Shooting with the big boys

By STEVE HART travel editor

The guy with the expensive Nikon hanging round his neck was studying the rest of us, one by one. He pretended not to be looking us up and down, but I knew his game. He wanted to reassure himself that among this group of travellers he had the newest camera, with the longest lens and the biggest zoom.

When he scanned me, I had both hands in my jacket pockets - there was nothing to see.

It wasn't the first time I'd seen this behaviour; most groups of holiday-makers have one. Although it was a few years ago now, I can remember watching as one of our party struggled to carry around his heavy gadget bag, forever swapping lenses and attaching and removing his flash gun.

He missed some parts of the trip, too, perhaps fearing he might damage his gear.

Climbing over rough terrain was a non-starter, as was lugging the bag up several flights of narrow stairs. He may have got better-quality pictures, but did he have as much freedom as the rest of us? I don't think so.

There was a time when I waited until those with semi-pro gear moved on before I reached into my pocket for my embarrassingly small, low-spec compact camera. But not any more.

The happy-snappy brigade, of which I am an advocate, increasingly has access to the kind of picture quality and special features that were, until a short time ago, only found in expensive models owned by people like our friend, Mr Big Zoom. Compact cameras have come of age.

A visit to almost any shop selling cameras reveals a host of compacts with good-quality lenses, motorised zooms and built-in flash, whether they are 35mm, APS (Advance Photo System) or digital.

The beauty of a compact camera is that it's light and can be carried without a hefty gadget bag. It can fit neatly into a pocket or handbag, leaving both arms free if you need to scramble over a rock or on to a boat.

More importantly, you can point and shoot without worrying about all the knobs, switches and settings found on their big-brother counterparts. With less room for error, they are ideal for people who want to point, shoot and move on.

Christopher Minturn of the Photo Warehouse says 70 per cent of his customers ask about compact digital cameras, which start at around $1000.

Traditional 35mm compacts cost from around $250 for a good starter model, and an APS camera - which gives users the option of taking pictures in one of three shapes - cost around $300.

Unlike digital cameras, which are restricted by the capacity of their memory card and the need of some models to be recharged at a mains power point, film cameras take standard batteries and when the film is used, you can replace it with a fresh roll and keep going.

Emailing photographs or copying them to a CD, is easily done with a scanner connected to a computer - so you can get the best of both worlds.

Another advantage of film is that enlargements can be made to almost any size from a negative, whereas with a digital camera you are restricted by its resolution.

The downside of a film camera is that you pay for all your prints to be processed, whether they are worth having or not. A digital camera picture can be viewed seconds after it is taken, on the small display that most of them have. If the image isn't wanted, you can erase it.

This means that what is stored in the memory card at the end of the day should be the prime shots - you won't waste money paying for prints you don't want.

Some digital still cameras also record short bursts of video lasting about 15 seconds but not all record sound.

Once you are back home, you can copy your favourite pictures to your computer. If you're out of town, you can take your memory card to a digital photographic store and have pictures transferred to CD for permanent storage, or copy them to your laptop, if you have one.

Because you will be without your memory card while it is being copied, it is best to have at least two of them as the memory card is the digital equivalent to film.

Minturn says 80 per cent of people don't pay to print their digital pictures. They prefer instead to store them on a CD, which is is understandable as PCs and DVD players are often capable of displaying digital pictures from a CD.

It might not be long before the family album disappears - when visiting friends want to see your holiday snaps, you'll turn on the telly instead of handing round a wallet of 6-by-4 prints.

But for now, I'll stick to my trusty point-and-shoot compact.

A snap guide to cameras

35mm


Pentax ESPIO 838S $400

With 38-80mm zoom lens, built-in flash.

Pentax ESP10 170 $899

With 38-170mm zoom, autofocus, red eye reduction, flash.

APS

(Advance Photo System cameras produce three sizes of prints: 10cm by 15cm, 10cm by 18cm and 10cm by 29cm.)

Olympus I-10 $99

An ideal first camera for a child, or a back-up to your main camera. It has a self-timer and flash.

Canon Sureshot A1 $349

Waterproof to 5m; ideal for use on the ski slopes or where water penetration is a risk.

Digital

Nikon Coolpix 2500 $995

Two megapixel resolution, 3X optical zoom. Can produce photographic-quality, 15cm-by-20cm prints and record short, silent videos; 8MB memory card.

Olympus C720 $1799

Three megapixel resolution, 8X optical zoom, decent quality lens. Can produce photographic-quality, 15cm-by-20cm prints.

Memory cards

A 128MB memory card will store about 70 standard-sized, printable shots and costs around $260. (A rough guide is that just under 2MB of memory will store one standard-sized print.)

If you choose not to print, the camera's resolution can be lowered and many more pictures will fit on to the card - perhaps up to 1000 low-resolution images. Prints from low-resolution pictures will be of poor quality - but on a television or website, they will look fine.

Don't forget there are four types of memory card: Sony Memory Stick, Compact Flash, Smart Media and the MMC (multimedia) card. They are not interchangeable so you have to buy the one that fits your camera.

Not all digital photographic stores can accept every type of memory card. Expect to pay around $2.20 a digital print.

* All prices stated are the recommended retail price.