Kal's blog ^pro

It has been WAY to long since my last postings to Ipernity. All sorts of reasons - mostly related to moving to a new house. But it feels good to be back behind the computer, wading through RAW files and clicking through Bibble in an effort to bring you something interesting to look at. Hopefully it won't be quite as long again before my next posting...

I recently splashed out on a nice little compact point and shoot camera, a Ricoh Capilo GX100. Its great to stuff in your pocket and it does have some manual controls but frankly I was really disappointed with it and with the quality of the images from it. So I was a bit skeptical when my friend Al bought a Canon Powershot G9, but after meeting him and getting a little bit of a chance to play with it I decided that I might give compact cameras another go and get myself a G9.

Today was my first day out with the new G9 which I managed to get with a soft case for well under 300 pounds. Our usual photo haunt with the big Canons is the Oxford Botanical Gardens and the weather this morning was nice enough to get down there. I took the G9 and left the 20D at home (though I did have to take my Leica as a security blanket...just in case I felt I needed a "proper" camera).

The G9 handles beautifully. If you are used to the controls on the Canon EOS range of SLRs you will probably find the G9 intuitive to use. You have all options from auto and program scene modes to aperture and shutter priority to full manual, including manual focus (more on that later). I usually use my 20D in aperture priority mode and so that's where I started with the G9.

IMG 0153

The Botanical Gardens is all about the flowers. Fortunately the G9 has a macro mode that supports focusing down to 1cm. Probably the only downside is that the minimum focus distance drops off really rapidly as you zoom in, so to get good macro shots you need to get really close to the subject. On the upside, the G9 has a massive LCD panel (I'm speaking comparitively here...my 20D has an LCD panel that is small in comparison to the G9s!) that is bright and clear and that keeps up with the action with relatively little lag, so its a doddle to take a photo from low down or bent over in some funny position.

IMG 0128

The Digic III processor on the G9 results in some great looking JPGs, but the G9 can also record Canon RAW files (great for a control freak like me). Image write speeds for RAW files aren't great, but a 3 or 4 second wait isn't too bad. In RAW the images have a small amount of detectable noise at ISO 100 (the camera will go down to ISO 80), but it is easily removed and the JPGs that the camera produced showed no noticeable noise at all.

The camera has some neat features, including an "ND" filter mode that really helped out in the

Flowers and Sky

birght summer sunshine. Auto-bracketing was also useful (though not so great when writing RAW files due to the time between shots). Manual focussing was interesting - when you focus manually, the LCD display shows the centre portion of the image enlarged (pixel-for-pixel I think) making it possible to more accurately see when you are properly focussed. Manual focussing is a bit fiddly because you have to use the dial on the back of the camera, and as we all know flowers never stay still to have their picture taken, but its doable and an interesting feature to have, especially when coupled with the shallow DOF you get from the f/2.8 aperture.

Overall the camera was great fun to use. Its not quite as compact as the GX100, but its small enough to be easy to carry around the neck or on the shoulder, or even in a pocket if you have REALLY BIG pockets. The image quality is the best I've seen from a compact digital. 12.1 MP is more than anyone should ever need really and the 6x zoom lens performs well giving good contrast even when opened up wide.

So this is only my first day with the camera but already its my point-and-shoot favourite. It won't replace my Leica, but it will be coming out and about with me when I can't be bothered with a bigger box around my neck.

If anyone wants to buy a barely used GX100, email me :-)

So, yesterday A and I set off with two things in mind:

1) Buy some waterproof trousers for our next walking holiday

2) Take some nice photos

Autumn has so far been extremely kind to us in our bit of the world and yesterday, although it started off gray and miserable, turned into a glorious sunny day, with low warm sunlight. Perfect for taking photos. But yesterday I returned home with not a single shot taken (though I did manage to get the waterproofs, so it was a partially successful day).

Turl Street

Today I went out for a little walk taking the camera with me. I was probably out and about for roughly half the time we spent out of doors yesterday, but I managed to come home with a few nice pictures (in amongst many so-so pictures).

The main difference ? Yesterday I had my camera in my bag. Today it was around my neck.

The first rule of Photoclub is "Take the camera out of the bag".

 

While on the way home from the pub one night earlier this week, I was really struck by just how different Oxford looks under street lighting. Whereas some town centres can feel lifeless and even threatening in the dark, the majestic colleges and the honey-coloured limestone facades and narrow backstreets of Oxford gain a different character entirely. So last Thursday, Agata and I set out on an intrepid adventure into the back streets of Oxford...with cameras of course.

For this shoot, Agata went with the Canon 30D and tripod. I decided to try out my Leica, shooting hand-held with a 28mm Voigtlander lens and my new 50mm Summicron. Leica lenses are fast...very fast, and the camera itself performs pretty well on 640 ISO in terms of noise, so I decided to just open up the aperture, and give it a go.

Oxford Night Walk

We started off at Wagamama, filling up on spicy noodles to get our body temperatures up. A couple of bottles of Kirin Ichiban also helped (liquid image stabilisation). I took my first shot while waiting outside for Agata - just shooting the students waiting to get in to the restaurant.

Oxford Night Walk

From the restuarant we headed down Brasenose Lane to the Radcliffe camera. This was where Agata's decision to take a tripod definitely paid off. The Radcliffe Camera is massively over-photographed, but I've not seen many shots of it taken at night. From the tripod, Agata was able to get amazing pictures of the building against a star-studded sky. I on the other hand started to hunt around for "available light". This shot of bikes along the railings is probably my favourite.

Oxford Night Walk

We then headed down Queen's Lane and back, passing under the Bridge of Sighs (another Oxford photography favourite!). By now I had swapped from the 50mm Summicron to the wider 28mm Viogtlander lens enabling me to get more "full street" shots. Working with just the streetlighing led to some really nice pictures with pools of light suspended in an inky blackness.

Finally from Queens Lane we walked up Parks Road, hoping to get a shot of the magnificent Museum of Natural History and were a bit disappointed to find it totally unlit - I'm sure it would look fantastic if properly floodlit. A little stroll through the back alley between Parks Road and St Giles took us past the Lamb and Flag...mmm...beer....and it was here on the last leg of the journey that I think we both got some of the best shots of the evening.

Oxford Night Walk

Although St Giles is a wide, busy road the pavements are also quite wide and in places tree-lined and the buildings of Balliol college and others close in to give a feeling of antiquity. I think this shot of the telephone box on St. Giles is my favourite - backlit by the streetlight to give a strong spreading shadow.

By the time we got back home, this rather short walk had seen us out and about for well over two hours. It was fun and presented us with a new way to look at a town that has by now become pretty familiar to us. Definitely something to try again!

Nice to meet you. Seeing as this is my first foray into Ipernity I thought I should just introduce myself. I'm Kal and I am a photoholic and a refugee from Flickr (can you write that name here ?). I live in Oxford with the lovely Agata and I work as a geek (though the outgoing type of geek - the type that stares at *your* shoes when talking to you ;-)

Right now my albums are mainly landscape, architectural and macro stuff, but I recently splased out on new Leica kit that I'm planning to use to do more street photography.

I might rant here once in a while. I apologise in advance.