The CEO of Halliburton has some completely objective comments on the corporation's work.

Digital cameras are really starting to catch on - they've been around for about 6 years or so, and most people have either owned one or seen one in use. I've been using them for about 4 years, including a tiny Canon S110 for about 2 years (that's what I used for almost all the pictures on this site). Quality has really been improving, and camera size has been shrinking, while the price points have remained pretty constant at around $200 for an OK camera to $400 for a very good one and over $500 for top-of-the-line consumer models.

Canon just recently broke the $1,000 barrier for digital SLR cameras, releasing the EOS Digital Rebel. We picked one up last week, and I can tell you this is an awesome camera, capable of great shots even for inexperienced photographers like myself. The new photos at the top of the page were taken with the new camera, although they have been scaled down so much that it may be hard to tell. Trust me, the original 6.3 megapixel images are superb. They can be printed poster size without any pixelation - at least that's the theory (I'll report once I have some samples).

Anyway, in the face of the growing popularity of digital cameras, I'd like to do a couple back-of-the-envelope calculations to help out those who may be considering going digital. The biggest benefit of using a digital camera, in my view, is that you can take as many as you want to without additional cost per photo. You just keep the ones you like, or print the ones you like (or have them printed at a center). The downside is that the initial investment is much greater than with film cameras.

I tend to take a lot of photos - when I travel, I have my little camera in my pocket, and snap lots of photos hoping for some great shots mixed in. Over the last 2 years, we've taken about 2,000 photos with our $400 camera, giving a per-shot cost of about 20 cents. The camera still works perfectly, but assuming we use it less now that we have a replacement, I'll credit $100 remaining value, giving our 2,000 photos a cost of about 15 cents each.

Now, that's for electronic images only. We also bought a photo printer ($230), which we've used for about 100 photos so far. The printer is still pretty new, but considering just the ink expenses ($20 per 100 photos or so) and paper ($7 for 50 4x6 shots), that's about 34 cents per printed photo. Of course, we only print what we want, where as with traditional film one pays for every shot. Nonetheless, the total cost per photo for the camera, paper, and ink is about 50 cents per shot.

I haven't used film for quite a while, but my recollection is that APS photos are about 35 to 40 cents each. That's significantly cheaper than my calculation for electronic photos, but still comparable. However, most people already have a film camera, and many people don't take very many photos. From my discussions, it seems that it's mostly parents who are photo-happy - kids are always changing, and there are lots of bad photos, so it makes sense to take lots of photos in hopes of a few keepers. Most other people take fewer photos.

So, consider someone who basically takes a few party photos per year, and also a couple rolls on vacation, for a total of about 200 per year. For this person, upgrading to a decent digital camera is going to cost more like 67 cents per digital image (assuming camera life of 3 years), and then printing costs. Since printing at home wouldn't make much economic sense, the per-photo cost of about 40 cents can be used. That's over $1 per shot - about 3x times the cost of film photography.

Therefore, people who don't take lots of photos (more than 500 per year, I would estimate) should carefully consider staying with their film cameras. Most photo centers can now "develop" electronic images and return a CD of photos for a pretty low price, so that it is possible to get digital images from rolls of film.

Personally, despite those calculations, I love digital photography. I like the immediacy of seeing the shot on the digital view screen on the camera. I also enjoy being able to print the photos at home right after taking them: I take photos of everyone who comes to visit Artemis and give them a photo before they leave. Those advantages, along with the low per-photo cost realized by the sheer volume of our photos, make going digital a no-brainer. In fact, we take so many photos and make such use of them that the huge investment of the Canon SLR made sense for us. If you're considering going digital, consider all the factors: convenience, incentive to photograph, and per-photo cost. Enjoy!