The Right Camera

The Raptor has a new camera, a Panasonic Lumix DMC TZ70. Normally, after other people have shown me their cameras, I feel a little smug, as I reckon my Panasonic DMX FZ150 suits me extremely well. It has a 24x zoom, takes a photo with no delay, has an impressive burst speed, and produces super pictures without my having to understand what an f-number is. The trouble is that the Raptor's has all the same features but none of the bulk and weight of my bridge camera. It just shows how fast technology moves on.

As if to rub salt into the wound, the Raptor has been inundating my in-box with the pictures he's been taking, which have shown off the capabilities of a camera that fits into his pocket.

He tells me it has another advantage over mine. It has bluetooth, so after he's taken his pictures he puts it down next to his computer and the two machines talk to reach other, so when he comes back all his new pictures are on the computer.

The other thing I liked about his camera was the system it uses for manual focus. It's not something I often use - usually it's when a ship is passing in fog, and the automatic focus can't find it. The manual focus on the DMC FZ150 is a bit clumsy, so by the time one has worked it the ship has disappeared.

I bought my camera in June 2012, and have now taken, according to the camera, an unbelievable 600,000 pictures, though I can't quite work out that number even though, on a typical four-hour walk, I'll take 250. But what's most impressive about this camera is that it's gone everywhere with me, in rain, hail and snow, on ships, 'planes, cars and kayaks, through burns and bogs and up windy hills and out onto exposed mediaeval battlements, and it's never let me down.

Many thanks to the Raptor for the pictures.