I admit it; I'm a "Johnny Come Lately" to digital photography. That's right, this inveterate tinkerer and gadget freak only recently made the leap. I don't even have a webcam!

This is not to say I have no experience with digital photography. I've been experimenting with it for quite some time with borrowed cameras or with cameras I've been testing. First, I'm an accomplished photographer and I've worked for years with 35mm cameras. Second, if I was going to make this move, I wanted a camera in a reasonable price range that reasonably approximated the true color appearance, color balance and image integrity to which I've been accustomed in the 35mm arena.

In this endeavor, I found an excellent site which truly needs no promotion from this column by virtue of the enormous hit count one used to see on this site's home page, "Steve's Digicams," http://www.steves-digicams.com/. Without exception, there is no better site to find reviews, specs and sample pictures of a wide variety of digital cameras from 1.3 Megapixels up to 5 Megapixels.

At the site, I quickly found the camera in which I was interested, the Kodak DX 3215 and checked the sample pictures and reviewed its specs. It's a 1.3 Megapixel camera with 2x optical and 2x digital zoom, 8MB of internal memory and is compatible with MMC and Secure Digital memory cards. The first thing you need to remember is that megapixels only relate to the size of the photo the camera can produce at its best setting. It is not a measure of quality. You can find some relatively inexpensive 2 Megapixel cameras that will produce images of the largest size most of you will ever need but the quality might be less than thrilling.

Hence, you need to do some research and that's why "Steve's Digicams" is such a worthwhile site because you not only get a good overview of the camera in which you are interested you also can view samples of the images the camera can produce. One of the things I found was that as the number of megapixels increased, so did the possibility of artifacts in the final image. Better cameras had fewer artifacts while lesser cameras tended to have a lot of artifacts.

Another problem specific to digital cameras is that many of the less expensive multi-megapixel cameras produce images that tend to be washed out or "dirty." It's as though the camera viewed the image with a dirty lens. You may see the colors but everything seems to appear as though it was shot on a smoggy or hazy day. Another factor in ultimate image quality is what type of image file the camera produces. Some, as is the case with my Kodak DX 3215, only produce JPEG images and it's really better if the image starts as a TIF. This is because a JPEG employs a more loss prone form of compression. If you start with a TIF, you can convert it to JPEG and get a much better quality image.

The downside to the TIF is it produces a huge file and that reduces the number of images you can produce at the camera's best setting. However, given how inexpensive memory cards have become, this is a modest trade off. And this brings up another consideration in purchasing a digital camera, the type of media it uses. While the respective media, "Smart Media, Compact Flash, Secure Digital and Multimedia (MMC)" will all give the same results, the "Secure Digital and Multimedia" cards tend to be a bit more expensive.

Added to this array are the Sony Memory stick, used primarily in Sony cameras and a recently introduced contender, "XD Flash" now being employed on new Olympus and Fuji cameras. While the "XD Flash" is in its infancy it's likely to catch on quickly as this media has the potential of storing multi-gigabytes of information. Currently, the largest capacity "XD Flash" cards are 128MB and they sell for around $60, about $10 more than comparable "Compact Flash and Smart Media" cards.

I was brought to this foray into digital photography by virtue of a request from my mother for a photograph of a gift she had received years ago from a family friend. She wanted to send it to this individual to show her how it was being used in my mother's present décor. I mention this because it points up one of the advantages of digital over conventional photography, the ability to take one shot rather than having to shoot and develop an entire roll of film when circumstances such as this arise.

In pre-digital days, this would have been a job for our trusty old "Polaroid." Still, with a "Polaroid" you must purchase an entire package of film. With a digital camera, there's no film to purchase at all, making it ideal for these single photo situations. The second advantage of digital over conventional photography is the ability to see problems or mistakes immediately and being able to correct or accommodate these situations without wasting any film or having to wait for it to come back from the lab.

Most digital cameras come with a software bundle that first, creates the interface between camera and operating system, allowing the user to download pictures directly from the camera to the PC and second, allows you to manipulate and correct problems with a photo. This is great as far as it goes but as you become more advanced, you may find the software bundle somewhat limited in ability and if you are the type to update your operating system each time Microsoft offers a new version, you are likely to find your camera is no longer recognized or the software is no longer compatible.

With regard to downloading images, this is easily remedied using one of the many card readers on the market. They are inexpensive enough that you might just buy a new one with each new iteration of Windows. By the same token, the better or more popular readers tend to get better support from the manufacturer who will help you stay up to date with updated drivers for the new operating system.

A big disadvantage I've found with digital photography is lack of discernible click. I'm used to the power advance of my 35mm camera and there's no such counterpart in digital photography. Some digital shutterbugs will tell you to use the digital viewer, when the image you've shot appears, you can now take the next shot. That's not only awkward, it wastes the battery.

I believe I've seen a feature in some of the more expensive digital cameras wherein a light flashes in the viewfinder to alert you the camera is ready. Many cameras, the Kodak DX 3215 among them use a flashing light on the body of the camera but that is just as awkward as waiting for the image to appear in the digital viewer.

Frankly, I find the whole delay issue awkward and it exists on even the best digital cameras. This is because the digital image must be written to memory and this time lag means digital cameras are completely unsuitable for any high speed photography. If you want to shoot sports events or anything that would require multiple, rapid fire shots, stick with film.

The largest image my camera can produce at its best quality is a 5x7 print. Note, you can print larger images but they will tend to wash out or otherwise loose quality. I printed this image for my mother using my 1995 vintage HP 660Cse 600x600 printer on HP Photo Glossy paper and I got excellent results. This was an image I had to alter or "punch up" a bit using Kodak's Easy Share software bundle. Nonetheless, I found the results quite satisfactory.

There is a caveat here. While the results were quite satisfactory and looked for all the world as though it had been taken with a film camera, I must admit, the same image side by side with one exposed on film would have paled. Digital images seem to lose something, colors aren't as deep or as true. It may not be easy to define but many can tell the difference in side by side comparison.

Something else of which to be aware, these cameras require a lot of light indoors though I often found better results, forgoing the flash and enhancing the photo later using software. Ironically, for a camera that seems to need a lot of light, shots in direct, bright sunlight tend to wash out and they have a lot of trouble with light streaming through windows or trees. Instead of creating a "hot spot" that many photographers often use in film, it just tends to make the spot look overexposed and rather ugly as opposed to adding a visual point of interest.

Unfortunately, I've seen the same shortcoming in shots from cameras costing several hundred dollars and when you start moving to those larger shots, 8 ˝ x 11, for example, there are those dreadful artifacts and/or graininess.

Still, for the right use, these cameras are quite good. They are especially good for the single use situation. They are also good in conjunction with a film camera. If offers you the ability to see a shot before taking it, allowing you to see lighting and other issues before wasting a shot on film. It's also great if you are looking to save shots in a digital photo album. You don't have to waste time scanning prints, you can download directly from the camera to the PC.

I can't say digital is not yet ready for "prime time." There are some very expensive special use cameras for portraiture and even large format work. Ad photographers are starting to use them because magazine ads are the perfect medium and often must convert analogue to digital anyway. For most people, the images produced by their digital cameras are more than adequate, especially for display on web sites and digital albums.

The new generation of color printers produce some excellent prints and the available photo software will let you do things of which you only dreamed when working with a conventional film camera. You become your own photo lab and that's pretty good. It saves time and money. It's still a bit awkward as I described but it's starting to come of age. And this leads to a conundrum; digital photography is good enough for a variety of uses but would be so much better if it weren't so awkward.

Now, just offer me a quality digital camera in the same price range as say my old Canon AE1, between $200 and $300, a full compliment of interchangeable lenses and lens filters, overcome some of the awkward issues and let the fun begin.