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November 30, 2006
[ REVIEW—CANON POWERSHOT G7 ]
Price: $900
Perplexing
The low-down: The Canon G7 is a 10 megapixel compact camera with optical viewfinder. It is the latest model in Canon’s top-of-the-line G series of compact cameras. The G7 has a 6x zoom lens with optical image stabilisation. The focal length range is 35 to 210mm, film equivalent.
The styling is retro and it looks and feels like a real camera. It will function as a fully automatic point and shoot, but that is not its intended purpose. There is a full suite of manual controls, most of which are directly accessible -- such as the ISO speed which is set using an old-fashioned knob. Other settings are quickly accessible using the well-known (and liked) Canon Function button.
The optical viewfinder is good, showing about 80 per cent of the picture area, and the LCD screen is a 60mm, bright and high resolution viewer. It is not articulated, unfortunately. There is an external flash shoe and a bayonet mount for optional extension lenses.
Like this: This camera will appeal to photographers who remember the days when a camera was not a fashion accessory. It is solid, black and weighty. It is too large for most pockets but will fit into a winter jacket.
Dislike that: Let’s put it this way -- should a happy owner of a Canon G6 think of “upgrading” to a G7? The answer is no. Look at the price. The G7 is $200 cheaper than the G6. The price reduction has been achieved by leaving out RAW processing, an infrared remote control, articulated LCD screen and a fast lens. The G7 lens is a 6x zoom compared with the 3x of the G6 and the G7 has 3 million more pixels and neither of those changes to specifications can be called an advance.
Using the camera at ISO400 and over, picture noise is always evident (it goes up to ISO1600 which produces images that are a joke). The noise can produce an awful effect in prints of subjects that have light shadow areas -- the noise obliterates the detail.
Verdict: This camera is a joy to use, except for the absence of the swivelling LCD screen which is incredibly useful. But the images are disappointing. The pixel madness has Canon in its grip -- this is the second camera from the company that has disappointed by its excess pixel-induced image degradation. And to think that nine months ago Canon announced that the pixel race was over.
Posted by terry at 11:02 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
[ BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST ]
TIMES ARE TOUGH for the specialist photo-lab shops. Film sales are down. Developing and printing of films is a dying business. Camera sales are being depressed by competition from electrical goods retailers.
Some of the more enterprising operators of D and P shops are fighting back by offering new services that involve a high degree of customisation.
Extra large custom prints made on wide format inkjet printers is one on-site service that the smaller operators can profitably offer. Where formerly the usual way of getting a poster print, 50cm by 75cm, was to send off a negative to an outside processor to make a silver halide print, these days the print is made from a digital file on site using inkjet technology.
The wide format printers take paper in rolls which means the width of the print is limited but the length can be just about anything up to the standard length of the paper. The limiting factor is the amount of information in the digital image file.
Andy Wu, manager of the Kodak Express shop in the Forest Hill shopping centre, has installed a wide format Epson printer that uses paper in 60cm wide rolls. He can make prints up to 3m long, provided that source image file is good enough.
As a rough guide a 6 megapixel TIF or JPEG is needed to produce a 40cm by 60cm print. Beyond that size it takes 8 megapixels for 50 by 75 and 10mp for 60 by 90. There is some flexibility in this formula and it is possible to make acceptable prints from files with fewer pixels if the overall quality of the image is good with perfect exposure, focus and colour.
Andy Wu charges $70 for a 60 by 90cm print made on paper with a pearl finish that he calls matte.
He also offers a print-on-canvas service on the Epson printer that produces prints that look like paintings. The canvas print is stretched on a frame so that it likes like the genuine Rembrandt. This service is more expensive than the paper print -- around $125 for a 40cm by 50cm mounted piece ready for framing. Imaging thinks they look a bit chintzy but a professional photographer pal says: “Mothers love ‘em!”
If you prefer the traditional silver halide print there are places that still produce them. Nuprints has a service for amateur photographers that will produce poster prints from digital files. A 50cm by 75cm print on photographic paper costs $35.
Customers can deliver picture files on CD to the plant in Braeside or do the whole business by post.
For prints of this size the lab needs JPG or TIF files with a resolution of 300dpi and already prepared to the output size of 6000 by 9000 pixels. Images can be enlarged in Photoshop using the program’s scaling or by using programs such as Fred Miranda’s Stair Interpolation plug-in or Genuine Fractals.
Preparing the image with correct colour, brightness and contrast is the responsibility of the customer and it is possible that what you see on your monitor is not what Nuprints will reproduce because of different colour profiles on the two devices. Nuprints will provide a profile for use in Photoshop on request to help match your monitor with their printer.
Think big!
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Posted by terry at 10:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 22, 2006
[ THE RED EYE SPECIAL ]
"STREWTH!" SAID THE PAL. “Was I standing near a nuclear explosion when you took that?”
He is looking at a photograph of himself taken with a compact digital camera using the built-in flash. He has werewolf eyes, a startled look and plastic skin. It’s a typical on-board flash picture.
Camera makers know that the powerful electronic flash mounted close to the lens will produce red eye in the subject so they try to counter it with various strategies. Some cameras fire a pre-flash flash to cause the subject’s irises to close down, minimising the effect. It usually makes the subject blink.
Red-eye is caused by light reflecting off the retina, which is rich in blood. The retina is not normally visible, but with a flash the light reflects off it and bounces back into the lens and it becomes visible in the photo.
There are software fixes for red eye in most editing programs which work a little better than in-camera solutions. But obviously it would be better to avoid the nuclear explosion look altogether.
First word of advice: turn off the flash. It will always be on by default if the camera is set to Auto and left there. In Auto mode the camera will calculate the ISO speed, shutter speed and aperture and will fire the flash if it is needed. Cameras are worry warts and can be counted on to fire the flash even in ambient light that is adequate for photography.
When there is a P option on the mode dial that is the one to choose. It will still calculate the aperture/shutter speed automatically but in P the flash can be turned off and the ISO speed selected by the user.
On-board flash should only ever be used as a last resort. It is always better to crank up the ISO setting to 400 or 800 and use the available light. Doing this will increase the picture noise (grain) and will involve some manual white balance adjustment, but it is worth doing.
Cameras with image stabilisation can be used without flash in dim light without too much fear of blur from camera shake.
Most cameras have user-selectable white balance adjustments. By default they are set to Auto which leaves the camera to work out the colour of the light and make the necessary compensation. This hardly ever works under artificial light. It is better to manually set the camera for incandescent or fluorescent light.
Most compact cameras do not have external flash shoes with synchronisation contacts. Better quality cameras do have flash shoes and that is a desirable feature. It means buying an external flash but they are more versatile than the on-board type. For one thing they sit well above the lens and this separation reduces the incidence of red eye.
Separate flash guns almost always have tilting heads that can be pointed up at a white ceiling or sideways at a wall from which the light is bounced, giving a soft, natural diffused light. Be aware that coloured ceilings and walls will put a colour cast on photos taken with bounce flash.
In the end a compact camera with built in flash doesn’t allow many options but at least it can be set to P and the flash set to off, only to be used in emergencies.
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Posted by terry at 11:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
[ REVIEW—EPSON Picturemate 250 printer ]
Price: $330
Highly Recommended
The low-down: The Epson PM250 printer is a dedicated postcard (10cm by 15cm) portable printer. It is intended as a stand-alone printer for use without a computer and it has both a carry handle and optional battery to enhance its portability.
The printer has both Pictbridge for direct connection to a camera and slots for every type of memory card. There is also a USB socket for computer connection and provision for Bluetooth file transmission.
To keep the operation really simple the ink and paper come in a “picture pack” which includes 150 sheets of paper and a single ink cartridge containing all the colours (rrp $42.50).
There is a small LCD screen through which photos can be selected and marked for printing and which provides for some rudimentary quality adjustments.
Print speed is not fast but is acceptable.
Like this: The image quality from this tiny printer is exemplary. Resolution is of the highest order. Colour is faithful to the original. Output is consistently excellent and comparable with the very best photolab prints.
Dislike that: To claim that this printer will eliminate the computer from the photo processing chain is to claim too much. It is true that a perfectly exposed image with correct colour balance will print well straight from the camera or memory card, but less than perfect pictures will not give satisfaction. The tiny LCD screen which is used for navigation and image correction is totally inadequate for the job.
Parting shot: We fell in love with this little printer. There is no need for Epson to claim more for it than it can deliver. It should be connected to a computer to get the best out of it -- and its best is very good indeed.
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Posted by terry at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ ONE STUNNING CANON 30D CLOSEUP ]
ANYONE WANTING TO KNOW what you can do with one Canon 30D and one Canon EF-S 17~85 IS USM lens take a look at this close-up by Melbourne photographer Arthur Woods.
[Click on the picture for a full-sized image — 902kb]
Arthur writes:
"I took several shots [as one must] including with a macro lens, which seemed the best option for capturing the little chap. But although good in parts they lacked sufficient depth of field to focus on the body and wings together.
"The shots with the EF-S 17~85 lens were not so close up but the 8 megapixel image allowed me to crop the photo and have plenty of information left [at least for one used to using 2.1 megapixels] Best of all the depth of field was much better for capturing the wings and body.
"I have read photographers critical of photos cropped rather than framed at time of capture but it certainly solves the problem of focus without having to resort to ring flash and stopping down to a small aperture. I suspect use of flash is more likely to frighten the insect away preventing a subsequent attempt at image capture. Whatever that is how it was taken."
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Posted by terry at 11:18 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 16, 2006
[ SHOW YOUR TRUE COLOURS ]
IN THE COMPLEX WORLD OF MODERN CONSUMER electronics one way of simplifying the operation of gadgets is either to trust the manufacturer or to develop a simple routine and stick to it.
dpexpert believes that microwave ovens should be set at 2 minutes on high for everything and if the results are too hot, just let it cool. And if they are too cold then nuke it again. It seems to work.
However, when it comes to really important gadgets, such as cameras, computers and monitors we always assume that the maker does not see eye to eye with us on critical parameters.
We have never yet met a computer monitor or television receiver that was correctly adjusted straight out of the box. They are always delivered with brightness and contrast set too high. LCD screens are usually more maladjusted than CRT monitors.
When we last wrote on this subject a professional photographer told us that the first thing he does when he takes his new Apple monitors from the box is to turn the brightness down 50 per cent.
At that time we recommended the Pantone ColorPlus monitor calibration device which had a retail price of $240 -- more than most people pay for a monitor. Most readers would dismiss the recommendation to buy the Pantone unit as an expensive counsel of perfection.
If you have Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements installed then you already have a free monitor calibrator on your system. Just go to Start/Control Panel/Adobe Gamma and follow the Wizard steps. It works, but the adjustments are based on the user making some difficult subjective judgements about the appearance of generated tones on the screen. You also need some arcane monitor specifications on hand that you won’t easily find. Do you know the phosphor type in your monitor?
What is needed is an automated process controlled by the computer itself. Such devices were ruinously expensive but now they have become more affordable.
The Pantone people have produced the Huey Colour Correction device that is cheaper ($200 rrp -- the street price is considerable less) than the ColorPlus Spyder but does the same thing.
Plug the colorimeter (Pantone’s term) into a USB port, run the software and follow the on-screen instructions. Nothing could be simpler.
The instructions are sparse but we decided to reduce the ambient light to the dimmest possible and then let the device read the low level room light. When the adjustment process was complete we returned the ambient light to normal and let the device read it again and automatically make the adjustment for the brighter environment.
When we clicked on the before and after image to see the effect of the adjustment we were appalled. How could we have let the monitor drift away from true colour for so long? We know that we should readjust every couple of weeks but we had left it for three months.
Once the adjustment is done with Huey a colour profile for the monitor is generated and saved and will be recalled every time the computer is turned on.
These days when we share photos via the internet we really need to have confidence in the fact that everyone is seeing the same picture. Sadly we are not. And colour correction, like charity, has to begin at home.
[Our Huey test unit came from AIM Digital Imaging, Station Street, Box Hill]
Posted by terry at 07:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ REVIEW—NOKIA N73 telephone camera ]
Price: $750
Highly recommended
The low-down: The Nokia N73 is a 3G enabled mobile phone incorporating a 3.2 megapixel camera with an auto-focus Zeiss lens.
Before the current generation of high-end phones the inbuilt cameras have made do with fixed focus wide angle lenses and focussing has been a hit and miss affair. New cameras, such as this Nokia and the competing Sony Ericsson K800i, have true autofocus lenses. The improvement in image quality is noticeable.
The N73 has a sliding cover over the lens and flash. Opening the cover turns on the camera. The flash is virtually useless.
Like: Images are sharp and generally well exposed.
Dislike: The colour balance and dynamic range are not as good as on the Sony Ericsson K800i which is still the standard setter in this price range.
Verdict: The interesting feature of this device is that it is being marketed as a camera with a phone built in rather than the other way round. The selling line is “Snap, share and swing with style on your new Nokia N73.” And open up the user’s manual and on page one the first words are: “The imaging power of a digital camera.” The text that follows is all about the camera and mp3 player and nothing about the phone.
Which raises the question: can a phone camera replace a normal camera? At 3.2 megapixels the resolution is as good as some well-regarded cameras of three years ago. What this camera misses out on is a zoom lens of reasonable focal length. The little Zeiss lens is very wide angle which makes for amusing but unflattering portraits. On the other hand the fact that the phone camera is always to hand is enticing.
A couple of weeks ago Mr and Mrs dpexpert were buying a dress for a distant grand daughter. We took phone photos of a couple of dresses in the shop, telephoned them to the mother and got her choice back in a couple of minutes. “Heavens to Betsy,” we said. “What sort of a world are we living in?”
Bottom line: we like the Nokia but we have a slight preference for the image quality of the Sony Ericsson.
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Posted by terry at 07:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 09, 2006
[ REVIEW—LEXMARK P350 printer ]
Price: $180
Recommended
The low-down: The Lexmark P350 printer is a dedicated standard size (15cm by 10cm) colour printer.
There are slots on the printer for every type of memory card and also a socket for a USB memory stick. There is also the usual Pictbridge connection. It also connects to a computer via USB cable but the P350 is marketed as a stand-alone printer that will do the job without a PC.
It is small, nicely styled and has a lift up handle for easy transport. There is a pop up LCD screen to facilitate simple editing and controls.
The special feature of this new printer is that it uses Lexmark’s pigment inks (rather than the more common dye inks) that are claimed to resist fading for up to 200 years in ideal storage conditions -- that is in the dark!
Like: The P350 looks good and it comes with a remarkably comprehensive printed manual. (The supplied manual is in draft form and we are assuming that this is how the finished book will appear.) The promised long print life is a desirable feature of any printer.
Dislike: We printed via the computer and found that there was some graininess in the prints, particularly in open shadow areas. We also found that colour was not well-matched on the PC and the printer -- this is an issue that can be fixed with fiddling of the system but we have found with other printers that there has been better correspondence of screen and print colour.
Verdict: The Lexmark P350 produces sharp, punchy -- perhaps over-saturated -- prints in a reasonable time. It takes about 75 seconds to produce a print which is a bit slow by the best standards. Contrast is a little high.
For anyone looking for an inexpensive printer that will produce decent output without having to come to grips with the mysteries of Photoshop the P350 is worth a look.
Posted by terry at 12:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
[ A NEEDLE IN A DIGITAL HAYSTACK ]
IMAGING'S TRUSTY NIKON clicked over its 10,000 exposure last month. That’s a lot of pictures to have stored in the digital shoe box. Plus the thousands of pictures taken with test cameras and the pictures scanned from old negatives and slides.
So, when we needed the picture of an emu taken at the Zoo a couple of years ago we had no idea where to look. We couldn’t search by file name because it would be something like DSC_1045.jpg. We couldn’t search by date because we couldn’t remember when the picture was taken.
Time to face the facts. We lack the congenital obsession with tidiness that we ought to have if we are going to take so many pictures. They need to be ordered, catalogued and tagged to make searching as easy as typing in the identifying keyword that will bring up all the instances of “emu” on our two internal hard drives, one external drive and dozens of backup CDs and DVDs.
It was obvious that the time had come to grit the teeth, crank up Picasa 2 and make it do its stuff.
Picasa 2 promises that you will “Find and enjoy the pictures on your computer in seconds”. Which, of course, we always knew it would. We didn’t need to be told what it did -- we just couldn’t face the tedium of the initial file tagging.
Picasa 2 is quick. It only takes a few minutes to scan all the hard drives attached to the computer and to display all the jpg, tif, bmp files and even most RAW file formats as well. So there you see the picture thumbnails for all the images on the system.
Except for files on removable storage, such as CDs and DVDs. Picasa is quite explicit about this -- it only works on hard drives.
With Picasa you start at the top -- the most recent pictures in the newest folders -- and work your way down in chronological order. It can be a bit of a revelation. We had no idea that we had so many duplicate folders with so many redundant pictures, so we not only created order out of chaos we also freed up a few gigabytes of disc space.
Files are tagged with “keywords”. Click on any thumbnail and press Control-K and the tagging dialogue box comes up. Type in the tag Picasa starts to create an index. Select several files of the same type and they can all be tagged with one entry.
However, Picasa presumes to guess what the tag should be before you finish typing. We have a lot of pictures of lorikeets but when you type “l” into the box for some reason Picasa thinks you mean “leather”.
But that’s not the worst of it. We have a Pat in our family of whom we have taken many photos. Type in Pat and Picasa says: “Oh, you mean patina.” So every time you type Pat you then have to delete “ina”. Who thought of this? And where is the word list located so that we can edit it?
We now have our photos tagged, indexed, catalogued and easy to search but we never did find the emu. We’ll have to go back to the Zoo.
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Posted by terry at 12:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 04, 2006
[ A KONICA MINOLTA Z5 in Italy
BARBARA MATHESON has been travelling in Italy in October 2006 with her trusty KONICA MINOLTA Z5 and has returned with stunning photographs
This is Barbara's third Gallery on dpexpert. You can view the previous two here and here.
[Click on the image to go to the Gallery ]
Posted by terry at 11:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 02, 2006
[ REVIEW—CANON IXUS 900ti
Price: $800
Recommended
The low-down: The Canon Ixus 900ti is a 10 megapixel camera with a 37–111mm (film equivalent) zoom lens.
Canon puts a heavy emphasis on style with this camera. The “ti” in the designation stands for titanium and the advertising boasts: “This stunning camera is a must for those who demand the ultimate in performance and style.” Another camera as fashion accessory -- something we can do without and something that has not been in the Canon catalogue before.
This is an expensive point and shoot camera with some manual controls and a few gimmicks, such as “face detection” and “aquarium mode”. Focus and exposure are best rated as OK. The dynamic range is very narrow with highlights blowing out and shadows darkening in high contrast light.
Like: The camera has an optical viewfinder and it certainly looks pretty.
Dislike: We miss having a discrete review button. Having to toggle backwards and forwards between review and camera mode via a tiny wheel is a pain.
Verdict: The price of the Canon Ixus 800is (image stabilised), which we highly recommended, has dropped to $650. It is a much better camera than this more expensive 900ti. We haven’t tried the 7 megapixel IXUS 850is, but judging from the performance of the 800 we would expect it to be good.
Earlier this year Canon announced boldly that it was opting out of the pixel race. From now on there would be no big increases in pixel count because the company intended to concentrate on getting the best image from fewer pixels. Very sensible. There is no point in increasing the apparent resolution by adding pixels if you are going to throw it away with increased picture noise. So why has the company made a camera with a tiny sensor carrying 10 million pixels?
Consider this. The Ixus 900ti sensor is 7.18 by 5.32mm. The Canon 400D has the same number of pixels on an area of 22 by 14.8mm. The Canon 5D with a full 35mm frame sensor area only has 12 million pixels. 10 megapixels on an area smaller than your little thumbnail is a self-defeating gimmick.
This camera is recommended for buyers who crave style and the biggest numbers. Everyone else should consider the lovely Ixus 800is or 850is.
Posted by terry at 03:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[ DUMBING DOWN & SMARTING UP ]
IMAGINE YOU ARE A SOFTWARE AUTHOR and the challenge is to create software that will keep everyone happy -- the dead-serious pro wanting the whole kit of bells and whistles on the one hand and the dabbling amateur who dreads a steep learning curve on the other. Is it possible to keep both ends of the user spectrum happy?
Adobe, with the latest release of Photoshop Elements version 5, comes pretty close to achieving the goal of creating an application that is smart enough for the pros and dumb enough for the computer-shy at the same time.
Previous versions of Photoshop Elements have favoured the end of the customer spectrum that wants maximum automation and the shallowest learning curve possible. Serious users of big Photoshop have tended to look with scorn on Elements because of its high level of automation, poor provision of user controls and missing features.
Not any more. Elements 5 preserves, and in some cases enhances, just about every desirable feature of Photoshop CS2 at a fraction of the price. Adobe have created an application with a dual personality. Users choose whether to open a photo in Full Edit mode or Quick Fix mode.
Full Edit brings up the complete box of editing tools -- virtually everything that is in Photoshop CS2 including the incredibly useful Healing Brush. Quick Fix, on the other hand, displays a palette of sliders for adjusting contrast, colour saturation, sharpening and for removing red eye with an Auto option for each of these controls.
Elements 5 comes with a reasonably comprehensive user’s manual but there is a lot more information in the Help files than in the book.
Elements now comes with Curves for making tonal adjustments. It doesn’t work in the same way as CS2 where clicking on the curves line creates a node that can be dragged backwards and forwards. In Elements the system is made a little easier by the use of sliders that reshape the Curve as they are moved.
If you have a photo of a cathedral taken from the ground looking up and you are offended by the converging verticals and would like to make the edges of the building parallel then Elements has a new trick up its sleeve. Simply click on Filter/Correct Camera Distortion and move the slider backwards and forwards until the walls straighten up. There is also an easy correction for pin cushion and barrel distortion which are easier to use than the similar controls in CS2.
The new routine for converting colour images to black and white gives some control over the mix of greyscale renditions of the red, green and blue channels. There is a choice of styles for portrait, landscape, urban snapshots and infrared.
Elements 5 continues to include a Create function for making calendars, greeting cards, CD/DVD covers, slideshows and web galleries.
What is missing that CS2 users find essential? Actions! Actions are macro routines that can be recorded and applied with a single mouse click.
Photoshop Elements on its own costs $190, an absolute bargain. It is also sold bundled with the video editing program Premiere Elements 3 for $260 -- an even better bargain. Premiere Elements would not install on the Imaging computer because we are not sufficiently cutting edge. Photoshop Elements installed on our slug without a hitch.
Posted by terry at 03:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack