The best souvenir you can bring home is a great photo. And New Zealand looks like it will give me a lot of incredible photos. There’s just one little problem – my poor old Fuji S5200 superzoom has been through a lot of hard knocks, from deserts to temperatures well below freezing. It’s showing its age a bit, with some shots starting to lose sharpness, and a power button that often gets sticky and balks at firing the camera up. It seems that over the last year, the Fuji has gotten particularly bad at high ISO settings.
The Fuji could probably survive New Zealand, but I don’t want to fly 15 hours and have it die. Or worse yet, just take mediocre shots of stellar scenery. So it’s time for a new one … and I decided long ago that I was ready for a digital SLR. The first one I considered was the Olympus E420, the smallest SLR in all the land (and the one that uses the same xD cards as my Fuji). My co-worker, Alex Scott (who is a most-excellent graphic designer and artist), steered me toward Pentax, which is making some impressive stuff. I gave Canon and Nikon their due, but I just wasn’t impressed with the plastic-like, somewhat flimsy feel of their entry and intermediate-level cameras. Sony wasn’t a consideration since I just don’t like their controls and layouts. I thought about Fuji, but they just didn’t have what I wanted in my price range. Believe it or not, the Panasonic Lumix G-1 also gets me excited, but it’s still a splash too pricey.
<Here’s the deal: I’m a decent photographer, but I’m no pro. My budget is moderate, because I can save on features too advanced for me and apply that money to a nice new guitar amp! Or to my next plane ticket. I also wanted something fairly compact for an SLR, which means the entry and intermediate cameras.
Anyway, I tried the Olympuses and Pentaxes, and found a lot to like about both. I love that the Olympus uses my cards and is very compact. It also can blaze away in burst mode, considerably faster and further than the Pentax, which is prone to fill its buffer quickly. But I love the Pentax for its rugged build quality, use of readily available AA batteries and its in-body image stabilizer. The experts say it takes a sharper image, too, despite being only a 6 megapixel camera to the Olympus’s 10 (An important note on megapixels – a lot of other factors go into the image quality of a camera beyond the megapixels. People get too caught up in MPs … all that really tells you is the maximum size a camera can take. But a 6 MP DSLR is going to spank a compact with 10 MP because it sports a better lens and a much larger charge-coupled display. Very important!).
I would love that super-cool Olympus burst mode that can turn over its buffer in a hurry. But the Pentax seems to be the winner by a nose. One of my local camera stores as a K100D Super that’s calling my name. One of last year’s models, so it’s an even better deal than usual.
I’m really looking forward to bagging some unbelievable shots on this trip. After all, New Zealand is where you can see Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings trilogy … of course, away from Middle Earth it’s called Mt. Ngauruhoe.
More From wandering_justin
- New Plane Inspires Hawaiian Airlines Fare Special
- A Little Travel-Planning Advice
- A Tip of the Hat to the Boeing 747
wandering_justin Recommends
- Finding a pet sitter when you travel is not as easy as you think | Carrying On — Travel — The Denver Post (Carrying On: Travel Blog)
- As usual, a lot of overpromising, underdelivering (Carrying On: Travel Blog)
- Love the Card Cubby — I use it as a wallet, perfect for travel | Carrying On — Travel — The Denver Post (Carrying On: Travel Blog)
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
[...] here: Cameras: Just as important as a plane ticket « No Crocs Allowed Nikon D90 DX 12.3MP Digital SLR Camera with 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED …Canon 5D Mark II “Black [...]
I liked the photos – especially the skull and skeletons. Excellent lighting!!
http://masug.blogspot.com
Make sure you have a good quality polariser. The light in NZ is harsh at this time of year.
And as for non wine produce – NZ has some fabulous microbreweries scattered throughout the country. And one of larger breweries – Speights- has some famous Ale houses you want to eat and drink at. They change their brews with the season. Some small ones you can research are: Monteiths and Macs. Let me know how you get on with these.
Cate