Challenge: Show off how good you and your digicam are!

Asher Kelman · Apr 29, 2008

We tend to assume that the digicam is somehow less important in photography than the "professional" cameras. OTOH, the digicam has been used by war photographers such as the 2004 award winning Magnum Photographer Alex Majoli and accomplished artists such as Asya Schween in DPReview and her website, myownself.com.

The pixels are small but the noise reduction software solutions are maturing. There's more light collection per squaremm than mose "higher level" cameras. Still there's a lot of disdain to "serious" work with just these "lesser" cameras.

O.K. now what?

So let's showcase your very best digicam photographs. Tell us what you think about each of your pictures.

Succinct critique welcomed.

Asher

Cem_Usakligil · Apr 29, 2008

OK, I'll bite (LOL)

Hi Asher,

This is a good idea but shouldn't this thread be in the Digicams forum? Done

Nevertheless, I have bought a Canon G9 only a week ago. I haven't got much to show yet, but this following picture (which I have shown in the thread about the wayside flowers) is not bad at all. Minimal PP in PS for levels and some clarity in ACR. No noise reduction applied.

Cheers,

Cem

Diane Fields · Apr 29, 2008

I just made myself use my digicam on a short trip last week so have a lot of photos to process (editing in LR is done, but not processing), but I have this one from last Fall that I like quite a bit--for a digicam shot. Its taken with the G9, processed as mono in Lightroom

I'm not a car person but took my G9 along last Fall for fun. This is processed in a more 'illustrative' style--which works fine with digicam files I think.

BTW--I shoot totally in RAW

Diane

Mike Shimwell · Apr 29, 2008

A few from the GX100

Diane, how did you process the second shot?? Great look!

Here are an assorted few from my first few weeks with the GX. There are also a couple on the intro thread that I wasn't sure I should link (Asher?)

Oh yes, I failed to add copyright notices to these, but they all are my shots and will be updated in due course.

Mike

Charles L Webster · Apr 29, 2008

Door

When I went to Europe a couple of years ago, I took only my 3 MP Olympus digicam, because I wasn't shooting "seriously." None the less, many of the pictures turned out well, including this detail of a door at a brewery in Bavaria.

This picture won 3rd place in a recent local competition w/ over 300 entries.

Almost everything on that trip was shot at f/8 and ISO200l, but what the shutter speed was, I have no idea.

Andrew Stannard · Apr 30, 2008

A couple of my own digicam pictures. Both taken with a Fujifilm F810, bought (I think) in 2004. It's a 6Mp and feels really nice to use thanks to the metal body. Both these images were taken on a trip to Scotland.

The first is from the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor, looking down the valley of Glencoe. My friend in the picture actually has a canvas print of this image in his home at about 80cm across - to be honest I was amazed at how well it came out, although the canvas texture helps. The DoF offered by a digicam also helped in this shot - no worrying about hyperfocal distances and the like!

The 2nd is from half-way up Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis, and I have to confess I don't know exactly which mountains it is a picture of! In both cases the routes we were on required taking climbing equipment along, so weight was at a premium, making a digicam ideal.

Of the other images in this thread, Diane - I love your tree image. How big do you think this would print? I know the pixels on my own digicam aren't as 'good' as those in a DSLR, but I have still been suprised when I have printed some out large.

And Charles - I can see why this got placed in a competition. In my view strong composition wins out over 'which camera'. As people have said before, know one worries about what paintbrushes famous artists use.

Cheers,

Cem_Usakligil · Apr 30, 2008

Diane, Charles and Andrew: wow, wow and wow in that order!
I am deeply humbled

.

Cheers,

Cem

Wouter Brandsma · May 5, 2008

I use the Ricoh GX100 as my only camera.

Zijdvang - Ricoh GX100, f4.6, 1/640 sec, ISO 80, -0.3 EV

The Great Emptiness - Ricoh GX100, f5.2, 1/1000 sec, ISO 80, -0.3 EV

Ricoh GX100, f4.3, 1/1000 sec, ISO 100, -0.3 EV

Spring Ditch - Ricoh GX100, f4.1, 1/250 sec, ISO 200, 0.0 EV

Clayton Lofgren · May 5, 2008

I am not a big fan of black and white, but the first one would fit on my wall. Really well done in my view.

Jay Hoss · May 5, 2008

Two Lights and a camera

Here is a portrait done with a Nikon coolpix 950. Used two stage lights w/ gels and hand held the camera.

Here is some more....also taken with the Nikon Coolpix 950

Taken w/ Coolpix 950 w/ the fisheye attachment

Wouter Brandsma · May 6, 2008

Clayton Lofgren said:
I am not a big fan of black and white, but the first one would fit on my wall. Really well done in my view.

Thank you Clayton. That photograph is going to be my first money maker in photography.

Asher Kelman · May 7, 2008

Wouter Brandsma said:
I use the Ricoh GX100 as my only camera.

Zijdvang - Ricoh GX100, f4.6, 1/640 sec, ISO 80, -0.3 EV

Wouter,

I'm so pleased to see this quality from such a compact camera. Now I'd like to know how it prints and what you think of the highest ISO?

This is a thrill with a winding river, reflections and still the edges of the hands of man at the borders tell us where we really are.

Spring Ditch - Ricoh GX100, f4.1, 1/250 sec, ISO 200, 0.0 EV

In this last picture, is this a cut out or is this the same magnification as the other 3 photographs you have shared? I ask that because of the apparent grain in the OOF background. The grain is not unattractive.

Now I want to try this camera!

Asher

David A. Goldfarb · May 7, 2008

The only digicam I own is an old Nikon Coolpix 990 that lives mostly on a copy stand for digitizing documents--much quicker than a scanner--and occasionally photos for the web. I also use it for photographing things I want to sell on the internet, and sometimes to illustrate some technical thing for a forum post. When I first got it, I made some regular photographs with it, but I just didn't care for the look. Everything had too much DOF, and the shutter lag was maddening (but that's not a problem for copy work).

But, I got my parents a Nikon Coolpix S1 a while back (a shirt-pocket sized digicam with a big LCD screen and no viewfinder--5Mp if I remember correctly), and I made a few exposures with it when I visited them some months ago. Here's my favorite--

I forget how I did it exactly, since it's a camera I only used for about 15 minutes, but I hunted through the menus until it let me make a long exposure--probably 1/15 or 1/8 sec.

Wouter Brandsma · May 7, 2008

Thank you Asher, it is a very remarkable camera.

Asher Kelman said:
Wouter,

I'm so pleased to see this quality from such a compact camera. Now I'd like to know how it prints and what you think of the highest ISO?

I have only printed it to A4 and it was very crisp. Soon this will be printed to something like A2, but from others I understood it holds up really well.
The Ricoh cameras do seem to have a pleasant noise that appears as grain. I like the noise texture at ISO 200. I personally think it still works at ISO 400. ISO 800 and 1600 are just too noisy for me and too much details are lost. All photographs were originally made in RAW and processed without any noise reduction.

Asher Kelman said:
In this last picture, is this a cut out or is this the same magnification as the other 3 photographs you have shared? I ask that because of the apparent grain in the OOF background. The grain is not unattractive.

Now I want to try this camera!

Asher

The last picture was set at 50mm equivalent, but no cropping was applied. That grain is the reason I like ISO 200 a lot.

Here some more:

Highest pole - Ricoh GX100, f4.1, 1/570 sec, ISO 80, 0.0 EV

Prevailing Wind - Ricoh GX100, f3.5, 1/750 sec, ISO 200, +0.3 EV

O - Ricoh GX100, f4.9, 1/570 sec, ISO 200, -1.3 EV

Ken Tanaka · May 7, 2008

The title of this thread should be borrowed from Lance Armstrong's book: "It's Not About the Bike". There are some really terrific images here, all taken with relatively modest cameras.

I'll offer two images taken with my G9 for a current book project on construction imagery.

Iron Workers

Skywalkers

Asher Kelman · May 7, 2008

Ken,

These are awesome! When is the book coming out? It sound interesting. The first picture is so amazing once one realizes the impressive scale that makes heads into toys.

Asher

Ken Tanaka · May 7, 2008

Hey, glad you like them, Asher. A firm press date for this work has not yet been set but it's likely to be the first half of 2009.

Mike Shimwell · May 12, 2008

Asher Kelman said:
Wouter,

Now I want to try this camera!

Asher

Asher,

I am blessed with access to a couple of dslrs as well as the GX100 and over the last couple of months have taken far more pictures with the Ricoh than the canons. It continues to be a really freeing experience for me and I would recommend it like a shot. I posted some iso comparisons a couple of weeks ago in the new members section.

Mike

Jeff Donovan · May 13, 2008

I took this shot off the cuff last Sunday with my Canon Powershot A540. Auto everything, set to macro mode. It's pretty significantly cropped as well.

And here are two photos I took with an Kodak 4mp camera on my honeymoon. The shots of the Duomo were where I reached the limits of the camera and got seriously interested in photography again.

Richard John Rangel · Aug 11, 2008

Things I was able to do with my Olmpus FE-210

And it's a battery-hungry one...
Not a lot of settings were done, photos were taken as is without any further settings,

Jeff Donovan · Aug 11, 2008

Looks like my honeymoon photos from above did not show up (or I forgot to add the links) so here they are. All our honeymoon photos were taken with a 4MP Kodak that is still getting heavy use today. I gave it to a friend who absolutely loves it and still uses it quite a bit.

The first is the staircase you walk down to leave the Vatican Museum. Overexposed a bit on the right, but I like it nonetheless.

This is of the front side of the cathedral in Florence (the Duomo)

There are any number of others I could add, that Kodak took pretty good pictures.

Asher Kelman · Aug 11, 2008

Am I the only one who can't see these 2 images?

Asher

Bart_van_der_Wolf · Aug 12, 2008

Asher Kelman said:
Am I the only one who can't see these 2 images?

Nope, me neither

Bart

Jeff Donovan · Aug 12, 2008

Very strange. I can see them fine, and I just posted some pictures on the Nikon forum that are hosted at Smugmug with no problems (two posters commented on them.)

OK, so I moved them over to Flickr. If they don't work this time I'll email them to Asher.

Bart_van_der_Wolf · Aug 12, 2008

Jeff Donovan said:
Very strange. I can see them fine, and I just posted some pictures on the Nikon forum that are hosted at Smugmug with no problems (two posters commented on them.)

OK, so I moved them over to Flickr.

I can see them now, and I like what I see.

The viewpoints as chosen, offer an interesting perspective/angle. On the first image I would have preferred seeing a little bit more of the left railing structure as a natural boundary to prevent the eyes from wandering out of the image. At the right I would have preferred a bit less of the stairs, thus introducing a bit of asymmetry.

On the second image I like the symmetry which underlines the symmetry in the building structure, and the heads looking down on us mortals seem more intense.

Bart

Joe Thibodeau · Aug 14, 2008

that's a great photo of the duomo in florence ...

Jeff Donovan · Aug 16, 2008

Joe Thibodeau said:
that's a great photo of the duomo in florence ...

thanks Joe. I probably took two hundred pictures of it from varying angles. With that camera it was impossible to get a decent shot of the entire front, so I just walked around snapping closer shots while my wife shopped/ate lunch.

Rhys Sage · Aug 17, 2008

These are taken with my Nikon 995 back in 2003. I can hardly believe I have been using digital since 2000!

The 3mp digital cameras are horribly underrated yet are capable of 10x8 and 8.5x11 prints. Most people still only hang 10x8s on their walls. Sure - bigger is nicer but with limited space, most people have no need of bigger. I was very disappointed that camera companies decided to tell people they need ever more megapixels when they plainly don't.

Jeff Donovan · Sep 8, 2008

Rhys Sage said:
These are taken with my Nikon 995 back in 2003. I can hardly believe I have been using digital since 2000!

The 3mp digital cameras are horribly underrated yet are capable of 10x8 and 8.5x11 prints. Most people still only hang 10x8s on their walls. Sure - bigger is nicer but with limited space, most people have no need of bigger. I was very disappointed that camera companies decided to tell people they need ever more megapixels when they plainly don't.

I try to tell my friends that megapixels does not equal great pictures. I think in today's cameras six or seven megapixels is more than enough in a pocket cam.

Rhys Sage · Sep 9, 2008

Jeff Donovan said:
I try to tell my friends that megapixels does not equal great pictures. I think in today's cameras six or seven megapixels is more than enough in a pocket cam.

It's so true. Most people only want 6x4 prints. There was one lady I met and she only ever wanted 6x4 so I told her to stick with her 1.3mp camera.

Manufacturers are bad at upselling customers. I've seen those nonsensical charts on the wall as to how large you can print from using a particular number of megapixels. As far as I'm concerned, 2mp is fine for 10x8. 3 gives you more clearance. Believe it or not but I've seen charts that claim any photo taken with less than 6mp is only good for low-res email images!

Challenge: Show off how good you and your digicam are!

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