Photography...returning to an old passion

Recently I have acquired a number of cameras, both Slr 35mm and various digital. When I first left school I worked for a local photography company. They specialized in portraiture and weddings mostly. I was set the task of developing and printing proofs from the day or weekends jobs. During this period I learnt a great deal about using cameras, lighting, film development, printing and hand coloring to name just a few tasks. This gave me a very good grounding in photography.

Unfortunately (hindsight) being very young , 16 at the time I didn't want to be stuck in a darkroom forever, I wanted to be a photographer !

So after about a year I left, and pursued other jobs and traveled overseas. In those days taking photos while travelling light was too expensive as I nearly always roughed it.

The long and short of it is the photography went the way of the dinosaur as work, marriage, family etc took over.

Oh we always had a point and click camera as the kids grew up. Now they are grown up and have lives of their own.

In the past 3 or so years I slowly regained some interest in photography, brought about by the range of "Bridge Cameras" now available. Being between the point and click & Dslr markets and priced well these cameras made photography interesting and relatively cheap. Developed a roll of 24 frame film lately? Horrendous prices compared to digital prints. This camera and my film slr's served me well up till recently. My trusty Fuji S5700 developed a fault at high ISO settings and high zoom. Namely a horrid orange line running vertically top to the mid bottom (about 2/3 of the image). I seems like a line of photo receptors in the sensor may have failed.

Oh well time for a new camera. Enter the Fujifilm HS10