About Our Cameras

For many years we used film cameras of various sorts. We used these on our first boats, and also when we first went cruising on the schooner in 1994. We have prints stored in various places, but only a few have been converted to digital form, so you will not find many pictures of our early cruising days here.

Our first digital camera was a Sony which put about 20 images directly onto a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk. The best photographs it provided were only 640x480 pixels. It did have a 10x optical zoom lens, which enabled us to get many pictures which would not have been possible with a simpler lens. The floppy disks turned out to be (frequently) unreliable. Part of the problem was keeping them away from salt, sand and sun. Many of our photographs were lost because we trusted that medium too much. We are now much better about backing up our images on external hard drives and CD-ROMs. We keep multiple copies because all electronic equipment and CD-ROMs can fail, especially when salt-water cruising.

In 2003 we purchased a Panasonic DMC-FZ1 with a 12x optical zoom lens made by Leica. We often used the optical zoom to help compose pictures. We almost always used the camera's highest resolution setting, and got images of 1600x1200 pixels. These were stored immediately on a SD memory card. (First we had a 256MB memory card, and then we upgraded to a 1GB card.) We could store a large number of photographs on the card inside the camera before having to download them to a computer. We liked this camera very much, although it does have some limitations. One limitation is encountered with low light levels, when the camera can only take pictures with long exposure times. This often results in blurry photographs which we almost always discard. There is a built-in flash, but we did not have good luck using it. Another limitation is with fast-moving subjects. The camera seems to need considerable "think time", and this often causes us to miss "magic moments."

Late in 2007 we purchased a Panasonic DMC-FZ18, the latest model in the line which started with our old FZ1. This camera has an 18x optical zoom lens made by Leica, and a tremendous array of optional and automatic features. There is a big CCD (Charge Coupled Device) array of 3264x2448 elements which can capture 8.1 million pixels per photograph. This seems excessive for our photography, so we usually set the camera to record 2048x1536 (3 million) pixels using just the central part of the CCD array. At this setting, a 1GB SD card in the camera can hold about 600 photographs, and there is also an effective increase in the maximum zoom capability to 28.7x. We are still learning to use this camera's features effectively, but so far are delighted with its performance.

In late 2008 we purchased an Olympus 850SW. The special attribute of this camera is that it is waterproof enough to use snorkeling and worry-free in the dinghy or the rain. Our hope is to get some underwater photographs. This camera is relatively small and lightweight so is easily carried. Nina used it extensively during our travels in Burma in early 2009 and got excellent pictures. When we each have a camera we get different results, partly because of the differences in cameras and partly because each photographer sees the world in a unique way.