birding-aus

Best compact zoom lens camera

To: "'Philip Veerman'" <>, <>
Subject: Best compact zoom lens camera
From: "Paul Dodd" <>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 20:27:09 +1100
Hi Philip,

No, not low-tech. However, it is easy to assume that a waterproof housing
will protect against humidity, but that would only work if you loaded the
camera into the housing in a low-humidity environment (such as very cold air
conditioning). If you don't do that, you are simply sealing humid air inside
the housing with the camera, and the problem of humidity fogging the lens
and/or the viewfinder will continue to occur.

Paul Dodd
Docklands, Victoria

-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus  On Behalf Of
Philip Veerman
Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 3:04 PM
To: 
Subject: Best compact zoom lens camera

This is probably a bit too low-tech and surely those interested would know.
On my recent (last month) boat trip at Palawan island, Philippines, the tour
company hires out waterproof camera holders to tourists. These are plastic
full covers that allow you to put your little compact camera underwater to
take photos of fish etc. They have different sizes to fit the various models
of these cameras. My little camera survived fine. But this is not a birding
camera. 

Philip

-----Original Message-----
From: Birding-Aus  On Behalf Of
Peter Shute
Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 12:57 PM
To: 'Carl Clifford'; Michael Hunter
Cc: 
Subject: Best compact zoom lens camera


I wonder if it would be possible to build (or buy?) and waterproof case for
a long zoom compact. Perhaps a commercial underwater case with a tube for
the lens glued to the front? The challenge would be to make it small and
light enough to not be unwieldy.

It doesn't solve the manual focus problem though.

Peter Shute

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Carl Clifford 
> Sent: Wednesday, 25 February 2015 12:37 PM
> To: Michael Hunter
> Cc: 
> Subject: Re: [Birding-Aus] Best compact zoom lens camera
> 
> Michael, I think you are looking for a beast that does not exist. All 
> external zoom compacts are subject to humidity problems. The lens 
> segment seals must be loose enough to allow the segments to slide over 
> each other when zooming.
> Unfortunately these seals are not air tight, ad suck a little bit of 
> that nice humid air into the body of the camera. I Have killed 2 
> cameras in the tropics, so far because of this.
> 
> You can reduce the risk of your cameras death by humidity, by storing 
> it in a good dry bag with plenty of silica gel when not using it in 
> the field.
> 
> The only really humidity & water proof cameras out there are compacts 
> , unfortunately with rather short internal zooms (4 to 5 x).
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Carl Clifford
> 
> 
> > On 24 Feb 2015, at 10:53 pm, Michael Hunter
> <> wrote:
> > 
> > Apologies for the last message, it's somewhere in my IPhone .
> > 
> > I am had a Panasonic compact with 24x optical zoom which
> was lightweight, hung around my neck on a shortened strap, above the 
> Swarovskis, leaving both hands free, didn't catch on vegetation was 
> easy to use for simple recording shots.
> > BUT it had an almost useless manual focus so that instead
> of the head of the bird in back of the tree it focused on branches and 
> leaves.
> > 
> >       It drowned in the humidity of West Papua, while
> taking pics of Wilsons BoP from a hide, I got one exposure of that 
> incredible bird.  A new Canon with super zoom on that trip also seized 
> up.
> > 
> >          So does anyone actually know of (reading the specs
> on Camera Warehouse or talking to their experts ain't enough) a 
> lightweight humidity-proof compact with fast and precise manual focus 
> on a 24x shake compensated lens?
> > 
> >             TIA
> > 
> > 
> >                   Michael


<HR>
<BR> Birding-Aus mailing list
<BR> 
<BR> To change settings or unsubscribe visit:
<BR> http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
</HR>


<HR>
<BR> Birding-Aus mailing list
<BR> 
<BR> To change settings or unsubscribe visit:
<BR> http://birding-aus.org/mailman/listinfo/birding-aus_birding-aus.org
</HR>

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU