snappy happy

I take quite a few of the pictures that I post for my blog, except maybe the 'earth from space' or 'mid week and no time to post' type entries. I've always had a collection of cameras of different types and thought it would be worth describing the hierarchy from the 'just about take a picture' to 'purposeful' .

The most basic camera I use is my phone. It has a tiny lens and can take slightly smudgy pictures when the phone doesn't start saying 'memory error' or some of the other excuses that Windows Mobile plays when it doesn't want to co-operate.

Then I have a little black pocket digital 'point and shoot'. This is a small, flattish camera which I usually keep in the bottom of whatever bag I am carrying. It takes normal walkman batteries and therefore I don't really have to worry about remembering to charge it. Frankly, I don't know how manufacturers get away with selling these though, because there is a loooong delay between pressing the shutter and the picture being taken.

Then there's the camera I use the most, which is a little Panasonic Lumix FZ-7. This looks like a tiny SLR, but actually has an electronic viewfinder. It has fast startup, takes the pictures when you press the button and has a nice big piece of Leica glass on the front so that it works well in low light. It also has a 12x optical zoom, which, if it were a 35 mm camera would be the equivalent of 36mm wide to 432mm Telephoto - so it also has image stabilisation to avoid camera shake. There is also a video mode which I've used at some music concerts. I bought a couple of extra rechargable batteries for this from Hong Kong and it goes out frequently when I go out.

Finally there's SLR, and I use Nikon. There's several around at the moment which are at between 6 and 10 mega pixels and for most people I'd just say get something you can afford unless you are into big pictures and fancy cropping.

The trick with these SLRs is to recognise the march of the mega-pixels which means there is always a diffusion model which is lower spec and cheaper but probably really about as good as the best models of a year ago. The current bargain seems to be the so-called 'refurbished' D70s which are around UKP350 at the moment, with a good 18-70 zoom lens. This is because of the replacement rave reviewed D80, which is about UKP700 with a reasonable kit lens.

There's also a superb smaller D40 for around UKP350, which is allegedly lower spec, but in my experience is a lovely camera to use and geared towards people starting out, although I know other photographers (like me) who swear by how good this is.

The snag with the Nikon (whichever one) is to remember to take it along. When I'm travelling and want to stay with carry-on luggage, unfortunately, the SLR becomes an item to jettison.

So thats how I get the hierarchy :
- phone
- black point and shoot
- Lumix
- Nikon.

And as a Mac user, I use Aperture to store my pictures (I did use iPhoto, which is fine for most needs) and actually I use the basic version of Photoshop (Photoshop Elements) for any post editing of the pictures.