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Thursday, September 26, 2002

By Don Lindich

Q: I want to surprise my husband for Christmas with a state-of-the-art digital camera and a printer that will print quality photos.

		Have a question? Have questions about audio, video, computers or photography, or need some help using and enjoying what you already own? Don Lindich welcomes your questions and will be answering them in this column. E-mail him at donlindich@mac.com.

The camera should be simple enough to point and shoot that quick shot and fine enough to capture sunsets and fireworks. Is there such a camera? And which printer would I get? I'm willing to spend $1,000 for both.

C.R.,
Pittsburgh

A: For true photo-quality output, choose a six-color printer. In addition to the yellow, magenta, cyan and black of four-color printers, they include light yellow and light magenta ink to produce more realistic prints.

Of all the photo printers I have used, my running-away favorites are the six-color printers from Canon. On Canons Photo Paper Pro glossy paper, prints look indistinguishable from film and paper photographs -- in fact, often better.

I recently tested Canon's S830D printer ($349) with a variety of professional and consumer digital cameras, and the word most used by those viewing the prints was "gorgeous."

Other comments were, "Who needs Kodak?" and "I can't believe those came from a digital camera!" In addition to the beautiful output, the S830D proved incredibly unfussy in use as well as extremely economical with ink.

I printed many 8x10s on the original set of ink cartridges, and the heads didn't clog once -- no need for the cleaning cycles that plague many printers.

The S830D will print directly from a memory card and supports Canon's Direct Print feature, which will allow you to connect select Canon cameras directly to the S830D using a supplied cable. You can then view your photographs on the camera's display and print them out without going through your computer.

It's a handy feature that allows the computer-challenged to enjoy the fun and convenience of digital photography.

The S830D is admittedly expensive for a home photo printer. If you don't need Direct Print, the Canon S820 ($249) will give you identical output printing from your computer. Both printers include Canon's Easy-Photo Print software, which supports the Exif Print standard for automatically optimized photo printing.

I am going to recommend a Canon camera as well, as almost all of their models support Exif Print as well.

The 4.0 megapixel Canon Powershot S40 ($599) operates fully automatically as a point-and-shoot, but also has manual overrides for creative control and comes complete with a high-capacity rechargeable battery.

It is beautifully designed and finished in a convenient clamshell shape, with a real metal body and a crisp and colorful LCD display. Image quality is top-notch, and the accurate flash exposures were particularly impressive. It is a bit slow to focus at close ranges but if you take your time you will be rewarded with great images.

If we are coming up on your $1,000 budget too quickly, the Powershot S30 ($399) is identical to the S40 but is 3.2 megapixels rather than 4.0.

Your budget of $1,000 allows me to recommend expensive, fully featured equipment. Other choices are available for those who want great digital photographs easily but don't want to spend C.R.'s $1,000. Epson's Stylus Photo 785EPX six-color photo printer is a fantastic value at only $149.

It prints directly from a memory card and supports Epson's Print Image Matching (PIM), a standard similar to Exif Print that makes printing realistic photographs easy. Teamed with a PIM-enabled 3.2 Megapixel Sony DSC-P71 ($399), you will have a $550 outfit that produces photographs that just a few years ago would have cost tens of thousands of dollars to duplicate using a digital system.