The Little Camera That Could

Spring is just around the corner [1], and this not-so-young / almost-old man's thoughts turn not to love or even to pilgrimages, but to the pressing matter of what unnecessary household clutter to hold on to, and what to sell on, dump, or give away on Freecycle. Which explains why I found myself in Southampton Old Cemetery on a sunny afternoon this week with a shoulder-bag full of "small black cameras", taking comparative test pictures in one of the few places both packed with visual interest and where absolute stillness can be guaranteed between shots.

I won't bore you with my conclusions – this isn't Gearhead Corner – but I will show you a few pictures taken with my Fujifilm X20, the little camera that could. Obviously, under the circumstances, any decent camera could have delivered these shots, but I'm not aware of any other that is so small, so solid, and with a focal-length range from 28mm-112mm (35mm equivalent) at a fast-enough f/2.0-2.8, all packed into a manually-operated pancake zoom. Should you be lucky enough to come across one, pick it up, and I'm pretty sure you'll be smitten, too, despite its age (released 2013) and its sensor size (12 MP 2/3"-type). As I've said before, it's a real shame Fuji didn't continue this line of development, and it's no surprise that used examples of the X20 and its slightly-improved successor the X30 command prices north of £300. Needless to say, it's a keeper.

On the way back, though, with all the small black cameras safely back in the bag, I resorted to the iPhone's convenience and capabilities. Which, as I keep discovering, are also remarkable. The well-equipped sports ground of King Edward VI School, one of Southampton's very few private schools, always offers a nicely complex interplay of elements, especially in late afternoon sun, and what I like about small sensors is the effortless rendering of deep focus, front to back; the pursuit of blurred backgrounds (a.k.a. "bokeh") is not of any great interest to me.

No, that's not an aviary, by the way: those are "cricket nets", where batting and bowling can be practised without offering any threat to the windows of the houses just across the road, or even to the traffic on nearby Hill Lane. Cricket balls are very hard and can do serious damage, especially when given a solid whack on the sweet spot of a cricket bat, as anyone who has played the game as a close fielder will attest (in our school team I used to play regularly in the semi-suicidal position known appropriately as "silly mid-on"). Ouch! Needless to say I haven't played cricket since, or any team games, come to that. Despite a willingness to join in compulsory sports at school with a certain degree of enthusiasm, I am not by nature what managerial types like to call a "real team player", and abandoned them ASAP. Besides, chasing balls around like an idiot is a pastime best suited to dogs, isn't it?

1. I refuse, absolutely refuse, ever to say or write "spring has sprung", as if this were the most witty seasonal coinage since Geoffrey Chaucer smiled quietly to himself, as he drafted the opening lines of the Canterbury Tales.