My first digital camera was a Konica Revio 500z which I bought in July 2003. Initially I took the odd wild flower photo in 2003 but decided to make more of an effort in 2004 with the object of trying to get shots of all the flowers listed by Mary McCallum Webster in her book 'Flora of Moray, Nairn and East Inverness'. I had previously tried to do this on slides in the 70s and 80s and on Video8 and then SVHS in the late 80s and 90s, so had a head start in knowing where some of the rarer plants were to be found. Miss Webster was a bit coy about saying exactly where plants were but her general directions
have taken us walking in areas we would not otherwise have thought of.

I bought Fuji FinePix 610 cameras for my daughters and grandson in mid 2004 and was so impressed with the improvement in the rendition of yellows and whites that I then bought myself a Fuji FinePix 810. I won't say that I no longer had problems with bleaching Yellows but there was a distinct improvement.

If I were really professional, I should go for something more sophisticated than a point and shoot camera but the joy of having a camera which slips into your pocket outweighs that for me.

The Fuji finepix 810 failed twice. It first began to show a dark mark in each shot, not noticeable unless in a uniform area like a sky. This was repaired under guarantee in May 2005. In February 2006, the on/off slide which had been erratic for a few months, finally reached the point where it would open the lens but immediately retract making it impossible to use. All the Fuji cameras I had given to my family also failed within two years of purchase and have had to be replaced.

I then bought an Olympus FE-120 and had decent results but found the frequent need to replace AA batteries a bit irritating

I am now using a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 bought in June 2007.