The Falls Creek Lunch Box - Or How To Go In The Snow

The daughter has just been to visit Falls Creek in Victoria and was lucky enough to hit the best snowfall day of the year - 30cm of powder. The pictures she brought back of the holiday taken with my old Fujifilm X-10 set to automatic are wonderful - she put the SD card into the slot on the television last night to give us a slide show and I am torn between pride and jealousy - they are that good.

Note: The dear old X-10 was superseded by the X-20 and latterly has been replaced by the X-30. This Fujifilm compact zoom line just gets better and better. Travellers take note...

But back to the snow. She missed out on a few of the activities they did because she was afraid to take the camera out into the falling snow - I have since told her she was silly as the devices do pretty well, but she was careful with it. In retrospect I think I should have grabbed one of the small Pelican cases and let her dump the thing into that - then she could have ventured out into the cold dauntless.

This is the one I'd have picked - the Pelican 1050. It's only $ 35 and has the famous water-tight edge seal that Pelican is famous for. Plus a pressure relief valve that means it does not get stuck closed if you go up and down the mountains.

The interior is a padded solid rubber well - not a foam block. This means that you don't have foam crumbles flailing around and getting into the camera. There is plenty of room in there for the Fujifilm X-30  - as a matter of fact it is big enough to take the Fujifilm X-100T  or either the Fujiflm X-E2 with a 27mm lens or the new Fujifilm X-T10 with a similar optic. Now THAT'S going to be good tourist photos!

Note the carabinier strap and side slots for other strapping.

Unwrapped And On Show

Here's the Fuji X-20 that I showed you yesterday - it has officially entered the shop stock so we get to see under the plastic wrappings. I've highlighted the visible changes between it and the X-10 that I am using to take the pictures.

Well, there's the name plate - shifted from to top of the housing to the front. Pure cosmetics - like new tail fins on a DeSoto.

Then there's the two little windows near the viewfinder - they are light detectors that enable the camera to know when your face approaches it - they switch off the LCD screen so that you can concentrate on the viewfinder image.

The RAW button position on the X-10 is replaced by a 'Q' button - this should give quick access to menu settings so that you can alter them instantly - the connection is through the 4-way wheel.

The AF button on the X-10 is replaced by a quick access to multiple exposures for bracketing.

Of course there has been a sensor change inside as swell, but I'll have to wait a little to do a shoot-out with the X-10 to tell you more about that.

Suffice it to say, the camera feels the same and I think it will be delightful to operate. But I am biased...

Under Wraps - But In The Shop

Quite possibly the worst advertising image I have ever presented, with the possible exception of the catalogue we did for the fertilizer company " Poo's R Us "...

The new Fuji X-20 is in the shop, but as two of the three examples that have arrived are spoken for, I did not dare open the sealed plastic packet. Perhaps tomorrow I can pull the wraps off the remaining unit and see what it looks like inside there. It is sort of like seeing a motor car swathed in canvas sheets.

Suffice it to say, that apart from the new and improved sensor and a few menu tweaks, it will be pretty much like the X-10 that I used to take the picture -that is to say pretty awesome. In my year and a half owning the Fuji X-10 I have been delighted with it and would not hesitate to get the X-20 if I were buying again.

I wonder if the Fuji people have fitted the new model with tail fins...