Cameras

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

I have had 4 single lens reflex cameras in my life. The first, a Minolta SRT-101, I bought in Hong Kong and stupidly left behind on the London Underground. Next came two Canons in the late 70's and I had 4 lenses for these. Each was heavy, beautifully crafted in metal and glass. Lovely to hold and lovely to use. The metal shone and you had to admire the tiny screws that held them together. The glass had multi coatings and reflected the colours of the rainbow depending on the angle at which you held them. Gorgeous as they were, they were so heavy to lug around.

In the 21st century, I moved on to digital and bought a gorgeous Fuji with a magnesium/aluminium body - always felt cool even in the hottest weather. Trouble was that all the digitals of the time, it had a poor zoom - no more than 105 mm. So then I bought a new Canon SLR with two lenses. Oh dear, how had engineering changed in the effort to keep costs down. It was all plastic and lightweight. It took good pictures if the light was right for the maximum apertures were way down on the two previous Canons.

Somewhere in all this I bought a Canon Ixus because it was the size of a pack of 20 cigarettes. Gave that away .

Moving on, I bought a Panasonic FZ-7 super zoom and a pocket Canon Ixus but that was pickpocketed in Cape Town. I replaced it with something more bulky but more versatile, the A720 IS.

I just love cameras and the beauty of digital is that I can delete much of the rubbish I take.