Category: Cameras

I got my hand on a GoPro Hero3+ Silver Edition today. This is 1080p at 60 fps and 720p at 120 fps video goodness in a tiny little camera that comes with a waterproof case and mounting hardware that attaches to everything that moves. Here’s the hype:

Not only is the HERO3+ Silver Edition 20% smaller and 15% lighter than previous models, it’s 2x more powerful—making it the most advanced Silver Edition camera yet. Wearable, gear-mountable and waterproof to 131’/40m, it captures professional-quality video at resolutions up to 1080p60 and 10MP photos at up to 10 frames per second. With 4x faster Wi-Fi, enhanced low-light performance, 30% longer battery life and compatibility with all GoPro mounts and accessories, the HERO3+ Silver Edition makes capturing and sharing your life easier than ever.

So, I own this camera now, which means that I can record great video from my bus, or my truck, or my hand, and post it here on the blog that I also own. Life is good!

My main camera for the last year has been the Canon PowerShot A1300 HD. I bought this little sweety because it was under a $100 and it had a viewfinder. It also had some great Canon electronics and it’s served me well. Alas, I never used the viewfinder…

Steph has lost her old point & shoot. There was a cow mutilation in the Valley recently and I believe the aliens spotted her camera on our deck and used it to document the event. Photographing surgically removed cow vaginas is now it’s new destiny.

Over the last 40 years I’ve made the transition from big 35mm rigs down to something I can put in my front pocket without appearing excited. Tonight I bought Canon’s great new point & shoot, the PowerShot SX280 HS from Amazon for $259 with free shipping and I gave the A1300 to Steph.

It speaks volumes for a manufacturer to have a customer move up to their latest and greatest product, without switching brands, and you deserve it Canon! This thing has GPS and WIFI which means I can geocode each shot and send it to my phone for upload, and it has Canon’s latest DIGIC 6 Image Processor for great pictures.

(Quote: You don't often see the big camera makers debut their new processing chips in compacts, but that's exactly what Canon has done with their new Digic 6 chip and the 20x optical zooming SX280 HS)

I’ve bought a new little point and shoot camera from Amazon for $100. It has an optical viewfinder, it uses rechargeable AA’s, the DIGIC 4 Image Processor is the same one Canon uses for some of their larger cameras, and I like the price point. Oh, and it’s not a Panasonic! Click the camera photo to see it on Amazon.

The camera is on it’s way, but in an interesting manner. I can’t determine where it was initially shipped from, but it’s first stop was in Kent,WA. If you’re a regular reader of this blog you know I lived there for twenty years before coming here and that’s where my son Riley owns his home. The next stop was Sacramento, ok, you can head east anytime now! Currently it’s in L.A. and I suppose the next stop will be Mexico City :-)

That’s what I get for selecting free shipping…

My new DMC-FX78 arrived this afternoon. I ran around shooting things at random, back to the computer to check the PDF, tweaking the settings, setting it to 1024×768 * 2, auto stuff on, auto stuff off and finally: one shot emerged after about 50. Introducing my first photo with the new camera:

I’ve been looking at the large, which is really half of the resolution I shot it at, (2048×1536), and I’m really impressed. Great detail and it seems to jump out of the frame. It’s Friday and I’m going to go soak in the hot-tub under a gorgeous Teton night.

I’ve been holding off buying a new camera since my Olympus Evolt bit the dust last summer. It was a digital SLR with interchangeable lens and I just plum wore the shutter out. This new one (which hasn’t even arrived yet) is a point and shoot, with style.

I bought Riley a Panasonic Lumix DHC-FH20 for his birthday last December. At the time it was very highly rated, with multiple awards. I watched Riley use it last week, in fact the Vegas shots were from his camera, and I was impressed. So I went looking for a Panasonic.

The DMC-FX78 is their current top of the line in this category. It’s a 12.1 MP Digital Camera with a 5x f/2.5 ultra wide angle optical image stabilized zoom lens and a 3.5-inch touch LCD on the back. The thing has no buttons on the back, just a touch screen.

Technical Details:

3.5-inch High Resolution LCD – Large 3.0-inch LCD features high 230K-dot resolution Intelligent LCD with Touch Screen

Venus Engine VI – The high-speed, high-performance Venus Engine VI is incorporated in the camera to enable the recording of beautiful images with higher quality signal processing including the Intelligent Resolution technology

iA (Intelligent Auto) Mode – When you don’t know which mode will give you the best shooting results, or when a sudden photo opportunity pops up and you don’t have time to change any settings, simply choose the iA (Intelligent Auto) Mode and let the camera do it all for you.

The MEGA O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) – Compensates for the blurring caused by hand-shake. Even slight hand-shake movement is accurately detected by a sampling frequency of 4,000 times per second, and compensated to produce sharp, clear images.

Front and back images: