Bob...there have been many opportunities for me to say this (and many of those were in the distant past before you recently surfaced again), but I wish there were more like you in the field handling files for me when I was inside examining the wet & windy's of 04-05.   Just assuming you're the same "Big Bob" that used to post here under that moniker.

Thanks Mike - actually that was a different Bob. I remember him from the old forum, he had a lot of good advice on roofing and construction in general.

I have benefited from other's help on the CADO forums since 1999 and appreciate those who helped me in the past, like Chuck Deaton, etc.

This is a great resource - and the archives are the place to go for lots of gold.

Bob i have a question. I often reduce my final complete report as the mb's exceed what email will transfer, but i have been doing it after everything is pdf. Are you saying that you can reduce the mega-pixels before pdf,or after. I have shot high mega pixel before, but can go to wal-mart and get lunch and be back before they are completed downloading. If there is a way to do this quickly before pdf could you explain? I have my camera set at the lowest 0.3 mega pixels so they will download quick.

Do it before you PDF it.  There is no need for images bigger than 640 x 480 pixels if it is a "paperless" file for viewing on a computer screen.  There are some carriers with specific requirements, I have 2 carriers that ask for a resolution of 1024 x 768 on their photos (one notch up the food chain). 

The sequence is this:  Shoot with a low resolution setting (or convert them to smaller resolution after the inspection).   Then you place those images in a document, photo mounting sheet, or directly into an estimating program's photo sheets.  Then you PDF it.

I personally shoot at higher resolution (over 2,000 pixels wide) and use a program called ACDsee to "batch convert" the images to 640 x 480.   It will leave your original images unharmed, it makes copies of them.  Actually I back my photos up to a 2 gig USB drive before I do anything.  I have that plugged in to my laptop first, then connect the camera.  I make a folder with the day's date on the removable USB drive, and COPY all of my photos to that day's folder.  And as that starts to get full I move them off onto CD's.  So I am always working with copies of my files - or have copies of the files.  You have to keep original copies of your images if you do any of this, so they can be used in court (1 in 1,000 but you have to be prepared).

After you copy all images to the removable USB drive, then you can MOVE the photos off the camera's memory directly to your hard drive.  Personally, I do this with ACDsee so I can see the thumbnails and determine where one inspection ends, and another starts.  ACDsee will do this quickly - much better than the viewer than comes from Microsoft.  CREATE FOLDERS on your hard drive (on the desktop, or claim files within My Doc's or whatever)  and just move the photos where they need to go.

Then I use that same ACDsee program to view the thumbnails, delete the ones I'm not going to use, and arrange the ones I am going to use in the sequence I want. Then I select them all (Ctrl-A) and do a batch re-name so they are 01.jpg 02.jpg 03.jpg.  I am still using the old version 4 of ACDsee because it is lean and mean.  It lets me tweak the program so the thumbnails are as large as possible with virtually no border around the image, so I can see as much of the picture as I want without wasted real-estate on the screen. 

I set it up so that it doesn't display the name of the image, date it was taken, or resolution.  My screen is solid pictures, and I can make them as small as a postage stamp (48 images on screen) or as large as a postcard (4 per screen) but I usually set it for 12 images on screen so I can see them really clearly despite the fact they are thumbnails.  I know people that use the newer versions of ACDsee and are happy with it.   The current version is ACDsee 10 and it cost $49.  I also have Photoshop at over $500 and so on, but for IMAGE MANAGEMENT you cannot beat ACDsee.  If you are broke, here's another link to a free program that will batch-convert the image size, and rename, called ifranview.   

Well, we know your camera is a $130 Panasonic. It may have the old slow USB, most good cameras, printers, etc. these days are the much faster USB 2.0

I have a camera from 2004, my laptop from 2005, both of them have USB 2.0 and I can download a day's photos in less than 60 seconds at a resolution of 5 megapixels.  That would be 100 to 200 photos.

You could have no USB 2.0 port on your computer. Or you could be using an old cable that doesn't support that rate.

Or you could be using the software that came with your camera to download the images, which is something I refuse to do. I just use Windows to create the folders with the claim names I want, and connect the camera, and download them directly as though they are document files or whatever.

When you connect a camera with USB cable, Windows will often pop-up a thing asking if you want to use the camera wizard to view the files, or just "open the folder" (that is the choice you want).

DO NOT USE the windows "camera and fax" wizard or whatever that is called - You just want to move file names, not the bloat-ware image viewer thing that comes with Windows.  You have to get good at creating folders, and knowing to look at the right place on your camera's memory card to find your images.  It isn't as easy as it sounds.  I have had 6 digital cameras, and all of them create a folder (often called DCIM which stands for Digital Camera Image Management) and then it will have numbered folders inside of that one, and keeps creating additional folders as you take pictures. 

Canon and Nikon both do this, it is part of a "standard" set up by the digital camera industry.  You can get scared and think you are missing photos - but it is just the way all digital camera's store images.  Your "missing" photos will be in the next numbered folder that the camera created when you hit over 100 images in the last folder, or sooner if the images are very large.  That is why the Microsoft (or your camera's software) viewer lets you see all of the images - it is shielding you from the guts of the machine.  But if you want to download fast, you just reach in and grab the photos directly.   At least that's what I do. 

Another thing, when you take the pic's you can set the camera for 3 mega-pixel, 5 mega-pixel or whatever, but there is yet another choice that has nothing do do with how many "pixels" or resolution. It has to do with COMPRESSION. That is what JPG does, it is a method of compression so the photo isn't a huge download. Just set that on "normal" not "fine" 

People are often confused by these settings, because they will have a name for the QUALITY such as "low" "medium" or "high" and again this is referring to how much compression is used when the file is stored as JPG (which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group).  It is an algorithm that says "I am going to look at this group of pixels that is 8 across, and 8 down.  Within that group of 64 pixels most of this sky is the same shade of blue".  And it will say "this color for 50 of these pixels" rather than describing each pixel individually, which is what a "raw" or uncompressed photo does. 

If you changed the quality setting on your camera from "normal" to "fine" then the camera is going to say "there are actually 4 different shades of blue in this block of 64 pixels, so 20 of them are this color, 18 of them are that color, etc".  If you put it on "super fine" or raw, there is basically no compression at all and your memory card will fill up fast. 

You can take a 5 mega-pixel photo and with the least compression it will be a huge download, like 3 megabytes.  Or you could shoot it with lower quality (more compression) and it is still the same number of pixels - but 1/10 the download size.

The old Sony Mavica's that write on a floppy disk used HARSH COMPRESSION to be able to fit a dozen or more photos on a little floppy disk that was only 1.4 megs.  You take one of those photos, and use something like ACDsee to blow it up 500 % and you will see all kinds of "grid" like blocks and squares, where the harsh compression has discarded much of the detail within those 64 pixel blocks. 

That is literally how JPG works, 8 pixels across and 8 down.  When I shoot at over 2,000 pixels across, the slight amount of lost quality from compression is insignificant.  If you are shooting at 640 x 480 with the worst quality (harsh compression) you will start to notice odd "jaggies" and squares in the image - especially where there are subtle changes in shading or color.  And there is no way to get the image quality back if that is the way it was taken originally.  Which is why I shoot high resolution, at medium-normal quality, and go through the time to batch-resize the images.

If you choose "normal" quality on any modern digital camera, it will be a good photo, without huge download size.  Earlier in this thread we were talking about the camera, and do you NEED a super-high quality piece of hardware.  I say that you need to know the settings and how to work with the camera as equal importance - and that the camera can just be "pretty good" (which is what Mike was saying before).  I'm just glad they keep coming down in price.  My first Mavica was about $700, and it had hardware issues after a year.  Then I got a $1,000 camera that had intermittent focus problems, but it was one of the only wide angles available.  I ditched that before a year was up, and my next one was about $1,000, and I replaced it in 2 years due to obsolescence.  Today you can get a truly good compact digital for well under $300 (or the digital SLR's from $500 to $1,000).  But you got what you paid for with the $130 Panasonic.

For what it's worth I just bought a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5.  It's very easy to use and takes a good picture. It has a 28mm wide lens with 10x optical zoom an 9 mega pixels.  Everything is automatic, it is fairly smaller considering it's features and it uses an SD card.  $319 at Best Buy.

Might be worth taking a look at for those in the market.

www.QuantumGear.com - Authorized DISTO dealer

I just bought a  new Alpha 300 DSLR camera. I like single lens reflex, and the adjustable image viewer screen. Unfortunately I have to resize the pics as it is a   10 megapixel camera and will not shoot 640X480. I have been using it and it takes magnificent photos, I also got the separate  flash for those fire photographs of nothing but black char, And of course, its a Sony.

It's really interesting to read these last 2 posts, because I also had purchased a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 because it was heavily discounted, had a wide angle lens, a bigger LCD than my current camera, and I thought the 10x zoom would be nice. I used the camera for a week, and returned it. It did GREAT outdoors with plenty of light. But shooting indoor damages with marginal lighting there were more frequent off-focus shots than my older wide angle canon S-60, and the somewhat darker parts of the photos were often "grainy".

Then I borrowed a new DSLR I had purchased for my wife - what a difference. Then it hit me. The 10x lens on that Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 was "too good to be true". You just can't put a 10x lens on a compact camera, and expect it to perform like the 4x lens on my old camera, or the short zoom on the Digital SLR.

10x is a strong zoom, but you have a trade-off in how much "light gathering" power the camera has. It is measured in the maximum aperture opening at a given focal range (I may have just put some of you to sleep). That is often a compromise in compact cameras - and why they don't do good at fast sports photography. They cannot "stop" the motion at a high magnification.

So after returning the 10X compact camera, and letting the wife have her digital SLR back, I agree with Tom that the next thing up the food chain from my old (great) camera is going to be a digital SLR. Earlier on this thread I said they were too heavy, and I used one for a decade of claims before going digital in 1999. But the quality of the shots are noticeable. I am not talking about how many mega-pixels, any camera today has more than enough. I am talking about the size of the hole where the camera mounts to the body - and how that allows for so much more light to enter the camera compared to a compact. It gives you a faster lens, which is important for indoor shots, avoiding "shake" when taking a photo of a claimants driver's license, etc.

Tom's Alpha is a great camera and getting great reviews, very affordable for the quality you get. The wife's was a Nikon DSLR, but I am leaning toward a Canon DSLR because I had great luck with the old film Canon EOS cameras. And they recently came out with the image stabilized lens which will help in low-light conditions. The Alpha has that, but up to very recently the Canon's did not.

DSLR's are great but overkill for most claims work. This looks like a great camera for claims. http://www.slashgear.com/olympus-stylus-announces-worlds-toughest-digital-compact-camera-229815.php

I use a Ricoh 500G Wide and have no complaints. The Oly is less $$$.

I have to admit I hadn't been using an SLR for claims since I went digital in 1999, and I had been thinking they were "overkill" also. The compact size of most digitals is a help, and for outdoor shots they are fantastic. Lot's of light and you get great photos.

Tom's example of taking photos at a fire scene is where some of the older models without a focus assist beam, or econo compact digitals just don't cut it. Indoor shots with minimal light will really show up the weakness in a camera, and that is why I returned the Panasonic Lumix - although it did GREAT outdoors or in a room with plenty of light. My older Canon digital had a better "focus assist beam", stronger flash, and with a lens that didn't go 10x it was able to work with less compromise. The short-zooms do better in low-light.

I hadn't seen that Oly you posted, and it's lens is about the same as what I am shooting now "3.6x optical zoom (28-102mm 35mm equiv)" That is perfect for adjusters, the 28mm equivalent is a nice wide angle for interior shots or really wide view of the entire roof.

Doing daily claims again, I often crawl under houses (water damage, fallen insulation, excluded rot, etc). and that dust-proof digital would be nice. I used to get a gallon zip-lock bag, cut a hole for a skylight filter, tape it on, and shoot through the clear filter after zipping the camera in the bag.

I am not rushing out to get a DSLR, but after using the one I borrowed from my wife for a couple weeks I am convinced that I will get one when it's a good deal. The main reason for me is the indoor damage photos with bad lighting conditions.

Here's a link to the Ricoh 500G Wide you got - also dust-proof and ruggedized.  I like that it can take standard AA batteries, because my ideal scene would be a back up camera that doesn't have to use a proprietary battery. Nikon also has a model that runs on AA batteries with a Wide zoom, the Nikon Coolpix P50 that goes from 28-102 and it is only $150 at Amazon.