Martin's Photographic Equipment

In 2001 I bought a Fuji 1400 Zoom
This is a 1.3MegaPixel camera with a 3x optical zoom. This has always been set to it's best quality 1280x960 and fine (600kb JPEG image)

This year (2004) I upgraded to a Fuji S602 Zoom
This is a 3.1 Megapixel camera that gives a 6 Meg picture. So far it's been set to 6Meg and Fine which gives me a 2.5Mb jpeg to play with. I'm still exploring all the settings but have found that "auto" doesn't suite me. Program amd Manual are far better in my opinion. Colour balance is usually Auto except for sunset (set to Daylight to enhance the reds) and panoramas (set to a suitable fixed setting)

I use both cameras the 1400 is handy to slip in a pocket whilst the 602 produces excellent images for prining.

Software wise I have Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, however I use neither to their full potential. The tools I mainly use are crop and level. Hue and saturation occasionally and the panorama widget and that's about it. One or two picks have been tweaked using cloaning to remove a blemish or had "red-eye" cleaned up.

I have no secret techniques or advice except to take more shots rather than less. I average about 1 shot in 100 that I really am pleased with. Out of the 99 probably 95 are acceptable and 4 are fit for the bin. What I have found is that the more I shoot the more critical you become and harder I try to improve on previous attempts. The other thing is get to know your camera, find some settings that work and then expand to other settings but when it matters work with settings you know and trust.

For those wanting my thoughts on the two cameras:
Fuji 1400 Zomm
An excellent camera for it's age. The 1.3Megapixel image is sharp and well defined. The zomm is accurate and easy to use. The compact style makes it easy to slip in a pocket and it is realtively light weight. The only problems I have found is that it doesn't like a shadow covering part of the lens. This seems to create a line across the shot with distinctive changes in colout balance - easily solved by shading the lans with your hand. It is also power hungry (even if the LCD is switched off). I think this is because every time it is switched on it charges the flash even if it won't be used.

Fuji S602 Zoom
Compared to the 1400 it is bigger, heavier and much more like an SLR than a compact. The picture quality is exceptional although the reds tend to be a little off. The auto white balance gets confused when there is a predominance of a single colour (say red in a sunset) but this is simple enough to remidy by using the manual settings. The problems I have (and then only twice) is that the autofocus completely fails to focus. I'm not sure if this is a camera fault or simply the logic failing to find something to focus on. Both times have been in low light situations so maybe this is the problem. The other problem is that the camera is slow. It can take a second between pressing the shutter and taking the picture - no good when shooting dragonflies! This can be helped by pressing the shutter half way to prefocus when the delay is reduced to almost nothing but it's not practical to do this for too long.
Over all I am really pleased with it and it is one of the reasons I put this site together.