a colleague of mine and i spent about 2 hours walking around the psu campus 
sunday ... beautiful day ... between us, took about 170 digital pictures 
... all in the same venues ... some inside and most outside ...

i have a sony mavica and he an hp ... and both had our settings on the BEST 
quality ...

here are the jpeg file sizes (in kilobytes) for my pics and his pics ... 
and, i also took a random sample of 30 from each ...

perhaps this might make ONE example problem that students could examine ... 
and speculate on WHY there is so much difference?

for background info ... the urls for the two cameras are:

hp = http://www.pandi.hp.com/pandi-db/prodinfo.main?product=photoc200camera

sony

http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/ss5/office/digitalstillcameras/mavicacameras/mvc-d73.shtml


mavica
      82     94    126     95     87    103     69     61    113     64
     111     75     85     66     52     73     48     71     79     96
      87     37     89     78     89     69    105     78     58    100
      88     79     84     50     94    104    118     90    113     96
      43     59     62     71     90     86     81    106    101     72
     113     62     84     59     51     99     65    151     67     67
      80     65     64     52     48     62     46    124     58    106
     119     63     83     66     77     97     78     63     71     89
     124     83     53     49     74     90    142     64     65     59
      58     68     72     57     37     45     53     52     80     51
      72    125     75     48     65     60     85     86     98    100
      77     55     60     63     59     55    100     55    128     69
      94     50

MTB > prin c2

Data Display


hp
     887    828    754    719    667    639    618    614    594    579
     574    567    565    562    545    514    507    500    489    488
     470    457    448    447    446    434    432    431    430    429
     426    424    424    422    422    421    418    417    417    416
     415    414    414    412    409    407    407    406    406    405
     405    405    404    402    308    391    389    388    386    385
     383

MTB > prin c3

Data Display


mavica30
      89     48    100     59     84     83     50    124     53    118
      68     55    106     74     58     59     37     81     45     62
      52     89    113     89     69     77    126     65    111    128

MTB > prin c4

Data Display


hp30
     409    565    514    574    828    430    507    407    407    545
     434    424    416    719    579    386    414    389    388    415
     421    402    429    887    405    489    488    405    418    614

MTB >