What Camera?

[ updated ]

Ripped off from the photoblog.org forum

1. What kind of camera do you use?

Currently Fuji FinePix 4900. My early NY photos (all 35,000 of them) were taken with two Fuji MX-2700's. I miss that camera.

2. How long have you had it for, and in that time about how many pictures have you taken with it?

I bought the MX-2700 in September of 1999, and when that died, a reader sent me a replacement in May of 2001. It got stolen in December of 2001.

In Fort Lauderdale, I used a borrowed Kodak DC-215 until I bought the Fuji 4900 in June of 2002 to learn how to use high-end cameras.

Currently, the counter is at 10,950.


3. What do you like about it?

The 4900..

- Smaller and lighter than it looks (it actually will fit in the palm of your hand). Incredibly well balanced, making it a great one-handed camera (like all Fuji's). Unfortunately the grip is built for right-handers, and I would be a lefty photographer if I could.
But the thing 'handles' like a pure-bred sports-car.

- Like all Fuji's, extremely rugged. I have dropped this camera countless times, nothing has come apart. Unfortunately, it nearly died when a Mocha espresso drenched it.

- The lens is all-worldly. Its not just the zoom thats incredible, its the ability to gather light properly from macro to zoom.

- Oh yeah, the macro. Wow.

- The resolution. Its nominally a 2.4 megapixel camera, but it outputs at 4 + megapixels. Im not unhappy. And since Fuji is a print company, the images are optimized to BE printed.

- Sensitivity. except for pitch black, if there is ANY kind of light, a good image can be produced without flash. I have taken pictures in near-darkness, where I actually couldnt see, and I was shooting on blind faith. The images it produced were amazing.
Sometimes I have to remember I CAN do that.

- Battery life is actually quite decent for a digital camera, if the screen isnt used..

- The 'cool' factor. The shape and color of it causes people to say daily "Thats a NICE camera". Dont under-rate the 'flash factor' as an important reason for buying it.

4. What do you dislike about it?

- It does NOT like humidity, its achilles heel. In drenching humidity, it will actually fog up the lens INSIDE the barrel and the electronics often go crazy.

- Im limited to SmartMedia memory cards, 128 megs max.

- The MX-2700 had a neat feature, special effects.. and one I dearly would love to have is to strip the color information to produce full-range grayscale images. Doing it in photoshop creates a washed-out black and white image in comparison.

- This sounds silly, but the camera's programming does NOT like black people. It actually has serious trouble focusing on and producing accurate skin tones for people darker than gold-brown.
Apparently the engineers at Fuji didnt have any black folk to test with.

- Fuji's are difficult cameras to use WELL. Left on their own devices, they produce 'okay' images. Its when you start pushing the envelope is where they shine.

- The hard Cali afternoon sun will produce an incredible amount of glare. A quirk of lens and anti-glare coatings maybe..

- I cant slip it into my pocket like the MX-2700. I know, I know, but I want one that can.

- The manual focusing system is shitty. Slow and imprecise.

All the other stuff is addressed by its future replacement, the Fuji S602. It handles CF and Smartmedia memory, it produces RAW and TIFF images and it handles 6 megapixel images.

Very sweet, and an incredible value at almost $450. *The Nikon Coolpix 5700 actually uses the same chassis as the S602. But costs 3 times as much, and according to reports is not a better camera.

But, it doesnt look as cool.

Thats almost a deal breaker for me. :-)

5. Have you given your camera a name?

Yup. Stella. As in "Stella Got Her Groove On."

I was not happy with the images I was getting, then one day - it all just clicked as I took pictures of some Fort Lauderdale life-guards.

Apparently, this camera is at its best taking pictures of people.

And although this camera was bought to be replaced, I have not yet come close to its true capabilities.

Which means I still have a lot to learn.

--------
Stella's portfolio

Fort Lauderdale
June 2002

Thats when Stella got her groove on...



before



after



--
Even in bad weather









And then she got better and better...









(The being-able-to-take-images-in-near-darkness thing I was referring to..)




-----------
And once I became familiar with how it works, regularly blew my mind with its capabilities...





























And yet, and yet.. something was telling me that I was nowhere close to its potential - or mine...

Until that fateful monday night at the Oakland Coliseum









I think thats when I realized that there was a lot more to this camera than I realized.



































And then.. Stella and I crossed a line..



Now, we're both on new territory...





















Heheh. I dont need no steenkin LOMO.

I have Stella.