Snow day

Virginia gets very little snow, so when some does come it's quite an event. Last night we got about 5 inches.

Here's Charlotte checking it out:



Later in the day, the sheet of snow starting melting on the metal roof at work:

Kitty and Christmas tree

Here's little Charlotte, posing in front of our Christmas tree.



She always wraps her tail around her paws like that. Is it for warmth?

ISO 12800

Not too shabby! I'm pretty happy with this one, considering I was shooting with my right hand while manipulating the cat toy with my left. And all I needed for lighting was the overhead.

5D Mark II

Hey, that image quality sucks! Oh, wait, it's a 100% crop at ISO 1600, taken from the snapshot below.



The RAW files are incompatible with PS3/Lightroom 2 right now, so here's a workaround: download the latest DNG converter, convert your files to DNG, then import into Lightroom or open in PS3.

It looks and feels a lot like the 40D. The buttons on the back which are below the screen on the 40D have returned to the left-hand side. The vestigial print button now activates Live View, which as you all know shoots 1080p movies. The movie controls are miles ahead of the D90's (for one thing, autofocus and exposure lock are possible), but this is no camcorder: it will require some planning ahead to make a watchable video. More on that later as I fiddle around with it.

The shutter button feels slightly different than that of the 40D; it takes a little less pressure to press halfway, and a little more to press the shutter. the shutter makes slightly more noise, too.

Base ISO is 100-6400, expandable to 50-25600. Here's one at ISO 6400:



Down-rezzed for the web, but 6400 sure looks usable. I can't wait to take it outside tomorrow. More to come.

Final thoughts on the G10

The borrowed G10 I've been playing around with the last two weeks is going back tomorrow. It's been a lot of fun to use — tons of manual controls, wide angle (for a compact), great macro mode. It's a well-designed camera that mostly just gets out of your way and lets you take nice photos.

I love the screen on the back. You can zoom way in your pictures and see nice, sharp details. But there were a few times I thought a picture looked amazing on the screen, then was less enthusiastic once I was looking at the 14.7-megapixel file on my computer. I suspect the screen is a little more contrasty than real life, and of course being so much smaller any flaws in the photo are hidden. This is a very minor quibble, obviously. The screen really is nice.


Charlotte looks so serious!

It has a "My Menu" setting that comes in really handy — you set the five functions you use most often so you don't have to dig around the menus so much. However, this isn't the first thing that comes up when you hit the menu button; it requires another click to the left to get to it. And you can't add "format memory card" to My Menu! Geez, that's the first thing I do after I download all my pictures.

Nor can you assign formatting the card to the little print/bonus button in the upper left-hand corner. You have to drill through the wrench menu every time to get there.

The viewfinder is a joke, it's like one you'd find on an old Polaroid Land Camera. You can even see the lens barrel when you're at 28mm! And obviously, there's no feedback visible. I'd have to be in some serious sunlight to even think about using it.

Those are minor flaws, though. The G10 is a powerful photographic tool. In nice light, it will surprise you with how much detail it records. The shot below is a pretty tight crop:


Not quite a 100% crop, but close.

In light that's not so nice, it reminds you that it's a point-and-shoot. The limitations of cramming 14.7 million pixels onto a 1/1.7" sensor really start to show at ISO 400.


Noise is pretty evident at ISO 400.

Since you can only stop down to F/8, there's a Neutral Density feature for slowing down your shutter speed in daylight. It works well! You can go for silky water shots.



You can read dpreview if you want to learn about all the available features; the sheer number of them boggles the mind. It's pretty amazing what cameras can do these days. The G10's not really for me, I like to shoot in available light and use shallow depth of field a lot. You can't do either of those things with the G10, or any other compact for that matter. It goes to show you that in the end, for all its bells and whistles, it's still a point-and-shoot camera.

That said, I could have a hell of a fun time with the G10 if I were trekking around Europe or something. It's a fabulous daylight landscape camera. And it's a lot of fun to play with, which has to count for something, right?



My pros:

• lots of manual controls
• exposure compensation has its own dial
• wide angle (28mm equivalent)
• IS works great
• feels good in my hand
• macro mode and virtual ND filter work great
• wonderful screen
• captures amazing detail in good light
• hotshoe; works great with 430EX II flash
  

My cons:

• noise is irritating starting at ISO 400
• lens isn't fast enough
• can't assign "format card" to a shortcut
• useless viewfinder
  

I'll pass on the G10, but you could do a whole lot worse if it were your only camera. It's far and away the best compact I've ever used.

Canon 50D

I had a 50D at home tonight — it goes back tomorrow, so there's no time to test everything. I decided to screw around and take a bunch of shots at ISO 6400. It actualy goes to ISO 12800, but those were useless. I was thinking maybe the 50D's ISO 6400 would look like my 40D's ISO 3200.

Well, not so much. I didn't see anything amazing. ISO 6400 isn't bad, though. The 40D's ISO 3200 edges it out, but not by much.

The 50D is nice, but not really worth an upgrade from the 40D. It has a very nice screen, good enough to actually determine if a shot is in focus or not. It has some new bells and whistles. Oh, and 15 megapixels. What that did for me was slow me down with huge files.

It feels and handles just like the 40D. One of my beloved user setup slots on the dial has been replaced with a new "Creative Auto" mode. Ugh. And the dial is a highly reflective aluminum color that I can see burning out someone's cornea on a sunny day.

I'd say go straight for the 50D if you're making the leap from 20D or 30D, but if you've got a 40D, keep it. Save up for the 5D markII or wait a year or two until the 60D comes out. The 50D is a wonderful camera, no doubt, but other than its great screen, there's nothing there tempting me to upgrade.

Here's one at ISO 6400 that came out better than most of the shots I snapped.

Serenity now

I always figured that if reincarnation turned out to be true, that I'd want to come back to life as a dog in my mother's house. But just as good would be a cat in my house.



The shot above was made with the SMC Super Takumar 55mm f/2 at f/2, ISO 3200. The one below is with the Canon 28-135mm IS at f/3.5, ISO 3200.

A time-lapse camera for your pet

Got an outdoor pet? Ever wonder where they go all day? Check out the Mr. Lee Catcam — it's a little camera that hangs from your kitty's collar, and you can configure it to take a picture at regular intervals throughout the day. What you end up with is a series of shots chronicling your cat's — or other roaming pet's — daily movements. Thanks to Eolake Stobblehouse for pointing this out in a recent entry.

The site has a great gallery of pics, following a day in the life of "Mr. Lee."

Cat guarding pigeons

As someone who takes a lot of cat pictures, I can appreciate this excellent example from an Israeli photographer.

More to come later today; still basking in the post-election glow. I tell you, it's better than the post-election turd sandwich that has defined this century so far.