To that end, much research was taken and many trips to various suppliers of these hallowed little gadgets to suss out which was the best option within my budget. Despite the plethora of basic ( but quite serviceable ) point and shoots out there, I was most interested in an 'in-betweener' , just short of the features on a DSLR, boasting advanced features and manual options but still compact enough for traveling. Unfortunately for me, the price also reflects their position in the market.
In the end, after setting my heart on one camera made by Olympus, the one I chose was a completely different and in my opinion, far superior piece by Sony. I chose the Sony Cybershot DSC-HX20V - purported to be the top of the range in-betweener. Google it for features, but the basics are 18.2 mp, 20x optical zoom, stereo mike for video, sweep panorama, in camera editing/cropping and features like colour focus ( only showing one colour of the spectrum) and seriously a gazillion more.
Since buying my new treasure, I have scoured probably hours of youtube tutorials intent on learning as quickly as possible what this little baby can do, but when it all comes down to it, the proof is in the pudding and I was keen to head out on what turned out to be hours of walking to put it through its paces.
And I am delighted to discover, it is all I'd hoped for and more.
The first obstacle is the menu's within menus... finding that function you KNOW is in there is still proving a challenge, and more forays into the wilds of Caloundra will definitely be required to declare myself proficient.
Some of the functions are only usable in certain modes and then within them, there are huge variations.
There are, for instance, 2 auto modes... and I'm still working out how they differ. I took heaps of shots, some on full auto, to see what those were like and then played in manual for a while to see how difficult it was setting aperture, white balance etc etc and found that both modes are fun.
For the most part, on a fast moving tour of theme parks, the auto is definitely going to be the one to stick with as timing is everything and altering manual settings is more for portraiture and landscapes when you have the time to ponder all the options. I will likely play with those settings at the Grand Canyon and for night shots in Vegas... otherwise... auto will be my friend.
So, how did it go... well, for a first try, it went great... I found the shots crisp and the focus to be really fast and surprisingly steady.
I came home with the intent of finding that elusive continual shot and learning to hold the camera differently as I am not used to a pop up flash on a point and shoot and found I always had my thumb there when it decided to put in a backfill lighting and pop up of its own accord.
so here are a few of my first shots from the first play with my new toy... Being a fabulous 24 C day here, I decided to head down to my favourite beach in the world... literally 5 minutes walk from my front door here on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.
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| Kings Beach Rock Pools... |
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| A surprisingly spritely and fat sea slug I managed to capture - really happy with the detail when zoomed in so close. |
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| I wanted to test out how 'through water' would work and I was amazed with the clarity, when I was trying to get the shot between sets of waves. |
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| An 'on the fly' shot taken by swinging from looking at rock pools to trying to focus on a fast moving object in the opposite direction. I was surprised by the sharpness cos that chopper was hiking along. |
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| Another shot to test out the zoom clarity. The macro was astounding, I almost had the lens in the sand and it focused on the grains... will share that another day. |
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| A big thank you to the little boy flying a kite on the beach for giving me the chance to test out how well the camera performed on a moving object a long way up. The colours are crisp as are the tails flying in the breeze. Again, very impressed. |
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| One taken just for the fun of it on the 'toy camera' mode. Really like the effect - a little 'instagram-like' |
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| Always my ultimate litmus test - flying seagulls. Notorious for being difficult to capture, I was very happy with this shot. |
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| Another zoom shot. I was A VERY long way away from this little birdie and am astounded how clear the shot is on full zoom. |
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| OK... not the perfectly framed shot but I just loved it for how you could see both the definition of the feathers and the sea floor through the lip of the waves. Amazing. Can't wait to try my luck on the Bellagio water fountains. :) |
I just want to finish this post by saying that all these photos are totally untouched and just as the camera shot them. I would undoubtedly normally have tinkered with them in a editing program, but just wanted to show how the raw shot came out.
L8R XOXO
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