Roadtrip: 12 days with the Fujifilm FinePix HS20EXR

Thanks fly, great stuff and I enjoyed the trip and the pics.
Pete

Me too, very nice set!

Let's move on. Leaving Orlando heading north, we encounter Blue Spring State Park, home of several manatees, although only during wintertime:

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This is another infrared-simulating B&W conversion, but this particular scenery looks also pretty nice in color:

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Still, B&W better captures the mood and style of this old house and tree found in the park, at least IMHO:

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No real manatees in September, instead we found this one, offering an opportunity to take a couple of fun shots for the Facebook crowd:

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As you can swim in parts of the river, the park's shop offers some strange swimming gear:

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Boardwalk leading to the source of the spring, stylized with Topaz:

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Here we are right at the spring head. I did a bit of hue manipulation to enhance the color of the leaves to reflect a little bit more of a fall season than was actually the case.

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Whoa, what a surprise: A female manatee floating in the river, and she seems to be taking pictures with a waterproof Fujifilm Z33 WP. Incredible!

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Finally, a B&W rendering of the color shot shown before:

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Moving on, we drive through Daytona and spontaneously decide to visit the race track, which most conveniently is indeed offering a tour:

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While the image stabilization system of the HS20 is pretty good (it better be with such a zoom), it could obviously not cope with all of the extreme vibrations, bumps and blurs resulting from the moving tram from which this shot was taken. Remember, we are in point and shoot mode on this trip, not much time or opportunity for planning and executing shots.

Here's another example, only a split second to frame and take the picture, as the organizers of this tour have no the slightest clue of a photographer's needs. But maybe that's deliberate.

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Then again, it was not all that bad, as they gave me an eternity of 14 seconds to stage, frame and take this picture:

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Another super quick shot:

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And an even quicker version for the Facebook crowd of our multi-addict:

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He's looking pretty greasy, huh?

Now, I'm admittedly not a guy to mess with, so I ignored all orders and snuck away and climbed on a roof to take some decent pictures more of my liking, while our guide was coming close to a heart attack, shouting and threatening to call whatever law enforcement agency she could think of if I didn't come down at once. I simply ignored her – after all, this tour had been advertised as the "all-access tour" I chose to take that literally.

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Yep, I may be a bad person, but it lead to a few good pictures, right?

In the end, our group decided to declare full victory over that stubborn guide:

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Next stop was Daytona Beach, offering a great opportunity to show off the zoom capabilities of the HS20. Without changing my position (yep, I am THAT lazy), I produced the following three shots.

Full wide angle (24 mm equivalent):

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Medium zoom (about 200 mm equivalent):

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Maximum zoom (720 mm equivalent):

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A few miles further up, the beach becomes quite empty:

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According to my EXIF Fuji maker notes, I manually chose DR400 EXR mode for this shot. In addition to that, manual exposure compensation was -2/3 EV.

Next stop (we are still in the middle of day number 2) was St. Augustine to catch some dinner:

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It's obviously a quite scenic city, so I couldn't resist taking a few pictures while we were walking around looking for a restaurant we liked. Like the one above when crossing a street or this one while waiting at a red light:

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Quickly walking by the entrance of the St. Augustine version of a shopping mall:

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Moving on, still many miles to cover on this day. Here we are approaching Jacksonville harbor, taking a quick snapshot through the windshield of the moving SUV, hence the smudge:

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And another one looking out of my side window while driving on the bridge:

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Smokes, alcohol, frequent flyer miles, you name it: There's nothing our friend is not addicted to. Hence another cigarette break while closing in to Savannah, GA, our final destination for day 2.

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And this concludes day 2 of our little HS20 trip.

REally enjoying the trip notes, but am especially interested in the HS20 shots. I think I've decided to get one. My FZ100 cannot do anything like this quality. Thanks heaps, flysurfer... looking forward to more

Another thanks for the interesting tour. Are you in any of the photos? If not, why not?

It might have something to do with the fact that I was the one taking all the pics, but I am still in one of it. If I were really into long-armed self-portraits, I'd probably stick to Lumix with their flexible tilt displays. Or Sony's Alpha SLTs, which are pretty decent Pseudo-SLRs with great potential. I'm already looking forward to test driving the new A77, but that's no serious compact, just a serious camera. My personal interest lies in Fujis EVIL market entry, though, that might be an area where I'll spend some money next year.

flysurfer, I finally sat down and have had a chance to read through this entertaining travelogue, and I'm torn between which made me laugh more - your words or your pictures! To make me laugh out loud first thing in the AM, after not such a great night's sleep is a wonderful morning gift - I'm just sorry it took me so long to get in here!

You've certainly got some blackmail material, though it looks as though your companions are way too easy going to care about what pictures you take of them - which is a great thing for a photographer. Besides enjoying your photos - especially one of those early ones...the zoomed in view of the folks lying around the pool with some hanging on to the edge - and this beauty,
View attachment 41710 - you've really made some excellent points via your pictures about the versatility of a good zoom lens camera for vacations and sightseeing, especially. I've really appreciated all the details (and your way of presenting them), though some are beyond my brain at this juncture. The main thing I come away with here is the value of having a good zoom lens...and the fact that I should reconsider using iPhoto when I'm taking pictures on a trip or outing when I really want to get off a lot of pictures. All sorts of good info in this road trip exposé, though I do worry about your pal.

What day are we on now? It's not over yet, is it?

Still 10 more days full of incriminating shots to come...

Phew! I hope you're planning on taking over the driving!

No way.

A really great series. I loved your 'bad boy' shots in Daytona race track.

So here we are on day 3 of our trip, in Savannah, GA, a quite beautiful place I always wanted to visit since I watched Clint Eastwood's "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" on the silver screen.

Unfortunately, I only had a few hours that I decided to simply spend walking through the streets.

Let's start with City Hall:

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The harbor with its quite impressive bridge:

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Also a nice background for the daily Facebook shot:

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A typical street scene. As you can see, there was really not much going on, like everybody was busy somewhere else:

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With not that many living people around, let's visit the dead instead. A quick stroll over the cemetery:

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This flag has for sure seen better times:

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Here's a nicer one:

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This town is full of lovely trees:

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Three different shots of one of many churches (it's the bible belt, after all):

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And here we are right were we started, back at City Hall:

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After that, we drove up to Atlanta, trying to locate a few nice houses on the so-called Antebellum Trail, however with not so much success. At least there was time to take this snapshot from the sidewalk, but the police quickly chased us out of town. I guess the terms "tourist" and "terrorist" simply sound too similar to some, easy to mix up the two.

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That was day 3 of our trip, on day 4 we'll visit World of Coca Cola and the Atlanta Aquarium, the latter posing a challenge for pretty much every camera.

So far, so good. By now, we know that the HS20 is a capable toy outdoors on a mostly sunny day, but how will it perform indoors under adverse lighting conditions? Should I really leave my capable X100 in my bag and use a HS20 to shoot in World of Coca Cola and – even worse – marine life in an aquarium tank?

Well, nothing is more exciting than a decent challenge, but let's start with another lazy snapshot out of my closed hotel room window in Atlanta:

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I guess the HS20 is rather not a camera made for shooting architecture, but then again, 99% of the targeted users will not care.

Another attempt, this time while walking down the streets to Pemberton Place:

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Nah, not really.

And there we are. Smoochies, anyone?

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Yep, it's an anniversary, but this still won't keep them from charging 16 bucks admission fee for the honor of being assaulted with a full-fledged M&A bombardment.

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While the mandatory clips and movies they are showing are revolting and intolerable, the exhibited stuff looks at least partly interesting and attractive. Let's have a look:

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ISO 400, 1/14s, F2.8, -2/3 EV

Where else would this guy be, if not at the (mock-up) bar?

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More stuff:

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Admittedly, I recouped most of my money in the "Taste It!" area, where I was so busy sampling gallons of different worldwide Coca Cola brands, that I didn't have the time to take any pictures there.

Btw, World of Coca Cola has its own tiny bottling line, however, it was a bit out of order during my visit (No, I had nothing to do with that!), but I still took a few shots:

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8.53% bottle rejects, something must be really wrong...

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Each of us got one of those little bottles as a present, but guess what? They were stolen on the next day.

Back outside, it's just a minute to walk over to the Aquarium entrance, where the real indoors was to happen.

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But honestly, what do you think so far? Did the HS20 do a decent job indoors or not?

Without question, the most impressive attraction of the Atlanta Aquarium is its high admission fees, but it's also one of very few aquariums featuring a rare and quite impressive species called the whale shark. Basically a plankton eating, whale-sized shark. Here it is:

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