Ian Lind’s Photo Blog

Canon G9 • 28mm (in 35mm equivalents) • f/2.8 • 1/50 second • ISO 200
(As usual, click for a larger version)

I tell myself to always carry a camera, “just in case”. Recently, I’ve been trying to follow my own advice, although most days use the camera during our early morning walk but let it sit idle the rest of the day.

But we were driving home early one evening this week when Meda asked if I really had the camera, and then suggested I pull over and try to get a picture of the rapidly fading sunset. So I did. At that time, we were driving along the coast between Kaneohe and Kaaawa, just passing Waiahole & Waikane Valleys. There’s a relatively unimproved park area between the highway and the ocean.

By the time I pulled off the highway, parked, grabbed the camera, and then made my way across an open field to the ocean, the colors had already started to fade and I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough light left. I only managed a few shots before it the scene faded to gray. But it was enough.

I set the ISO to 200, trying to tread that fine line between a fast enough setting to get away with a handheld shot and the high “noise” that enters at higher ISO. I was able to shoot at 1/50 second, which with care in holding the camera (and an assist from the Canon’s image stabilization) is normally fine without a tripod. As usual, I shot in raw format and converted later in Photoshop CS3. Nothing fancy. I boosted detail in the shadows a bit and tried to pull down highlights in the sky.

We were on our daily walk down to the beach here in Kaaawa to watch the sunrise, and ran into a family we know setting up for a birthday party for their two-year old.At first, I worried about the way this photo cuts off the background, then decided I like the way it only hints at what’s happening back there. And the early light on the main subjects happened to be just right. That part was pure luck.  

This is one of a series of photos of the banyan standing between the Hawaii State Capitol and Iolani Palace and next to the archives building.

During much of the day, it’s just a big unkempt tree sitting between two parts of an out of the way parking lot, littered with typical urban debris and giving off the occasional smell of urine, an obstacle to get past or around on your way to or from the adjacent buildings.

But I’ve noticed that in the late afternoon, when the sun is lower in the sky and light begins to filter through its many trunks and branches, this tree takes on a whole new aspect. I’ve tried several times to capture those special afternoon moments without a whole lot of success.

This week I tried again, and ended up with a decent run of photos. Click on the photo for the full series. In the first shot, a couple can be seen walking away on the far left, adding a bit of movement to the otherwise static image. Through the tree, over towards the right, you can just make out a bit of Iolani Palace, mimicking the vertical lines of the tree. In this light, and with the B&W tones, the tree takes on almost human forms and texture.

I got up close to the initials left by a couple in the year before Hawaii became a state, just one of thousands of anonymous inscriptions left on its many trunks.

The last three photos remain in color, although their color is restricted to elements that seem to leap out of the otherwise neutral backgrounds.

All photos were taken with my new Canon G9, captured in raw format, with B&W conversions in Adobe Lightroom and final resizing and tweaking in Adobe Photoshop CS3 running on a MacBook Pro.

It’s often the unexpected that ends up making a good photo.

I’ve started on another four-month odyssey on the staff of a state representative during the year’s legislative session. Yesterday afternoon about 4 p.m., as the sunlight mellowed, I walked down the stairs and took my G9 next door to Iolani Palace to see what I could see.

I quickly got immersed in the huge banyan tree behind the palace, where generations of visitors have carved the names and initials of loved ones or just their marks behind for posterity. I assumed one of those end up being the photo of the day.

I had gotten up the stairs of the capitol and all the way to the elevator when a passing image caught up with me, so I turned around and retraced my steps. There it was, an interesting image with a touch of ambiguity. The unfortunate thing is that the placement of the message on the stairs made it impossible to frame a symetrical image. Perhaps I doesn’t really matter. I hope not.

I tried this image in both color and B&W, eventually deciding that the B&W conversion was the best.

Canon G9
f/3.2
1/250 second
ISO 200
Focal length 7.4mm (35mm equivalent)

We were coming up Hiwahiwa Road, just a block from home, when we ran into this beautiful white cat that shares a home on the corner with an equally beautiful black cat. I thought I was going to get a photo of him/her in the middle of the road, but it moved out of the way as we approached. The arrows on the road, some kind of instructions for things to come on the empty lot to the right of this photo, add to the mystery of the moment.

Anyway, I just thought the image was more than the sum of its parts.

Taken with my new Canon G9, ISO 100, 1/50 second.

[Click here to read my earlier first impressions of the G9]

After ripping into the G9 package when it arrived and getting an introduction to the camera, it went back into a box to await the arrival of Christmas. My only justification was that this arrived as a present from “Santa”, not a simple case of near photo gear lust.

In any case, Christmas finallly arrived and with it the G9′s official opening. Later in the morning we headed to a holiday brunch on the other end of Kaaawa, G9 in hand.

Like other Canons, the G9 had trouble with color balance in a room with a mix of artificial and natural light. The color will have to be cleaned up in post processing. There’s a bit of distortion at wide angle. And there’s a substantial amount of color noise in the image at ISO 200, more than I expected.

It was easy to shift from normal to macro mode but takes two steps, similar to other Canon menus. First you press the macro button on the multi-function toggle switch on the back of the camera, and then select the macro icon. It will take some trial and error to get familiar with the macro range and performance, however.

Color rendition, exposure and focus outside under cloudy conditions was excellent. Several shots of this water lily came out quite well.

Overall, the G9 handled well, was reasonably responsive (although I wouldn’t call it very responsive) and relatively easy to use in this first use.

I would like to use the viewfinder, but the lens intrudes into the frame, which I found distracting. The LCD screen is large and bright, easy to see, but when viewing images the colors seemed a little “off”, but that’s just my subjective impression.

The on-off button and the separate button for the diplay are flush with the surface of the camera, and several times it took me repeated tries to turn the camera on when trying to rush. It’s probably something you get used to and better at with additional use.

Overall, my second impression is that the camera is relatively easy to use, feels solid, gives generally good results, but the significant image noise already apparent at ISO 200 is a disappointment.

It was raining when we left the house this morning for the daily walk to the beach to watch the sun rise. Umbrellas were the order of the day. On wet mornings I carry the tiny Panasonic LX1 rather than the larger Canon XTi. The Panasonic has the virtue of being much easier to shield from the rain. If necessary, I just pop the whole thing into a plastic bag and head into the deluge.

We moved from the beach to the back roads on our return walk after a pretty good rain squall moved in. We were on Kekio Road in the back of Kaaawa when a dramatic double rainbow formed.

I first tried to capture an image of the whole rainbow and it’s double, but even with its 28mm equivalent wide angle, the LX1 couldn’t quite fit the whole view. And even as it got close, I had trouble with the intruding utility wires and the lens distortion that made houses in the foreground look strange.

In the end, my favorite shot was taken after I abandoned the broad perspective and accepted the wires as part of the scene. Here the rainbow retains its brilliant colors, but the viewer is left to imagine it’s overall dimensions. Somehow this sparce approach worked better than the frantic attempt to jam everything possible into the single frame.

Panasonic LX1 • 25.2mm (35mm equiv of 112mm) • f/4.9 • 1/125 sec • ISO 80

December dawn, Kaaawa, Hawaii. December 2007.

It was cloudy and threatening to rain, so I left the Canon XTi at home and took along the much smaller LX1, which is easier to shield from rain. The morning was gray and dull until the sun started to rise beyond the barrier of clouds, and glowing light slipped around and between the layers of clouds.

Panasonic LX1 • 12.5mm • f/4.0 • 1/400 sec • ISO 80

We were cutting through a small park along the ocean in Kaaawa this morning to avoid the high tide along that section of the beach, and the color and textures of this scarred picnic table caught my eye.

Canon XTi • Canon 24mm f/2.8 lens • f/2.8 • 1/30 sec • ISO 200

We didn’t run into anyone else on the beach this morning as we walked at dawn.

Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon 24mm f/2.8 lens at f/5.0, 1/100 second, ISO 200.

This is an underappreciated lens, and I’m not really sure why. It is an older design, but does its job admirably.

When used on a 1.6 crop camera like the Canon Digital Rebel, it’s the equivalent of a modest wide angle of 38mm.  It gives a pleasing perspective and very reasonable image quality.

It is small and light,  important virtues for a walk-around lens, and it’s also very reasonably priced. I consider it an important part of my overall camera kit.