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Fuji FinePix HS10, could this be the ultimate digital camera for travellers?

My beloved Minolta A200 8MP 7x may well be retiring soon, as I have just come across what might be the almost perfect replacement and ideal travel companion!

An ideal travelling camera should in my opinion, be a jack of all trades, compact, all in one unit, with few extras that add to the weight and can get easily lost, and bridge cameras fit this bill quite nicely.

Yes, DSLR's can take better pictures in most cases, but the gap is narrowing, and do you really want to carry all the extra lenses with you everywhere you go?, sods law denotes that the lens you need right now is the one still in your bag, and by the time you swap them over, the moment is lost!

Each to their own of course, I'm sure there are many who would never go back from an SLR, and thats fine, I have never gone down that route.....yet!, and like the lightweight medium sized single package, with fixed manual zoom long lenses which keep out the dust, dirt and sand.

Cost is another factor, prices are very reasonable now for DSLR's, but there are not many of us who can really manage the full kit, especially as some lenses are triple and more times the cost of the camera itself.

These are all my own personal preferences for the ideal travelling camera, and in my opinion, the HS10 is the closest to being just that!

Due for release April 12th 2010, the Finepix HS10 has a host of features both familiar and new that has me literally drooling over the prospects!

•High Resolution super wide Fujinon 30x optical zoom (24-720mm) with manual (mechanical) zoom
•True wide-angle and extreme telephoto capture in a single compact unit
•Triple image stabilisation (sensor shift IS, high ISO IS, Digital IS)

•10 MP BSI CMOS sensor with advanced shooting modes and high image quality
•3.0" High Resolution tilting LCD
•Electronic Viewfinder with eye-sensor for automatic switching
•High speed 10 fps continuous shooting at full resolution and new motion-tracking auto focus
•Full HD (1080p) movie capture with stereo sound
•Super High Speed movie capture at 1000 fps
•Motion Panorama mode for 'one shot' sweeping panoramas
•Advanced capture modes including unique Motion Remover mode that removes tourists and other moving objects from your photographs

•Direct Shooting Command buttons and Command dial put advanced photographic features at your fingertips
•RAW and JPEG capture mode

At last a manufacturer has brought out what seems on paper, to be the ultimate camera for the traveller, a surprisingly compact bridge design (medium sized, fixed lens), a whopping great 30x optical manual zoom lens that should cater for virtually any situation (I'm not dishing DSLR's here, but you would have to carry 2 maybe 3 separate lenses to cover what this one fixed Fujinon beauty can do!), a 3" tilting LCD screen, triple image stabilisation (especially useful at the higher magnifications), full 1080p HD, Super Macro, and a host of intuitive manual buttons to instantly change the most frequently used settings, instead of all that tedious menu scrolling!

Other useful additions include;

High speed continuous shooting at a rate of 10fps, 7 frames max, to make sure you capture that perfect moment when your shooting a moving object, perfect for capturing birds and animals which never seem to sit still.

Motion Remover Mode, which takes a series of 5 pictures and combines them into one and automatically removes anything that has moved, a cool thing to have when you want that special holiday snap and tourist's keep walking into shot!

Multi-Motion Capture Mode, which takes 5 quick pictures of a moving object and combines them into a single composite image.

Motion Panorama Mode, sweep left-right or up-down for that super panorama shot, all done in camera.

Pro Low Light mode, for ultra-low noise output in low light.

Ultra slow motion video capture, at up to 1000fps, admittedly this will not be in HD of course, but still a pretty cool feature to play with.

Super Macro, focuses down to 1cm-1.0m

Check out all the features at FujiFilm, including a 3D image and promotion video.

Whether this camera lives up to it's extensive feature list, is still to be seen, as it's April release date nears, I for one will be checking my regular review sites for the reports, and secretly saving my pennies!

Are there things that at first glance I would change, sure, there are few things in this world that are perfect, personally (and I'm nit picking here), I would like automatic Geo-tagging to be included, and maybe a swivelling LCD screen as I mainly use the viewfinder to save battery power and it would add a little more extra protection when it's folded, screen side towards the camera, a good quality screen saver like the excellent invisibleSHIELD is a good alternative.

A wireless remote would be a nice accessory too, to aid in crystal clear telephoto shots of small long distance targets in conjunction with a tripod, this could spell an end to Digiscopeing?

The end of the lens barrel is threaded O58mm for the inclusion of filters and converters, how long the AA batteries will last has been quoted at 300+ , maybe more with rechargables, disposable AA's are easily available everywhere, but your never really sure what sort of charge they have in them, even the expensive ones, anyone purchasing a HS10 (or anything else that uses disposable batteries) should invest in quality rechargeables like the Sanyo Eneloop Batteries, if only to save the landfills!

At this time it also lacks a microphone jack, which could be rather handy if the HD video works well, but it does have a hotshoe for a flashgun.

I know there must be some manufacturers that worry about their mid to lower range of cameras taking too big a slice out of their DSLR market, thats why they are not as feature rich as the higher end models, and as far as I know, Fuji do not have any plans to release a DSLR in the near future, so it looks like this could be their flagship model, and if this creates as big a stir when it's released as it has already, then I think Fuji could be onto a winner!

Lets hope they listen to all the feedback for future models...........wouldn't that be nice?

Exciting times ahead in the bridge digital camera market, my trusty Minolta is sulking in the corner, feeling rather............impotent!

Please support this site by pre-ordering or buying through one of these affiliate retailers;

Amazon.UK will deliver to United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales), Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland (Republic of), Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland

Warehouseexpress.UK will deliver to United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Republic of Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland

HS10 at Pixmania available in 26 countries

For the US readers

Fujifilm FinePix HS10 at Amazon.com will deliver to Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom

Many thanks

Check out the Fujifilm Talk forums, and the HS10 debates going on over at dpreview

Lots of new pictures being posted every day!

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Digital cameras and storage/media players

I am not going to recommend any Digital camera above any others here, the variety in styles, features and price, are just too numerous to choose, everyone has there favorite model that they feel comfortable with, and most cameras these days, even compact point and shoot models, can give great results.

There is no ideal camera out there to suit everyone's taste or occasion .....not just yet anyway!

Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Panasonic, Fuji, Samsung etc., all have huge lines of excellent digital camera's, and personally have used Canon, Sony, Minolta, Olympus, Panasonic and Fuji camera's over the years.

For traveling, light weight and compact is the way to go (unless you are a semi-pro or above, then nothing but the full DSLR kit will suffice!) For keen amateurs like myself, a bridge model with a good fixed lens is ideal, the Panasonic DMC-TZ5, Canon PowerShot SX1 IS, Sony Cyber-Shot DSCHX1, Olympus SP-570UZ and their siblings, are all fairly compact fixed lens models, that are capable of excellent results in a variety of situations, spare batteries and cards being the only extras needed.

If DSLR's are your choice, then the cheaper to mid range models have more compact bodies and slightly less features than their parents, if your like me, then most of the features never see the light of day anyway, and only make navigation round the menu more difficult, so, streamlining is good!

Canon EOS 450D
Canon EOS 500D
Nikon D60
Nikon D90
Nikon D5000
Sony DSLR-A200K
Sony DSLRA350
Olympus E-420
Olympus E500

All these DSLR's, are the pick of the crop at the time of this post, but are only as good as the lens you put on them! Please choose your extra lenses carefully, the lens market is a minefield, and the same rules apply here as with binoculars, you normally get what you pay for, but there are exceptions!

Do some homework, check photo forums/blogs for unbiased customer reviews, better still, find a local club where you can try before you buy, and glean some tips from others why your there.

Every now and then, I go out with a group of photo buddies, we're all amateurs, and we choose different locations for a day of snapping, each has a variety of kit, and we learn from each other as we go!
We might even start another blog about our days out, posting the best pictures and how we came about developing our own style! This is a great way of honing your photo kit and skills, plus it's a lot of fun, last time we went to Howletts Zoo and Canterbury Cathedral, haven't laughed so much in ages, lol!

Green Tree Frog in the Amazon Jungle, taken with my trusty Minolta A200

My ideal Digital camera is almost a reality, 2 new Canon's are the closest thing to it at the moment, the Canon EOS 500D, 15.1 Megapixel, Digic IV processor, large 3in LCD screen with live view, and HDMI video, all housed in a compact and ergonomic body, has almost tempted me to go down the DSLR route and upgrade from my trusty Minolta A200 (no longer available), a bridge model, 8 Megapixel, 28-200mm fixed lens (7x) compact model, that has served me very well for the last couple of years, but lately have found it wanting in a few areas, and the reviews the Canon's are getting right now, they might tempt me yet!

The other, is the Canon PowerShot SX1 IS, another bridge camera, with a 10 Megapixel CMOS sensor (the first PowerShot to get one!), DIGIC 4 processor, a 20X Optical lens, Optical Image Stabilizer, Full HD video at 30fps, and a 2.8"Vari-angle LCD Screen, this it would seem, is the ideal camera for travelers like you and I.

The many reviews on the SX1 have been very good, it's probably the best bridge camera available at this time, a little bulkier than my Minolta, but then it does have to pack that 20X lens somewhere! It would have been nice if the lens had a threaded end for filters and protection, plus a manual zoom ring, I find it so much easier than thumbing a zoom button which tends to jump past where you want it (the SX1 zoom button surrounds the shutter release and I have yet to try it!), and it saves on battery power.

It uses 4 AA batteries, of which I'm not a big fan, as they don't seem to last as long as the high-capacity rechargeable lithium-ion types, so I would advise on getting some good NiMH rechargeables and not the throw away ones which are filling up our landfill sites with harmful toxins!
Of course, AA's do have one advantage, if you run out anywhere in the world, there's a pretty good chance you can buy some new ones quite easily.

So, what are my reservations about diving into getting the Canon EOS 500D? First, the LCD screen is fixed, it would benefit hugely if it had a swiveling function like the new Nikon D5000 and SX1 , I like to take a lot of macro shots, many of which are at ground level, and although I don't mind lying in the dirt, I would prefer not to!

Secondly, the HDMI video only shoots at 20 frames a second at full 1080 HD, 30 fps at 720, and although that is quite adequate for a mid range DSLR, I think that Canon may upgrade it next time around. If they do and include a tilting screen and a geotagging function, coupled with a compact 28-300 mm macro lens, I'll be a very happy man!

Sorry for being such a big Canon fan, most of my friends have one of some description, and the results are very impressive!

Storage and media players again offer a huge variety of different products, at present, I have an "Archos 704 80GB HD WiFi Multimedia Player " that has and still is, giving good service, storing over 15,500 full sized jpegs on my 8 month round the world trip, along with some previous photo albums, my entire music collection and about 40 movies, all on it's 80 GB hard drive and all viewable on the lovely 7 in screen.

Archos have since updated the 704 to the 705 (still available if you can find one), and now the 7, available in 160GB and 320GB versions, the OS being faster and more intuitive on the new one, both are available at PurlyGadgets for £301.95 and £327.99
respectively, the best price I have yet to find anywhere!

It's great showing fellow travellers your photos on a good sized screen, having your music and movies with you wherever you go, and get online when in a wireless hotspot, even if it is a little tedious with the Opera operating system, and after living with it for a few years now, I have some thoughts on what would be an ideal replacement, which I will be writing about shortly, so stay tuned?

I took my Archos with me on a recent trip to St Petersburg in Russia, and one evening at the Soul Kitchen Hostel where I was staying, there were a few guys hanging out taking it easy after a long day sightseeing. One of them wanted to watch a movie, but the DVD player was out of action, so I offered a film from my library on my Archos, after a few minutes, I had connected it to the widescreen TV, and they were soon debating what to see!
The choice was not an obvious one (I have about 50 titles), but they decided on "Mr Beans Holiday!", it was not until about half an hour into the film, that I suddenly realized that nearly all the people staying at the hostel (about 20 odd), were all stood watching it too! There were people from all over the world, but no matter what language they spoke, this one film had a common language that they all understood............humor!!
It was a very special moment to witness this coming together of so many nationalities, who would have thought that one simple movie could unite us all in such a positive way!
There is a lesson to learn here I think!!

Some useful sites for cameras, electrical gear and software;