Photography part 2 : Born of a Digital Camera

Continued from previous post, from film camera to mobile digital camera, skipped something in between, the digital camera! 

After the xia xiang event, i am inspired to own a DSLR but due to cost...i never thought deeply about it, and went for the closest substitute, a fully manual control digital camera whom my sis own and was said to have similar functions of DSLR. Since she rarely use it, thus I borrowed from her and started to enter the world of digital photography!

It was the Canon powershot A570 is, with 7.2 mp (double my phone) fully manual control, runs on 2 AA batteries, 60fps video recording, have built in viewfinder, which was a very powerful camera for me that time!

It was around 2010 while the cam was released back at 2007.. meant i was 3 years lagging... But that didn't stop me from fully explore the capabilities, from taking long night exposure shots to still shots utilizing all the Av, Tv and manual settings!

Canon Powershot A620

Panning shot, utilizing medium shutter speed while panning with the car movement, giving the effect of a fast moving action.

Utilizing the macro focus to simulate a 'bokeh' effect. (only possible with tiny objects)

Those still frame shots are actually controlled by shutter speed, normal digital cams do not have this option, only sports mode. This picture also shows the low dynamic range of the camera, blowing out the sky in white. 

It had been my companion for running events, trips until my sis wanted it back for her trip. I am sure i have taken more pictures within that few months compared to the years it laid on my sister's hands!

For the short period, i finally did a part time job at Brussel's Beer Cafe and had some income. Just get to know there was PC fair at one working day and went there, planning on survey a camera.. and just can't resist a good offer, a one year old model having cash rebate of Rm200 compared to the new one, and even the same powershot series! Having the budget at that moment, i proceeded to own my first digital camera, the Powershot SX130 IS =)

Compared to the old powershot, functions are all the same, have higher ISO, bigger black body (silver and small sized made it seems noob LOL ) 12.1 mp count, 12x zoom (not a priority), and full HD video, but they removed the view finder! (to replace a self pop up flash )

CANON SX 130 IS

This picture could be the proudest pic for this camera, using a CHDK (canon hack development kit) special for canon Powershots, this picture is possible and i am pretty sure normal DSLR will not be able to make this awesome shot !

 Another work of CHDK too, extending the shutter speed until 32s to compose this shot in 16:9 setting.

It is possible to have bokeh with this cam, but target need to be quite some distance away and only possible at day time. ( Aperture will increase when zoom and camera shake is imminent )

The Canon Powershot Sx130 IS is all good at first, but photo shooting at low light conditions are just not good enough.. ISO at 800 will result in noise and flash is not powerful enough. Day light shooting had its own problems too, dynamic range is quite disappointing, in which background will be too bright while subject is too dark, resulting in a blow out if trying to get subject to be visible. It's always to either sacrifice object or background to compose a shot, rarely the color of the sky was able to be captured. Oh, and one more thing, during photo shoots of people, especially cos players, it will definitely being looked down thus reluctant to pose for a shot -.-  

This picture highlights the few issue, as you can see she don't even bother to look at the un-professional looking camera.. just kidding, caught this picture off moment =). But it did show the low light performance where the walking person blurred the picture, even the subject is slightly blurred due to motion. Almost for every shot i took, i need to held my breath to avoid hand shake @@ 

Well, choose subject or background? i choose subject of course!

This pic shows the flash problem, it could not reach every corner of the frame, even with highest flash power output, the center will be blown out. Only way is to use slow synchronous flash, which requires a quite slow shutter speed, might as well just don't use flash at all.