Digital Help

Monitors For Photo/Computer Processing
Q. Thanks for your information on monitors in a recent Shutterbug article. I have ColorVision PhotoCAL that I use to balance two Sony E440s. Is there anything else that I could get to help make sure that what I see on the screen is what my Epson 2200 or R800 will print? I also have a laptop but have not yet invested in an LCD Spyder and so am left guessing when I print from my laptop to an R200 or my older 925. Any suggestions?
David Hannah

A. If you want a good CRT, and $700 for a 22" monitor is pretty reasonable, you should act. As soon as LCD prices for a high-quality, same-size flat panel model gets down to CRT prices, the CRTs will very likely disappear.
ColorVision just released their new Spyder2 and Spyder2PRO. Both will calibrate and profile both CRTs and LCDs, including laptops. From my experience with the new Spyder2, the accuracy of the monitor calibration and profiling is more than worth the upgrade cost, and especially so if you have more than one monitor and require matched performance between them.

Digital Cameras Are Proprietary Devices
Q. I hope you can help me on this. I am an antique dealer and when I go to antique shows or to a client I carry a small Canon PowerShot S400 pre-loaded with pictures I have taken with a DiMAGE 7Hi. The Canon fits right into my pocket and is easy to turn on and show another antique dealer or client what I have in stock for sale.
I recently bought a Leica Digilux 2 and a Panasonic DMC-FX7. I use the Leica as a "studio" camera and transfer the card to the very small DMC-FX7 (which has a much larger and brighter LCD than the Canon). The Canon cannot play the memory card. I called Panasonic tech support and they told me that the camera is made to only show pictures that that camera took. Both are shot in JPEG at 640. There must be a way to show the shots (using some program?). How can the camera know where the SD card came from? By the way, the cards play fine in a card reader, on my computer, etc. Can this be a problem with SD cards?
Richard Lovell

A. No, it is not a problem with memory cards. It is what the Panasonic people told you, the camera saves files in a semi-proprietary format that the camera is designed to recognize exclusively. The problem is the camera and Panasonic. But that is not unusual, as many cameras are internally proprietary.
There is a better way to accomplish what you want to do with your "small" digital cameras. For a similar cost you can now purchase portable, battery-operated hard drives which have LCD screens and which will allow downloading memory cards to the hard drive. These units will hold up to 15,000 JPEG photo files and will display all kinds of digital cameras' JPEG files, regardless which camera made the file.
Two new models of these portable hard drives have just been announced, including a new version of the extremely popular Apple iPod that now has an LCD screen and will read and download from digital camera memory cards. Epson just announced a new P2000 which has an entirely new 3.8" high-resolution LCD screen (Epson is owned by Seiko which is a world leader in LCD screen research and development).

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