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Pictures by Camera
QTEK 9100
Sony Ericsson K700i
Minolta X500
Rollei 35b
Nisis DV5
Nikon F3 T
Pentax Optio 50
TYTN II
Lomo Fisheye
JVC Everio GZ-MS100
HTC Touch Pro 2
FujiFilm FinePix 1600
Nikon D5000
Orange San Francisco
Samsung Galaxy S
Canon PowerShot SX230 HS
Nexus 4
Nikon D5300


Equipment

For the purposes of completeness here's a list of what equipment may be used when taking pictures on this site. Most of it will be the k700i because this is by far the easiest of all of the cameras to take, transfer and throw the picture up on-line, but as time goes on, other cameras may be used. For instance the pictures in the About section were taken with the Minolta X500.

So in no particular order

Pentax Optio 50

Pentax Optio 50

Ah yes it Christmas time so I get another camera. After a few false starts this seems to be a good camera. Lightweight and small so better than the DV5 which I don't seem to use so much, perhaps -my film making days are behind me. I can't differentiate between the different and numerous modes, and the manual is rubbish. So if you like exploring a bit of kit then this will be for you. After a bit of messing it seems a quite good camera. Using the flash kills the battery so if you have too many indoor very low light shots then you'll be very unhappy or you'll be changing batteries every 20 shots if it's that good. However after more playing with it the exposure lock seems to work quite well for an automatic camera.
TYTN II

TYTN II

A replacement for the QTEK 9100 the TYTN II is the Windows Mobile 6 version with extra bits. With an added GPS that I have yet to get working and a VPN that I cannot get to work as I had with Windows Mobile 5 I am wondering why I have bothered. However this is a photo site so there's no point in me wasting your time with mere nerdy technical details. Strangely enough they have not put a flash with this but then again since most mobile phone flashes are balls then it's not too surprising. The camera seems to talk big but after my experience of the Pentax I'm left unimpressed, the exposure lock is rubbish but hey it's a phone. However if you compare the QTEK to the TYTN then you have to say that the TYTN is excellent with my best picture of all I think being from the Macdonald Hotel. Mind you have been calling it a T.Y.N.T 2 until someone corrected me (well they never said that's wrong, when I mentioned the phone they said "Oh the Titan" back to me), now do I feel stupid.
Nikon F3 T

Nikon F3 T

Very similar to the Minolta X500 in that it's an SLR it's in a different league, however I have inherited this camera and have not fully got around the camera. That's not to say that it's a big camera just like any SLR it's all about understanding how it works so I can't confirm how well it works, partially because I'm getting used to it and mainly because I have not got a film back from it. I would have sold it but my Wife got a Zoom lens for it for my birthday. It is a basic F3 with Titanium top, bottom and back making it tough as old boots. It's a classic camera but like anything if it works for you then it's fantastic. I still prefer the Minolta at the moment.
Nisis DV5

Nisis DV5

Primarily a video camera I have been known to take pictures with it other than the moving ones. The pictures aren't great, but better than the k700i. Not much experience of stills with this one, but since it's digital and it's going to be easier to upload these onto the site, might get a bit of action. Bought because of it's 30fps frame rate, the only one at the time that had that frame rate that didn't break the bank. At under ?100 it was a bargain, thought the price of two 1Gb cards come to just over the price of the camera. It's a really good intro to video and digital stills, though I'm sure anyone who's serious about it and needs an introduction might out grow it very quickly, so it's lucky that all I want to do is film family outings and the like. Also like the k700i, it's not great in low light conditions for video though the stills part of it does have a reasonable flash.
Rollei 35b

Rollei 35b

A truly great camera. The lens is outstanding, some great pictures have been taken with this one, mainly landscapes though because of the fact that it's a compact and everything's all on guesswork, and I'm not that good a photographer. Still, some of my best guesswork photography has been taken on this camera, two examples are of a sunset and one of Prague castle at night, bearing in mind I didn't have a tripod and there's no timer function and it's not automatic, I basically clamped the camera to a solid object with my hands and nothing else and selected the B setting and held the shutter open for as long as I though was required. Surprisingly enough the picture was very good, no camera shake and exposed just enough. Small enough to fit in your pocket and has some rather interesting features. The flash fits onto the bottom of the camera, and the lense (to save space when packed) recedes into the body of the camera and is pulled out and locked to take a picture, so it used to be known by other people as my spy camera.
Minolta X500

Minolta X500

Good dependable camera though I don't seem to be able to get outstanding pictures with it like I can with the low tech Rollei 35b, though what with it being an SLR and all the semi-automatic stuff, it's harder to take a really rubbish picture. It's sort of become the mainstay with me since we had a daughter because of the fact that it's an SLR and the fact that I now have a zoom lens to go with it. Also I suspect I now take the camera bag places where in the past I'd have just slipped the Rollei in my pocket and left everything else behind. Having said that I can't take outstanding pictures is probably a lie as I've become more used to the camera and used it more. There are some classic pictures of my Wife and Daughter, some with great light and movement, some with a tight focus and more moody that you'd have problems getting with the Rollei.
QTEK 9100

QTEK 9100

Don't let the clinical name put you off this is branded (as far as I am aware) as an MDA and an I-Jam I think, so I suspect the phone (if you can call it that) can be called many things, the codename for this device is a Wizard from what I know. No great knowledge of the picture taking qualities yet because I have only had the device for a few days, but it is definately a Pocket PC with a phone and a camera attached. I like the fact that it allows me to be 100% mobile as this photoblog entry suggests. It's quite complicated and there are some bad points but the fact that it enables me to continue this blog mobile is for me the biggest plus point. So far the pictures appear good, the camera seems as good or as bad as your usual low budget digital camera (an when I say low budget I don't mean things that you get out of crackers). No frills, but you get a Pocket PC, phone and a keyboard bundled in. This could mean that the DV5 gets replaced for pictures. Let's see.
Sony Ericsson K700i

Sony Ericsson K700i

A basic camera phone with very bad low light qualities, but then again you get what you pay for. It was free and it's pretty old as far as phones go. Its replacement the k750i has already been launched. It's a reasonable phone and it has a camera which is quite good, despite not really wanting it for a camera, it is now always in my pocket, I don't have to think about whether I'm going to take a picture when I leave the house and then cart a camera bag around with me.
Lomo Fisheye

Lomo Fisheye

There's not much to say about this camera. Bought on a on the spur of the moment so I didn't really check what it was and also pressured by my darling wife who believes that buying another camera will make me happy (in fact I think I would get a camera from her for birthday and Christmas if she thought that I would accept it) it turned out to be something other than I thought. However I have always fancied a fisheye lense for my X500, just never been able to justify the expense. This little (expensive) compact has a wide angle lense of 170 degrees (which is termed a fisheye) constructed of only the cheapest plastic I hope the money was put into the lense, I fear that some of the money was more about image. Not having much time to play with it I have little to report, but I'm pretty sure there are some interesting things to be snapped with it, mainly large, long items that dissapear into the distance. The flash is probably worthless if you want to get a decent picture because the range of the flash is probably a matter of meters yet due to the fact that you have 170 degrees of stuff to take in, some of the more interesting details will be further away. Because of this I have a vague idea to hook in my rather excellent Cobra slave flash that will illuminate other items where this flash fails. Only time will tell.
JVC Everio GZ-MS100

JVC Everio GZ-MS100

Sorry for the clinical explanation for the camera but I believe that JVC have several of this type so this is the solid state version as they used to say in the old days so it takes memory cards.

So far it's been looking good, with a blooming 35X optical zoom, more than you think you would ever want and yet you seem to use it. In addition to all of this, it takes video in light that I would have problems taking pictures and video with any of the others. In fact I would say that I was so used to the Everio doing it's stuff that when it complained about low light then I really felt aggrieved, which is daft.

It takes pictures, it takes video wide-screen and it has all sorts of complex things that most people would not want to use. The only problems are that if you want to mess with the advanced features like shutter speed then you have to fiddle. Also the recordings are in MPEG2. That's not bad if you're after high quality but if you're after cheap Windows Movie Maker (it doesn't like MPEG2) territory then you have to mess with conversions and if you go for wide-screen then you're trying to conserve that on top of everything. Of could you could purchase of a movie editor that handles MPEG2.
HTC Touch Pro 2

HTC Touch Pro 2

With no track record yet it seems an OK phone and an OK camera. At least with this one they have got a little clever in that you can choose your exposure point by tapping the screen unlike the last one (the TYTN II) which took an average on the whole picture. As for whether this works I have no idea. I would say one thing. With the rise of the smartphone trying to ape the iPhone then there are no hard buttons to take a picture, you have to tap the screen with a the usual iPhone icon that looks like a shutter which to me is weird for two reasons. Firstly why a shutter icon? Secondly you have to tap the screen which is really awkward sometimes... most times to be honest, unless you're in a pub and you're trying to take random pics of your mates of course.
FujiFilm FinePix 1600

FujiFilm FinePix 1600

With it being so new, it's impossible to work out. Initially phased by the numerous settings and auto features such as the useless mode to detect a smile and when it does so it takes a picture. This of course doesn't work well at all, but there seems plenty to like about this camera if you ignore the silly features like this. Clarity is good and low light shots are OK but could be improved I suspect some of this is because of the width of the lens more than anything else. Think of it as an expensive compact then I suspect you'll be OK.
Nikon D5000

Nikon D5000

Not much testing done on this one, but a little. It's strange to change from a SLR to a DSLR but none the less this seems to be OK. Some strangeness on complete automatic mode in that it decided that it needed to have a flash photo on a bright sunny day. However with my experience with SLR cameras then I shall probably ignore total auto mode. What is weird is that it does give me insight into the Fuji 1600 which is good but also makes me wish that I had bought a nice tiny snapper like the Pentax.
Orange San Francisco

Orange San Francisco

Well I wasn't expecting for this to be added to equipment but since I have just had a picture taken with it that is going to be in the site. Purchased purely for Android development I didn't care too much about the colour until I thought it if I was going to develop software then I'd need to use the phone too... then the colour suddenly seemed a little bad for a man's phone being white.

Really called the ZTE Blade Orange has loaded it's version of Android 2.1 onto it. Of course wanting just that little bit extra I flashed it with 2.2, unlocked the phone and now use my BT sim and for 0ne hundred quid it seems a pretty good bet containing all the decent stuff you would expect on a good phone because despite the price, this is a good phone.
Samsung Galaxy S

Samsung Galaxy S

As far as a phone it's pretty good but no better than the San Francisco in some ways other than the large screen and the better camera. So as far as a Photoblog it's a better piece of equipment alltogether, low light capabilities are good, th San Fran started getting all sorts of strange effects. Have a look I have already taken some shots, but as a phone it's just OK. But since the SII has already been released then unless you want to save some money then forget it.
Canon PowerShot SX230 HS

Canon PowerShot SX230 HS

Not much to say about this other than I got this because of an advert on the TV I also have just got it so I have only a small test on this. It had a capable zoom and enough megapixels and in addition a feature that I really never thought I would need ut I just wanted... GPS. First impressions are disappointment, but perhaps I am just being mean because my experience with my DSLR. I bought it as a cheap in the pocket camera. I'm just probably being mean because the low light performance isn't that great, shots are blurry, and when I say low light I wouldn't say they were that low light, however it does snap OK and everything looks clear when you get it right. However I think I said the same about the Fuji Finpix and then realised that I wasn't using it right. Even still as a basic snapper I would expect you not to have to find the right menus and mess with stuff to get OK pictures from indoors. To be honest as far as the features are concerned there aren't that many twiddles which is nice, you don't have the option of scene selections for parties, barbeques, weddings and bar mitzvahs. So there's no messing with controls for that, but there are the usual manual and apature priority etc. However to get a god pic you do need to mess with the ISO settings and all that. Not that the manual will help you with any of it.
Nexus 4

Nexus 4

It's a phone and not a camera and I'm not taking many pics with this so I suppose this will be a short description. I may update it if I start taking great photos with it, but on previous evidence. I won't.
Nikon D5300

Nikon D5300

This is the upgrade to the D5000, very similar so if you have used the D5000 then this isn't too much a of a difference. A bigger CCD and more effects and a built in WiFi transfer so you can do away with the EyeFi card, but adds remote shutter activtion as well as allowing you to use Live mode remotely. Despite the main similarities all the buttons are in different places, though they have kept the articulated screen and made it better because it flips sideways instead of downwards so if you pop it on a tripod you can still take a selfie... OK not a great thing but its great that they're thinking about these things. Also the screen is bigger. Not had much time to play with it, but it's still pretty good and lighter by the feel of it.
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