Saturday, November 26, 2011

More Photography

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I'm continuing to play with the new camera, and I remain pleased.

Last night, I decided to test the low light capability of the SX40. This is often a problem with digital cameras, they seem to get confused when there isn't enough light and are prone to digital "noise". Noise can be seen in many digital photos as the pixelization you sometimes see in the darker areas.

Knowing this, I decided to try shooting well after dark. I found myself down near the Santa Cruz boat harbor and it seemed like the perfect place to try a night shot.

While it was well past dark, the harbor is flooded with a lot of lights. I shot using several different scene settings and found I got the best results using the "fireworks" setting.

This is my favorite shot of the night. The photo below is SOOC (straight out of the camera) except for resizing for posting on the internet. You might want to click it to enlarge it to see the detail.


By enlarging it, you can see some noise in the night sky, although it's not too severe.

Here's the same shot after I did a bit of manipulation. I sharpened it up a bit, cropped it and played with the detail and color. For a hand held shot taken at night, I'm quite pleased.


I believe the excellent quality I'm getting from this camera has to do with Canon's new software and the fact that they've changed the sensor type (BSI CMOS). So far, it seems like they've hit on a winning combination.

And for no reason at all,
I'm including these two shots.

- - - Red - - -


- - - Stripes - - -


That's it for today.

6 comments:

Jerry and Suzy said...

Isn't it fun playing with a camera, whether new or old? While my good old Canon Rebel has a few settings, it doesn't have that whole panoply that our little point and shoots have. Using the fireworks setting at night seems to make a lot of sense, I've just neverpronplop tried it. Interesting idea!

Russ Krecklow said...

Wow, Kate...I'm impressed, as usual, with what you can do when behind any lens! You have such a great eye for photos...love it when you shoot stuff! We need to see more pictures of Terry...he makes a great subject!! Make certain to get a signed model release...and get a contract...he can be reasonable, I bet!! :))

Jean and Skip said...

I like your pictures Kate, but I can't get them to enlarge, some day I will get a good camera and some lessons on how to use it.

Unknown said...

Great shots and an even better blog! Trying to read as many of your posts as I can. I especially enjoy the reno's and updates on your RV. Keep up the great work!

Sharon

Kate said...

Jean and Skip,

I couldn't find an email for you, so I hope you read this. I'm on a Mac (and an iPad) using Safari and Firefox. On both of those, you simply hold your cursor over the picture and a window pops up asking if you'd like to open the image in a new window.

Hope this helps a bit.

Kate

Donna K said...

I'm impressed with your new camera too. Great tip on using the fireworks setting for night shots. Haven't tried that. Was the "Stripes" shot larger than the others? Couldn't get it to fully load. Maybe just my slow connection.