Pro level P&S digital cameras

You may have noticed a new feed in the right pane of this blog. I'm calling it "Equipment News" and what's in it will change as dreams change. What dreams you ask?

Well, in digital picture taking, camera is one component. An obvious first one, as you need something to take that photograph WITH, then you go on through software processing and printing stage. Back to that camera, I say you need to record an image. The basic choice is the so called point-and-shoot and dSLR. In P&S category, there is the majority of consumer level cameras, the ones you find in every household, and the arguably PRO level P&S, that cater to more advanced shooters who want RAW capture, full manual controls, high quality lens etc. In the latter, there is only a few contenders and seemingly only ONE per manufacturer. They all hover in the $400-$500 price range (isn't it interesting?) with the exception of Leica, but you want pretty name, you pay.

Click on an image to go to a review site.

Canon G10 & Sigma DP2

Leica D-LUX 4 & Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC3 (practically same innards)

Nikon P6000



So here you have a quick way of following news on these MEGA point-and-shoots. Currently the Panasonic/Leica may be the choice of the day, not without limitations of course.

I don't own any one of these at this point, although I am definitely tinkering with the idea. One main thing I can say here is, that we've hit the max sensible pixel count it appears as Canon got it in G10 to 14. As it was stated over and over, here and everywhere, pixel count is one of the factors, but it's the pixel size (individual receptor within it sensor) that makes it or breaks it. The idea being, the smaller the pixel the higher the gain needed to deliver "same" goods. Sensors themselves don't grow any more, but more and more pixel get cramped into the space. In other words, in order to improve image quality it's the dimensions of the sensor must increase, so as to facilitate a larger receptor size. Unfortunately, we're talking a P&S camera that by default implies a small device. There is only so much that can fit into it and it is NOT about fitting a larger sensor, but rather a larger lens so it can provide image circle corresponding with the larger sensor . Optical design has made huge leaps in recent years, so we can expect an eventual lens design of a compact size and larger than today coverage. But until that happens, we'll continue following new yet inadequate small camera designs. These BIG guys are no doubt superior to their less expensive counterparts, but they have a long way to go, to be freely accepted as a larger camera replacement. Perhaps we should skip the "larger camera" idea altogether, as there is always going to be a performance gap between the two. Let's call it a backup that's capable of great photography, especially if you subscribe to the idea:

"it's the photographer,not the camera"

Our wait continues though.
...

New blog and a mention of Plogger

Just started a blog Mad Pontoon dedicated to web site design with focus on photography presentation, but also delving into general issues of site design. I'm a definite novice in the field of "pure" web design (pure as in - hand coded in it's entirety). The pure approach, while quite a chore for a newcomer, produces more manageable results, cleaner code, and helps in site updates down the line. Those who can afford a professional services can sure do that, others like myself, who would rather do the whole thing on their own, need to stick to the learning process.

Mad Pontoon will become my link between actual design work and resources I find necessary to get the results.

While on the subject of web photo presentation, I'm all into open source model. There is several choices that make gallery creation easy and nearly painless. Some are too elaborate for my taste, but there is a few, that get it "right". In some cases customization may get a bit overwhelming at first, but if a gallery is to be integrated into the rest of a site, it better match its overall look.

So here, let me mention Plogger, a free server side script that produces a simple gallery, that has a lot of customization almost built in. I will be creating a test gallery soon, and will report here when it's completed.
...

New forum set up

This is a repeat of my announcement from ElusiveFoto blog about a new discussion forum that (for now) will only deal with photographer's web site design and creation.

I will be writing on the subject on these two blogs, but my intent is to post on the forum most of what I find. There is now so many image oriented sites, many excellent, many bad, that I thought it would help, if we could consolidate information on such sites (and how some have been build) .