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Architects are now using digital photography for everything from construction documentation to presentation-quality images. Brian Gassel, in-house photographer for Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback & Associates, in Atlanta—the 2002 AIA Firm of the Year—plans to buy a digital camera to shoot projects. “While I still use a 4x5 format camera for 95 percent of my shoots, my next step is to buy the new Nikon,” Gassel said. He is opting for their 6.1-megapixel D100 digital SLR model, which allows the use of more than 40 existing AF Nikkor lenses and compatible flashes. “Except for high-end digital cameras that go for $5,000 to $6,000, most digital cameras don’t allow you to interchange lenses,” says Gassel, who plans to use his current perspective-correction lens and his stable of other lenses with the new Nikon, which is available for under $2,000. Another high-resolution camera introduced this year, the 6.3-megapixel Canon EOS D60 digital camera, also accommodates existing lenses—in this case, all EF-series Canon or compatible lenses. It can be found for less than $2,200.

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Patrick Mays, chief information officer for Seattle-based NBBJ Architects, purchased three Nikon D100s for high-end image making. For general firm use for lower-resolution photographic needs, Mays has standardized on Sony’s Mavica MVC-CD400 digital still camera, which has a 3X optical zoom lens and records images on specially sized CD-R and CD-RW media that are compatible with most PCs. For Mays, the type of memory the camera uses is critical. “For our shared cameras, we wanted to have storage media that were inexpensive, easy to use, and something people could own,” he said. This year, when Sony upgraded from a camera that stored pictures on 31¼2-inch floppy disks to the model that uses CDs, Mays found what he wanted. “Employees have their own storage CDs,” he says. “They don’t fill the network [servers] with large images. They keep their CDs at their desks, and when they finish using the camera, they hand it in but keep their CD.” He discourages using cameras with a proprietary storage medium, such as Sony’s Memory Stick, because future technological innovations or business decisions by the owning company may render them extinct faster than nonproprietary memory media like CompactFlash and CD-Rs, which are a better choice, he believes.

As Mays researched cameras for the firm’s use, he also sent a memo to his staff advising them on purchasing cameras of their own. He noted that Kodak’s EasyShare 3-megapixel camera with CompactFlash storage, priced under $300, was easy to use but has no optical zoom or other extras. His other top recommendations, all of which cost less than $600, include Nikon’s Coolpix 885 (3 megapixels, CompactFlash storage), Fujifilm’s Finepix 6900 (3 megapixels, SmartMedia storage), and the Olympus C-4040 (4 megapixels, SmartMedia storage).

Size matters

This construction photo of the Niagara Gorge Observation Tower and Public Access Point, by Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, was taken with a Pentax Optio (above). Photography: Hugh Hardy, FAIA (top); Pentax (bottom)

Smaller firms have also taken advantage of falling prices for digital cameras. Jennifer Siegal, principal of Santa Monica–based firm Office of Mobile Design (which currently has three employees), bought a pocket-size 2.1-megapixel Canon Powershot S300 Digital Elph for about $500 to document design and construction in still images and short video clips up to 20 seconds long. Siegal, who is an associate professor at Woodbury University in Burbank, California, has shown images and videos in presentations to her students, clients, and the general public. The response to the video component of her presentations has been especially positive, she says.

Siegal’s senior design associate, Kelly Bair, has been largely responsible for using the camera and notes many of its positive features. “We’re building a residence in downtown Los Angeles, and [the Elph] is a wonderful camera to document the construction process,” Bair says. Using a 128-megabyte CompactFlash memory card, which costs approximately $80, Bair was able to shoot several stills and brief videos at the construction site without running out of memory. “I’m able to take a series of pictures and stitch them together to make a panoramic image, using the software that came with the camera. The video images are pretty good and read very clearly on our computer monitors,” she says, adding that image download is faster with the Elph compared to other digital cameras she’s used, and its camera interface is highly intuitive. On the downside, she’s disappointed by the Elph’s battery life, but she has purchased additional batteries for under $50.

The Elph is one of a growing breed of smaller, compact digital cameras that, like many technologies, have been shrinking since they came on the market. A compact size was a key decision element when the principals of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates decided to purchase their own digital cameras. While the firm has gone fully digital with all in-house photography and has equipped its New York office with three Kodak 3.1-megapixel DX3900 zoom digital cameras, the principals wanted cameras for their own personal use. Hugh Hardy, FAIA, and Norman Pfeiffer, FAIA, each chose the compact Pentax Optio 4-megapixel 430 camera with 3X optical zoom, while Malcolm Holzman, FAIA, opted for Canon’s Powershot Digital Elph. “Taking pictures on film got to be a burden and a bore. Digital imagery revived my interest in making images, because they can be used in so many ways,” says Hardy, adding that his Pentax is so small and easy to carry it has become a constant companion. “The raw material of design is seeing
what’s around you. Being able to record what you see in an easy manner greatly assists the [creative] process.”