A balanced, three course meal of photography, tech and repair
A balanced, three course meal of photography, tech and repair
The Canon Digital Ixus 400 (Ixy 400 in Japan and Powershot S400 in America) was an utterly iconic digital compact camera, released in March of 2003 into an intensely competitive marketplace. Digital compacts were all the rage in the very early 2000’s and had truly come of age. They came…
A story of struggling against the passage of time, technology and endless rummaging in the garage for old computer parts… This one is special, for me personally at least. A great deal has already been written about the Casio QV-10 and its various siblings, be it in reviews when it…
Originally, the very raison d’être of this site was the enjoyment of photography on a shoestring budget, literally how much fun can you have for a crisp £5 note. As they always do, things develop and I’ve gone down various rabbit holes – such as trying out every camera in…
The Classic Camera kit is designed and manufactured by a British toy company called “Eight Innovation LTD” who also produce the identical Haynes branded version. It retails for around £20 if you buy it new but can be found on sites like eBay and Vinted for more like £5-10. The…
Well over a year ago I saw a very tired looking Canon AE1 sat in a charity shop window for about £35, complete with a breech-lock 50mm F1.8. I knew someone who’d been after a decent film camera for ages so quickly sent them a message along the lines of…
Whilst reviewing the Fujifilm A201, I spent a lot of time looking through old pictures and discovered that I’d got a fair few folders full of images taken on an Olympus C860L that I’d borrowed from a friend back in 2001. I thought it’d make an interesting comparison and retrospective…
Everything starts somewhere. In late 2001 digital cameras were expensive – far too expensive for a college student who’s only income was £30 a week from a shift as a cycle mechanic in the local bike shop. No amount of wheel straightening and inner tube replacing was going to generate…
A few weeks back, Amateur Photographer ran a front cover special about shooting macro on a budget. “How to get close to your subjects without breaking the bank” the cover screamed. I turned a few pages to find that not breaking the bank was £1089 for an “affordable” lens. I’m…
One of the biggest problems with the WWW and using it for research is the all too common use of a single source of information, which is then repeated by site after site until its ubiquity alone makes something a fact. We should never take anything we read online as…
During my completely unintentional journey to sample pretty much every SLR Canon ever made, I’ve recently been making my way through the rather Marmite (Vegemite for those on the sunnier side of the world) T series of cameras. I started out with no affinity nor love for this particular range…
The Canon 40D came out in 2007, the latest in a then well established line of “dedicated amateur” cameras. It is significant in that the 40D represented almost the last model designed to shoot only still images. After the 40D the priorities of DSLR manufacturers turned towards video and stills…
Getting to the point where I can review a T80 has been a long, long road. Whilst the T90 has a reputation for sticky shutters and dead LCD panels, the T80 seems to be an absolute magnet for exploded, leaking batteries and other indecipherable electrical faults. It has taken me…