Shareware Beach

Don’t set this as your desktop background and stare at it.

Ever since I got my first digital camera in 2001, I’ve been bitten by the photography bug. Most of my pictures have been the obligatory friends and family snaps that everybody takes.

Since getting the Fujifilm Finepix F30 last year, I’ve been trying to get more creative with my photos. I’ve added a new “Photography” category to my blog where I’ll post some of my pictures. Many of those will have little or no explanation. This entry is just to let you know the text in those future posts is supposed to be missing.

The F30 is an amazing little camera. While it’s generally praised for its low-light non-flash capabilities, it actually takes great pictures with the flash on. While most compacts use ISO 100 or 200 with the flash to get a clean image, the F30 usually picks ISO 800 when left in auto mode. The difference is that instead of the usual bright faces on a black background, the F30 takes a more balanced picture showing (some of) the background. In a small room you can clearly see the whole room.

The current model is the F31fd which is the same as the F30 aside of some minor tweaks. It’s almost embarrassing to see how it wipes the floor with the latest Canon compacts as far as image quality goes.

Still, I’ve taken some nice pictures with the Canons I owned previously. Here’s one from last year.

I took this picture on a trip to Phuket last May. I was at Panwa beach, on the other side of Chalong bay than Rawai beach. Rawai beach is where I was when I took the panorama at the top of this blog. The picture shows the hills behind Rawai beach just after sunset.

Yes, the colors in the picture are genuine. I did no post-processing other than downsize it for the web. The trick is to wait until after sunset, and to get lucky with the weather conditions.