Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Cameras revisited

On Wed, 07 Nov 2007 07:12:42 +0000
Stephen Davies <stephen.davies@???> wrote:

> John,
> If you use ONLY Aperture Priority Mode then welcome to the world
> of blurry pictures.

I don't intend using aperture mode to any great extent. The camera
has various modes including a fully manual one so I could use small
aperture + high(er) speed with a lower iso rating.

I haven't had it long enough to be able to find out what it is
capable of.

> Explanation:
> Most Poit and shoot digital cameras have pretty short focal length
> lenses.

The lens is a Fuji 10x optical zoom F3.2-F3.5 with focal length
equivalent to 38mm-380mm. So not quite as wide a wide angle as
the 28mm lens I have for my Pentax film camera but a bit longer zoom
than the 85-210 zoom lens I also have. The manual says the range for
wide angle is F3.2-F8 in 9 steps.

The film lenses do have a much wider range of apertures, with the
28mm being an f2.8-f22 and the zoom being f4-f32. I tended to use
the 85-210 lens most of the time when in snapper mode

Sensitivity equivalent in auto mode ISO 64/100/200/400/800/1600 and
shutter speed 15 secs to 1/2000 which is a better range than the
Pentax.

> I spend quite a lot of time 'playing around' with any new piece of
> kit I buy before I use it in anger.

I say that your definition of 'in anger' will be somewhat more
stringent than mine. I'd say my status as a camera buff is serious
snapper and I'd use the 'bracketing' technique if I was in a
situation where I might only have one chance of getting the picture.
The camera does have this as a mode with the ability to choose between
+or- 1/3, 2/3 or 1 EV.

The biggest problem is learning how to use the menus :-) It has a lot
more options than the Olympus it replaces. I have only used the
supplied windows software to save images to the wife's PC so far,
didn't find that particularly user friendly.

Hopefully there is some linux software that will recognise it, it is
after all just a usb device so the spare system with KDE on it should
have summat to grab the images and I can always fall back on plugging
the xd card into the card reader I already have.

--
John Lewis
Debian (Sid) with the GeneWeb genealogy package