Ian Lind’s Photo Blog

I spent an hour on Friday at Kaaawa School, where they were finishing up several weeks of fundraising for the American Heart Association with a bit of fun.

Students compete in six different events, from a sack race to jumping rope.

I’m trying to get better at ignoring the competition and just trying to focus on the kids.

I did a quick and dirty collection of photos to share with the school, which you can see by clicking on this photo, which is one of my favorites.

I’ve got some work ahead culling out the best shots and working on them.

Sounds like fun.

Top photo: Canon EOS 400D, Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS lens at 275mm, 1/500 sec at f/5.6. ISO 400.

Bottom photo: Canon EOS 400D, Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 IS lens at 300mm, 1/800 sec at f/8.0. ISO 400.

I’ve been “eye buying” for a while, poring over online reviews while thinking about upgrading to the latest versions from my Canon G9 and Panasonic LX1. I was leaning towards adding the LX3 alongside the G9.

Then our house was burglarized two weeks ago and my G9, as well as my Canon XTi, were taken.

Now the shopping is no longer idle fantasy. I needed a replacement camera, and I decided to go with the less expensive small camera and waiting on replacing the DSLR until the insurance kicks in.

I have to admit that I never fully warmed up to the G9, in contrast to my love affair with my old G2. The G9 was obviously a much better camera, but I never became as comfortable with it.

But now I needed a quick fix. An immediate replacement was necessary to avoid being limited to photos using my iPhone.

All things considered, and looking at this replacement being my primary camera for at least a couple of months, I opted for the G10.

It was ordered on Wednesday from B&H, and arrived in Honolulu on Thursday afternoon. Can’t complain about that service. I charged the battery on Friday, put on the strap, and installed a new SDHD card. Early Saturday morning we went off on our daily walk on the beach at dawn, new G10 in hand.

First impressions. When I first opened the box, the camera was wrapped in plastic and looked quite small. Then I picked it up. Very different impression. It’s a heavy camera, solid, sits in your hand like a rock. It’s probably no bigger than the G9, but on first impression feels bigger and heavier than it looks.

There are some subtle changes in the body. The grip on the front right of the camera is bigger, reducing the need for the add-on grip that was popular with the G9.

Looking at the top of the camera was a bit disorienting at first for a former G9 user. The dial on the left is now for adjusting exposure plus/minus two stops in 1/3 stop increments. The familiar settings dial on the right is smaller, but surrounded with a new wheel for setting ISO speed. The combination looks complex but sems to work quite well.

The rear of the camera features a bright LCD screen and slightly rearranged buttons, but if you’ve used other Canon cameras then they all feel familiar.

There’s a power button on the top of the camera, and a button on the back for reviewing images without firing up the camera and extending the lens.

The wider 28mm equivalent wide angle field of view makes quite a difference in the feel of the images.

I took several dozen photos while out walking, then a few more back home with our cats. The camera feels good and solid in your hand. Focus seems good. I don’t yet know whether the lens is extremely sharp, but that LCD screen certainly is. The camera is fast enough, although wasn’t quick enough to keep up with a couple of the dogs that we ran into. The lag still hasn’t fallen down into DSLR territory.

The G10 handled exposure well except for a couple of photos with a very bright patch of sky. In those, all highlights were blown out, although I could recover them from the RAW images.

RAW. That was the next adventure. I got back home, plugged my photo drive the MacBook Pro, popped the card into a reader, and Lightroom downloaded, but only the jpeg images appeared. The RAW images were reported as unreadable.

Dang! I forgot that the new RAW files from the G10 are a problem with older software. I’ve been using Lightroom v 1.something, along with CS3. A bit of searching and it seems the easiest solution in my setup was to upgrade to Lightroom 2.2 which reads the G10 RAW files and imports them as in digital negative format, which in turn open in CS3. The Lightroom upgrade from version 1.x cost $99, but is probably well worth it because of the added features and functionality. The installation was straightforward and finished without problems.

After the upgrade, Lightroom updated the catalog I’ve been using and proceeded to load the new RAW files.

I was pleased with the camera’s performance in the early morning light. It caught the subtle colors and differences in light. For example, you can see the surf spray that is hanging like mist at the base of the cliffs on the far side of the bay.

At wide angle, there’s a good deal of lens distortion. Check the curve in the horizon in this photo, easily corrected using the PT Lens plug-in.

I used the macro setting for this close-up of a strawberry at breakfast. Nothing to complain about there.

Focus is very good in this shot of Ms. Annie. It was in relatively poor light, shot at ISO 200. But the focus was quick and accurate.

I really can’t comment yet on noise at higher ISO.

But my first impressions of the G10 are all very positive. It’s too early for an enthusiastic recommendation, but I’m already feeling better about it than the G9 that it replaces.

I haven’t been feeding photos to this blog recently, so I’ll make a Chinese New Year resolution to pay more attention and share more photos here.

With new intentions in mind, here’s the view from our room at the Hilo Hawaiian Hotel on a recent weekend run-away.

I always seem to come back from Hilo with photos. I think it’s the light, which is softened by the nearly ever-present clouds. Or maybe just the fact that you see more when wandering somewhat aimlessly and following the spirit, as those Situationist rambles used to aim for.

Whatever. Just click on this rainbow for more from Hilo.