We had a lovely Easter break. Having never been to the east coast of Scotland before, I was thrilled to discover the beautiful golden beaches and attractive fishing villages that fringe the ‘Kingdom’ of Fife. We visited the famous fish-and-chip restaurant in Anstruther - as patronised by HRH Prince Charles, and Tom Cruise (though not together apparently). It is well-known for its wonderful fresh fish, crisp chips and slick, friendly service. However I don’t suppose the aforementioned celebs experienced the notorious queues which are all part of the fun and are expertly managed by the friendly staff.

I was pleased that I captured a couple of digital pictures of the equally renowned St. Andrews haar. On certain days a strange low-lying cloud blows in across the wide sandy beach in front of the world-famous golf links. Overhead there may be blue sky, but the kite flyers, sand yachts and dog walkers are chest-deep in mist producing some memorable views. Spectacular but chilly!

We were able to follow the coastal path as it meandered over rocks, shell banks and fine sand beaches. At this time of year the wretched midges have not yet emerged so you can enjoy the tang of salty air as you walk. The light was beautiful, the sea at times a gorgeous slate blue and the gold sand like grains of fresh-baked shortbread. There were wild flowers clinging to the high water mark and cliff - yellow gorse, white hawthorn, tiny violets, hosts of daffodils, pale spikes of butterbur.

Walks that should have taken an hour or two, stretched into long photographic excursions as I ran through the gamut of landscape, macro, multi-burst and portrait settings. We completed the day in the local pub clustered in front of the log fire reviewing our ‘catch’ on the camera’s LCD screen, a procedure that has become known as ‘chimping’ due to the “oohs” and “aahs” of delight from the assembled company.

There was only one cloud on the horizon. I discovered that I really have outgrown my Canon Ixus compact camera. Up to now it has served me very well taking pin-sharp images with a good range of colour in almost all conditions. On this trip I found the zooms a little less zoomy than I needed, and the shutter delay just a touch too delaying. Even though I tried to anticipate, I have several nice pictures of just tails as the dogs dashed along the beach.

So as I sip my drink in front of the log fire, here’s my back-of-the-envelope wish list for my next digicam: • HANDLING - a palm-sized package, plenty of places to put fingers and thumbs without marking the LCD screen, not too lightweight and or too heavy, good navigation tools, easy to understand layout on camera body, and in menus • HARDWARE - good quality lens, excellent quality CCD, precision and manual focusing, variety of lenses, dust reduction to protect sensor, built-in flash and hot shoe for independent flash, easily obtained standard type of card format (e.g. SD, CompactFlash etc), large free-angle/barn door type LCD, positive switches which stay on target (not easily knocked out of position), easy to find shutter button with positive halfway position, viewfinder, good capacity Li-ion battery, battery charger, USB leads, AV and mains leads • SOFTWARE - quick refresh, no noticeable shutter delay, live view (allows you to see exposure compensation, colour adjustments, white balance etc. before you shoot), image stabilisation, zoom on review mode, multi frame playback, choice of formats - RAW and JPEG options, high definition (HD) • GRAPHICS - restrained, don’t shout camera make and type, large icons in menus • FEATURES - bluetooth, frame protection, good optical zoom as standard, ultra close focussing on macro, scene modes