After a couple of weeks off we’ll be out again! Check the photo-calendar to confirm that yes, we’ll be going to the West Side Park in Greenwood, Indiana to start shooting Casey Monaghan in the leaves… I will finally be bringing along a lensbaby Composer in 3 mounts -4/3, Canon, and Nikon.
Next week we’re looking to hold a night shoot someplace creepy so we all can work on goosebumpy shots.
The Coolpix S1000pj is a very interesting point and shoot camera. Most of the attention during its launch goes to the unique built-in mini projector, but it is also a very well rounded camera with a great zoom range, a very intuitive interface, smooth automation and it produces excellent stills and video.
Most people who get a hold of this camera will probably first try the projector. I happened to be in a room with lots of daylight bouncing off white walls, but could still get a decent projection of about 13″ diagonal on a shadowy section the wall. In a room with dimmed light one can easily increase the projection size to a 30″ diagonal. The projected image is not as crisp as the same image viewed on an LCD screen or as print, but this will not be much of a detriment for the average action snapshot or video.
The 5x zoom lens (28-140mm equivalent) also does macro to an amazing 3cm (1.2″) and with the advertized 5 “advanced Nikon image stabilization features” one uses the full range without giving it much thought. As with many P&Ss, the zoom control tends to overshoot from wide angle to full tele and it takes practice and finesse to make it end up somewhere in the middle range.
The “intelligent automated shooting modes” select the best combination of apperture, ISO and shutter speed on the fly and it seemed to make the right decision in all environments where I tried it out.
The camera also has a “Smart portrait system with skin softening” which I neglected to test. The camera detects faces very rapidly and the skin softening should be a welcome piece of automation to all of us who have done portrait retouching. There is also a “smile timer”, “blink proof function” and the camera fixes red-eye in-camera. Pretty much every kind of retouching is now done in the camera. Who knows, maybe we will have “auto slimming” in a few years, where everybody is electronically slimmed down to an ideal Body Mass Index.
But, most importantly, this little camera gave very good results and also produced surprisingly low noise at higher ISO settings. This has always been a challenge for P&Ss with their tiny sensors and densely packed pixels, but during the last year the pixel race has finally slowed down and the attention to more important characteristics such as noise and dynamic range is beginning to produce results.
Nick and myself, the indomitable backbones of Roberts Raw as it were, are apparently both off tomorrow. As such, you won’t be receiving any of our wonderful wit, insight, or humor. But, never fear true believers! We will return Monday with two awesome conciliation posts.
We’ll have the podcast from this week, for those of you who like to hear Nick’s dulcet tones, and we’ll also have the second review from our partner Carel Struycken (you’ll have seen him in the movies, we promise), who reviewed Nikon’s Coolpix S1000pj. What did he have to say about it? Was he able to fit it comfortably within his almost-assuredly titanic hands? Well, all those questions and more will have to wait the weekend to be answered in his newest post, complete with photographs!
And, now that you are all a-titter, we must leave you, dear readers. We shall return, please do not forget us. Your page views are like the sound of sweet music, and we wouldn’t want to be without music.
Apparently this week’s earlier firmware update for the LX3 has been taken offline with a promise that an improved version will return later this month.
According to Panasonic UK:
“The download for the firmware update program to Ver.2.0 has been temporarily suspended, in order to make sure the reliability of the firmware, more specifically in case of the use of some newly added functions on Custom shooting mode. The download is expected to be available back again around the 20th Oct.
For the users who have already updated LX3 to Ver.2.0
The camera which has been already updated to Ver.2.0, can be used without any problem after the reset of the camera by selecting the [RESET] in Setup menu. Please note that all settings except the clock setting will be reset to the initial settings. To keep the current settings, please make sure to write down the settings on a note in advance to reset the settings.”
So, there you go. Looks like if you did upgrade, you can improve stability at the cost of some settings, which is sad but at least better than bricking. This has been a great camera, here’s to hoping the second shot at this firmware works out a bit better.
Well y’all, I just got back from getting my first Apple certification. Roberts is now not just an Apple dealer, but we’re also packing a certification in Aperture (Apple’s pro photo workflow and raw editor solution, makes sense given what we do here, yeah?).
I’m still getting my head around the 18 jillion keyboard shortcuts, and there seem to be as many niggles as there are godsends with the workflow, but, that’s the same with any program (don’t even get me started on the different behaviors of keyboard shortcuts in Adobe’s Creative Suite, for example).
We carry Apple because it’s good for photographers (well, artists in general), and now we’re just that much more committed to it. Jody’s a Mac user, Phil downstairs is a Mac nut, and now I join the fold with the Aperture certification. Go team!
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