[pct-l] Digital Trail Cameras Canon A70

[losthiker at sisqtel.net (Deems)]

This hiking season I went digital, as an experiment, after 30 years of Kodachrome 64 recording my memories and wilderness experiences. I carried Nikon 35mm SLR systems, and an Olympus XA 35mm on my hikes. When choosing the Canon A70 I was looking for the greatest amount of photo control I could find in a small digital camera. The A70 takes the usual automatic photos, but has an incredible amount of manual controls: focus, aperture and shutter priority, shutter speeds from 1/1600 sec down to 15 sec, f2.8 35 mm wide angle up to 3x optical, and then 3x digital zoom (10x). The ability to control the computer,great wide angle lens, additional features, and the LA-DC52C filter adaptor made the transition to digital from familiar film easier. The A70 is 3.2mega pixel, takes 4AA, comes with 16mb card, about 12 ounces, I purchased two 256mb flash cards. Using a polarizer filter on my last hike, I took 200 photos on one set of lithium AA at highest resolution and 50asa that rival my Olympus XA trail camera, but without the weight of a full 35mm SLR system. For the little bit of extra weight and greater control over the digital recording of my wilderness passage, the A70 has been pretty nice.