
drives on eBay; 2. Check a print service like Kinko’s to see
if they have any computers with your type of drive; 3. Try a data
duplication service—one that creates CD-ROMs, etc.; 4. Look
into a professional graphics service bureau. They usually have a
number of different drive technologies.
File-Saving
Challenges
I used Windows Explorer (Win98) to drag my graphic files from
storage on a CD to my hard drive. After altering one of the files
in Photoshop, I attempted to “Save As” and received this
message: “Could not save as C:\…because the file is locked.
Use the Properties Command in the Windows Explorer to unlock the
file.” I don’t see anything I can use to “unlock
the files.”
In Windows Explorer, “right-click” on the file and choose
“Properties.” Uncheck the “read-only” box. You
should be able to save your file. Make sure that you’re not
trying to save to a “read-only” device like a CD-ROM.
If you have any questions, please send them to HelpLine, PCPhoto
Magazine, 12121 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 1200, Los Angeles, CA 90025
or [email protected].Visit
our Website at pcphotomag.com
for past HelpLine columns.
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