Having just been in Africa working (if you can call it that) with about 20 people hunting I have taken about 200 plus photo's of big game with all types of client cameras and my own camera. Photography is a very large part of the hunt by today's standards. I know we all dwell on the perfect rifle set-up the best scope and the finest of handloaded ammo. But without a decent photo of game it's just not the same. Part of the dillema is packing good high quality camera equipment around for the few photo's you will take.
Then comes along the fully automatic 35mm cameras which do it all. Well except they don't seem to last very long! .I went through several and one of the clients left me with a nice little camera which looked expensive enough but would only take photo's if rapped on the side and then it would work most of the time. He left it with me in Afrcia incase somebody had a camera failure. It would be better then nothing he suggested. It's currently there with all my other things( I don't pack luggage anymore my things stay there) So now aside from clothing and ammo I have a camera and a power converter, radios, and plenty of other stuff.
My wife bought me a camera for Christmas this past year. I already have two nice cameras, a full function Cannon AE-1 and a Leica Z-2X which is my favorite fully auto 35mm. Why would she buy me a camera? Well The one she bought me is a Digital Camera so it's computer campatible and I can post photo's with it. I must have mentioned that to her at one time? Be careful what you say to your wife they actually do
listen it seems!
Anyhow when I took this little gem out of the box and looked at the instruction set I was overwhelmed to say the least. The Leica auto camera seemed much better and way easier. But I pushed on and figured out how some of the functions worked and the rest started to get absorbed as I learned more and more. She bought me a Cannon "powershot S-30" it's really small and has a little screen to view what picture you have just taken. It even takes a short video but I have not used that feature yet. Well I took this camera to Africa this year after buying another spare battery and an additional memory chip (128meg) With this chip I can take over 200 high resolution photo's and probably 500 or 600 low resolution "email friendly" type photo's.
This digital camera has about every feature possible( in my mind) but it's also quite user friendly now that I have gotten over the initial shock of the size of the manual! The best feature is seeing the photo's to be sure they look right before you are finished.
Several times I had pictures of guys with big shadows running across the picture or some other glare problem. This would never have been known with a conventional camera. If the jury was out on this the first few weeks I had it, the verdict is in now.
Digital cameras rock! I have over 200 photo's on this camera and I could look them over all the way home on the long 17 hour flight from Joburg to Atlanta. It was nice to see all of them even if it was on that tiny little screen. Now that I'm home I loaded them onto the computer and I can crop and brighten the pictures or change the colors. It's amazing what is possible with this stuff.
The camera is actually smaller then the Leica auto camera as well. It's heavy but the size is less then other instamatic 35mm camera's. I have no clue what it cost( I afraid to find out) but I'm glad I have this little gem now. It really made my trip memorable to have so many nice photo's on the camera without dealing with film and developing. Now I need a CD burner to store them on CD!
If you don't have a decent camera and are in the market, I would strongly suggest a digital camera. I'm sure others here know more then I do about what to buy and what features are important, but I really like the one I have now. jj
Then comes along the fully automatic 35mm cameras which do it all. Well except they don't seem to last very long! .I went through several and one of the clients left me with a nice little camera which looked expensive enough but would only take photo's if rapped on the side and then it would work most of the time. He left it with me in Afrcia incase somebody had a camera failure. It would be better then nothing he suggested. It's currently there with all my other things( I don't pack luggage anymore my things stay there) So now aside from clothing and ammo I have a camera and a power converter, radios, and plenty of other stuff.
My wife bought me a camera for Christmas this past year. I already have two nice cameras, a full function Cannon AE-1 and a Leica Z-2X which is my favorite fully auto 35mm. Why would she buy me a camera? Well The one she bought me is a Digital Camera so it's computer campatible and I can post photo's with it. I must have mentioned that to her at one time? Be careful what you say to your wife they actually do
listen it seems!
Anyhow when I took this little gem out of the box and looked at the instruction set I was overwhelmed to say the least. The Leica auto camera seemed much better and way easier. But I pushed on and figured out how some of the functions worked and the rest started to get absorbed as I learned more and more. She bought me a Cannon "powershot S-30" it's really small and has a little screen to view what picture you have just taken. It even takes a short video but I have not used that feature yet. Well I took this camera to Africa this year after buying another spare battery and an additional memory chip (128meg) With this chip I can take over 200 high resolution photo's and probably 500 or 600 low resolution "email friendly" type photo's.
This digital camera has about every feature possible( in my mind) but it's also quite user friendly now that I have gotten over the initial shock of the size of the manual! The best feature is seeing the photo's to be sure they look right before you are finished.
Several times I had pictures of guys with big shadows running across the picture or some other glare problem. This would never have been known with a conventional camera. If the jury was out on this the first few weeks I had it, the verdict is in now.
Digital cameras rock! I have over 200 photo's on this camera and I could look them over all the way home on the long 17 hour flight from Joburg to Atlanta. It was nice to see all of them even if it was on that tiny little screen. Now that I'm home I loaded them onto the computer and I can crop and brighten the pictures or change the colors. It's amazing what is possible with this stuff.
The camera is actually smaller then the Leica auto camera as well. It's heavy but the size is less then other instamatic 35mm camera's. I have no clue what it cost( I afraid to find out) but I'm glad I have this little gem now. It really made my trip memorable to have so many nice photo's on the camera without dealing with film and developing. Now I need a CD burner to store them on CD!
If you don't have a decent camera and are in the market, I would strongly suggest a digital camera. I'm sure others here know more then I do about what to buy and what features are important, but I really like the one I have now. jj
