My Fuji F31FD has finally arrived. What can I say other than it’s a bloomin’ marvelous camera.

I could be seriously out of touch with what cameras are capable of, but the features this has makes me think the Canon debacle was a blessing in disguise. Face recognition (which admittedly Is a bit hit and miss), picture sizes, photo editing, LCD brightness and its support for low light conditions as well as standard features, all for £120.

Like I said, this may be the norm. I don’t really keep up with gadgets as such and so all cameras may have said features. Still, it’s a worthy purchase.

My only gripe so far, storage is handled using XD flash memory. So now I have a collection of compact flash, sd and xd memory cards. Can’t we just have the one!?!

Not to mention the cheapo 20 in 1 card reader I bought. Still can’t find where to stick the xd card which It claim’s to support.

I wont give an in-depth, expert’s review. Instead I will give an idiots review:

Colour: It’s a nice shiny silver one, I like silver things

Shape: Oblong shaped with rounded corners, the flappy cover for power and USB sockets is a bit rubbish. I give it 2 months before it falls off.

Response times: Fast, I can take a picture without a single grumble from anyone.

Flash: Good as well as clever, seems to adapt to the distance of the subject. So days of taking photos of my child with a “startled rabbit in car headlight’s” look are a thing of the past.

Weight: Not too heavy, easily sneak into partner’s handbag without getting noticed.

Robustness: Feels sturdy, but I would still be nearby, ready to pounce wearing a wicket keeper’s glove when letting others use it.

Value for money: Yeah, suppose so. Would have been nice to have reused my flash memory cards.

Learning curve: I found it easy to use, and I am an idiot.

You can see example pictures here

Just over 3 years ago, we purchased our first digital camera. It was a Canon Ixus 400, at a cost of £450. It wasn’t cheap. 2 Weeks ago, it stopped working altogether. When powering up, there was a crunching sound, followed by a series of beeps and the LCD displaying the dreaded “E18” error.

A short Google later and I now know that I am yet another victim of a well known problem with Canon Ixus cameras. In short, the lens mechanism no longer works, possible due to dust or grease. It wasn’t used excessively. Just your average typical family usage.

3 years?!?! That’s all It lasted. £450 and 3 years. There is a repair guide for it here. Way beyond me.

I have my digital SLR (Nikon D70s), but it isn’t what you would call convenient when taking snap happy family photos. To grab my camera bag, connect the lens, power it on, configure the various settings, realise you messed it up so lump for the comfort of auto, switch to auto, take the pic, realise everyone got bored and left the room.

Then there is my video camera, bought at the same time as part of a deal. A Canon MV630i, that also encountered a common problem . I was able to get it repaired for free since Canon admitted the fault, a faulty CCD. It has never been the same, its responsiveness to light and shade is slower than what it was.

Oh, the video camera cost £700. It is still in use today, purely because I am waiting for hard disk cameras to come down in price. If at all they ever will.

Then there is my printer (you thought I would have learnt by now), a Canon Pixma ip4000. It no longer takes paper from the bottom tray and the top tray cannot insert paper perfectly resulting in printouts at a funny angle. Not to mention the neighbourhood printer party that I am convinced happens every night where all local printers get together and consume all my ink.

Is it just me? Am I having a run of bad luck? Or are Canon no longer the “reliable” company they once were?

No longer a Canon fan, I have decided to look elsewhere and recently purchased a Fuji f31fd. (So recent in fact that it hasn’t been delivered yet). My reasons for this one? The camera has become known for being able to take pictures at low light due to its support for high ISO speeds. It has an ISO rating of 100 – 3200. A big problem was when taking indoor pictures without the flash. Most would end up a touch blurry which, hopefully and to some extent, the Fuji will overcome. You can read a full review here.

A spur of the moment decision to pick up my camera and take lots of family pix was impetus enough to get back into photography. Its been a long while since I did any serious photography, and guess what, I cannot remember a darn ting.

For a brief moment, I couldn’t remember how to turn it on. Then I couldn’t work out why all pictures were coming out dark, and blurry etc. I think I need a refresher course.

About a year ago, I happened upon some photographs on a site which looked absolutely amazing, the tonal range and richness of colours were staggering. Looking into the technique behind them led me to discover HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography.

Ok, having been a 35mm user mainly in black and white, i decided it was time to go digital. Reason for decision, because my little boy had started making towers out of my undeveloped rolls of film.

So a stealth trip to a photography store in Singapore (Merdeka in sim lin square) in between my brothers wedding events, i purchased a Nikon d70s, looks good, thick manual, heavy, lots of buttons� perfect!

So where am i know, i am like in the safety zone of leaving everything on auto. Having been asked to take pictures from people who seem to think that because its expensive, it will make them look better� i felt scared to venture outside of “auto”, my one and only advance into the wilds of “manual” resulted in dark blurriness.

So i hope that this ongoing tale of adventure and disappointment will help others as clueless as me.