Cameras and Photographic Accessories

The Fuji Finepix S9500 Digital Camera

The camera most used for this project is the nine megapixel Fuji Finepix S9500 Zoom and this is proving to be a very good camera and unlike the Fuji F610 allows a range of accessories to be
fitted e.g. polarising filters, so the camera can be used in a marine environment where there is naturally a lot of reflection or used to compensate the amount of glare from a flash, where flash has to be used in low light conditions, such as for woodland fungi.

This camera is very easy to use, it has both 'macro' and 'super-macro' settings, which both work very well indeed with its x2 digital zoom. Minimum object distance in super-macro mode is just one centimetre so extremely good close-ups can be obtained even in auto mode, as the cameras
auto-focus is really second to none. It is a 28-300mm camera, focussing from 1cm to infinity and carries a massive 10.7X optical zoom lens with x2 digital zoom.

Unlike most other cameras the zoom isn't motorised and this is a great plus as it allows the user to setup shots more quickly, and with a simple twist of its fixed lens. Another bonus is that this
camera takes both compact flash and Fuji XD media, ideal for people like me who have both to hand and they can both be used at the same time, using the cameras settings to switch between one and the other. Like the F610, another great benefit is in its speed of operation, it's quick, there's no waiting around for the camera to save shots, and this means more time for composing and less frustration. I've read reviews about this camera and it has been stated that it is not a ''Point and Shoot'' camera, I completely disagree, on writing this I've had the camera for two days, I'm still playing around with it on AUTO and I'm already adding more images to the site, and improving on some that were already there. In time I'll get used to all its DSLR type functions, but I'll get there without the stress of some other cameras, thanks to the good AUTO facility that is provided. At £400 it was approximately £100 cheaper than the 8M Nikon Coolpix 8800, a similar style of
camera, and in my opinion 100% better, for it is far easier to use, lighter, and a lot less hassle.
Of course now Fuji have brought out the S9600 Zoom so I guess it's even better.

The Mothercare Camera Harness
On using the S9500 Zoom camera ''quite a lot'' during the autumn of 2006 I noticed that the weight of it was causing neck strain, because of this I decided that I needed a harness system for it and because of the number of miles I was covering with it per day. I covered various sites on the web to try and find what was available and after a considerable length of time I found that
Lowen Pro made a camera harness, in two parts; however at £50 it was out of my price range.
At least I now knew what one looked like and so went online again to see what I could buy cheaply that I could make into one. Again I was let down and couldn't really decide what to do, the following Sunday I decided to go to the local car boot sale and found a once used
Mothercare Baby Harness, haggled and got it for £3, the owner even threw in a few spare nappies.
On returning home, 'with bunch of flowers', I discussed the modification of this baby harness  with my wife; well I had bought here a new sewing machine the previous Christmas. Anyway we looked at it and soon realised it was absolutely perfect for the job, and it took less than a couple of hours to modify. The new Mothercare Camera Harness has clips for two DSLR / SLR style
cameras and a pocket for a digital compact camera / camera accessories; and the finished product now has zipped bags on its belt to carry yet more accessories. The camera itself attaches using the clips from the baby harness and of course you can still use the camera strap as a fail safe around the neck, but the harness supports the full weight of the camera. If the clips will hold a baby they'll certainly hold a camera, the camera can be used clipped at chest height, or easily released and used as wanted, female clips are on the harness with the male clips placed on the camera strap, see
image. I've used this in the field now a number of times and it's great, for anyone with a bad back or bad neck it's a must, it can also be used with binoculars.

The Fuji F610 Digital Camera

Some of the images on this site have been taken using a Fuji Finepix F610, 6.3 - 12 megapixel digital camera and most images are taken on the 6 megapixel setting. This is a small, very tough, compact camera, which I carry around with me 24/7. This camera has four extremely good
features for this type of photography, the camera is ready to take a photograph in just a few
seconds, the auto focus is superb, Fuji have almost eliminated camera shake, and it stores single shot images very quickly. This is a very versatile sturdy little camera, which I would I would hate to have to replace.

Fortunately this camera hasn't been given the acclaim of the Nikon 4500 and as a result can be purchased relatively cheaply, and now, for a lot less than the original recommended retail price when it was first released. Place to buy is at the Fuji Shop and refurbished F610 cameras can often be bought for £99.99, and includes a six month warranty, so don't bother going to ebay for one.

One recommended accessory is a memory card of a minimum of 512Mb so lots of images of the subject can be taken, the best chosen and saved, and the rest discarded.

Really close-up macro shots are gained through either placing an additional 30mm hand lens on the fixed lens of the Fuji F610 camera, or by reducing the megapixel setting to 3 megapixel, or both. Being a fixed lens camera distant shots are very limiting and thus before October 2005
everything featured has been captured at very close range. The Fuji F610 is 'always' used in AUTO mode and the only other setting change is perhaps to change the ISO to 400 if required.

The Bresser Trino Researcher Microscope

This microscope was purchased to assist with the identification and verification process. It was purchased both for it's 40X - 1250X magnification, but also for its photo-tube, which allows the user to attach a camera and take photographs. Having already setup the Fuji F610 to attach to a telescope (a Plossl lens), I rather hoped to be able to attach the same camera to a microscope via the aluminium sleeve adapter that had already been made for it. However, a microscope eyepiece is much smaller than a Plossl lens, and so eyepieces had to be found that could be converted / adapted in some way. Also an eyepiece had to be found that was wide enough to suitably meet the cameras lens within the aluminium sleeve; and a wide-field (WF) eyepiece was purchased, the lens had a viewable diameter of 20mm.

Next a piece of PVC Piping was found, e.g. white washing machine outlet piping; this was cut to suit the length of the upper part of the eyepiece; also paired down along it's length until its internal diameter was the same as the external diameter of the eyepiece. It was then glued on to the
eyepiece and two strips of green felt Fablon added to each side of it, to add friction when joining
adapters / sleeves together.

The beauty of this system is that I get to use the 6 megapixel Fuji F610, which I already have found to work well on a telescope with a Plossl eyepiece. Here I am literally turning a 23mm wide
microscope eyepiece into an eyepiece of similar diameter to a Plossl. Infact it is exactly the same diameter as the Plossl eyepiece that I use here with the aluminium sleeve adapter for the F610 camera. In case you didn't understand all this here's some images to clarify things.

10X Wide-field Eyepiece with adapter
Aluminium Sleeve on Phototube of Microscope
Adapted Eyepiece on Phototube of Microscope
Bresser Trino Microscope with Fuji F610 Camera
Same adapter and camera used on a telescope

More details about this microscope will follow later.