Yes. Maximum print size and print quality is determined by file size for each image or pixel count. Here’s a basic way of looking at it. Keep in mind sharpness is a subjective term to some degree. In this case it is relative to sharpness of a film camera print of the same size. We have an online service, the link is on the our Home Page called....Fotowire... when you upload your image the software tells you if the image is good enough for us to print it. Here are some general parameters.

Keep in mind a 3 million pixel camera can take a 640X480 shot if set to that pixel resolution. However, a 1.3 pixel camera can never shoot a 3 million pixel shot. Millions of pixels are generally referred to as "mega pixel."

Consumer grade digital cameras typically operate like a point and shoot film camera. They auto adjust their settings to average aperture (f-stop) and shutter speeds, auto white balance, and in most cases, auto flash. They typically have an optical viewfinder and a LCD screen viewfinder. There are a few through the lens viewing cameras in this class but most fall into the professional category.

Despite this, many of the consumer grade cameras have manual override for flash, aperture, shutter speed, ISO settings, black and white versus color and many more.

All cameras allow the shooter to adjust image resolution* to use each memory card type to it’s greatest potential.

Most consumer grade ($300-$2000) digital cameras have either a fixed focal length wide angle lens, two times optical zoom (approximately 35-80mm lens, a three times zoom, up to five times or even 10 times zoom!)

Some cameras in this class will use a Teleconverters, fish-eye converter, or wide angle converter lens to extend this range. A few cameras use a digital zoom, which electronically enhances the optical zoom. It gives a similar effect but image quality is lost depending upon the amount of enhancement.

Professional SLR (Single Lens Reflex) digital cameras with interchangeable lenses offer much more versatility. They use the same auto focus lenses as the film SLR cameras. The focal range of the lens on a digital camera is 1.5X to 2.5X that of a lens on a traditional film camera. For example, a 100mm lens would be 150mm on the digital camera. These lenses also typically offer a somewhat better image quality and are superior for available light shooting in many cases. All professional grade SLR cameras have a hot shoe for a dedicated TTL (through the lens) flash and often a PC socket to fire studio strobes.

Similarly, most consumer grade cameras have a small built-in flash, useful to about 15 feet. They also generally have TTL (through the lens) light metering and exposure. Some consumer digital cameras can utilize external flash or studio strobes for more power and less red eye.

1. Compact Flash Type I: Stores up to 256 and is adaptable to PCMCIA slots in your laptop or can be read by an external card readers. The new card readers we sell handle all these popular media cards. See our digital accessory pages.
2. Compact Flash Type II: Stores up to 4GB and is typically used by professional type cameras. (IBM Micro Drive).
3. Smartmedia: Stores up to128MB of memory and can be adapted to a floppy disk drive, PCMCIA slot or external card reader.
4. Memory Sticks: Sony proprietary memory type. Used in most Sony Megapixel cameras.  Stores up to 128MB of memory. Can be adapted to PCMCIA slots, external card readers or floppy drives.
5. Floppy Disk: Used only in Sony Mavica Cameras. Stores 1.44MB of memory. Goes     in floppy drive only.
6. CD-R/ CD/RW: The Sony Mavica Series uses small 3"-rewritable CD's which can be read through a CD-Rom in a Mac or PC. Each holds 156MB.
7. SD/ MMC/ XD Cards: These are the newest cards for the very small digital cameras. They are available in sizes up to 128 now with eventual sizes up to 8 GB.

All 5 memory types are re-writeable with a variety of life spans, with the exception of CD-ROM's.

"The one that suits your needs!" Digital photographers require different features. These are noted on the specification lists on this site under each camera description. If you need help in choosing the right camera for your needs, read all of the specs and FAQ’s, then give us a call. Ask for a sales rep in the digital department and tell him or her exactly what you want to be able to do with the camera and any special needs or applications. They will give you some recommendations and let you choose the "best" camera for you.

These questions and answers are generalized to cover many cameras. This technology is in a constant state of change. So far, this has been mostly related to pixel resolution, ie.-more pixels in each newer camera. Unless you need to make a sharp photo larger than 16X20, the right time to buy is NOW!.

1) In computers, dots per inch (dpi) is a measure of the sharpness (that is, the density of illuminated points) on a display screen. The dot pitch determines the absolute limit of the possible dots per inch. However, the displayed resolution of pixels (picture elements) that is set up for the display is usually not as fine as the dot pitch. The dots per inch for a given picture resolution will differ based on the overall screen size since the same number of pixels are being spread out over a different space. Some users prefer the term "pixels per inch (ppi as a measure of display image sharpness, reserving dpi for use with the print medium.

2) In printing, dots per inch (dpi) is the usual measure of printed image quality on the paper. The average personal computer printer today provides 300 dpi or 600 dpi. Choosing the higher print quality usually reduces the speed of printing each page.