Brian Scott
My Cameras
I've used many different cameras over the years, and you can see their images throught my site.
The Olympus D-220L was my first digital camera. It had no zoom, and only 640x480 resolution, but this was back in 1998, after all. The first 400 pictures in my Sea World collection were with this camera. Considering it's vintage, it took some very clear and sharp pictures, with the good color and contrast I've come to expect from all of my Olympus models.
My next camera was an Olympus D-620L in early 1999. This was a digital SLR with a 3X zoom. The resolution was 1280x1024. (1.4MP) This was one of the first to have a burst mode capability, where it could take several pictures only 0.3 seconds apart. You may notice some of my Sea World images catch a sequence of 3 or 4 pictures of the same jump. There are 6,000 pictures from this camera in my collection. This camera, and all the ones after it, can be used with threaded filters, and I often use a polarizing filter to eliminate the glare and reflection from Sea World's underwater viewing window.
In mid 2000, got a video camera, the Sony DCR-TRV310. This was before digital was that common. It recorded onto the standard Hi8 video tapes, and was therefore known as a Digital-8 camcorder. I used this camera, and the D-620L on my vacation in summer of 2000.
In late 2001, I upgraded to the Olympus C-4040, a 4MP, 3X zoom digital still camera. These pictures in my collection start with SeaWorld04486, and now number over 6,500 pictures. This is an excellant camera, with great default settings, and flexible manual controls. It also has the burst mode, but can take more pictures in each burst. The large lens (F-stop 1.8) helps it capture more light, so it can use a higher shutter speed than many cameras. (this helps stop blurry action photos, even in shade) I have also used it's maximum 4-second shutter speed to capture shooting stars.
I was carrying both the C-4040 and the TRV310 every time I visited Sea World. This made for a very heavy camera bag. (nearly 10 pounds)
In 2006, I found a camera that could do a decent job at both still and video. The Sony HDR-HC3 takes High-Definition Video, (1440 x 1080) and can take 4MP still images. The still images are not quite as sharp as the C-4040, but are still good. The pictures can be one of several resolutions, depending if I am in still mode or video mode when I snap the picture. (In video mode, the pictures are 2.3MP and shaped in 16x9 like the video.) The video is amazing! These pictures start at SeaWorld11179.
It was much easier getting around carrying only 2 or 3 pounds instead of 10. It is much smaller than the TRV310, almost as small as the C-4040. There is a nice automatic shutter to protect the glass. It can take time-lapse sequences, (1 image every few minutes) or even slow motion video (3 real seconds are stretched to 12 seconds of tape, with 240 fields per second!)
(No picture yet) In 2007, I decided I needed to get a better still camera to complement the HD video. The Olympus SP-550UZ is a 7MP camera with an astounding 18x zoom. It can also zoom out to 28mm equivalent, which is a very wide field of view. (These pictures start at SeaWorld11353.) The 3072x2304 pixel images are sharp and show excellant detail. It has adjustable ISO sesitivity and up to a 15 second exposure, I have some night pictures that even show the Milky Way, and with the zoom I can pick out the moons of Jupiter.
I do have some minor complaints, though. There is no optical viewfinder, and the LCD viewfinder freezes at inconvienent moments, so a fast moving subject is somtimes tricky to follow. There is also some slight chromatic aberration at the extreme end of the zoom. There is a filter adapter available, but it does not mount to the lens, so it can't be used at the wide end of the zoom range.