Norm Poole
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 24/03) - Bob Wilson has an expensive new high-tech toy ‹ and that is good news for digital camera users in the NWT.

The machine is a $185,000 digital photo processor ‹ a Noritsu QSS Digital Minilab ‹ installed this week at Wilson's Yellowknife fotosource store on Franklin Avenue.

"Photography is going digital and we are changing in pace to offer the best service possible to our customers," said Wilson.

The new lab dramatically expands the range of services the store can offer customers using either digital or 35-mm cameras.

"We have replaced our analog lab with a digital lab. Basically that means we can now treat digital camera files exactly as we would a 35-mm negative."

Digital cameras now account for about 70 per cent of the store's new equipment sales.

"Over Christmas especially we saw a big move to digital."

With the state-of-the-art lab, fotosource can produce photographic prints from JPEG, TIFF or BMP files stored on compact flash, smart media, multi-media and PCMCIA cards; 3.5-inch floppy discs; and compact discs.

"In about a month we will be set up so that people can get a CD from us and install it on their computer. Then they can simply send us their files by computer and pick up their prints later. Or we can mail them if they are in the communities."

The store will continue to process negative film and slides, he said.

"We can actually do a lot more now than we could before.

"We can do prints from slides, negatives or APS negatives. We can put any photos onto CD as well."