For some time now I have wanted to find a replacement for my dying Minolta DiMage 7i, an excellent, lightweight camera with a sharp lens, all in a small package. It was ideal for hiking, especially in places where I didn’t want to haul much gear. Long hikes, slot canyons, anything with scrambling; if I had an SLR and some lenses with me, it really slowed me down. But with the Minolta, I could shoulder just one small, light camera and hit the trail.

After quite a bit of searching, I found and bought what I hope will be my next trail camera: the Fuji Finepix S200EXR. It sports a 12MP sensor, a lens with a gigantic zoom range (30-460mm “equivalent”, far bigger than the Minolta’s 28-200mm) with manual zoom and focus rings (must-have for me),

and an impressive phalanx of other features that give it over-the-top gadget appeal. One vexing issue, however, is that Fuji’s software won’t open the RAW files from this camera until, their web site explains, FinePix Viewer is updated in two months. So for now, I guess, it’s JPEGs.

The camera has an excellent, solid feel about it, and my first test images reveal that the lens is sharp and the files are clean. I hope to use this camera extensively next month when Abby and I go to Utah for our anniversary trip.