2008.01.25
Night Pilots
00.16.11 - Mark
I've been meaning to try and do some long exposures with traffic for a long time, but Monday night coming back from the Piedmont Photography Club in Winston-Salem Monday night there was a full moon, so on my way home I pulled off onto an overlook of Pilot Mountain and took a few 15 seconds exposures. Some of them I'm going to try and blend, some are alright as standalones. The 15 second maximum exposure of my S3 really isn't enough to do really great long exposure photography, but it's sort of workable. Still it's one of those limits I've been really running into lately. I know that you can take great photos with a homemade pinhole camera and all that, and I'm still really happy with the Canon S3's (Hell, I've bought two of them, and I've sold 3 friends on them, 4 if you count the asshole that stole my first one) but I can think of a lot of cool things I can do with a DSLR I can't do with what in the end is still a point and shoot.
Night Pilots - View Large (2816 x 2112)
Link | 1 Comments | cameras images night North Carolina photography photos Pilot Mountain
2007.12.23
Bad Ratios
16.20.24 - Mark
As much as I love taking good photos, and happily spend time tweaking them in Photoshop, the rewards are cut short if you don't share the images. There are lots of ways to do this from in camera viewing to websites, to getting some decent quality prints made. I love this site, but good prints are far more useful. I've still got boxes and boxes of old 3x4 and 4x5 prints, and have walls decorated with enlargements I had made when I entered photography contests (some of which I really need to digitize)
As I've picked up my cameras again, I've started printing again. From at home printing on consumer level hardware - which despite what printer manufactures claim is wicked expensive and gives at best mediocre quality - to instant print kiosks and onwards and upwards to professional photo labs.
The thing is, the "standard" photo sizes are based off the aspect ratio of 35mm film (3:2) while nearly all digital cameras shoot 4:3, and many are starting to adopt 16:9 as a shooting option, if not the native sensor size. Most printing places recognize these and similar ratios (this isn't scientific, but I think the SOL point is is you want something narrower than 2:1), but these machines will refuse to print them correctly, and make stupid assumptions rather than ask the user how to handle each image. In a smallish sample I've had images condensed, expanded, and cropped, and only when I get it manually forced into zooming out is there a chance it will print correctly, and then I had to manually trim half an inch or more of white space off all four edges.
The real sad part is that everyone seems stuck with bad ratios and terrible metrics. The industry seems happy with it's standards and simply suggests digital photographers "plan to crop digital images". Should you find a printer who doesn't mind a different aspect ratio, they hand out DPI numbers that you'll need to meet, except it's hard to translate pixel counts into useful DPI numbers, since it's not the straight 1 to 1 ratio many people claim. Depending on print method and inks used you might have half a dozen dots working to represent the color value of a single pixel.
No wonder you can still buy polaroid 600 film...
Link | 0 Comments | cameras geek photography pixels prints rants ratios technology
2007.08.17
Trying not to kill electrons
00.25.22 - Mark
So in addition to reacclaimating myself to the real world, I've been dealing with broken electronic devices.
Two weeks ago I somehow managed to kill my camera. While it chose a good day to die on me (last day of camp) it's well established that I'm a lot happier when I have a working digital camera. On the plus side Canon's customer service is amazing. I called last Friday and after not arguing with the [knowledgeable] phone monkey, I had the camera packed up and shipped within 90 minutes of looking up the Canon Support Phone number. I've never had that sort of thing happen when calling tech support. Assuming they don't take forever to fix my camera, I've got another reason to love Canon.
The other dead electronics I've dealt with this week is my 91 Honda Accord's stereo, which has been dead for so long most people who get in it have become accustomed to not even trying to coax it into speaking. Rather than trying to fix the factory head unit I opted to install a new Sony stereo that has an iPod dock connector. I probably had about half a dozen people tell me to get it professionally installed, but in reality all it required was splicing together a dozen wires (I used crimp connectors, but if I was doing it over would solder and heat shrink it) then put it in place of the old stereo. Cosmetically it could look better, but I'd rather have a few cosmetic blemishes than fork over $75 (or more) and have it look a little nicer. Besides, installing it boosted my confidence on working on cars. While I've got no problem ripping into delicate electronics like laptops and iPods, cracking into my car was a little more daunting. Might be the fact that I don't place my life at risk when I use my computer...
Link | 3 Comments | cameras Canon DIY electronics life music projects
2007.04.27
Lizard Love
23.50.02 - Mark
Lizards in Love
I've found (and photographed) at least three lizards creeping around in the yard, but these two are the most fun to watch, plus they're so preoccupied that after a minute or two they simply stop caring about any observers. I've got a short video of these two as well. I'll get around to putting together a video sampler in a few days - the S3 really does have a great video mode.
Right now I'm both looking forward and dreading tomorrow. There's an air show at the local airport and I plan on going over with my camera. The only problem with that is that I know going will flare up my desire to learn how to fly, which of course I can't afford...
Link | 7 Comments | cameras images life lizards photography photos
2007.04.18
Light Catcher
16.50.10 - Mark
I once again have a working camera, and all is good. Having worked out the features I wanted and needed nearly a month ago, I've had plenty of time to stew over various cameras and read almost literally hundreds of reviews. In the end what it came down to was size. I can get cameras that have all the features I wanted in just about any size I want, but to even get close to having it all I was looking at paying close to $800 for a compact camera. Compact cameras seem to command at least $150 to $200 more than their larger brethren, so with that in mind I opted to get a larger high end shooter. Specifically the Canon S3 IS (DP Review | DCRP) It's a year old, but newegg.com had it for $310 with 2GB SD card. On paper it meets every one of my wants and needs except for its physical size and the lack of RAW shooting modes (tho' there's a firmware hack that may fix that). In reality, I've very happy with the decision.
UPS showed up with the camera about quarter to 2 and I had it unpacked and taking pictures by 2, and it didn't take long to start getting used to the controls and start playing with the advanced features. The interface is quick and logical, the images I've been taking are stunning and the optical range is great from the super macro mode to the fully extended 12x zoom. The one thing that's really stunning is the movie mode. The quality is great, and although I haven't done anything more than a sample video the zoom while recording and stereo sound captured my heart instantly.
There are a lot of features I haven't tried yet, but I honestly can't wait to. I'm even going to read the manual to make sure I'm not missing anything (hint: I almost never read manuals). Now for the hard part of this post - picking sample pictures...
Link | 1 Comments | cameras images photography photos
2007.03.29
Potential Compact Camera
18.43.52 - Mark
I'm looking more and more at the Panasonic DCM-LX2 (aka the Leica D-Lux 3) but Ricoh just announced something that might be a dead on match for what I want. While it isn't out yet, and the only info on it is a press release, the GX100 looks like it hits on every bullet point in Camera Shopping, with the exception of 16:9 shooting. It even goes further than that. It also takes AAA batteries (nice to have in a pinch), has an accessory hot shoe for external flash and electronic viewfinder (not so sure about that) and takes conversion lenses.
I have no idea about the image quality, which is extremely important, and from what I've seen the price is well outside my range. The press release says 400 GBP, which Google translates as just under $800. In a way it is a fair price, the specs look like a DSLR disguised as a compact camera, but at $800 I could just as easily be looking at quality DSLR kits which while not as portable, are far more proven.
If I haven't committed to something by April, its one more camera to look at.
Link | 0 Comments | cameras DSLR gadgets GX100 research Ricoh
2007.03.22
Camera Shopping (Warning: Long Rambling Post)
04.01.57 - Mark
I've been itching to replace my dead (via my own stupidity) Canon SD300 for a while now. It more than proved its worth but I'm only now starting to get the cash to replace it. What I'm finding however is there isn't a camera out there that matches the feature set I want. The following is a lot of thinking out load. The meat of the post is in the last paragraph or two.
Needs
- Size Matters. I'm looking for a small camera. Preferably both size and weight. As much as I love the versatility of SLRs, I'm looking for a point and shoot camera I can keep on me at all times. The SD300 is hard to beat in this field, I usually had it in a pocket or, for longer shooting excursions, a case with a belt loop that held the camera plus extra memory and batteries. The newer SDx00 are nice, but they still have some of the shortcomings I'd like to avoid
- Image Quality. It's not hard to find a 5MP+ camera, but its harder to find one that actually takes a good picture. The SD300 had a fairly good image quality, and offered plenty of image controls. The only downfall really was that it was easy to get motion blur due to the camera's weight. Newer point and shoots are starting to offer image stabilization, but I'm relying on Flickr's Camera Finder to see how image quality stacks up.
- Build quality. I try to take care of my cameras, but they suffer their share of abuse. With few exceptions I don't trust plastic electronics. They don't feel solid and are easier to break. The sd300 was mostly metal and its overall build quality was excellent. I used it for a good deal of Cameratossing in addition to regular day to day abuse and it held together. It only died after accidental exposure to a spin cycle in the washing machine.
- Optical zoom. Digital zoom is evil. The SD300 had a digital zoom in addition to a 3x optical zoom, but that was disabled within an hour of getting my hands on it.
- Manual controls. I may be shotting for a point and shoot, but I need to be able to take over the controls on the camera to get the shots I want.
- Low price. Everything else on this list so far has been screaming the opposite, but I need a camera that doesn't wipe out the bank account. I'm aiming for $250ish, give or take some if I need to get new accessories.
Wants (where things get complicated)
- Video. I want a decent video function. I shot some great video with the SD300. Ideally this means 640x480 at 15fps or better with no length cap.
- SD cards. I've already invested in a couple of 512MB SD cards, I'd like to be able to keep using them. Alternatively, I'll settle for Compact Flash cards. CF cards are cheap enough to buy on their own, and there is such a thing as an SD to CF converter. Mainly I want to avoid anything that uses a weird format, like xD or Sony Memory Sticks
- RAW file format. This is more common on DSLRs but there are some compact digitals that support RAW files. I don't have a problem with high quality JPEGs, but higher quality RAW files would be nice.
- Timelapse shooting. I've always wanted to play with time lapse photography. I've done it manually, but I'd like to have the function built in.
- Image stabilization. I mentioned this with image quality, and its a feature I'd like, especially on a smaller camera. I've got a fairly stable hand, but small light wight cameras take in a lot more motion then you expect or want. Good for camera tossing, but bad for snapshots.
- Wideangle (16:9) shooting. There are a few cameras out there that take wideangle photos, some even take that into movie modes. I haven't really seen it in photography, but it makes sense for the same reasons it does in film. It reproduces images closer to how we actually see the world.
What am I looking at. I'm really partial to Canons, not just because of the SD300, but also because I've never been disappointed in their products. I'm looking at the newer Digital ELPH cameras which are decedents of the SD300. That should be fairly obvious. The SD700 and SD800 are both tempting. They have image stabilization, and all of my accessories will work perfectly with the SD800 AFAICT, but they're currently a bit beyond what I'd like to pay and lack some of my wants. The SD800 also lacks some of the manual controls I need.
Other Canon's I'm looking at are the A710, which is essentially the SD800, plumped up on AA batteries and given the option of conversion lenses. The Canon s80 and S70 are tempting, but they've got several strikes against them for reasons not on the list. The s70 does nearly everything I want, except video - which has a 30 second max, and can be purchased for under $300 is also 2 and a half years old. The S80 which fixes video (but drops RAW) is a year older and pushed my budget.
The Panasonic DMC-LX2 and its predecessor the LX1 have a damned near perfect feature set, only lacking of timelapse photography. The downside is that there are pretty strong arguments against their image quality. Watercolors are frequently mentioned in reviews, but shooting in RAW supposedly helps - some. The big downside is the price, which is well above my price range. The LX1 might be affordable off eBay, but it would be pushing it and I'm not fond of buying a used camera.
I'm likely missing a few potential options. For one thing I want to look at more of the Panasonics. I also find myself drifting away from the ultracompacts (like the Canon SDx00's) and more towards the regular compacts like the Canon A710 and the Panasonics. Fortunately I don't need it tomorrow, I've got a couple months to shop before I'd like to have a good camera in my hands, hopefully some prices will drop, deals will show up, and I'll have time to better refine my need/want list as well as compare image quality on flickr.
What bugs me is that camera shopping today feels a lot like computer shopping a few years ago. There's a big emphasis on meaningless numbers rather than on anything useful. When there's a shortcoming in the camera the response is to throw more pixels at the problem, which is often makes the problem worse. They're also taking away features, not adding them. Few of the compacts and none of the ultra-compacts I've looked at have RAW support, things like manual control and interesting features like time lapse photography are stripped away or avoided when all it would take is a bit of software that clearly exists.
Resources:
Digital Camera Resource Page
Digital Photography Review
Flickr Camera Finder