Hobby.

Since the invention of digital cameras made photography a pastime even poor jobbers like myself can play with I've poured plenty of time, effort and money into enjoying it, way too much by most accounts but I don't indulge in much else these days.

Anyway I took a few shots of this Vinca flower this morning just to compare how my current crop of light gatherers compare. All taken using auto settings and macro where available, Auto because it allows us to see what the programmers wanted. All full size pixel crops of the original image.

First up the Samsung SH100, I like its bright colour, the image is good enough and it has served the purpose of a pocket camera that travels with me every time I head up the street very well. It's a wi-fi camera but I haven't found that to be of any use, maybe if I was 20 again it would be but it's a niche feature.

Next the Olympus PL-1, the kit lens just isn't suited for this, pity as it's a superb camera and is really giving me some lovely shots, but not macros. I can see myself having more Olympus cameras in future, my eyes have come to the opinion they have the best jpg look going around.

Now the Nikon S9100. Travel zooms are great when you are going to take photos but don't want to be burdened by a heavy lump, this one is as good as any and has less shutter lag than most.

And the surprise was the new Nikon P510, I grabbed one due to the massive zoom and the picture quality I saw in some early samples online, but now it looks like it's not only going to do the long shots but it's going to be the macro choice about the house too. It's too bulky to carry casually but I think I'm going to use it a fair bit when I know I'm going to take some photos. I can get much closer with this but it isn't the point of these shots, I wanted to see what does flowers better