Background
Years ago my father loaned me a 35mm camera and let me take some pictures with it. After that I got one of those little pocket 110 instamatics which was very limited, fixed focus, no metering, no flash, pretty much only useful for outdoor sunlit exposures, and then only for small prints since the fixed focus tiny plastic lens and the tiny format did not allow for high resolution.
Still, I got a few photographs I liked even with that, including one that resulted from lens flare of the sun.
Later I bought a used 35mm camera, a Mamiya DTL1000, which is a total manual body with a curtain shutter. I got two really decent lenses with it, a 55mm and a 110mm, and I bought a number of others which were not such high quality, including a 500mm glass lens that actually wasn't bad except it was F8 and had a slight amount of chromatic aberration. I used that basic setup and added a lot of filters and things over the years.
I didn't really care for slide film much because of the limited exposure latitude and mostly I preferred prints. Not having my own dark room I relied on labs for processing and prints, and one that I found that I liked was Jet Color labs in Bellevue (dead).
After they died I looked for another decent lab but was never really satisfied with the quality, and the development costs for a roll of film kept going up and up.
So eventually I decided to dabble in digital. I bought a HP Photosmart something or other. I don't know all the details but it was a one megapixel thing with garbage optics. The optics turned out to be the limiting factor of the camera. It didn't matter that the sensor was only 1 megapixel because the optics couldn't even focus a sharp image on that. It died after a trip to Canada (computer login insanity).
Then I bought a Minolta DiMage Z1, which was a 3.2 megapixel camera. Unlike the HP it actually had quite decent optics and could be placed in manual mode and operated pretty much entirely manually. The optics were really the Minolta's strong point. I saw neither significant chromatic aberration zoomed all the way out nor vignetting all the way in, and overall the distortion was very low and image quality sharp. The only thing I really disliked about the Minolta was the lack of external controls. Nearly everything had to be done through menus which meant slow setup when in manual mode.
I had paid for the extended warranty on the Minolta and it broke down within the warranty period. It had one LCD display that it shuttered between the back of the camera and the eyepiece with internal shutters and mirrors. Something broke on one of the shutter assemblies leaving the display partially blocked.
I had purchased it at GoodGuys who at the time had a lower price than most camera stores that carried it. I took it back to the store I had purchased it from and they told me I had to take it to Bellevue where the regional repair center was, so I did. A month went by, not fixed, two months went by, still not fixed. A little longer, then they told me it was being returned un-repaired because it had been damaged. I told them it wasn't damaged before I brought it in and had a receipt stating as much. Months went by, no camera came back, fixed or not fixed.
Finally, after more than a year I went back to the store I had purchased it from and spoke to a manager, who informed me that the morons at Bellevue had accidentally sold it in a clearance sale. Why they didn't admit to it at the time is anybodies guess. He had me pick out a new camera. By this time Minolta was no longer and so I picked a Cannon Powershot S2 IS.
The Cannon was the closest thing to what I had previously had, similar body style, used AA's so I could re-use my AA rechargables, used the same SD memory, so I could re-use that, and the optics were at least physically large which means a decent light gathering ability.
Overall I like the Powershot IS S2 but there are some annoying limitations. The sensor is 5 megapixel, better than the Minolta, but the effective resolution is even more so because the software that extracts brightness and chroma information does a much better job.
However, the 5 megapixel sensor is I think slightly more noisy than the 3.2 megapixel, at least at speeds faster than 100 ASA. The lens has 12:1 optical zoom instead of 6:1, but there is a rub, zoomed out to the maximum focal length there is noticeable chromatic aberration. Zoomed all the way in there is noticeable vignetting. The range that is cleanly usable is probably closer to 6:1. The chromatic aberration can be worked around to some degree using options in Paintshop Pro but shouldn't have to. I don't know of any software fix available for vignetting.
Another limitation I wish it didn't have is a 15-second exposure limit. I do night photography and sometimes 15-seconds is just not enough to get proper exposure.
So this is what I'm using now. I'm broke so can't really afford any accessories for it. Would like to get an adapter ring so I can use my filters and such but I have found some ways to "cheat" electronically and duplicate some of the functions they provided.
Still, I got a few photographs I liked even with that, including one that resulted from lens flare of the sun.
Later I bought a used 35mm camera, a Mamiya DTL1000, which is a total manual body with a curtain shutter. I got two really decent lenses with it, a 55mm and a 110mm, and I bought a number of others which were not such high quality, including a 500mm glass lens that actually wasn't bad except it was F8 and had a slight amount of chromatic aberration. I used that basic setup and added a lot of filters and things over the years.
I didn't really care for slide film much because of the limited exposure latitude and mostly I preferred prints. Not having my own dark room I relied on labs for processing and prints, and one that I found that I liked was Jet Color labs in Bellevue (dead).
After they died I looked for another decent lab but was never really satisfied with the quality, and the development costs for a roll of film kept going up and up.
So eventually I decided to dabble in digital. I bought a HP Photosmart something or other. I don't know all the details but it was a one megapixel thing with garbage optics. The optics turned out to be the limiting factor of the camera. It didn't matter that the sensor was only 1 megapixel because the optics couldn't even focus a sharp image on that. It died after a trip to Canada (computer login insanity).
Then I bought a Minolta DiMage Z1, which was a 3.2 megapixel camera. Unlike the HP it actually had quite decent optics and could be placed in manual mode and operated pretty much entirely manually. The optics were really the Minolta's strong point. I saw neither significant chromatic aberration zoomed all the way out nor vignetting all the way in, and overall the distortion was very low and image quality sharp. The only thing I really disliked about the Minolta was the lack of external controls. Nearly everything had to be done through menus which meant slow setup when in manual mode.
I had paid for the extended warranty on the Minolta and it broke down within the warranty period. It had one LCD display that it shuttered between the back of the camera and the eyepiece with internal shutters and mirrors. Something broke on one of the shutter assemblies leaving the display partially blocked.
I had purchased it at GoodGuys who at the time had a lower price than most camera stores that carried it. I took it back to the store I had purchased it from and they told me I had to take it to Bellevue where the regional repair center was, so I did. A month went by, not fixed, two months went by, still not fixed. A little longer, then they told me it was being returned un-repaired because it had been damaged. I told them it wasn't damaged before I brought it in and had a receipt stating as much. Months went by, no camera came back, fixed or not fixed.
Finally, after more than a year I went back to the store I had purchased it from and spoke to a manager, who informed me that the morons at Bellevue had accidentally sold it in a clearance sale. Why they didn't admit to it at the time is anybodies guess. He had me pick out a new camera. By this time Minolta was no longer and so I picked a Cannon Powershot S2 IS.
The Cannon was the closest thing to what I had previously had, similar body style, used AA's so I could re-use my AA rechargables, used the same SD memory, so I could re-use that, and the optics were at least physically large which means a decent light gathering ability.
Overall I like the Powershot IS S2 but there are some annoying limitations. The sensor is 5 megapixel, better than the Minolta, but the effective resolution is even more so because the software that extracts brightness and chroma information does a much better job.
However, the 5 megapixel sensor is I think slightly more noisy than the 3.2 megapixel, at least at speeds faster than 100 ASA. The lens has 12:1 optical zoom instead of 6:1, but there is a rub, zoomed out to the maximum focal length there is noticeable chromatic aberration. Zoomed all the way in there is noticeable vignetting. The range that is cleanly usable is probably closer to 6:1. The chromatic aberration can be worked around to some degree using options in Paintshop Pro but shouldn't have to. I don't know of any software fix available for vignetting.
Another limitation I wish it didn't have is a 15-second exposure limit. I do night photography and sometimes 15-seconds is just not enough to get proper exposure.
So this is what I'm using now. I'm broke so can't really afford any accessories for it. Would like to get an adapter ring so I can use my filters and such but I have found some ways to "cheat" electronically and duplicate some of the functions they provided.
posted by Nanook at 5:45 PM
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