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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Fuji HS20 (1 Viewer)

The image doesn't look bad for hand held at 1600 mm with any camera let alone a bridge camera.

Now the light has faded I am back to carrying a DSLR and lenses around with me, so it will probably be next March before the HS20 sees much use again.
 
The image doesn't look bad for hand held at 1600 mm with any camera let alone a bridge camera.

Now the light has faded I am back to carrying a DSLR and lenses around with me, so it will probably be next March before the HS20 sees much use again.
 
Hi All . I have just received my Hs20. Put batteries in just toi check out menus etc. Put it down for a few minutes switched back on and just a blank dark 'noisy' screen. I couldn't even switch it off, I had to remove the batteries. After another couple of successful 'switch ons' , it again resorted to the blank screen . :-C
Any ideas or as anyone else had a problem like this.
Have contacted Amazon for a replacement.
B :)cheers John
 
Chris Oates said:
Mine does at 1600mm (Raynox converter)

I shot this Little Egret hand held in a terrible hurry as when I saw it in the gloom through the drizzle I thought it was the Spoonbill we have visiting.

Not much of a picture but I was surprised that the camera captured it at all as i was leaning over a wall in a gale and I've only had the camera for two days.

So far I'm very impressed - I also own a Samsung WB650, Canon SX1IS, Nikon D70 (ton of lenses) and a Fuji S8000fd.

What I don't like are....the plastic tripod thread, the dreadful electronic view finder, the obtuse menu system, face detection, dog detection - bird detection would have been nice - not necessarily a database of them but a stab at a bird shape to help focusing.
What I like is the manual zoom, the EXR modes, the weight, AA batteries (I'm on Eneloops), front thread, Provia & Velvia modes (how cute).

When I read the review and saw EVF/LCD switching I didn't think I'd like it but it works just like my Smartphone proximity sensor and is quite useful.

When I bought the camera I was prepared for the usual - it's got amazing zoom but the noise is horrendous - when got the SX1IS I was more amazed by it's video quality than it's stills performance and despite it's longer reach than the S8000 it's typical slow motor zoom made it frustrating for birding when the little darlings are flitting around.

The HS20 has terrific reach, great useability, low noise but is a bit 'cheap' - however it doesn't cost a lot for what it does.

If we get any fine weather I wan't to find a Bumble Bee (or anything that flaps quickly) and shoot it in slo-mo video as that's something quite new to me.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris
Unfortunately haven't had chance to play with mine yet. What settings do you use for bird photography? I am a little overwhelmed by the amount of options. re your Raynox is that the Dcr 250 2.2x

B :)John
 
upstarts1979 said:
Hi Chris
Unfortunately haven't had chance to play with mine yet. What settings do you use for bird photography? I am a little overwhelmed by the amount of options. re your Raynox is that the Dcr 250 2.2x

B :)John
Click to expand...

As I'm still new to the camera I'm using the EXR modes as per Kiwi's advice.
The converter is indeed a Raynox DCR 2025 - bit of a beast with the lens hood on as well - it's quite light though and is easy to use.

For fun I've bought a set of Cokin filters and mount from Amazon - they are are great bargain at £24 as you get 6 filters, a mount and reducer rings - I've owned filters before but they've been screw on types and rather expensive.

Also have always owned a Polarizing filter as I often take photos at the harbour of things in or on the water and a polarizer is essential for that - also good for punching landscapes or taking out reflections from glass.
 
Just to give an idea of what the Raynox 2025 does - these are full width pics of original & 2.2 zoom at a range of 7 miles.
 

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Anxious to do stuff with the new camera I bought an Opteka super fisheye .34 converter - it's a 52mm device but comes with adaptor rings for 58mm and is also a Macro lens.
Well for £29 it's quite reasonable and good fun - you have to get super close up to the subject or all you get is a circular view of something far away.
I've got a 10mm lens on a Nikon D70 with rectilinear correction and it's gorgeous but it costs loads - the Opteka costs nothing and is a bit whacky.

When I got the HS20 I saw it had an articulated LCD - opening the box I was mortified to see the LCD on a primitive hinge arrangement - my Canon has an LCD on acid that you can do self portraits with.
However when I put on the Raynox 2.2 converter and tried to use the nasty EVF I discovered that the very simple LCD is actually very useful - the Raynox is ridiculously long (1600mm) and if I rest it on my rucksack the simple LCD is excellent as you can tilt it up towards you far quicker than you can flip out and reverse the Canon's LCD.

And that brings me on to the EVF/LCD proximity switch - I'd read HS10 reviews of folk not liking it - it's flipin brilliant - the EVF might be crap the the auto switch is great.

Very much like the weight - much less than my Canon.

Picture review - I'd have preferred joystick to select and zoom to zoom but as the zoom is manual you get to use two buttons on the wrong side of the camera which needs two hands - the weird right hand up/down/right/left controller has no effect.

Noise - are folk very noise sensitive - I think the HS20 is a good high ISO performer - it's better than my Canon SX1IS.

I quite like the manual focus system (apart from it has no 'feel') in that if you get lost you can hit AE/AF lock to quickly autofocus.

Turn off ImagePreview if you want to do anything fast.
 
Hi All
Just got my HS20, took a few habitat shots today. Then down loaded onto computer as thumbnails in jpeg. When I tried to enlarge them, sign came up too large a file or words to that effect 3.5Mbytes.
As the forum doesn't accept anything above 350 K, I have a problem.
This is all pretty basic stuff to you probably, but is there any way I can get the file size down to a manageable size to post on this forum.
I also can't understand why it won't allow me to enlarge from a thumbnail , to to view before posting.
I have my camera set on Auto. Any ideas on what I can do.
Sorry to be a pain.
B :)John
 
Got the EF-42 flash - so nice to be able to 'bounce' again and use a Stofen diffuser.

It's not a match for the Sigma I have on my Nikon but a very useful flash - when I first started I thought you pointed the flash at the subject when it was dark and that was it.

I've since learned that a flash is often used when there is too much light and is often better used not pointing at the subject.

Shooting flowers with the sun behind them on a bright summers day - to your eye the flower looks OK but the camera will never handle the dynamic range of light so the flower will have no detail - use the flash to illuminate the flower and knock back the suns power - same with faces on the beach.

I shoot Church interiors and a flash pointed at brass plaque will result in a shinny mess - a Stofen diffuser or bouncing the flash from a wall or ceiling with give more natural illumination.

My favourite technique is shooting inside looking out through a sunlit window - depending on metering you either get some of the room OK and a fierce glow where the window is or a nice window and a very dark room.

Line up the shot, half press the shutter, make a mental note of the meter reading - put the camera in 'm'anual mode and enter the meter reading - take the shot with the flash and you have (experiment a lot) a sureal picture that seems to be lit by magic.

I've never done it but you can paint scenes with light - mine explorers often set the shutter to infinite or 'bulb' and walk around with a torch highlighting the nice bits.

I'd imagine in a big Church you could do the same by taking the flash off the camera and walk around with it triggering it manually on reduced power.

Link to the manual
 
Chris, could you post pics of your HS20 + Raynox 2025 as mounted on the Manfrotto long lens support please? I'm considering getting one of these setups for my wife.
 
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