OL2100UZ - what record mode/quality to use?

[Monkshould]

I am so totally confused. What record mode/quality setting is best if I want to make prints of 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, larger? Are any/all of these settings also OK for displaying on a web site? What's the disadvantage, if any, of using these settings vs. another for photos used on web sites?

[Gary Senkus]

Monkshould,
Best to shoot just below tiff mode, that means you can always print great shots. For email, web etc you can use Camedia 2.5 to resize for email, friends with 56K modems do not like receive big ones that take 5 min to download. save the reduced pics under different name so you do not loose your full size pics. Also the new Camedia Master Pro 4.0 ($40) from Olympus will allow you to drag and drop many pics (number depends on choice of template) for printing on a single sheet of paper. It will resize them for you without changing the original.
Olympus 2100UZ rules,
Gary

[lg]

I'd recommend using HQ mode. Filesize is about 440K for each pic, so you can get 128+ pics on a 64K Smartmedia card. If you shoot in just below TIFF mode (SHQ), your filesize is doubled and each pic takes about 1MB. You can get very sharp prints up to 8x10 using the HQ setting. For general use, I don't think you will need any higher quality. What do the rest of you folks think? Is there a noticeable difference in the quality of an 8x10 printed in SHQ vs HQ?

[atlantagreg]

As you can see, you're going to get different answers. Here's mine:

As long as you have the memory space for it (as in a larger card), then keep your camera set at "SHQ" and "1600x1200" pixels. That way, you're getting nearly the best quality you can get, but still in jpg mode, so there's only a couple of seconds of storage time between each photo, but the quality is good enough for an 8x10 print too, if needed.

Yes, you could leave it in "TIFF" mode all the time - if you're willing to wait up to 30 seconds for each photo to be stored, and have a pocket full of 128 meg cards. Even then, there would only be a marginal improvement over larger prints when compared to "SHQ".

"HQ" mode does well on screen and in prints up to 5x7, but when you push that to 8x10, you'll see a difference than if you use SHQ. "SQ" should only be used for screen/email/web images. Hope it helps.

Originally posted by Monkshould
I am so totally confused. What record mode/quality setting is best if I want to make prints of 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, larger? Are any/all of these settings also OK for displaying on a web site? What's the disadvantage, if any, of using these settings vs. another for photos used on web sites?

[Herb]

As well as all the other good advice, I'd add this - set your camera to ISO 100. There's a web page about this topic here -
http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/exposure.htm#iso