One of the most illuminating features of Santa Fe, at Christmas, are the farolitos or lumminaries that are set up all over the town. Many of the buildings have electric versions of them but on Christmas Eve, the real paper bag and candle versions are set up all over the streets. Amanda and I enjoyed a very chilly evening stroll around the streets, lit by the little glowing lanterns.
I've been looking for information on getting an underwater housing for my Canon G10, to do some underwater photography. This site in the UK has a lot of good information.
Spent a few minutes last night trying out an external flash on the G10. I used it with the Canon ST-E2, triggering a 580EX speedlight, firing into a custom built light tent (or a big cardboard box with panels cut out of the side). The shot of the G10 is taken with the 1DII with the 100mm macro lens. The shot of the EOS-1 was handheld with the G10 in macro mode. (note the slight difference in aspect ratio between the two cameras)
I was quite impressed with the control available on the G10, in all manual mode. You can switch the flash into full manual too and control the power output directly from the camera. You can also use the standard flash through the lens metering (E-TTL) and adjust the flash power up and down using flash exposure compensation. In this fairly easy lighting scenario, it did really well and produced a great quality image, even handheld. I've heard good things about using the G10 in a studio and it balances quite well with the ST-E2. Certainly better than putting a speedlight directly on top of the G10, which would really unbalance things. The 580EX is slightly bigger than the G10 itself.
For the G10 shot I held a sheet of paper up, just to the camera right of the shot to bounce some light back into the lens opening and add some more light. Small changes like that can make a surprising amount of difference. Overall it might be a subtle change but it can really make or break the feel of the shot.
As a bit of an impulse buy this week, I picked up a Canon G10 while in London. I've only shot a few hundred frames with it so far, but I thought I'd share a few thoughts.
I mainly bought it because I was so frustrated with the small/ super-compact Panasonic DMC-LX1 that I was using. I like the form factor of the DMC-LX1 but I'm almost always disappointed by the images I get from it, even when shooting in the RAW mode. The pixels are just a bit too muddy, the colours a bit off and everything just annoying enough to not be satisfying. I'd heard good things from friends with the G9 and the exchange rate was such that the UK prices weren't too bad. I wanted something to take pictures with while in London so didn't want to wait until I got home.
Before buying, I spent a bit of time holding the G10. It feels good in the hand. I big, bright LCD screen at the back and a useless viewfinder. Plenty of physical control dials - ISO, exposure compensation all right there on the top. The camera is reasonably responsive too. Maybe takes a bit too long to Auto Focus but the shutter lag isn't terrible. Far from a Canon 1D in responsiveness, but still much better than the DMC-LX1 and most other compact cameras I've used. The menu system and controls all were very straight forward for me, but I've used and owned several Canon cameras so I'm used to their conventions.
Image quality so far has been excellent, when shooting in RAW mode. Adobe Lightroom 2.2 does a great job with the files and I've been happy with the results. ISO 80 through 200 are very useable but things start to fall apart quite quickly above those levels. The wide angle lens has some quite noticeable barrel distortion going on, but I'm happy they made it wider than the G9 - it suits what I use a compact camera like this for. It is for the times I don't want to carry my heavy SLR, typically when traveling in cities or hiking, so the wider the better as far as I'm concerned.
The other thing I'm excited about is the waterproof case that's available. For a reasonable price I'll have a 14+MP camera that I can shoot underwater with. The case lets all of the functions of the camera still be used and costs less than $200. About a twentieth of the price of a waterproof case for a 1DII. High speed sync with an off camera flash also seems to be a real possibility.
I haven't tried video, haven't done anything too fancy other than shoot in Av and M mode (there are a ridiculous amount of 'scene' modes that I doubt I'll ever even use). So far at least, I'm happy with the quality and performance. It isn't a DSLR replacement, but that's probably obvious from the price point and size. Seems to be a great walk about option.
