SANDISK ULTRA II SDHC PLUS CARD 8GB

SANDISK MICRO CARD 8GB WITH MOBILEMATE READER

Price: Plus Card $117 Micro and reader $107

What’ll they think of next!

The low-down: These are two clever variations on SD and Micro SD memory cards. The Micro card is a conventional memory medium for mobile phones and Sandisk’s MP3 players, but in this package it comes with a tiny card reader that plugs straight into a USB socket, obviating the need for the usual Micro SD adapter. With 8GB of space on the card this provides good memory expansion for mobile phones and players. The SDHC Plus card is even smarter – take it from the camera and it plugs directly into a USB port. The memory card is hinged, and it is opened out flat for insertion into the camera. Then, for file transfer to the PC, it is folded closed and the USB pins are exposed. In this configuration it plugs into the socket.

Like: There is evidence of brilliant lateral thinking in these memory cards. Most PCs and laptops these days have readily accessible USB ports, and now the camera or MP3 files can be transferred without cables of any sort.

Dislike: The hinge on the Plus card is small. This looks like the weak point in the design – but that is something that can only be tested with extended use. The price is high, compared, for example with the Ultra II SDHC card bundled with the Sandisk USB card reader. The conventional card with reader is about $20 less than the Plus.

Verdict: These two new forms of memory cards are clever adaptations of the standard SD and Micro SD media. We have been using the SD Plus card in a compact camera we are testing and we found it a boon to be able to whip the card from the camera and push it straight into the USB port on the front of the PC. The MobileMate Micro reader is a better way of transferring files than the standard SD card form adapater because it also plugs the Micro SD straight into the USB port. Very smart and highly recommended.

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Price: $600

Astonishing

The low-down: This is an 13.6 megapixel camera with a zoom range of 30mm to 105mm, film equivalent. Body construction is superb – titanium coated stainless steel, according to the specifications. Operation can be either fully automatic or with full user control. Some functions – exposure compensation, for instance – are accessible only through the menu, which seems to be common with the Sonys. The Menu system is clear and elegant and provides good supplementary information about settings. There is optical image stabilisation built into the lens. There is face detection. The inclusion of an optical viewfinder is a boon because the LCD review screen, which is large (6.7cm) with excellent clarity and resolution, is impossible to use in bright light. Sony’s Memory Stick is the storage medium.

Like: The picture quality is very good, with fine resolution and colour rendition. The absence of noise and noise reduction artefacts comes as a shock. Even in open shadows, where noise is at its most obvious, the W300 images are clean. Exposures are accurate and focus is fast and pin sharp.

Dislike: There is no printed instruction manual, only a pamphlet that doesn’t even tell the user how to change the ISO setting or exposure compensation. And Sony’s Memory Sticks are expensive and fiddly to read in a PC card reader.

Verdict: It is a truth universally acknowledged that as the pixel density increases on a sensor so the noise goes up, ruining images with ugly grain-like spots. So why doesn’t a camera with an absurdly high pixel density produce awful pictures? We have taken photos of plain skies and there is no mottling. We have taken portraits and there is no noise in the shadows alongside noses and under eyes. We have photographed old cars with shiny, brightly coloured bodies and there is no fudging of detail. At 100 per cent enlargement there is some evidence of noise reduction blurring of fine detail, but it is so well done that it is comparable with the best after-camera noise reduction software. OK, let’s go out on a limb here – this is the best compact that we have tested. The Sony W series has always been good, but this one is amazing.

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TODAY WE TACKLE A SERIOUS DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY ISSUE – why do the entire family look as though they are suffering from terrible jaundice in the Christmas photos? Here they are, sitting around the groaning festive board, funny hats askew and the pudding on fire and their faces are beyond ruddy. They are yellow, tending to orange.

But then, in the photos taken later in the afternoon of Uncle Cyril snoozing on the back veranda, he looks like a hypothermia victim. What is going on?

Well, it’s called white balance. Or colour temperature. And digital cameras, left to their own devices, are not as good at detecting and correcting colour temperature shifts as our eyes are. We don’t notice the orange cast from tungsten light and we automatically correct for the blue cast in shadows.

All digital cameras, straight from the box, are set to automatically correct white balance, but it doesn’t always work well. For this reason cameras have manually selected white balance settings from which the user can choose. Choosing the tungsten or shade setting will usually give a better colour accuracy in those situations. But better yet is to set the white balance manually.

This is impractical for spontaneous photography, but what we are considering here is the situation where time and the immobility of the subject are on your side. We ran some tests using different techniques and gadgets for setting the colour temperature, using a still life setup lit with sunlight through a window and two halogen flood lights with a decidedly yellow bias.

First we let the camera decide, using the Auto white balance. The result was awful. The yellow cast was dark and dirty and very difficult to correct in Photoshop.

Next we used white balance bracketing in the camera. This method involves taking one shot and letting the camera generate three saved images – one corrected to magenta on the magenta/amber axis, one corrected towards amber and the third at what the camera reckons is correct. The results were poor. There were not enough variations along the m/a axis.

Then we tried a nine set bracket, which can only be done in a few cameras, and the Nikon D300 is one of them. From nine variations we found one that was acceptable.

Then we turned to manually setting the white balance. First we used a White Balance Lens cap, which is a disc of translucent white plastic. On the camera white balance selection scale you select Preset or Manual and, following the instructions in the camera manual, you point the camera at the lit subject and take a non-photo which is used for calibration. We bought our lens caps for three different lenses from Hong Kong for a few dollars each.

Results with the lens cap method were good, with a slight tendency to blue. It was the best result so far, but not perfect.

Then we used a Lastolite flexible “card”, printed 18 per cent grey on one side and white on the other (about $28) to preset white balance. Using the grey side as the target we got the best results. The image using the grey card (simple ones can be bought for as little as $3) needed no post camera colour correction.

We recommend the lens cap for convenience and the grey card for accuracy.

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Price: $1100 with 14-42 and 40-150mm lenses

Impressive

The low-down: This 10 megapixel digital SLR is built around the four-thirds sensor used by Olympus and Panasonic/Leica. It is the smallest and probably the lightest DSLR on the market, but it is not flimsy. It has one of the best implementations of so-called live view, in which the LCD is used as a viewfinder. Auto focus works reasonably well in live view, which is unusual. The 6.7cm LCD screen has excellent resolution, It also serves as the camera function display and proved fast and intuitive in accessing settings. The viewfinder is cramped and not that bright. The in-built flash has good power and diffusion. And there is face recognition, a dubious first for an SLR. Burst mode is up to 3.5 frames per second.

Like: The picture quality is very good and the full feature list is truly impressive. Other makers tend to leave functions out in order to distance the entry level cameras from their posher units – Olympus doesn’t do that. The live view arrangement is almost refined. At least the auto focus works reasonably quickly, but it is not something we would use often.

Dislike: The aspect ratio of a Four Thirds sensor is 4:3. The aspect ratio of a standard or A4 photo print is 3:2. So composing in the viewfinder will be a hit and miss affair and pixels are thrown away.

Verdict: This camera has been created to make the transition from compact to DSLR as easy as possible. If you really like holding a camera at arm’s length (a ridiculous posture) to take photos rather than sensibly bracing it against your face then the E-420 lets you do it. Response in live view is not instantaneous and there are two clunks when the shutter is released, rather than one. Compact users in transition get face detection to make them feel at home. However, the fact is that we enjoyed using this camera. It doesn’t feel like an entry level unit. It does everything a $2000 camera does and it comes with excellent kit lenses. Very impressive.

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Price: $380

Outstanding

The low-down: This is an 8 megapixel camera with a zoom range of 30mm to 150mm, film equivalent. Body construction is rugged, with beautiful fit and finish. Operation can be either fully automatic or in program mode, which gives the user a degree of control. Some functions that ought to be on the camera body – exposure compensation and ISO speed, for instance – are accessible only through the menu. The Menu system is clear and elegant and provides good supplementary information about settings. The optical viewfinder is a little hard for spectacle wearers to use. The LCD review screen is large (6.7cm) with excellent clarity and resolution. The W150 can take photos in the native resolution for high definition TV sets. Unfortunately the HDMI connector, necessary for HD transfer, is an optional extra.

Like: The picture quality is good, with fine resolution and colour rendition. At ISO200 noise reduction is well judged, although there is some blurring of fine detail. The pictures are as clean as any we have seen from an 8 megapixel camera.

Dislike: There is no proper printed instruction manual, only a pamphlet that doesn’t even tell the user how to change the ISO setting or exposure compensation. If Ricoh, for example, can provide a 210 page printed manual then Sony should do no less. And we do not care for Sony’s Memory Sticks – they are too expensive and fiddly to read in a PC card reader.

Verdict: We are impressed. The black model that we had for testing is handsome. It has a high quality feel and appearance. The inclusion of an optical viewfinder is a plus, even if it is small and restricted in the coverage of image area. It has the usual gimmicks of face detection and the so-called “smile shutter” which serve no real purpose. We have yet to try the connection from camera to high definition television, but we expect to do that before the camera is returned. This display method promises to be spectacular, giving a whole new life to the family slide night. The Sony goes to the top of the list of recommendable compacts.

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You are no doubt familiar with the concept of teaching Granny to suck eggs. According to our Encyclopaedia of Word and Phrase Origins it means to offer advice to someone who already knew how to do it before you were born.

So when a photographer of our acquaintance told us that he was having trouble getting satisfactory exposures with his expensive DSLR it never occurred to us to draw his attention to the exposure compensation button, right there under his nose on the camera body. This man has experience, so we assumed that he knew the function of the button marked with the + and – symbols.

However, when we said: “Well, we find that we can usually correct under or over exposure pretty easily with the exposure compensation function”, he said: “What’s that?”

Every digital camera that we have tested has either a button marked with a plus and minus sign, or something similar is accessible in the top layer of the menus. It is the most useful control on a camera.

Pressing it brings up a linear scale on one of the LCD screens, usually graduated in 1/3 EV intervals. Moving a secondary control up or down, or left or right (it varies from camera to camera) exposure is adjusted in a nonce – quickly enough to get a second chance at the shot.

On SLRs the steps can be varied, sometimes between 1/3 EV and 2 EV. (EV means “exposure value” and is a combination of f stop and shutter speed, and increasing an exposure by 1 EV may mean opening the aperture by one f stop or halving the shutter speed.)

In the days of film we took pot luck with exposures and had no idea of how things would turn out until we had the photos back from processing. Now we have instant review of images and that gives us the on-the-spot opportunity to do it again. And again, if necessary, until we get it right.

There a catch with exposure compensation. Once it has been dialled in, on most cameras, it stays set until it is manually reset. You will be caught out on occasion when you pick up the camera to take a quick photo and find that it is too dark or too light because you haven’t reset compensation since the last use.

While talking of exposure compensation, the other useful feature built into many digital cameras is auto bracketing. Using this function the camera takes three or more exposures in rapid succession, usually one under exposed, one over exposed and one at what the camera calculates is correct exposure.

Some cameras, such as the Pentax K20D and the Nikon D300 do even better. The Pentax will take up to seven exposures in a set and the Nikon will do nine. When you have nine exposures, made at 1/3 EV intervals, you have to be really unlucky not to get one that is spot on. Even with three exposures you improve your chances of getting it right, especially in a situation where the light confuses the camera’s meter.

The number of exposures in a bracket and the intervals between them are set in the menu system. The camera is set to high speed burst mode, and the shutter button is held down until the specified number of shots is taken and the camera stops firing.

Price: $550

Good compact, great lens

The low-down: This is a 10 megapixel camera with a lens focal length range of 28mm to 200mm, film equivalent. Body construction is reasonably rugged, with most functions accessible from dedicated buttons or through the useful joystick. Pushing the joystick straight in gives immediate access to exposure compensation, ISO, white balance and a histogram. Functions are selected and adjusted by moving the joystick on its x and y axes. Very simple, intuitive and well thought-out. The 6.7 cm LCD, the only viewfinder, is reasonably bright and useable on overcast days. There are two programmable My Settings on the mode wheel, plus movie and automatic, which is more like P than full auto, and that’s a good thing.

Like: The picture quality is generally good, with fine resolution and colour rendition. The lens is excellent, particularly sharp at the wide end of the zoom with no discernible barrel distortion, which is impressive for a 28mm focal length optic. The camera is very responsive with fast auto focus and no trace of shutter lag. Macro mode is excellent.

Dislike: We are bound to mention image noise, although it is reduced well enough in the camera. There is some loss of fine detail, but it will not show up in small prints or on a monitor. Still, fewer pixels would be better. Auto white balance performs inconsistently.

Verdict: We subjected the Ricoh R8 to the tourist test – taking it around town snapping the sorts of things that any traveller might photograph in a foreign city. The results are consistently good, helped in no small part by the outstanding, distortion-free lens. There are plenty of noise reduction artefacts visible at full image size, so this is not a camera for making A3 prints or for severe cropping of the picture. On the other hand enlargement up to 5 by 7 cm will be better than acceptable. Camera House are selling a 25th anniversary edition of the R8 for $550.

Reveries–Photography and Mortality, has so far been seen at the National Portrait Gallery, the University Art Museum in Queensland and at the Mornington Regional Gallery. The photographs are mostly pretty grim. The images of dying and dead babies are particularly hard to take. And William Yang’s photographic journal of the decline and death from AIDS of his friend, Allan, are unnerving.

So, we might ask, why didn’t the prime minister and the leader of her majesty’s loyal opposition warn us that these pictures are revolting? If they find a photograph of a healthy adolescent revolting what must they make of these images of death?

While some of the photographs have appealing aesthetic qualities most are simply documentary, something that the camera does well. They are not art, any more than the snaps we take on holidays or at family occasions are art.

The best newspaper, magazine, pornographic and advertising photography is a technical triumph, but it holds little interest beyond the subject matter. A work of art, on the other hand, is something that is worth a space on the wall even when we have no idea what the story of the picture might be. It is a thing of beauty, shock or intrigue for its own sake. It is open to us to enter the work and make our own story – it’s called interpretation.

In the history of photography there have been many competent technicians but only a handful of artists whose work is created with the machinery of photography but originates in the mysterious imagination of the artist.

Bill Henson is an artist, not a technician. He has a recognisable style, just as van Gogh and Beethoven had recognisable styles. His style is consistent, no matter what the subject matter – a crumpled newspaper on the ground, two ships coming into port, a twilight streetscape or a naked adolescent. To take the last subject out of the totality of the Henson vision and to declare it “creepy” or “revolting” is to do the artist an injustice. Have a look at his work, with his portraits in context.

The New Yorker magazine compares Henson’s work to “Flemish still lifes” in their depiction of “battered landscapes and fragile, wispy youths”.

Henson’s work is chilly and austere. It is also daring in its resistance to the sharper-is-better tyranny that has most of us under its sway. His pictures have a wintry, misty beauty that is the antithesis of pornography, which is warm, voluptuous and pin sharp. Only the most dirty minded self-appointed guardians of our morals would see any similarity of intent or style between Henson and Penthouse.

Mind you, Bill Henson’s work is profoundly depressing for the average amateur snapper with pretensions to being a “photographer”. Stand in front of one of his massive prints, produced with old-fashioned wet-process chemicals, and you know you could never match it. You could imitate his style easily, even with digital, but imitation is merely the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius.

*

Price: $1100

Sad camera, magnificent pictures

The low-down: This is a unique compact camera – it has a large sensor straight from the Sigma DSLR. The sensor, of the Foveon type, is only used by Sigma and Polaroid. (For a technical description see the Wikipedia entry: tinyurl.com/tqlyj) The camera has a retro look with very few user controls accessible from buttons on the body. The fixed focal length 28mm (film equivalent) lens can be focussed automatically or from a wheel on the camera body. The fixed wide angle lens rules out frame-filling portraits and the digital zoom is best left alone. There is no macro setting. The optical viewfinder shown in the illustration is a $190 option. The LCD is 6.4cm and performs poorly in sunlight and dim lighting, where it turns monochrome.

Like: The picture quality is without peer amongst compact cameras. The larger sensor produces images comparable with those from DSLRs. Superb sharpness, resolution, dynamic range and colour in RAW at low ISO speeds. The lens is excellent.

Dislike: The need to plunge into the menu system for every control other than exposure compensation is a pain. But the worst feature of this camera is the time that it takes to write an image to the memory card. From pressing the shutter to finished write is 15 seconds, and for that time the camera is locked. 15 seconds doesn’t sound much until you find yourself itching to take a second photo immediately, as you can with most cameras.

Verdict: The Sigma DP1 is not a pleasant camera to use. In many ways it feels like a throw-back to the bad old days when compacts were in their infancy. Responsive is not a word you would use for this unit. But then, just as you are ready to throw the camera away you see the picture and you love it. RAW files have astonishing latitude for post camera processing and the included software does a good job of turning RAW into TIFF or JPEG files. And if the Sigma DP2, when it comes, fixes the user-hostile problems it will be a great camera. Recommended for sunlit landscapes and architecture, not for portraits and social snaps.

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Price: $1650, with 18-55 and 55-250 lenses

Competent entry level SLR with so-so lenses

The low-down: This 12 megapixel camera is Canon’s cheapest DSLR. We tried the twin lens kit with an 18-55 and a 55-250mm lens. Construction of camera and lenses uses much plastic material, so it is light but insubstantial. The LCD screen also serves as the function display. The LCD appears to be the same as that on the EOS 40D – large but low resolution. The viewfinder is a pentamirror, rather than a prism. It is reasonably bright. Ergonomics are OK but not comparable with the Nikon D60. However the Canon beats the Nikon on auto focus lens compatibility and it has auto bracketing. Continuous shooting speed is 3.5 shots per second. The menus are clear and elegant. Both the kit lenses have image stabilisation. Cost cutting shows in the plastic mounts and rough auto focus.

Like: The underlying picture quality from the camera is superb. There is a wide dynamic range and noise is not an issue. Even out of focus, underexposed backgrounds are noise free. Auto white balance is generally good, except under incasdescent lights. The flash is powerful and well diffused and the colour is excellent. Resolution of fine detail when using a decent lens is exceptionally good.

Dislike: Keep in mind that all of the above is praise for the camera body, not the lenses. The cheap kit lenses are not good enough for the body. When fitted with a good quality lens you see what the camera can really do.

Verdict: Once again an entry level DSLR is let down by its kit lenses. However we did take the camera to an outdoor wedding and used the 55-250 lens exclusively and the combination was better than competent. Focus is a little erratic and the image stabilisation isn’t very effective. But in the areas that mattered – keeping fine detail in white dresses and black suits – the output was exemplary. Fortunately at weddings the epitome of sharpness is not what’s wanted, rather a little softening of the fine details flatters the bride, and that’s what we got. The shutter is loud during the quiet bits of the service! We love the camera but would opt for the Enthusiast Kit at $2000 RRP.

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The Nikon Coolpix P60 shows just about the worst barrel distortion we have encountered in a compact camera

A PLAINTIVE PLEA COMES FROM READER N. He wants to know the meaning of arcane terms that pop up from time to time in these columns.

For instance, what is “barrel distortion”? He likes the sound of it, he says, but does not make clear whether he is attracted to its voluptuousness or its connection with ale on tap.

And barrel distortion hardly ever occurs on its own in the text. It is usually accompanied by its optical companion, “pin cushion distortion”. So, what are these twin evils of the cheap, mass produced lens? And some not-so-cheap lenses, too.

Wide angle lenses – that is any lens with a focal length shorter than 28mm in film terms – are almost always affected to a greater or lesser degree by barrel distortion. The name describes the phenomenon. At and near the edges of the image straight lines begin to bow outwards, producing a ludicrous effect when the subject is a building with straight vertical and horizontal lines, as most buildings have.

Pincushion distortion is the opposite effect. It usually shows up in zoom lenses at the longest focal length and it appears as inward bowing (concave, we might say) lines near the image edge.

With fixed focal length prime lenses neither of these distortions is a problem, although any very short focal length lens will have the effect, hence the generic term “fisheye” for prime lenses shorter than about 16mm. Zooms are a different kettle of fisheyes, particularly the cheap little zooms fitted to compact cameras. Furthermore, the longer the zoom range the more likely it is that distortion will be a problem.

We are often asked our opinion of the various 18–200mm lenses that are all the rage for DSLRs. It looks like an ideal walking-about lens, giving a film-equivalent range of 27–300mm. You could use it to shoot the Eiffel Tower from close-up and still be able to look into a lion’s eye on safari in the Serengeti. It looks too good to be true, and it is. These lenses not only cover an amazing focal length range, they are also cheap.

The Nikkor 18–200mm vibration reduction lens is one of the better examples. The German lens testing site, www.photozone.de says: “Extreme zooms tend to suffer from rather hefty distortions and the AF-S 18-200mm is no exception in this respect. In fact the amount of barrel distortions (4.1%) at 18mm broke a new negative record…” Pincushioning at the long end is also extreme.

Both barrel and pincushion can be corrected in Photoshop, under Filter/Distort/Lens Correction. There is a simple slider to straighten the lines near the edge.

And while we are in this function in Photoshop there is also a correcting tool for converging verticals. You know the problem, standing on street level, looking up at the Empire State building, and the picture is of a building leaning backwards and vanishing into a diminishing point. Photoshop will correct this distortion, but the end result might show some other slight aberrations near ground level.

Optical distortion is not a deal breaker when buying a camera or lens, but in our experience the more modest a zoom range – say 3x – the better the lens turns out to be.

*

Price: $500

More pixel madness

The low-down: This is 12 megapixel camera with image stabilisation and a 6x zoom lens (35–210mm film equivalent). There is face detection, which works about 10 per cent of the time. The swivelling LCD is a boon for low level, waist level and self portrait shots. The optical viewfinder is useful, but does not show all the captured image area. It is powered by four AA batteries and did well with standard alkalines. There is full user control, including aperture and shutter priority settings. Menus are clear and the various function control buttons are well laid out and logical. Supplementary wide angle and telephoto lenses can be fitted. The camera is larger than the average compact and is easier to hold than most, because of the bulge of the battery compartment.

Like: The flash is particularly good, with fine colour balance and pleasant diffusion. Red eye is not a problem. The movie mode is surprisingly useable, although the sound quality won’t win any academy awards. The camera is responsive with little noticeable shutter lag. Focus is quick and accurate. When conditions are ideal and the ISO setting is kept under 200 the results are pleasantly sharp and punchy, at least in the middle of the zoom range.

Dislike: Even at low ISO speeds image noise is a problem. 12 megapixel sensors in compact cameras are ridiculous. It is hard to know which is more objectionable, the noise (grain) or the attempts at noise reduction that blur fine detail.

Verdict: Once again we are dealing with what is basically a good camera, as far as design and build are concerned, with excellent features, like the optical viewfinder and the articulated LCD, which is let down by the image sensor. However, allowing for the pixel caveat, the Canon A650is can produce decent images that will take a small degree of enlargement and will look good on a monitor. Correctly exposed photos taken under even lighting – which includes the excellent flash – will satisfy most users. We would suggest that prospective buyers should look at the Canon Powershot A590is, which is $200 cheaper, with a less ambitious zoom, an 8 megapixel sensor and without the swivelling LCD.

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