Newspapers can push their deadlines to the long now with wireless photography. Pocket Phojo ($500) lets news photographers view, crop and annotate their images on a hand-held like the iPaq or Toshiba e740, then use cellular or Wi-Fi networks to send selected photos to an editor (or friends). The new Sharp SL-A300 Zaurus may be the world’s smallest PDA but a $300 iPaq may be more flexible. You could add an IBM microdrive ($130 for 340M) or a 256M CF card ($98) in its expansion pack for the “keepers”.
The eFilm PicturePAD ($549) stores thousands of photos in a pocket device. It features a built-in color LCD screen with an internal 20-30 Gig HD hard drive.
Digital cameras like Nikon’s D100 with 6.1 effective megapixels ($2500) and Canon’s D-60 with 6 megapixels ($2199) use standard Nikon and Canon professional lenses and can save thousands on film and processing. They are destined to replace film in most newspapers. Advanced amateurs have dozens of film-quality models like the Nikon 5700, 5 megapixel camera with 8-1 zoom ($1199). Steve’s Digicams and Digital Photography Review report the latest.
Some photographers use Wi-Fi to trigger remote cameras attached to a remote laptop (on the rafters of a stadium, for example). Then they transfer the photos using Wi-Fi’s adhoc mode. Software like GoToMyPC connects directly to a remote PC and “takes over”. Cameras on the other side of the world can be controlled and accessed anywhere using the internet, cellular, Wi-Fi or even satellite connections.
Ricoh’s i-700 3 megapixel camera ($1200) is a one-piece digital camera with a built-in PCMCIA slot. It’s designed to send photos using either Wi-Fi or cellular networks using cards like Sierra’s 555 card (CDMA) or AirCard 710 for GSM/GPRS. Free photo sharing software can be used to post travel photos or events like weddings.
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