Here is the dream: a small, lightweight camera with good optics that has no moving parts, needs no film, and produces great pictures without much delay or cost. Polaroid is fast but it's not cheap, it's not digital, and the pictures aren't all that sharp.
For a while there was a spate of TV-quality disc-based cameras that just didn't cut it. The better alternative is the true digital camera. Grab photons with a CCD (Charge Coupled Device) and stick the numbers right into RAM. There are professional digital cameras like the US$10,000 Kodak DCS 200. Or you can spend about $650 for the one-button Dycam.
While its picture quality is no competition for that of a 35-mm point-and- shoot, which you can get for less than a hundred bucks, I use my Dycam when I need black-and-white pictures in a hurry - for producing small pictures in magazine articles (you can e-mail them and beat those deadlines!) and for letting the kids learn to take pictures without running up a photo processing tab.
The Dycam sends its pix to the computer via a serial cable and comes with both IBM and Mac connects and software. Team it up with a portable gray- scale printer and a battery-operated computer with Photoshop on the hard drive, and you've got a photolab in your handbag.
Dycam's optical accessories are out-of-sight expensive, but you can shuffle down to the local discount video store and get the same stuff for far less. And upgrades cost more than I think they should, but then, they've got the only game in town.
Dycam Digital Camera: US$650. +1 (818) 998 8008, fax +1 (818) 998 7951.
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