Light is a beautiful wonderful resource for a photographer full of colours hues and shadows. Look at something in the early morning or early evening when the light is sharp and the shadows are long, and then look again at midday when the light is flat and the shadows are gone. Now realise that when you take a picture that light is your tool, light can be used, light can be made to work for you.
Now to use this medium you do not need an expensive camera, even a disposable camera will suffice provided you know it’s limitations, and this is nowhere more noticeable than with the multitude of digital cameras now readily available, but with digital cameras there comes another factor to enter into the equation that of pixels.
Put simply a pixel(An acronym for picture element) is the building block of the picture, have lots of pixels and you can achieve a pin sharp picture capable of being blown up (Not literally) to a larger size with no or little loss of resolution or detail. Now go the other way and have very few pixels and see what happens when you blow up a picture, you will end up with a very grainy image with very poor resolution. Of course sometimes these pixels can be used to add mood to picture but with a digital camera you have to use what you have to the best of your ability if you are looking for that elusive perfect picture.
I have for many years worked with 35mm and even dabbled with Medium format but I have not been to impressed with digital. Don’t get me wrong we do own a Kodak Digital Camera, which was my wife’s domain, but this has now been handed down to one of my daughters.
Now for years professional photographers have used Polaroid’s in one form or another as a means of seeing what they were going to achieve in a photograph before actually adding the image to film, with the advent of digital that changed and due to the in expense involved it allowed itself to be used by many amateurs, myself included.
My needs were simple and easily met in a number of cameras but one from a relative newcomer in the field of digital camera manufacture who had for years led the field in 35mm film production and development intrigued me. This camera is the Fuji Finepix A303.
The camera itself is a 3.2 mega pixel model, which is more than adequate for my needs and will, when the camera is set for best quality images allow printing of an A4 size photograph with little or no loss of resolution or quality.
The lens is perhaps the most crucial part of any camera and this one comes equipped with a fast f/2.8 Fujinon 3x zoom lens, ok it wont excite any serious photographer but it is more then up to the job and is capable of delivering pin sharp images with no loss of resolution across the frame.
Perhaps it is worth pointing out at this stage that digital cameras can be advertised as having both Optical and Zoom lenses. This doesn’t imply that there are two separate lenses, far from it so perhaps an explanation is in order.
An optical zoom lens will record whatever is in front of it between two points, the minimum and the maximum focal length, which on this camera are equivalent to 38 and 114mm on a 35mm camera. So in other words you can zoom in to any point in between so as to compose the picture to your liking.
Now the digital zoom lens is a different scenario, basically it selects the middle of what ever is in the viewfinder and magnifies it. Use this method and you will find that the resulting image is not as sharp as one taken with the optical zoom and so is not as suitable for enlarging. That said it can be a creative tool within its own right.
So how do you know which you are using, well that’s easy you look in the LCD screen on the rear of the camera and while operating the zoom control a bar is displayed within the LCD. On the bar is a dividing line, the top half being digital and the lower optical. When you move between the two, the zoom feature stops briefly so as to alert you to the change.
This leads me to the LCD display, this is 1.5” inches across and is bright and clear while in use. It can via the main menu be made brighter or dimmer to suit your needs, it can also be turned off completely to conserve battery power. In anything less than subdued light the LCD, in common with those on many other digital cameras becomes worse than useless, as you just cannot see it at all so requiring the use of the optical view finder.
To be creative with your photography you need some basic controls and this camera comes adequately equipped.
The first in the inclusion of an Auto Exposure Lock (AE), this is used when you need to focus on a subject on one side of the picture you are composing, thus enabling it to remain in focus while repositioning the viewfinder. AE is enabled by holding the shutter release button half way down while focusing on the desired subject, while still holding it down you then move the camera to compose the picture before fully depressing the button to take the picture.
Next is a frame guide, which allows you to accurately compose a picture with the main image in the centre. Pressing the display button above the LCD display accesses this feature.
There is included a macro facility to allow close up photography, the closest effective distance you can use it at is 3.9 inches. If you do use this facility which is accessed from the main menu button I would strongly recommend the use of a tripod and the cameras self-timer facility to rule out any possibility of camera shake.
Exposure compensation (EV) is more usually associated with Single Lens Reflex cameras (SLR) but it has made the transition to digital as well it would appear. Basically what it does is allow you to alter the amount of light reaching the camera. This can be extremely useful when the subject is either much brighter or darker that the background. This is a favourite tool of professional photographers, and it is easily accessed from the main menu but it will only function in the manual mode.
White balance comes next, In effect when you take a picture the camera has to select a point where white will be just that white, and then adjust the level of other colours accordingly. Unfortunately cameras are easily fooled and whites can come out grey and colours can become washed out so there is a simple way of correcting it again from the main menu where a number of options are available but only in the manual mode.
There is also a basic flash built in featuring all the usual option including redeye reduction. In use I find it quite effective if a little limited but it is better than none at all.
It comes supplied with a 16mb memory card this is a new type known as x-D. This card was developed by Fuji and Olympus to replace the existing smart media card. It is said to allow faster data transfer, allow higher capacity for storage and most importantly use less power. I use a 32MB card and on this I can store up to 25 images at the best resolution while the book says up to 247 images at the lower resolution but I doubt that I will ever test that claim. Higher capacity cards are also available for purchase.
You also get a wrist strap which is not adjustable I personally would have preferred a carry case. Two batteries are also supplied and the awfully nice man at Dixon’s advised me to charge the batteries before use, it was a good job that I looked as they were not rechargeable and had I charged them then a nasty accident could have easily occurred.
Software is included which installs both the USB drivers and the image software, in this instance Fuji’s own Finepix viewer. While this may suffice for some I quickly uninstalled it and reverted to my own Paint Shop Pro which is far more versatile or might I suggest the excellent free IrfanView.
Also included is a USB data transfer cable so please do ensure that you have a spare USB port. Connect this cable to the camera and your PC, turn on the camera wait literally seconds and Windows (I use XP) detects the camera and downloads the images in seconds. Both cable and software are compatible with Windows XP, 2000, ME, 98 & Mac 8.6.
A glaring omission as far as I am concerned is the lack of an AC adaptor for when the camera is uploading images or when the images are being viewed in the LCD as both will cause quite a drain on the batteries. The camera uses 2 AA size batteries and I find them to be quite long lasting even with the flash and LCD in use. With the original two batteries as supplied I managed to take and upload over 70 images and do not forget that deletion of these images from the memory card within the camera also relies totally on the batteries.
I paid £265 for the camera from Dixon’s; Included within the price was a Fuji add on kit comprising a Uniross external battery charger with four Ni-MH batteries and a 32 MB xD memory card. Argos was selling the same camera at the time (3 months ago) minus the kit for £279 so I was happy with the deal at the time. I did find it on line for £240 but I still do not like buying items like this on line.
At the end of the day I do like this pretty little silver camera. It will never replace my beloved Pentax SLR’s but it has a place. Its small, it fits easily in a shirt top pocket, its light (Just over 5 ounces minus the batteries) and it is intuitive to use, put it in the auto mode which is the default setting, point it and shoot and you can be sure that 90% of the time you will have a clear sharp picture without having to consult the manual. For those more difficult shots there is enough versatility to get you out of trouble easily. I do like the built in lens cap which protects the lens while the camera is out of use but what I would have liked is the provision to fit both skylight and creative filters to the lens. The manual provided is both clear and concise covering all major topics in depth, a quick start guide is also provided. Control buttons are minimal in number but are easily accessed even for those of us with larger fingers.
I did my homework on this little camera comparing it similar spec models before I bought it and I haven’t been disappointed so if you are considering a new digital camera I would suggest that you take a look at this one. As a final thought I would suggest that great care is exercised while cleaning the lens as it is all to easy to remove the lens coating.
other electronic appliances. The interchangeable DC plugs included are for center plus and polarity protection. Any setting of the output voltage selector switch i...
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