This Week's Ebay Bargain

[ffutures]

...was a Fuji Finepix S5700, Fuji's top of the range bridge camera of a few years ago, for £23 plus P&P. It's a 7 megapixel camera with a x10 optical zoom, the "bridge" part is that it is supposed to be a bridge between ordinary digital cameras and digital SLRs, with an eye-level digital viewfinder that acts like an SLR's viewfinder as well as the usual rear LCD screen. I've been using a much earlier version of this (the Z2800, with 2 megapixels and x6 zoom) as my "carry everywhere" camera for a couple of years now, but it's getting a bit unreliable so I decided it was time for a change.

I've been playing with the S5700 for a couple of days now and the results are pretty good at the lower zoom ratios - the higher end there's a little purple fringing around areas of high contrast, but you need to look closely to see it. At full 7mp resolution it can take over 1000 pictures on a 2gb SD card! Even so, I'll probably set it to 4 megapixels for routine use, since most pictures will probably end up reduced in size for web pages etc.

Here's a couple of pictures I took today, the usual canal-side ducks, this time in Regents Park. WARNING - VERY large!






Tried to get some photos of coots too, but they were too busy beating up the ducks to cooperate; they really are aggressive little buggers compared to ducks, just wouldn't stay still.

Comments

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

What a good buy. I use an S5800 that I've had for quite a while and it is very reliable - and takes pictures of much the same quality as yours by the look of it!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I was really lucky, I bid 8 seconds before the end and it jumped from £12 to £20 to £23, the top bid I'd put on it was £25.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

I've got an S6500 which I love to bits, though I've been casting my eyes lustfully at later models in the series lately. The only real problem I have with it is the no-longer-supported-much memory cards are hard to find. Oh, and the settings reset when the batteries run out, which can lead to much bleeping (not all of it from the camera) and fumbling about if you have to change batteries midway through a shoot.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The 5700 uses SD or XD cards, doubt SD will be a problem any time soon. Is the 6500 XD only, or something earlier like CF?

[nelc.livejournal.com]

I had to go and check, just in case I'd missed something these past few years, but no, it only takes xD.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

You can get a 1gb XD for £7.45

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370819499844