Taking photos

Sunset at Carnarvon

One of the changes that was forced upon us for our trip was a replacement digital camera. A small accident had seen our Nikon Coolpix 2000 bite the dust... well, it still takes pictures, but the viewing screen was not functioning, so you had no idea of what you had taken. It was a little like turning back to the dark ages when you'd have to wait for the photos to be transferred onto the computer to see if you had the shot you were hoping for. In any case, it was a 2 megapixel camera with 3X optical zoom, which was not going to be strong enough for what we were wanting to do.

Kalbarri, where the Murchison River meets the Indian Ocean

After some investigation, we settled on a Fuji Finepix S5600, which more than met our needs. It offers up to 5 megapixels and 10X optical zoom, which gave opportunity for even the most distant images to be drawn close. Taken at maximum quality, cropping adds to the zoom effect. We invested in a 1GB card (in XD format - one drawback, there are not many cameras which use other than SD cards), which meant at maximum quality there was a reserve of over 400 photos. The only other burning question was battery power. This camera uses AA batteries, and we invested in Energiser rechargables, offering 2500 mA/h of power. This solution was more than adequate. Despite taking about over 500 photos a week, we were able to use the camera without changing or recharging the batteries for up to a month at a time. More than ample! Start-up time on the camera, and flash usage was also very quick.

The camera proved versatile enough for most situations, from the brightest outside shots to the darkness of the caves at Margaret River. There are only two drawbacks which emerged:

1. The camera offers no "bulb" option, which allows one to use timed exposures. On the manual setting, an exposure of up to 15 seconds was possible, but for shots of the night sky this was not long enough.
2. The camera had difficulty focussing on maximum zoom in low light. This was evident when taking some sunset shots, seeking to zoom in to frame the setting sun against the horizon. The manual focus is cumbersome, but could be used in an emergency. This focal challenge was also evident when using the macro feature for plant shots.

Apart from these two issues, we are more than happy with the camera for the trip. It is reasonably priced, often available (with the basic memory card) for about $350 if you shop around. PC User magazine rated it as their best buy in a recent issue.

Streaky Bay

The camera also offered movie options up to 640x320 resolution at 30fps, which provides quality enough for DVD production. Zoom is disabled during filming - a minor setback, but an inconvenience nonetheless. Given that our analog movie camera didn't work (another story), it was helpful to rely on this aspect, and meant that the movies were already in digital format.

If you are looking for a handy digital camera at a reasonable price, I suggest you have a look at the Finepix S5600.