Jon Evans
Suspended / Banned
- Messages
- 8
- Name
- Jonathan
- Edit My Images
- Yes
In the late 80's/ start of the 90's I enjoyed playing with a Minolta X300 SLR with a goodly selection of lens, filters and seperate flash but other things began to take precidence and the camera fell in to disuse - though I still have it.
Fist digital camera was a Minolta - circa 2000 - on the the basis that the SLR had been good. Mistake. I rekon a 1-in-6 chance of getting a usable picture. Bought primarily to photograph objects for my website where 640x480 was more than enough, the digital Minolta was scarcely usable even for that!
Eventually replaced in 2005 by a Fujifilm Finepix 340 - £79.95 from ASDA - a great point and shoot camera which I still use. But now I feel I want the control and quality of my old X300 - time for a proper camera. But what to choose ? All very confusing. I ended up with what I guess is quite humble fair for this forum - a Panasonic FZ62 . I remember a short series a few years ago on the telly where three photographers were each given a camera - one a mobile phone, one a point and shoot and finally a top of the range camera. Sure, the quality of the latter would win but in the right hands some very nice photographs were taken even on the mobile. The lesson to me is that it was pointless at this stage spending a fortune on a DSLR + associated toys if I don't get basic composition, lighting and focusing right, hence the choice of a bridge camera. The other requirements were:
1) Must be able to fit filters.
2) Must have a metal boss for the tripod - even the humble Fujifilm spends a lot of time on a tripod hence a strong thread wanted.
3) A decent zoom. With ye olde X300 I had a 200mm zoom and x2 teleconverter. It was more than enough; the FZ62's x24 zoom apparently equates to 600-700mm, more than enough and I suspect being seduced by the x40 and x50 of some models would be at the expense of image quality.
4) Must be able to do long exposures. Bit of a compromise here as maximum is 4s, but many other models only had 1s.
5) Good in low light.
(Would have liked raw format too, but wasn't willing to spend another £150 to get it).
So here I am. Either its a passing fad - in which case I'll be glad I didn't go mad on an expensive camera - or this time next year I'll be shopping for a proper DSLR, armed with a bit more knowledge of what to look for in a camera.
Meantime, enjoying reading many of the threads here and looking at some astonishing photographs. The critique part is particular useful - I like to try and "judge" a picture and only then see if the responses match my thoughts - mostly I just see a nice picture and have no comment, only to read the responses and go "oh yeah, I see that now" but very occasionally I have a "yeeesss!" moment as I spot something and was right
Anyhow, don't intend to do any more long posts but have been avoiding posting until I had introduced myself.
TTFN,
Jon
Fist digital camera was a Minolta - circa 2000 - on the the basis that the SLR had been good. Mistake. I rekon a 1-in-6 chance of getting a usable picture. Bought primarily to photograph objects for my website where 640x480 was more than enough, the digital Minolta was scarcely usable even for that!
Eventually replaced in 2005 by a Fujifilm Finepix 340 - £79.95 from ASDA - a great point and shoot camera which I still use. But now I feel I want the control and quality of my old X300 - time for a proper camera. But what to choose ? All very confusing. I ended up with what I guess is quite humble fair for this forum - a Panasonic FZ62 . I remember a short series a few years ago on the telly where three photographers were each given a camera - one a mobile phone, one a point and shoot and finally a top of the range camera. Sure, the quality of the latter would win but in the right hands some very nice photographs were taken even on the mobile. The lesson to me is that it was pointless at this stage spending a fortune on a DSLR + associated toys if I don't get basic composition, lighting and focusing right, hence the choice of a bridge camera. The other requirements were:
1) Must be able to fit filters.
2) Must have a metal boss for the tripod - even the humble Fujifilm spends a lot of time on a tripod hence a strong thread wanted.
3) A decent zoom. With ye olde X300 I had a 200mm zoom and x2 teleconverter. It was more than enough; the FZ62's x24 zoom apparently equates to 600-700mm, more than enough and I suspect being seduced by the x40 and x50 of some models would be at the expense of image quality.
4) Must be able to do long exposures. Bit of a compromise here as maximum is 4s, but many other models only had 1s.
5) Good in low light.
(Would have liked raw format too, but wasn't willing to spend another £150 to get it).
So here I am. Either its a passing fad - in which case I'll be glad I didn't go mad on an expensive camera - or this time next year I'll be shopping for a proper DSLR, armed with a bit more knowledge of what to look for in a camera.
Meantime, enjoying reading many of the threads here and looking at some astonishing photographs. The critique part is particular useful - I like to try and "judge" a picture and only then see if the responses match my thoughts - mostly I just see a nice picture and have no comment, only to read the responses and go "oh yeah, I see that now" but very occasionally I have a "yeeesss!" moment as I spot something and was right
Anyhow, don't intend to do any more long posts but have been avoiding posting until I had introduced myself.
TTFN,
Jon
Hi Jon - Good to have you here!