People who looked at the amazing photographs in my blog assumed that I'd must have used an expensive DSLR to take them with; and I think they must either be quite disappointed or think that I'm a big bald fat liar when I tell or show them the little 'toy' camera I use - which is a 4.0 Megapixels Pentax Optio43WR that I bought about 2 years ago. Actually Robin helped me to get it quite cheaply from Singapore (it was not available in Kuching) as it was on sale at the time as it was an old model. I got it primarily for my kayaking trip as it is light, compact (no protruding lens), reliable and most importantly it was water resistant.

Anyway I'm very happy with the camera and results I got from it and you can read a review of it here; but if you're thinking of getting one now, I don't think it is in production anymore. I recommend getting one if you can still get hold of it as it has served me very well. Using cheap SD card for storage and easily available AA batteries, it's therefore very convenient. I must have taken thousands of photos with it on my kayaking trip and it has not let me down despite being dropped and submerged underwater on various occasions.

I love this cute little camera despite its poor zoom, weak flash, tiny LCD screen and poor performance in dim lighting conditions. But once you know the limitations, you can work around it and still come up with great photos. Actually I'd been meaning to write about it for quite a while now but somehow some other ideas would come up when I sit down to blog about it. So here it's my long over-due tribute to my cute little toy camera - the Pentax Optio43WR.

Labels: Photography

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