Published February 2001

Picture-perfect investment
Business community finds digital photography saves time, money

By John Wolcott
Herald Business Journal Editor

Digital cameras are making a big impression on many businesses in Snohomish County.

In Everett, TruGreen LandCare has discovered innovative uses for its Sony FD88 digital camera, making its business more efficient, its marketing more productive and its customers more satisfied, according to Branch Manager Greg McDonald.

“When we prepare a PowerPoint presentation for a client, a proposal on annual planting, for example, we include examples of the site, photos of similar schemes we’ve used elsewhere and show them all of that graphically on a laptop,” he said.

TruGreen’s clients include property managers for office parks, retail centers, hotels and resorts, municipalities, high-tech campuses and large residential developments, offering landscape design, installation, maintenance, renovation and repairs.

“We have a lot of clients who are out-of-state property owners and local ones who just can’t get to their properties regularly. They really like receiving e-mail photos,” Business Development Manager Tom Burgess said.

Customer response has been so strong that TruGreen’s three Northwest offices are each building a library of digital photos for PowerPoint presentations, brochures and bid proposals, as well as the company’s Web site (www.landcare.com).

Burgess’ Sony FD88 — a 1.3-megapixel camera with a built-in telephoto lens — saves 25 to 30 photos on a floppy diskette. A photo-management software program bundled with the camera provides organizing and editing services.

In downtown Everett’s Frontier Bank building, immigration attorney Terry Preshaw said her new Sony DCR-PC110 is changing how she helps Canadian entrepreneurs, high-tech companies and other businesses establish a presence in the United States.

Her camera takes up to 60 minutes of digital video. Each memory stick can hold up to 300 pictures, fewer at very high resolution. Along with extra memory cards, she bought a wide-angle lens, telephoto lens, tripod and a FireWire attachment for downloading images and streaming video to her computer.

“When authorities request verification that a person or business really has an established business presence in this country, I can send them a video view of the workplace to document it. That’s pretty persuasive evidence,” she said.

Plus, the videos and still photos are easy to store on memory sticks in clients’ files, she said.

“This camera’s absolutely fabulous,” she said. “I’m excited about it because we’re using it to update our Web site (www.ilw.com/preshawzisman), too.”

In Mukilteo, marketing and fund-raising consultant Kathleen Harrison Lefcourt of KH Marketing and Development chose a Toshiba Allegretto M4.

“I can’t imagine doing without my digital camera. I wouldn’t have purchased (one) just for personal use. But for business, it’s an incredible time saver, produces higher-quality work, distributes time-sensitive information much more efficiently by e-mail, and it’s still available for family use,” she said.

In Marysville, Drew Ellison, President of Kasilof Fish Co., said the company recently published two catalogs for retail and wholesale marketing of their smoked-salmon products, all illustrated with digital-camera photos.

“We also use many photos that we took ourselves on our Web site (www.iLoveSalmon.com). It’s been a great time and money saver for us,” Ellison said.

In Edmonds, Peter Odabashian of Odabashian Consulting uses digital photography for projects for clients such as the American Electronics Association.

“If you’re buying a digital camera,” he said, “get one with removable storage so you can swap (memory) cards; a (sharp) LCD viewfinder; (variable) focus, not one focal distance for all subjects; a flash; and megapixel cameras with pixel strength.”

He first used a Sony Mavica, then bought an Agfa ePhoto 780c for his consulting business.

Camera dealers are finding that many buyers hooked on digital photography want extra features.

“We see a different side of the digital-camera market than what the mass merchants see, according to the Photographic Research Organization that tracks sales nationally,” said Bryan Minnig, a Vice President with Ken’s Camera Inc. in Seattle. “Namely, (there’s) much higher interest in more expensive and more feature-laden cameras.”

Current top brands include the Nikon Coolpix 990 at $987, the Olympus D490 at $496, Canon Powershot s100 at $500, Sony DSCS70 at $799 and Olympus C3000Z at $796, the survey showed.

“People want resolution upgrades, better LCD screens and the newest innovations. They’ve done their research and know what they want for what job,” Minnig said.

In the Everett Ken’s Camera store, Manager Anthony Blikre said most business buyers are using the cameras for selling products or services on the Internet, for real estate Web sites, appraisals and pleasure.

For those who want long-lasting-color digital prints, Clear Image One Hour Photo shops in Marysville, Smokey Point and Lynnwood make prints from a digital camera, a diskette or an electronic file, “one of the few labs in the county with that capability,” owner Joe Gogal said.

“If you want to preserve an image like a traditional photograph, you should take the image to a photography lab that can output it to photographic paper,” he said. “Typically, an ink-jet color printer image may fade ... within six to 12 months. The photographic process (at Clear Image) will allow images to retain their original quality and color for 100 years.”

Related: Herald Business Journal reviews
three digital cameras

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