Most Popular of my Top Ten

Of my personal Top Ten best photos, this one still gets the most views by far.

G1X: Rural Life Museum

The Rural Life Museum is one of my favorite places to try out new cameras, photo equipment and techniques.  Today, while practicing with the G1X, I received an added bonus:  No Senior Citizens discount!  In fact, I was not even asked!  That dollar seemed insignificant to me as I decided to pay the full fee and feel years younger.

I shot with the G1X naked (no, not me, the camera!) meaning without a tripod, flash, filters, no RAW mode, no editing, no post processing.  This forced me to use high ISO settings along with whatever the G1X had to offer.  Unlike some of my first G1X attempts however, I did change take multiple shots and varied exposure and other settings in my attempts to get the picture that I wanted.  So the pictures in this post are Straight-Out-Of-Camera (SOOC) – even if I took several at various settings and discarded all but the one posted.

Instead of cropping, I sometimes changed the aspect ratio in-camera.  In practice, I believe in cropping.

I have a definite tendency to shoot vertical (portrait) pictures. In fact, my favorite shot of the day is a vertical, shown below.

This exercise (JPEG only, no editing) was a good one.  I still plan to (mostly) shoot in RAW and post-process to taste but SOOC definitely has its place.

PAW 38

I returned to the Rural Life Museum for their Harvest Days festival and quickly visited the old blacksmith’s shop with my fingers crossed that the blacksmith would be there.  Using the Canon 7D with the (inexpensive) 50mm prime at f1.8, ISO 800 and 1/125 second, I got several variations on this theme but liked this one best. 

PAW 37

When I want to try out a new piece of photo equipment or a new technique, I often go to the Rural Life Museum.    I’ve been wanting to re-visit my Canon 50mm f1.8 lens for some time and today seemed a good day for it.  The Canon 50mm is not a great lens but is OK and does offer an out-of-focus background that some like to call “bokeh”.   I walked around for a couple of hours today shooting my 7D only with the Canon 50mm almost always at f1.8.  Of the pictures I took, this is my choice for PAW.  It was taken at ISO 800, f1.8 at 1/30 second in the “schoolhouse” at Rural Life Museum.

Although my first thought was to covert this image to B/W, I prefer this somewhat desaturated version as processed from RAW in ACR because it is more representative of what I was seeing in that dim light.  This version is slightly cropped to 1024x768 screen resolution (as are most of my PAW shots).

Gordon’s Top Ten

I have a gallery at SmugMug in which I maintain my ten best photographs.  I’ve not changed those top ten very often.  When I check the statistics developed by SmugMug, this picture, “Plantation Bedroom”, invariably gets the most views.  This is an HDR picture developed blending (as I recall) seven shots at varying exposures.  I like it a lot.

PAW 9

 

This week’s PAW is an HDR image processed in Photomatix and further tweaked, then cropped in Photoshop.  It probably doesn’t look “HDR” – at least, I hope not.  The G12 was used in manual mode to get exposures at f4, ISO 400 and bracketed shutter speeds of 1.6, 6 and 0.4 seconds.   Manual mode was necessary because of the 1 second shutter speed limit in Av mode for G series cameras.  The scene is from the country store at Rural Life Museum that was shown in the previous post.

G12: SCN Variations

Sunday I roamed the Rural Life Museum looking for PAW candidates and also to give the G12 SCN modes another try.  The above picture is a scene from the old country store, shot in Av mode at 1 second exposure, f3.5, ISO 80, tripod mounted of course.  This is the in-camera JPEG.  I suppose this is a “normal” image.

Above is the in-camera “HDR” version of the “normal” scene.  This particular variation is the “sepia” HDR.  The exposure was determined automatically as 1/20 second (must be the first shot of the series), f3.5 and ISO 1600.  A nice variation to my eye.

The above variation is the “B/W” HDR. 

Next, getting out of HDR mode and into “Nostalgic” mode, the above shot was automatically exposed at 1/10 second, f3.5, ISO 800.  Within Nostalgic mode, the amount was set at maximum; that is, 5 bars of the available 5.

Again in Nostalgic mode, the above variation is with the amount set to 2 bars of the 5 available.  I like this one best. 

G12: Rural Life Museum

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 Trying out a new piece of photo gear at the Rural Life Museum has become standard procedure so it was natural to take the new G12 there. I was surprised to find that the museum has been expanded considerably since my last visit. My goal was not so much to produce prize winning photos as it was to become familiar with the G12. To give the factory settings a fair chance, I did not change any of the image settings. I began by shooting in RAW+JPEG at ISO 80 and using Aperture priority with the small Flexizone focus rectangle centered – standard operating procedure for me. After a while, I began increasing the ISO setting and included a number of shots using Auto ISO. For the most part, I liked the results.  All shots shown here are untouched from the in-camera JPEG but downsized for web display (click for 1024x768 size).

I like the old blacksmith shop but it is dark inside and no smithing there today.

This old tool grinder scene on the outside of the blacksmith shop was partially in the sun and partially shaded. 

A scene inside the blacksmith shop shot at ISO 1600, 1/60, f4.

An inside scene with widely varying degrees of available light, ISO 800, 1/30, f2.8.  None of the old buildings have artificial lighting so there were many shots taken at ISO 1000+. I intentionally looked for scenes of very high contrast just to see how the G12 would handle the situation.

Another scene of mixed lighting intensity.  I shot this with RAW+JPEG and will try to recover some detail after Adobe updates Camera Raw for the G12.

Although I did not carry a tripod, I was able to brace the G12 well enough to try a few High Dynamic Range (HDR) shots like the one above. In the G12, HDR is one of the Scene modes and there do not appear to be many options. G12 HDR works – sort of. On examining a few HDR efforts, it seems to me that the G12 HDR is primarily tuned to bringing out the shadows but does not significantly reduce (otherwise) blown highlights.

Some detail, ISO 80, 1/60, f2.8, focal length 6.1mm (wide angle). 

Had to try the "Nostalgic" setting in SCR mode.

On this day, I was out and about for two hours. I took 66 RAW+JPEG shots plus another 15 JPEG only. Previously I had taken 16 RAW+JPEG shots. The G12 was turned on all the time at Rural Life with the display turned on and image stabilization turned to the shoot only setting. The battery indicator did not change from full charge although obviously it was partially discharged.

All in all, I was relatively pleased with the G12 results and handling.  I was very happy to use the articulated screen and I even forgot about the "grainy" plastic finish!

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Rural Life Museum

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Within Baton Rouge, the Rural Life Museum is several hundred acres of farm land donated to Louisiana State University by the Burden family in 1964. The museum still includes farm land and flower gardens used by LSU as well as a collection of buildings and artifacts from the 1800s. It is a great place to visit and photograph. I often go there when trying out new photography gear or techniques. One of my favorite photos, made with HDR techniques, was taken at Rural Life Museum.

It was time to take the 7D to Rural Life Museum for a practice session. This was to be a simple session using only one lens (Canon 28-135mm), no flash and no tripod. Since many of the rooms and cabins are unlit, this would be a challenge and would require high ISO sensitivity. Also, I wanted to photograph some scenes having extreme dynamic ranges. Finally, I decided to emphasize the in-camera JPEG (“standard” settings) of the 7D.

The top picture of this post was taken at -1 exposure compensation (from ISO 100, 1/80, Av mode at f5.6) but the grass at left front is still a bit overexposed. The histogram is quite full. This would probably be a good candidate for HDR but I didn’t bracket.

The scene below is an interior shot of a reconstructed school room. The 7D was set for ISO 3200, Av mode yielded an exposure of 1/50, f4.5.

Here’s another shot with very bright and dark areas; ISO 100, Av mode at f8, 1/200 second, -1 exposure compensation.

Another ISO 3200 shot below using manual exposure at f5, 1/25 second inside one of the cabins.

All in all, a good practice session and a pleasant afternoon.

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