Panasonic DMC-LS80

The next camera I tried was a Panasonic DMC-LS80; it wasn't my first choice, but that one was only in stock in pink.
It's another 8megapixel camera with 3x optical zoom and loads of scene modes. I seldom use scene modes, because it's always possible to take a good photograph using aperture priority, shutter priority, or program mode. I would rather have a better lens or sensor, or quicker operation, than so many modes that it's difficult to know which one to use.
I certainly don't feel the need for Portrait, Soft Skin, Self Portrait, Scenery, Sports, Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Food, Party, Candle Light, 2 baby modes, Sunset, High Sensitivity, high-speed burst, Starry Sky, Fireworks, Beach, Snow and Aerial Photo modes. 1, or 2, of them may be useful, but I usually find that I can fool cameras into making the adjustments I want. Pointing the camera at an appropriate part of the scene can make it expose for the most important elements.
The Panasonic seems to be producing acceptable results. Not as good as my old DMC-FZ20, which has a Leica lens, but pretty good as this photo shows.

This is a 100% crop from it.

I think it's the best so far, it will do until I can afford a Nikon, or Leica.

Fuji J50

I returned the Samsung and looked to see what else Tesco offered at a similar price. The Fuji J50 was more expensive, but seemed to tick all the right boxes and it was a Fuji. I've previously owned two Fuji cameras the excellent S7000 and the dead F700, so I have mixed feelings.
The S7000 is brilliant, it has an advanced sensor that records double the number of pixels of other cameras. Each point on the sensor can record a similar range of brightness to other cameras and also much higher levels of brightness. This is excellent for outdoor photography as it shows much more detail in clouds, for example.
The J50 was another disappointment, it too did not match my expectations. Like many recent cameras it has a large variety of scene modes, including at least one for photographing babies???
Here's another photo of our Miniature British Spotted Pony, which is very similar to that in my last post.

I took the camera back and managed to obtain a refund. Full marks Tesco, that's what I call Customer Service.

Samsung L100

I have always tried to carry a camera in my pocket, since climbing over the dunes near here and seeing a beautiful tall ship. It was close to shore and would have made a photo to remember, if only I had taken my camera.
I made up my mind to always carry a camera after that incident and the Fuji F700 was small and light enough to accompany everywhere for 3 years, until it died in autumn 2007. Money was tight, since I have no job, so I looked for a cheap replacement. Tesco sell Technika cameras, which are really very cheap, so I thought I'd try the Technika SA-H366 a 10 megapixel model. The results were frankly appalling, so I soon returned it and upgraded to a Samsung S85 (N.B. the Samsung D85 is identical, except that it's black, instead of silver).
This has been my constant companion for the last 10 months, but it failed to close last week, so it was back to Tesco. The camera was still within Tesco's 1 year warranty, but no longer stocked, so they offered me a replacement.
I searched the meagre details displayed in store and eventually settled for the Samsung L100. This is available in Black, Silver and Pink, needless to say I did not chose pink.
It's a nice little camera, about the size of a packet of cigarettes, with many good features. Face detection, digital image stabiliser (anti-shake) and a good ISO range from 100 - 1600.
I thought that it was a bit too small, even though I don't have very big hands. It was easy to use, with a similar menu layout to the S85.
The aluminium body meant that felt solid despite its small size, but I was really unimpressed by the picture quality. I always set digital cameras to their highest quality setting. There's no point skimping, as memory cards are so cheap.
I think that the processor was too aggressive when creating the jpeg, or the lens is just not good enough for the 8 megapixel chip.
Here's an example photo:

And this is a 100% crop (I viewed the image at 100%, so that I could see the actual pixels recorded by the camera, then cut this out of the image and saved it).

To me it looks like an artist has lost his patience and painted some of the picture with a very large brush.

Summer Job

I observed 8 swims for the Channel Swimming Association and thoroughly enjoyed it. It gave me many opportunities to take photographs, most of them are posted on Photobox. Not just swimmers, but also some of the 500, or more, ships that travel up, down and across the English Channel every day.
The work involves sitting on a small boat watching someone swim from England to France, a process that takes on average 12½ hours. It can be boring, tiring and uncomfortable, but when they succeed it's unbelievably satisfying to have contributed in some small way.
This photo shows one of the boats that accompanies swimmers and a cargo boat. The coastguard say that swimmers have no rights in the channel, so sometimes the big ships are really close.The swimmer is alongside the tiny boat just in front of the cargo ship, they were probably about 300m apart.

Smartpix revisited

I downloaded the latest version of Smartpix and added some photos to it. It crashed when I closed the file properties window.
The biggest drawback that I can see is that there is no facility to import keywords from photos. That would mean me re-entering all the keywords, or finding another piece of software to extract a list of keywords from the jpegs.
Exiftool

British Summer

I've volunteered to be an observer for the Channel Swimming Association (CSA), which is the official body overseeing channel swimmers. The English Channel is one of, if not the most, challenging place for swimmers in the world.

The shortest distance from the UK to Frances is about 21 miles as the crow flies. Nearer 28 miles for a swimmer, because of the strong tidal currents.

This image shows a GPS plot of one of the swims that I observed.
The water is never warm and sometimes very cold. 17°C (62.5°F) is about the warmest it gets. To add to swimmers' problems this is also one of the busiest stretches of water in the world. Up to 500 ships pass through the Straits of Dover every 24 hours. The Ship AIS web site is a brilliant way to see just how busy it is.
The rules of the CSA prohibit anything but the most basic swimming costume and cap, no bouyancy aids and no protection from the cold except for a layer of grease. Some swimmers even forgo this basic protection.

More on Photo Organisation

As I mentioned before, I have tried several different programs. ACDSee ran out of steam at around 4000 images, but Smartpix was much better. I had some issues with running it, but their technical support is excellent. I think that your emails are answered by one of the developers, so if there is a problem they really know what they're talking about and can actually fix it.
I'd rate it at about 4 out of 5, but that's based on an early version. I will download and try the current version and let you know how I fare.
Why use any of these products?
Photo managers allow you to attach tags (sometimes called keywords) to your images. You can then easily find all of the photos that have the tags you specify. In the wedding example I used last time, each photo could have the names of the bride and groom, venue, type of car, location and many more tags attached to it.
I just file my photos by year and month taken, selecting the appropriate tags allows me to find exactly the photos I need. It is also extremely useful if you want to sell your photographs as your customers can search on the tags.
Note that both of these programs keep the tags separate from the photos. They maintain databases, which link each photo to its tags. If you can try to ensure that the tags are also written to the jpeg, as this makes searching and posting photos on websites easier.