Category: Uncategorized

I’ve had my iPhone now for about 8 or 9 months. It’s been my first camera phone and for most of that time, I tend to forget that I always have a camera with me. Mostly I’ve used the camera either to record information (snapping an image of a parking space number rather than writing it down) or very informal family shots.

I happened to be walking out of my front door the other day and liked the light on the plastic. My phone was in my hand, so I grabbed a quick shot.

The weather is warmer and I have the Sigma DP1 to carry everywhere. The Nikon D300 sits on my desk like a brick. It waits.

I’m finding it easier and easier to use the DP1 to capture images, knowing what I’ll be able to do in post processing. The sharpness of the lens and film-like qualit of the images is leading me to a more intimate portrayal of the Suburban Landscape than I was pursuing through the Fall and Winter.

I can get these glowingly lit shots easily with the DP1, so I imagine I’ll be mining this vein for a few weeks at least.

I’ve been capturing images over the past few days with the Sigma DP1. No very long sessions as the light seems to be disappearing on me. It must have to do with being post spring equinox and creeping up on the summer solstice. We have have harsher and less inviting Suburban Landscape now.

Or it could be that the look I was chasing has run it’s course. I seem to be producing these more intimate images now, pushing more subtle texture and illumination into the images.

I was leaving my house a few nights ago and noticed how the white edges of these leaves seemed to be faintly glowing in the low light. I set the DP1 to ISO 800 with the aperture wide open at f/4.0 The indicated shutter speed was about 4 seconds, impossible to handhold and leading to a daylight looking shot even if I did put the camera on a tripod. So I cranked down the shutter speed until I could hand hold at about 1/2 a second. So maximal ISO, but 3 stops underexposed.

Converted to black and white, I was able to render what inspired me that night.

This afternoon we had a family outing to Harper’s Ferry, WV. Harper’s Ferry is a National Park at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. It’s a Civil War era town that been preserved, famous for being the site of John Brown’s abortive abolitionist rebellion.

As we were leaving the house, I started grabbing the Nikon D300 as I usually would, leaving with just the 24mm f/2.8. But since the purpose of the outing was not photography, I just slipped the Sigma DP1 into my back pocket. The sky was clear, it was midday and not the best time for photography anyway.

Once again I found myself adjusting to the camera, spending more time framing and waiting for the right moment to capture the image. With the 8 to 10 second lockup of the camera after capture, I’m generally compelled to move on to start framing another image. The Nikon allows so much more flow in approaching a subject and working it photographically.

Yet, with the compactness and the relatively high yield of images like this one, I keep reaching for the DP1.

I’ve been writing about the DP1 as a series of short thoughts based on the images I’ve post-processed. This image from Geneva reminds me of the invisibility one gains shooting with a compact camera.

A DSLR with large lens (like the 12-24mm f/4 Nikkor) is an imposing piece of technology. There are lots of folks out with their little compact digitals held out at arms length, squinting at the LCD.

The 28mm equivalent lens on the DP1 suits me. But to capture this image I had to be about 3 feet away from the man reading the paper. Right at the edge of the bench. So I’m kind of crouching, but I look like anyone else taking photographs of the church. But even though the church is a major part of the image, it’s the backdrop, not the subject.

The post processing of this image was not easy because the forground figure was relatively darker than the bus stop and church. I’ve picked out two figures with light and selective sharpening. These are cinematic techniques I’ve learned from Vincent Versace’s approach. No real camera would render those two points so sharp and bright compared to the rest of the scene. It’s remarkable though how the eye is fooled, following the will of the photographer.

Here’s a Nikon specialty. The 105mm VR Micro in my backyard handheld closeup. The character of the NIkon is seductive in an entirely different way than the DP1’s Foveon

At the end of my few hours in Geneva, it started raining again, this time with thunder. The sky darkened and night fell swiftly.

I set the DP1 to ISO 800, aperture wide open (f/4) and 1/25th second. For about half of the shots, this one included, I rested the camera on a railing for stability. There’s a clear difference in the clarity of the signs in those shots, so it made the difference between usable and worthless shots.

The noise across the sky was pretty bad. There was not only typical grain like noise, but also some splotchy magenta-green patches. NiK’s Dfine 2.0 did a good job of filtering at the “high noise” setting. Whereas the D300’s ISO 800 is clean, the DP1’s is not. Next time I may bring something like a gorilla pod for stability and stick to ISO 400 or less. I judge ISO 800 as barely usable and definitely to be avoided.

Here’s an image from last week that I needed to render in monochrome. The slowness of the DP1 image writing tended to push me to grab a single image and then move on. I shot this from across the street, but didn’t move in to isolate nor did I move into position to get a really squared up image. It ends up being not that well composed, but in monochrome some of those distractions are minimized.

Here’s an image from last week that I needed to render in monochrome. The slowness of the DP1 image writing tended to push me to grab a single image and then move on. I shot this from across the street, but didn’t move in to isolate nor did I move into position to get a really squared up image. It ends up being not that well composed, but in monochrome some of those distractions are minimized.