New Mexico Mineral Symposium — Abstracts

Although conventional 35 mm film cameras have a resolution of more than 2 orders of magnitude greater than today's consumer digital cameras (1 billion pixels versus about 1-7 million pixels or picture elements), the difference in the pictures produced by each is increasingly difficult for the human eye to distinguish, especially those produced by digital cameras with a resolution greater than 2 million pixels. Moreover, digital cameras have a number of significant advantages over 35 mm film photography. They are becoming better, more affordable, and easier to use, with results that are immediately viewable, and there are no film or processing costs. Perhaps more important and exciting is what you can do with digitally stored pictures that you cannot readily do with conventional film. Collectors can create an electronic catalog of their collections complete with pictures of specimens, share their collection with others on the web, transmit images via e-mail to potential trading partners, and buy or sell specimens via on-line auctions.

The purpose of this presentation is to give a brief overview of digital photography, discuss its advantages over conventional film mineral photography, review the equipment needed (camera, computer, printer, light source, microscope adapters, and other useful accessories) as well as the image editing software needed to transform an average or good picture into an even better one.

Techniques for both macro and micro digital photography will be discussed. The latter can be a problem because conventional "point and shoot" digital cameras are not designed for microphotography and require special adapters between the camera and microscope optics. Such adapters are not readily available commercially, but they can be easily and inexpensively built from PVC plumbing parts that are generally available at most hardware stores. Whereas the images produced by such homemade contraptions may not be as good as those produced by specialized equipment for professional magazines, they are nevertheless affordable to many collectors and are quite acceptable for the applications for which they are used.

Throughout this presentation I will emphasize simplicity and cost containment—making digital photography of minerals affordable to as many mineral collectors as possible.