New camera. Fifth shot. No touch-ups.
Fast Company recently noted that what makes Google so great is that it is simple. Just one box on a page without the pretensions of being a portal. Simple is what I like. Simple food. Simple gadgets like the Apple Macintosh and the Ipod.
A camera should be simple too. That’s the beauty of those cardboard disposable ones. Just point and shoot. My original Canon Ixus was relatively simple to use. Alas my first digital, a Pentax Optio, was not so.
Finding my picture library usually took a group of four about 20 minutes of randomly pressing its navigation buttons.
And so it was when I looked into buying a new digital camera. There was I and the salesman trying to scroll our way towards a desired function. We failed.
What I wanted was a simple camera.
Thanks to the ubiquity of food blogs many cameras now come with a food setting, a macro shot with a bit of colour adjustment stirred in.
I’ve just been researching this issue and building up to this for a while now.
My specifications were simple: I’m not bothered about zoom but would like it to be pocket sized, easy to use, have a good macro and some manual functions.
I finally came down to three cameras:
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 which comes with a 4x optical zoom. It has a Leica lens (which is very tempting), a food setting and the speed/aperture can be adjusted by buttons on the lens.
This is an excellent and expensive camera. The trouble is that I have the concentration of a gnat and just lost my way on its controls.
The other two options were Ricoh, one the Ricoh GR Digital with a fixed lens and the other with an optical zoom
. All three cameras have a massive screen. But in terms of size, weight (200grams with battery and memory card) the GR Digital seems to be the best and also one of the most expensive (AUD949).
Importantly the controls are very intuitive and easy to use. Basically you are getting the quality of SLR in a compact body.
The fixed lens (no zoom) but I don’t think that matters for close up food work work. It shoots at 8.1 mega pixels, which is more than adequate. I can use the digital (as opposed to optical) zoom and get decent quality. Remember I’m only posting at 72dpi on this blog.
The Ricoh GR Digital is much slimmer than cameras with an optical zoom. The macro seems pretty good. The self-timer is easy to use. It also has easy to navigate manual settings.
Everything is controlled by two little wheels, which are very easy to scroll.
It’s quite battery hungry, with the rechargeable battery meant to last 300 shots so it’s probably worth buying a spare. It will also take two AAA which are meant to last 30 shots but I found lasted a bit less. I’ve only had it for one day and am very happy. It’s pricy though.
I may do some comparison shots with the Pentax so we can see if an expensive camera really is better than a cheap one.
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