Hi Ross,

I'm always glad to see people discussing digital cameras, as they are
unquestionably the future of photography. However, the description
you gave was a bit inaccurate. Yes, natural sunlight is great for
achieving critical color balance, however, since almost all digital
cameras include auto white balance, you can get very good results
from almost any light source providing you calibrate the camera
before shooting. The easiest way is to turn the camera on with a
sheet of white paper in front of it. The sophisticated circuitry will
measure the color temperature of the light reflected off the paper
and make adjustments to produce a pure white.

Another factor is onboard flash, or any of the plethora of flashes
from many manufacturers. In most cases, if you want the best results,
you'll be safest with flashes from the original manufacturer (say,
Nikon, Minolta, Olympus and so forth).

The biggest problem with any camera (35mm or digital) is keeping the
shadows from distracting from the photos. Sunlight produces very
harsh shadows (and often brilliant hot spots on shells with a glossy
finish). My favorite technique is to use a bounce flash along with a
syncable fill flash. The main flash triggers a sensor in the fill
flash (I generally use a diffuser on mine) so they flash at the same
time. You can also use a fill flash to cut down on the harsh shadows
you get when shooting using sunlight.

Another part of the puzzle is the software you use to make
adjustments to your final photo. In my case, I use PhotoShop 7.0.
With it, I can change the color balance of even the worst digital
photo to match "reality." PhotoShop Elements is a slimmed down,
low-cost alternative that works great and will be just fine for
75-80% of all digital photographers.

A much more important feature is the Macro Mode: How close can the
camera focus? Naturally, you can add close-up filters (usually
purchased in a set of +1, +2 and +4 magnification). You can even add
the +2 to the +4 and get +6 magnification. The biggest problem with
these shots is the background. A tiny shell sitting on a piece of
normal writing paper, when shot using high magnification, looks like
it's sitting on the lunar surface. If you have mastered your
software, it's usually easy to edit the background to something more
acceptable.

If you are going for the very best quality (for an 11 x 14 print, for
instance), always use the camera's highest quality setting (usually
TIFF format). Any compression (by shooting in a JPEG mode) will cause
a general loss of fine color gradations and resolution. Best to shoot
a few JPEGs until you see the result you are looking for, then switch
the camera to uncompressed mode (Raw, TIFF or whatever format your
camera has available).

Stay warm!
Jim