I recently ordered, and read The Basic Book of Photography, Fifth Edition and have of course come up with a shortlist of other goodies I must buy. As time permits, I’ll be trying some of the techniques and whatnot suggested with my Canon S410, and posting the results to my gallery. The wish list has been updated to include the things I’m looking for.

On the list are a few items, namely a camera/laptop backpack, a standalone storage device, and an accessory flash unit. The flash is probably going to come much later, as I should get to know the camera itself before I buy a whole bunch of more shiny gear to complicate things. The mission for the backpack is to have something I can put the camera, my lense(s), and accessories in, along with maybe my digital video camera, and my laptop. The backpack style makes the most sense for my needs as it’ll better allow me to grab my stuff, hop on my motorcycle, and ride out to somewhere that should be fun to take pictures.

The storage device is kind of a toss up right now. The one on the wishlist lets me take the flash card out, put it in the device and transfer all the data on the card to a hard disk in the device. One of those, combined with another 1GB flash card would let me shoot until I run out of batteries – instead of shooting until I run out of flash space. I get about 600 shots per battery, and I have three batteries – that’s about 8 cards full of pictures. I some how doubt I take 2000 pictures in any given day, but being able to would be fun. The only thing that makes this a toss up is the Archos. It has a screen, and a hard disk – and a USB port. There would be some lag time between photo transfer, and being able to shoot again, but I’d have a few other capabilities that are appealing. The Archos has a screen – so I could review shots on a larger LCD. It also has wireless capability, and runs Linux. I could also put the Archos in its cradle, and do a slide show to a TV w/ a remote control. The biggest issue is cost though. The Fujitsu is more than small enough to carry around, and if I need to view images – I can always do it on the Fujitsu’s fantastic screen.