GAS gone? Maybe....

GAS. Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

A condition affecting many people in different ways depending on their hobby (or profession I suppose), but for photographers, it's the continuing search for the ideal piece of kit. A never ending circle of "the grass is greener" where camera kit is concerned. For some no doubt it's just the opportunity to buy more and more stuff.

In the last 10 years or so I've had the following cameras (at least). A Fuji compact (model escapes my memory), a Sony travel zoom, two Panasonic Lumix TZ travel zooms (one of which I still have), a Canon 100D SLR, two Canon 77D DSLRs, A Fuji X-S-10 mirrorless, a Panasonic FZ330 bridge and a Sony RX100vi travel zoom (both of which I still have). The Canon's and the Fuji X-S10 as  interchangeable lens cameras (ILC) also required me to have an assortment of lenses and I've probably had about 10-12 lenses for these cameras over that period.

Some of these cameras serve (or served) explicit purposes. The original Sony travel soon, both Lumix TZ's and the Sony RX100vi were/are small, pocketable travel zooms bought expressly for the purpose of taking photos on travels abroad. Good enough for excellent photos without the weight and hassle of bigger ILC's. The bigger SLR/DSLR/Mirrorless ILC's promised better quality shots with their bigger sensors and large lenses, but that didn't always translate in practice. Most cameras these days will take good enough shots for most people unless you're what's called a "pixel peeper" studiously and minutely analysing photographs for the minutest of defects, or blowing them up and printing poster size or beyond. Most crap photos frankly come down to user error, so learn how to use the camera and in most cases you'll be fine, whether using a phone camera, a cheap camera or the most expensive gear.

Anyway, the long and short of it, was that my bigger (and more expensive) ILC's like the Canon's and Fuji-X-S10 rarely got used because I could never be hassled to take the camera and an assortment of lenses with me. It was easier to take one of the travel zooms or my small Panasonic FZ330 bridge (all in one) superzoom. On the plus side, the travel zooms, were/are small and the RX100vi particularly takes an excellent photo with it's large one inch sensor, and the RX100 family is frequently considered amongst the best in class. I bought this ahead of our Mediterranean cruise this year and it doesn't disappoint. It's expensive though, with the newest Mkvii retailing at over £1,000. There's little wrong with earlier models which are still available, although do compare as the specs vary slightly from model to model . 

My FZ330 takes excellent photos, but it's Achilles heel if it has one, is that its sensor is small, classed as a 1: 2/3rds sensor. Good enough for most shooting but struggles in lower light or when you'll be wanting to enlarge or crop shots.

Having got fed up of buying and then not really using my ILC's, and after almost a year of procrastinating, I've bitten the bullet and traded my X-S10 and all it's lenses and bought a Panasonic FZ2000 bridge camera. It's an older camera with the first units shipping in 2016 (although this one is brand new). Despite its technological age, it's still an absolutely fantastic camera. There's a good, well balanced review here by one of my favourite camera reviewers, and another more recent review by another person who uses the camera regularly here.

The Panasonic FZ2000

The FZ2000 (or FZ 2500 in the USA - don't ask me why) is like my FZ330 on steroids. It's big - bigger than the X-S10. It's classed as a "compact" although I can guarantee you it isn't, weighing in a whisker over 2lbs or just under a kilogram. It has an excellent Leica fixed lens (no more buying and carting multiple lenses around), has a bigger one inch sensor (like the smaller Sony RX100vi), and a 24-480mm zoom which will cover most scenarios from landscapes to portraits to telephoto wildlife.

This means I now have good options depending on what I'm doing. Travelling abroad where weight and size is more troublesome, the Sony RX100vi serves admirably. For specific shots where I want more zoom, or have a specific project or target in mind and don't mind the weight and size, the FZ2000 will work. For anything in between or when specific circumstances dictate, the FZ330 will suit - for example, we're shortly going on our annual trip to west Wales. We'll be going on a boat trip where I need zoom, but don't want to take a non weathersealed £750+ camera for fear of dropping over the side, which discounts both the RX100vi (not weathersealed and not enough zoom) and the FZ2000 (too big, not weathersealed). The FZ330 is ideal. Weathersealed, longer zoom and smallish size. And of course not forgetting my iPhone 13 Pro which itself takes excellent shots giving me another option, and one that's with me all the time - after all the best camera is the one you have with you.

I really like the FZ2000 camera and I'm going to enjoy using it. I haven't had much chance yet, but here's a quick sample of what it's capable of. 

Dahlia from my garden

And I'm hoping, ultimately, that now that I have all bases covered, that my GAS is at least for the moment, sated.

Finally, a shout out to the Cardiff Camera Centre in Morgan Arcade Cardiff, where I traded my gear and got the FZ2000. Helpful, friendly staff. Recommended.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/ 

Instagram: simon_hiscocks

A little bit of GAS

GAS otherwise known as Gear Acquisition Syndrome. The hunt for ever more camera gear in an attempt to find the perfect solution. I think I've got it - GAS that is, not the perfect solution.

I've always taken lots of photos, usually with whichever camera I had at hand. Until fairly recently (the last 18 months or so, I've never really had a camera that could be described as anything more than basic, or entry level.

However in the recent past - perhaps post retirement as I've tended to get out more and take more photos. If you want to see my efforts, check out my Flickr page.

This year I've upgraded kit in the search for an ever better gear solution. But the problem is that "better" or "perfect" is always subjective, and each time I've done, it something else catches my eye.

As things stand I currently have the following kit.

• A Fuji X-S10 mirrorless (a new camera released only at the end of last year) with a couple of lenses. It's a camera aimed at the enthusiast (more than beginner, but generally not professional photographer). It's not cheap and it is good.
• A Panasonic FZ330 bridge camera (all in one fixed lens). A pretty decent camera costing a few hundred pounds but one that has a small sensor so image quality can suffer easily.
• A Panasonic TZ60 pocket travelzoom. A good few years old now, handy for slipping in a pocket or when travelling - especially abroad where I wouldn't want the bulk of the other two cameras. It's getting long in the tooth now
• My trusty iPhone (XR) which is with me ALL the time, but despite the advances in phone cameras over the years, obviously hasn't got any decent zoom capability

I've just offloaded a Canon DSL and 4 lenses. Not because it wasn't good. The real reason was that having only a couple of months ago bought a huge (weight and size) and expensive telephoto lens I've come to the conclusion I'm not really going to use it that much, and like the Fuji, going out with a bagful of lenses and having to swap lenses for different shots all the time is frankly a pain - that's where the FZ330 wins - it's got one lens running from wide(ish) angle to long telephoto - but as noted the quality can suffer due to its small sensor if light is poor or clumsy operation/choice of settings occurs.

TZ60 and iPhone aside, here's my camera roadmap for the last 18 months. It's painful to read :-)

1. Sold a Canon 100D DSLR with 18-55mm kit lens, 50mm prime lens, 18-270mm zoom lens, 70-300mm zoom lens
2. Bought Panasonic FZ330
3. Bought Canon 77D DSLR, 18-55mm lens
4. Bought Canon 50mm lens
5. Bought Fuji X-S10 DSLR with 18-50 kit lens
6. Bought Fuji 50-230mm zoom
7. Sold Canon 77D and Canon lenses
8. Bought Canon 77D with 18-135mm lens
9. Bought Canon 28mm lens
10. Bought Canon 100-400mm telephoto
11. Sold Canon 77D and Canon lenses

In my defence, the Canon purchases (camera and lenses) were all bought used. When I sold the 77D originally I immediately regretted it - I prefer the ergonomics and menu system to the Fuji, but frankly the Fuji's a better camera (I think anyway). So I bought another one on a whim, when really I should have stopped and thought. It wasn't until I bought the 100-400 lens that I realised carting a load of lenses around for the sort of photography I do is 1) impractical, and 2) bloody heavy!

So now I'm at a crossroads. I love the Fuji, I like the FZ330, but what I REALLY want is an all in one that has better image quality than the FZ330 but the reach of a long telephoto in a one stop shop.

I know what the answer is. A Sony RX10 IV, widely accepted to be the best all in one 1 inch sensor long zoom out there. But it ain't cheap. But I suppose I have just sold all my Canon gear.

Oh, and I want another lens for my Fuji.

Oh, and I want to upgrade my Panasonic TZ60.

Oh, and the new iPhone 13 will be released soon - my XR is 3 years old now....

GAS.

Maybe I should take up knitting.

What's your most popular photo?

Regular readers will know I like photography, and take loads of pictures. Some make their way here, but many can be found on my social media streams, Facebook, Twitter (@statto1927), Instagram (simon_hiscocks) or my cloud service of choice, Flickr which I use both as a backup but also searchable archive, both for personal and public consumption. 

I can flick (pun intended) through these at my leisure - many of these, and increasingly so, I've given a title and occasional a description. Whilst this works for me (after all, I know what the photo is as I took it), it's interesting to see what people search fro on Flickr. 

On this platform, my two most viewed photos are titled "The road to Papagayo beach" and "One of the Papagayo beaches" with almost 1,700 and just over 1,600 views respectively. These were taken in Lanzarote in early 202 (before the pandemic hit). They're miles ahead of the next highest viewed photo neatly titled "Centre Parcs" with a meagre 1,256 views at the time of writing.

Why are my photos of the road to Papagayo beach so interesting for people? Surely it's not because it's a great photo. It isn't as you can see here, it's a photo of a rubbly road taken out of an electric VW Golf back seat!

The road to Papagayo beach

No, I rather suspect that why this sits at the top of my viewed list is because Papagayo beach is knows as a nudist beach, and people weren't actually searching for a photo of a road, but rather something a little more raw as it were...

Even the one of the Papagayo beach itself wouldn't help them - it's a photo of a deserted beach!

One of the Papagayo beaches

The 3rd most viewed photo on my Flickr account is titled "Centre Parcs". Now I'm sure there are many people who want to, or have visited one of the Centre Parcs sites and want to see a little more about the place. However, this particular photo is a donkeys years old (2008) out of focus, low resolution photo of a road in Longleat Centre Parcs taken on a Palm Centro device (an early smartphone) with a whopping 1.3 megapixel camera. Consequently, it's neither interesting, nor an image of any reputable quality. However, it's been viewed over 1,200 times. If I had entitled it "A boring blurry image of some tarmac in Center Parcs"I doubt it would have got the same exposure.

The 3rd most popular photo I've uploaded!

Finally, just sneaking into the top ten most viewed is this beauty of my foot after a knee op I had in 2008.

No. 10 in the all time viewed list

I'm not entirely sure why I wrote this post other than as an observation that of all the decent photo's I've take over the years most of my all time viewed photos are pretty rubbish ones that people have come across inadvertently whilst searching for something else entirely. Maybe I need to get better at titling and tagging....

Post processing fun

I've posted before about tweaking my photos in what's called "post-processing", when you use a software program like Adobe's well known Photoshop (or in my case, cheaper versions of software that does a similar job). I pointed out in that post that I always thought of it as cheating a bit, but the more I've started to play with this, the more fun I've had. Firstly, you can make fairly mediocre "out of the camera" or OOC photos look much better with a bit of contrast or colour tweaking here and there or a subtle (or not so subtle) crop. But there's also the fun element. In the original post I'd superimposed several images of me in my garden into one shot, looking like I had multiple doppelgängers - scary I know.

Today I've been experimenting with some photos I took of Barry Island's arcades a few months ago.. The original shots were taken on a fairly dull day in February, and looked like this:

These are ok-ish in the greater scheme of things, perhaps as a record of building on Barry Island at the time, but they're hardly stand out, and one it clearly out of focus slightly. Given the generally brash nature of arcades with their flashing lights and bright colours, I thought I'd accentuate all that but winding up the saturation in my software to 100%, and then collating the photos into one image. The result is this:

It's certainly not subtle, but I rather like the way it's turned out and would argue that I've managed to turn some frankly pretty ordinary photos into a piece of art. I acknowledge this sort of thing isn't to everyone's taste, but it was fun fiddling about with this. I might try it some more!

The Fence Post

I take photographs for the simple pleasure of capturing a moment, a view or maybe a special occasion. Something that might invoke a memory when viewed back at a later date. I have no preferred theme to my shooting such as landscapes, wildlife, or street photography, I just snap whatever I think is worth a shot.

Occasionally, a photo may stand out for a particular reason, and this happened today. Mrs H and I went for a walk this morning to get out and about before the weather got to hot, and on account that we're going to be busy later having a BBQ in the garden and a few shandies as it's our daughter's 23rd birthday.

We walked up to the Wenvoe Castle golf course, a place we've been many times over the last couple of months, although it's now open to golfers so we had to be wary of flying golf balls. Actually, the place seemed fairly quiet, and judging by the shots I saw being hit, it was evident that no one-s played for almost three months. There were golfing singletons about (currently rules in Wales allow you to play alone or with one other member of your household) and I did see a woman apparently caddying for her husband which seemed to be a marvellous idea!

Anyway, we walked through the course and then down a lane that splits the first nine from the back nine, and it was along this lane I took this shot of a fence post.

Ageing

Now ordinarily, a photograph of a fence post is nothing to get excited about. It wasn't until I got home and was flicking through today's shots that this one stood out to me from amongst the landscape views of the Vale, a couple of squirrels and a distant woodpecker.

Initially the reason I took the shot was because of the bright morning sun on the vividly yellow lichen. But the more I looked at this shot, the more intrigued I was. I thought about the passing of time, and specifically ageing. The lichen on the post is itself the obvious indicator that this post has been here for several years. But it's also fallen at an angle over time. I don't suppose it was put into the ground this way, unless the person doing it has DIY skills like me! That's two indicators of the passage of time. And then there's the rusting barbed wire, slowly oxidising over the months and years.

Looked at from this perspective, this photo now means more to me that just some yellow stuff on a concrete post, or a colourful snap on a walk. It's got history - perhaps not decades worth, but it's certainly been there a while, and the three things that pull that together - the lichen, the subsiding angle and the rusty barbed wire make me think that for all the wildlife and magnificent views we saw on our four miler this morning, this for me, was the shot of the day.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

Incredible bird photography

Yesterday a picture of a swift appeared on my Twitter timeline. As most tweets contain a photo, that fact in itself is not particularly interesting, although I suspect that not everyone is familiar with the swift, a summer visitor with its beautiful scythe like wings. Famed for allegedly being able to sleep on the wing, and rarely coming to ground, you know it's summer when you see these birds flying high chasing insects.

No, what really struck me was the photograph itself. It's an astounding shot of a swift heading straight towards the photographer, it's wings like razors.  A copy of the image taken by Somerset based photographer Carl Bovis (@CarlBovisNature, website) is below, but go to the tweet link above and open the image for a full view.

Swift - Credit Carl Bovis (@CarlBovisNature, https://linktr.ee/carlbovis)

As a very amateur photographer and nature lover myself, I'm absolutely taken aback by this image on a number of levels. Firstly taking pictures of any bird in flight is a feat in itself, evidenced by the number of times I've shot some lovely branches of a tree but no bird! To get your camera settings right to get a clear, sharp shot AND manage to get the bird in the frame takes incredible skill, and no doubt patience (and you have to have the right gear). Carl undoubtedly has all this plus bags of experience taking these sort of shots. Secondly, swifts generally fly quite high - I did tweet Carl and ask him about this, and he graciously replied quite quickly telling me that on this occasion the bird was quite low - nevertheless a head on shot of a swift must be quite rare! And thirdly, to capture this bird so precisely head on makes this image all the more stunning. Its wings are like knife edges and in the image you can immediately sense the manoeuvrability and speed of the bird.

Intrigued, I immediately started following Carl on Twitter and looked back through his timeline. The images he takes of birds are quite remarkable. They put my feeble efforts of a wildlife to shame, but I guess I take comfort in that I love taking photographs however they come out, and eventually, with enough practice I may one day take that real "keeper" shot!

I've also jumped straight in to buy Carl's book because if this one image is anything to go by I'm going to love leafing through his book to see the photos and learn more about how, when and where he takes these amazing shots.

Finally, and on a serious note, it appears that someone used (whether intentionally or unintentionally) a photo of Carl's on a Twitter post without crediting him. The net result is that many of those viewing that tweet believe the poster to be the photographer especially as their profile picture showed them holding a camera. Unlike many photographers, Carl does not watermark his photos, but to use his or indeed anyone else's images without crediting the original photographer is a big no no.

Twitter, as I've mentioned on many occasions before, can be a pretty unpleasant place at time, but when you find jewels like this, and are able to communicate directly with people that until that day you'd never heard of before, it shows the platform can be used for. It certainly made my day.

If any of nature, photography or birds are your thing, give him a follow. You won't regret it!

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

Woody Woodpecker

Bit late and a bit rushed to post today. Shortly I'm off to partake in the weekly family "virtual pub Quiz" I've mentioned before. Although broadcast on YouTube on a Thursday, it's our Saturday evening 8pm lockdown activity. Lately I've been coming off much worse, due to my sketchy ability to answer questions on TV and music. 3rd out of 4 the last three weeks which doesn't do much for my competitive nature. Mrs H and son taking the honours. Hopefully I'll do better this week.

Today has mostly been pottering in the garden and an almost 5 mile exercise walk around the golf course area. We saw both types of woodpecker - a Lesser Spotted (the black and white one with a red head) flew right across our path at one point - too quick to photograph. We say the green woodpecker as we left the golf course into the Cardiff & Vale crematorium grounds. He was about 40 yards away heaving a right feast on an ants nest by the side of the road. I didn't have my longest zoom, on, so the photos below are the best I could get at the extreme end before he got too nervous of me and flew away, with the second one cropped right in as much as I can before losing too much picture quality.

At max zoom

Cropped in

And also, here is a rather nice shot (I think so anyway) of a bluebell that I took in the woods close by.

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

That's not a moon.....actually it is.

Around 238 thousand miles away, a lump of rock goes round our planet. The moon. This apparently grey, barren lump of dust and rock has for millennia been steeped in mystery and ancient traditions, and acted as a calendar for ancient farmers. It is responsible for our tides and was of course the centre of the space race between America and Russia to see who could first put a man on it's surface. We only ever see one side, with the fables "dark side of the moon" always pointing out to space. Oddly, it's not dark though - it's only dark to us.

Most people probably barely notice this satellite, the fifth largest satellite in our own solar system, and if they do won't take particular notice of it. But it's worthy of more of your attention.

Last night in a first for me, I attached my Canon 100D DSLR camera to my 8 inch Skywatcher Dobsonian telescope to try and take a photo of the moon. In order to do this I removed the lens from the camera and attached the camera to the 'scope via a special mounting ring. Once attached it was simply a case of lining up the 'scope to look at the moon through the camera viewfinder/screen rather than a dedicated telescope eyepiece.

Once I had the orbiting rock in my sights, it some careful focusing using the 'scope's controls, and I was ready to shoot. I used a remote shutter please cable to minimise the risk of any camera shake, and fired away. I took several shots at different shutter and ISO settings to see which setting gave me the best shot.

Once I'd taken 30 or so images it was back inside to the computer and my current preferred image post processing viewing and editing software Luminar 4 (other and cheaper [and more expesnive] programs are available). I was pretty impressed with some shots as a first ever effort at doing this, but the best photos still needed tweaking. For one thing, viewing an object through a telescope means the image isn't orientated correctly, so that needed to be changed. Secondly whilst the best of the bunch looked pretty ok, they benefited from some slight tweaking of shadows and contrast to make the features of the moon stand out more. The photo below is the one of the best of bunch after all tweaks have been applied. I'm pretty happy with that, and it's inspired me to try this again.

My first ever photo of the moon through a telescope 6-5-21

Tonight (should skies be clear) should be a special view as it will be a Full Moon. Depending on where you live this full moon is variously known as the Flower Moon, Corn Planting Moon, Milk Moon, the Vesak Festival Moon and Supermoon.

If you haven't got a telescope, then any half decent pair of binoculars will enable you to have a great look at the moon, and if you haven't got a pair of binoculars then just use your eyes.  A great lockdown activity for all the family!

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

In plane view

Once Mrs H had returned from her early morning supermarket shop where all was good, despite some slight queuing to get in at 7am, and everything obtained except that essential commodity, cardomon pods (that's another story) we decided to take our daily exercise.

As usual, we headed up through the estate on a little used path, crossed the A4050 Port Road and via short walk through the Cardiff and Glamorgan Memorial Park and Crematorium grounds ventured onto Wenvoe Castle golf course.

With no golf being played, but the groundsmen keeping the place ship-shape, it looked pristine and I can't wait to getting back to hacking my way around a course. Normally we do a circular route around the "back nine" but today we ventured over to the front nine for the first time. It's a spectacular course, with lovely views out across the eastern Vale towards Rhoose. From the 6th tee I took the following photo which showed a row of furloughed British Airways planes sitting on the tarmac going nowhere in this lockdown.

BA planes at Cardiff Wales Airport

Since I retired I started playing golf, and normally play with a friend at the Vale Resort. I thought that was hilly, but it plays into insignificance compared with the front nine at Wenvoe! You'd need to be seriously fit to play this course regularly and/or use a golf buggy. If I played here I might need to invest in an electric trolley - pulling my Dad's old manual trolley ups and down these fairways would give me arms like Popeye!

Wenvoe Castle Golf Club - 8th Fairway - the green is down in the dip

 There were a one or two other couples and a couple of dog walkers on the course, but that part, we had the place to ourselves. It was lovely to find a bench at strategic points and sit and take in the views, sunshine and sound only of birds tweeting.

Wenvoe Castle Golf Club - 10th fairway

There are some fabulous trees on this course, The tall evergreens in the photo above are huge and spectacular , whilst there are a few of the what I think are copper beeches shown in the photo below dotted around the course. This was spectacular in today's sunlight.

Beautiful copper beech

Walking back through the crematorium grounds, we heard a plane, and I spotted this Airbus A400M Atlas that we have quite often seen over this area in the last few months doing some sort of training exercise. It's a big old pain and can carry a 37 tonne payload over 2,000 nautical miles and can accommodate 116 troops. You can even get a Chinook inside it apparently! This was about the extreme range of my zoom, so the quality isn't the best.

Airbus A400M Atlas over Barry

 Rather than take our normal path back, we wandered into Pencoedtre wood, a small wooded area at the top of our estate, bordered on two sides by the aforementioned A4050 Port Road and the A4231 Barry Docks Link Road. We'd never ventured into it before, despite having lived within 5 minutes walk for the last 15 years. As woods go it was fairly ordinary, although some of the bluebells we spotted were almost purple. We also spotted a standard squirrel. With only a vague idea that we needed to keep going down and keep the sun on our right, we followed one of a number of paths before appearing out of the trees opposite Lidl, and just a few minutes from our house.  A pleasant 4 miler or so in the sunshine. Just in time for a cup of tea and some cake.

Arty trees and sky photo

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

March 24th. Lockdown day 1: Supplemental update - Pale Blue Dot

Sorry for two posts in one day, but I was out taking photos of stars earlier, and it got me to thinking about Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check the link out (it's a very short read).

The point I'm making here is this in the context of the situation the world currently finds itself in. This is us. There's no one else (at least if there is, they're keeping well clear of us). Let's not fuck it up.

Photography bug

So my re-birth of interest in photography is going well. I'm getting to know my way around my new camera, but I though the only way to really start to understand it was to do a course.

I booked a Level 1 Photography course through Jessops the high street photography store. I hadn't been in a Jessops for years, and to be honest thought they were long gone.

Anyway, course booked I turned up at the Cardiff store with 5 other people at 10am on a Saturday with my camera. Our experience ranged from enthusiastic but not experienced to the more experience, but the general take, was people wanted to get the best out of their gear.

The level 1 course is pretty basic - our tutor, an engaging young lad called John, who clearly knows his stuff took us through everything from how to hold the camera properly, to aperture, shutter speed, composition, exposure and more. I knew some stuff, but learnt a lot. It was a good, fun day, and my photos have definitely improved since the day.

I've now booked onto the Level 2 course, which delves deeper into camera controls and principles, and I'm certainly enjoying my new found enthusiasm for photography.

Here are just a few samples of what I'm achieving. They're not brilliant, but they aren't bad.

Cardiff Queen Street Station

Wife and daughter on Penarth Pier

Flowers 

Canon EOS 100D: Quality gear

I must admit I like a camera. I'd class myself as an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to photography, nothing more, but whether you're like me or someone a bit more competent, there's no doubt that the right gear can make the difference.

I've owned cameras since I was knee high, including a Brownie, an old Praktica SLR, moving through old 35mm compacts. My first digital camera was a Canon Digital Ixus 55 - in fact I still have it, along with at least 3 other digital cameras ranging in age and functionality, as well as my iPhone which can take a pretty decent pic. My most recent acquisition was a Panasonic Lumix TZ60 about 6 months ago. Whilst it's a very decent camera, there are times when I feel it just doesn't cut the mustard. Sometimes it's picture quality, sometimes it's responsiveness or battery life.  Don't get me wrong - it's a very decent bit of kit and highly pocketable, and maybe I just haven't learnt to use it to the best of its abilities.

Over the last 6 months I've been lusting after a "proper" camera, and the Canon EOS 100D had caught my eye. My brother in law has one and when I gave it the once over I was impressed. It's small for a DSLR - claimed to be one of the smallest and lightest DSLR's out there, although it's still a chunky DSLR! Let's face it, you're not going to be slipping one of these into a pocket for a night out, and with additional lenses, you can find yourself lugging a fair bit of kit about.

After many weeks of humming and ahhhing, I took the plunge yesterday. My immediate reaction why did I wait so long!

Frankly, this is a stunning camera for the price. I paid £319 and with £30 cash back due from Canon, that means it's effectively £289. It comes with an 18-55m lens although you can buy it body only at around £279. I did add a 70-300mm Sigma lens for £89, which again is very decent value, and a lens that has pretty good reviews.

I'm not going to bore you with all the marketing stuff - you can find that from Canon themselves here.

What I will say is as soon as you fire this up, you know you've got a very good bit of kit. After years of compacts, and compact travel zooms, hearing (and feeling) the "thunk" of the shutter is a joy - no debate about whether you've taken the shot here! The autofocus is quick, the battery life seems great (full afternoon of shooting and hasn't dropped from full), enough settings to keep me happy, but a sensible auto option that works well. It has a large touchscreen on the rear, but I prefer taking picture with a viewfinder (which is one of the reasons I bought and like the Lumix TZ60 - it's one of the few compact travel zooms with a viewfinder option), and fundamentally it takes really good pictures.

I'm really impressed with everything about the camera. So far I've pretty much just fired off a load of shots on the auto setting, but I'll be getting to grips with the more intricate settings and possibilities in time. If you love photography, and want to make the best of it, there's no doubt that having a decent camera makes a huge difference. That's not to say that you can't take great photos with a compact, travel zoom, or even today's raft of very decent smartphones - I've taken some belters with my iPhone 6 when light and conditions are right.

So would I recommend this EOS 100D. You bet. I've fallen in love with this lovely bit of kit already.