Lomography International has introduced two new versions of the La Sardina lomo camera series — the special “Reptilia” edition for the you-know-what-occasion on Feb 14. The Orinoco Ochre is the one in bright orange while the one in blue is called Sapphire Serpent. The reptile motif can be seen from the pattern on the sardine’s “skin.”
Check the new editions at lomography.com. Alternatively, you can check all the other La Sardina
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Sometimes you just want to buy something because of how it looks. The Minox Gold Plated mini rangfinder-style camera is one such item. It “only” has 5.1 megapixel and is of no rival to other compact cameras in terms of functionality — it has no HD video, for instance — but with this kind of classic magnetism, it makes all these other camera functions something of a “besides-the-point” matter.
Collector's item... Minox DCC 5.1MP
The Minox Gold Plated is priced at US$299.95 over at BH Photovideo. But there is also the black and silver version (below) at US$179.
Minox silver and black edition
Key features: German technology, 5.1MP CMOS Sensor, 9mm F/2.0 Lens (43mm Equivalent), QVGA (320 x 240) Video, 128MB Internal Memory, accepts SD card up to 16GB and Operates on 1 Li-Ion Battery. Here is a gallery of Minox DCC 5.1 sample images.
2-inch LCD
The Minox is also available on Amazon.
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My first digital camera was a Sony Mavica FD90, a 1.3 “interpolated” megapixel square brick that takes a floppy disk as a storage. I bought it at Akihabara in Tokyo in 2003. At that time, my knowledge about photography was virtually zero (not that I know very much today, just a little wiser, perhaps), but yeah, it served my purpose then.
Borneo Sea Gypsy huts. Taken with the Mavica. Too bad I no longer have the photo in its original resolution.
Today I was rummaging into the storeroom and stumbled upon it — too bad the battery no longer recharge. But I can still make it work by hooking it to the electric socket at home. Will try and see if I can find a 1.4MB, 3.5-inch floppy disk, and a computer which has a floppy disk drive. If I can have these, I would love to put the camera to pace again after eight years (and grown a bit wiser).
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We often hear the car analogy is being used to describe a camera — you know, things like the Leica M9 being a Bentley or a Hummer and so on — but I have never come across a camera being used to describe a car.
Not that it’s important. Just thinking. So, what then is the camera equivalent of a Range Rover Evoque? A Fujifilm X-Pro1?
Range Rover Evoque... Image credit: Land Rover UK
Fujifilm X-Pro1... Image Credit: Fujifilm
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The new Canon G1 X and Fujifilm X-Pro1 (notice the Xs and the 1s?) are neck-to-neck in popularity, at least going by the number of clicks on dpreview website. Yesterday, they were tied at 11.4 per cent and remained tied most of the time today at 12.7 per cent, occupying the top two spots of dpreview’s popularity table, with the G1 X emerging top on ‘alphabetical advantage!’
A snapshot of dpreview's table as of January 12
(January 11 in the US)
This comes just days after the announcement of the two cameras, which cannot be said to be of the same league. The G1 X is cheaper, at US$800, but promises DSLR-quality images while the X-Pro1, with interchangeable lens, promises versatility, resolution as well as image quality.
It will be interesting to see which one of these two losing the steam first!
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I’ve written about how I liked the Molome photo effect app for Nokia N8 Symbian smart phones which allows users to apply vintage effect on their photos. Then, enter the “Camera Lover Pack” — a new app for Nokia smart phones touted by its creator to be having “the most complete and supreme camera app ever seen.”
Not sure how it compared with other apps, especially those for iPhones, but yes indeed it has tonnes of features including “panorama, retro and artistic filters, burst capturing, blending, funny effects and much more.”
The two pictures here were taken with this app, which is available at Nokia’s Ovi Store. I’m still exploring it and may post a full review.
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The Beta version of photo editing software Adobe Lightroom 4 is now available for download from January 10 through March 2012. The software is 411MB for 64-bit Windows, 400MB for the 32-bit version and 409MB for Mac. Adobe says New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta include:
• Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
• Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
• Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
• White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
• Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
• Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
• Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr®.
• Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
• Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.
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For those of you who are curious about the new Fujifilm X-Pro1, here is a series of nine sample images taken with the camera, three of them are macro pictures. The two photographs, here and here, were taken with the FUJINON LENS XF60mmF2.4 R Macro (90mm equivalent in 35mm term). The other one was taken with the FUJINON LENS XF35mmF1.4 R (50mm equivalent).
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Canon GX1 is probably one of the very few compact cameras in which image quality cannot be disputed even way before it hits the market. Its large sensor (for a compact) and the fact that it is a Canon G camera, promise nothing less than that. But why are there people dismissing it as unimpressive (to borrow the word of one of the forum members over at dpreview)?
Why are there people not excited about it? Would the first impression be any different had the mirrorless cameras never been invented? Would there be an all round applause if the lens had been wider and faster and the burst mode firing more rapidly?
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There are many great tips out there from amazing photographers around the world. Here’s one of them, from none other than National Geographic, it’s call “How to Take Macro Pictures” accompanied by macro photographs I wish I had been the one who shot them.
One of the photo tips is this:
Autofocus doesn’t always work well when shooting extreme close-up photography. Switch to manual focus and you’ll get more consistently sharp macro pictures.
Problem with shooting macro, from my experience, is getting the object sharp enough in that very limited depth of field.
The other is, getting a good angle — to shoot the subject from the angle away from the normal point of view.
Another great article about shooting better macro pictures is this series over at dpreview, a must read for those wanting to shoot macro.
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