New Camera

Happy Dance !!!

I had resigned myself to not having a new camera for a while as it looked like to get the specs I wanted was going to cost too much money and I didn't want to spend less on something that didn't do what I wanted. We weren't camera less as I had Tom's camera to use though it has a irritating happen of sitting there saying processing while you miss the shot you wanted and burnt out anything close with the flash so I turn it off and end up with lots of blurred shots.

However a few days ago I saw QVC had a photo hour on and decided to watch i to see if they had any good tips. Well the tips were things I know though Tom learnt the rule of thirds however they had a camera that seemed to do most of what I wanted and at a lower price than I expected. After some internet searching the reviews looked good. So we decided as QVC has a thirty day trial period on all their goods it was worth a try as unlike most places if it didn't do what i wanted I can send it back!.

So yesterday a Fujifilm FinePix S5800 turned up with a nice case and extra rechargeable batteries and charger.
So far I am very happy with it. It's basically a bridge camera which is what I wanted, in that it has a proper optical lens like a DSLR but it doesn't detach. It has various modes up to and including fully manual as I grew up using a traditional SLR one of the things that has been gripping me is times when I know I could get a better picture if I had more control over focus, aperture etc.

The camera light but sturdy feeling. The screen is big and clear and the controls are fairly easy to learn. You have auto, anti shake mode, natural light, natural/flash (where it takes two photos back to back one with and one without flash), and two settings where you can define them out of a set of pre-programmed modes ie portrait, landscape, snow.. that sort of thing. On top of that it has four modes for if you want to adjust aperture, shutter speed etc P,A, S and M.

It also does video.

It is what they call a super zoom as it has a 10x optical zoom and it also as a super macro setting so will do macro as close as 1cm and it is much better than our current camera on such things and that one wasn't bad. Great for photographing minis, food etc.
Macro shot of boar badge which is a bit over an inch long and shiny.
It has what they call an intelligent flash which they hype quite a lot and claim doesn't wash out close subjects.. so i did a test.

Photo of small ones trying to climb on my lap with old camera

Photo of small ones trying to climb on my lap with new camera..
Pretty good .. having taken a bunch more pictures the flash is much better and the flash/natural double shot option means you can do both very easily and decide which you prefer.

Probably the only thing I'm wary about is the cover over the usb port as it is quite hard to open and feels like it will die of wear, considering I want to down-load daily it may not last but that isn't critical.

Obviously compared to some other cameras it has downsides as things like having such a wide range on a single len can give problems but for the cost the quality is fantastic and unless you are used to much more expensive equipment you will not notice. If you want to try out more DSLR style photography without breaking the bank I think it's a pretty good choice. I used to use a film SLR and I think I will be able to get back to more technical photography not just snaps with this.