Carry-On

While I’m more than pleased with the Canon DSLR I’ve got – and I’m still learning more about the damn thing every time I use it – it does have one fairly major downside. And that is that it’s bloody heavy, and bulky. It’s not something for an instant photo – of course, it’s all OK once it’s been put together, and I can carry it about with me easily at that point, but all the same, that instant photo thing just isn’t there.

And also it’s a pain in the arse when it comes to concerts and the like – it definitely qualifies as a “professional” camera, and pretty much every venue I use calls it a no-no.

So I’m looking around at what’s available. Something fairly compact, with a decent amunt of pixels, and a good zoom level. I was considering the FujiFilm F30, which does look like an excellent bit of kit, but only has a 3x optical zoom, which is a bit lower than I was hoping for. Obviously I realise that for the things I want there may be some compromises, but still a 3x zoom is on the low end. But then I saw the Ricoh Caplio R5 which is very tempting. 7.1x optical zoom, and 7Mp resolution. Sounds pretty good so far…