Cool Coolpix

In 1993 I didn't own a camera and had to borrow one to take to Chile where, faced with staggering natural beauty, I took relatively few pictures. Not really a camera person back then. Fast forward to about 1999 and I bought a Canon Sureshot A1, a film camera that could be taken underwater to about the same depth I could back dive to back then. It was a rough and ready knock about thing that took half decent pictures. I think it is still knocking around somewhere. Damn near broke a rib once when I fell on it; it kept on working just fine.

I had started hanging around with a few very good underwater photographers and soon bought a Nikonos V, a strobe and a bag of bits to bolt the two together. The Nik V is a great camera. It has a light meter, but is fully manual and for that reason I can now fake some knowledge of F-stops, pushing, pulling, depth of field and other mysterious camera things that describe the size of your hole - sorry, aperture - and how long it stays open for. I've still got the Nik V. But, alas, being a film camera it now sits in a bag gathering dust.

In 2000, maybe 2001, I bought a Nikon Coolpix 995 for Sally and an underwater housing that a year later I would flood, killing her camera. The memory card pulled through. As well as the 995 for Sal I bought myself a Nikon Coolpix 5000, another camera I still have. With digital cameras becoming all the rage I did a little research and settled upon the Coolpix 5000, a smart little thing that I intended to buy the Subal underwater housing for so I could take it diving. Unfortunately the housing turned out to cost several million pounds, so for about the cost of a couple of pints and a mars bar I bought an Olympus Mju 410, housing and Inon strobe with which I managed to take a few half decent shots both above and under water. Mainly I relied upon the numbers game that digital cameras allow you to play - take enough pictures and it stands to reason a few of them will be OK.

I was still taking land shots with the Coolpix. I had the wide and telephoto adapters for it and the battery shoe that meant I could use AA batteries to power it. Result. Over time I used it less often, and its demise was aided by the Sony Ericsson K750, 800 and 850i phones. Acceptable quality shots - well, acceptable to me - were possible with a phone. Best bit - I always had a camera with me so I was now taking a load of pictures. My pictures range from attempts at arty stuff - a relative minority - to diary-style shots of whatever I see from day to day.

Last year the Panasonic Lumix TZ5 grabbed my attention; actually, I think it grabbed my brother's attention and he grabbed mine. Another point and press (I got lazy) that I could get an underwater housing for (actually most name-brand cameras can be housed nowadays.) It is a great little camera; it has a 10 times optical zoom and a 28mm wide lens. It will shoot HD video. It also takes perfectly acceptable pictures.

Only it did. Mine has shit itself. All the buttons work - mechanically - but it refuses to focus and instead tells me to switch off and back again, which makes no difference. It sucks. It would suck more if I was spending much time in the water, because I gave the Olympus to Hempy and it is now getting put through its paces in the waters around Bouganiville. But I'm hardly spending any time in the water at the moment, so that is no biggy. In fact, it may be a blessing in disguise, because I've broken out the Coolpix 5000, which, 6 years on has not shit itself. Even the batteries, which haven't been charged for maybe 5 years, still took a charge and today I was merrily clicking away with it.

It really is a remarkably good little camera. OK, it is a bit sluggish to start up, the autofocus takes a while to make its mind up and it has a mere 5m megapixel (plenty to display on a monitor which, lets be honest, is all I do.) I look forward to reaquainting myself it and maybe this time using that manual thing.