The equipment my wife and I use seems to have evolved as our hobbies dictate what we need. We both started with small digital cameras like the Nikon 3100 which for the price of about £120 was superb. My wife used this a lot but soon came to a point where it's capabilities were being stretched so next came a recent addition in the form of a Canon digital camera which was probably a step away from a DSLR. I have purposely tried to keep away from DSLR as the cost of the body, lenses and the required accessories have not yet been justified along with the sheer amount of equipment that we take out with us with our birding gear a compromise has to be struck.
Cannon S3 is with 12x Optical Zoom Conversion adaptor with 500d macro lens
An adaptor which allows other lenses like teleconverters, wide angle and Macro has been bought along with the macro lens. The macro lens allows the camera to take macro pictures from a distance which helps tremendously when photographing sensitive subjects. The macro modes within the camera will still be useful for some subjects but with the macro lens so easy to attach it will be interesting which is used more over time. Mandy uses this camera a lot and has found the leap from point and shoot to a more manual quite rewarding. The change has lead to a deeper understanding being required so only time will show if this camera suits us. It does have a few features which are very good for Manys favourite form of photography, macro, and that is the screen has the ability to swivel out from the camera and be moved to the required angle for viewing no matter where the lens be pointed wether that be over head or on the ground.
Konica Minolta z3 with 12x Optical Zoom
The camera I picked up at the Birdfair in 2005 was a camera I had had my eye on for a while. It seems just right for me as a more general approach to photography has been taken.This camera has been a pleasure for me to use as all the functions that I like are readily accessed with it's ability to use it as a point and shoot or, if you feel more adventureous then a more manual approch can be attained. I have to admit that I mainly use the auto function but it does this well enough for me.
Front Of Samsung NV3 camera for digiscoping Rear of camera showing the needed large LCD screen
The Samsung NV3 has been bought with one task in mind. That is Digiscoping which I have been experimenting with since 2003. This is a way of gaining high quality images of subjects at varying distances and especially those at long distance. The camera I began with was a large "brick" a Nikon 4500 but it was one of the few cameras able to fulfil this task. The NV3, as you can see, has an internal zoom which often is the best for digiscoping as the camera lens sits tight up against the spotting scopes lens.