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The Canon PowerShot G9 “point & shoot” is not in the same league as the Canon 5D DSLR. However it is still an excellent camera. The G9 has good image quality (noise is an issue as with all compact cameras), full manual controls, and RAW file format all in a compact body. It has a macro mode which allows it to shoot with a minimum focus distance of 1 cm. That is very handy. Read the rest of this entry »
For many years I have been trying to photograph lightning and rainbows. Usually I dont have my camera, or it’s not safe, or some other reason prevents me from getting the shot. Last week I was on vacation and was able to capture both. No, not at the same time.
I was staying at a cabin in Lake Louisa State Park when a thunder storm came through in the evening. I set up my camera on the porch and made several 30 second exposures of an active part of the sky.
A few days later I was at another park when a storm came through. This one produced a nice rainbow.
It was an enjoyable vacation.
I made a new subfolder in the Nature folder called Shelly.
These are photos of a conch shell I used as a prop on the beach. I have used it before with the 20D, and some of those shots are in the Nature folder. The new ones in the Shelly folder were shot with the 5D, except for one that I reprocessed from the 20D.
Some of these shots were made from two shots with different focus, and then combined to get large depth.
Velvia Vision is a Photoshop plug-in by Fred Miranda. It can be used to mimic Velvia film, and gives controls to boost contrast, dynamic range, and saturation. It is not free, and there are free Photoshop actions elsewhere that can do the same thing, but Velvia Vision is easier to use. I recently reprocessed some of my photos because it made a nice difference.
You can read more about it at- FredMiranda.com.
I’ve added a fireworks sub-gallery to the Night Gallery.
They were shot during on New Years Eve.
I set the camera on a tripod, aimed it where I thought the rocket would be, and set the focus to near-infinity. The lens was a 17-40mm at 17mm and the aperture was set to f8 or f9 and the ISO was 200. Then I set the exposure to bulb and covered the camera with a black garbage bag. I locked the shutter using a remote shutter release.
After the rocket was lit I removed the bag, and when it was done I replaced the bag. I did this several times, then unlocked the shutter when I was done. The result is a single shot with multiple exposures.
I hope you enjoy them.
I recently tried night photography, mostly using the 50mm f1.4, so I added a new Night Gallery. I hope you enjoy viewing them.
I finally did it. I got a DSLR, a Canon 20D.
After spending a day with it at the beach, I’m very impressed. The lens I used is a wide angle 17-40mm f4L.
The camera is fast to focus, has plenty of features- too many to mention here, and is a joy to use. The lens was not my first choice, but is a good lens none the less.
Some of the photos I took recently are in the gallery.
I look forward learning more about this camera and SLR photography.
Note that the Canon 20D has been replaced by the 30D as an update.
Panasonic’s FZ30 for the most part builds upon the success of the FZ20.
It looks and handles much like a DSLR and is frequently compared to them. That is where the similarity ends however.
The FZ30 has an 8 megapixel sensor that is just as noisy as the FZ20, although the noise seems more like grain in low ISO photos. The cameras Leica lens is capable of producing high resolution images despite the noise. In most reasonable size prints or screen viewing the noise should not be an issue.
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Many digital cameras lack dynamic range. This can be seen when you take a photo but the sky is over or under exposed while another part is correct. The camera can not expose both correctly, as the eye can. I usually do very little, if any, post processing with my photos but this come in handy.
Here is how to fix dynamic range using Paint Shop Pro, or Photoshop.
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I bought the Panasonic FZ20 to replace my Olympus C770.
The FZ20 has 12x zoom, image stabalization, focus assist, a manual focus ring, and f2.8 throughtout the zoom range. The cameras ISO range is from 80 to 400.
The photos it takes are very good but slightly noisy. At high ISO the noise is very noticable. The noise can be cleaned up in post processing in most cases, but it’s not even a problem at normal print sizes. Color is usually accurate, but can be slightly oversaturated in landscape mode. I usually shoot in P mode. There is no “auto” mode.
In P mode you can shift the exposure or aperture to fine tune the camera for the photo.
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