Fountain

Cameras capture light, photography then is the pursuit of light to capture.  As the tools to capture light become as common as pencils an understanding will come of artists that take photos as different from those who doodle on a pad.  Digital photography seems more like sculpture.  Great care is taken in selecting a block of light to work with, it is isolated from the rest of the light by the camera, in much the same way as wood sculptor separates the right piece of wood from the forest with a saw.  The artist then chips away at the block taking away  that which obscures the from of their vision leaving behind a more pure and expressive representation of that idea.

This guy

Excuse me while I kiss the sky

It keeps me on my toes

The White Duck and Pato Fong

I have given him instructions to attack me wherever and whenever possible,and 

it has now become a matter of pride with him to try to outsmart me.

Everything is in bloom

Aspiration

抱負

포부

Aspiration

Aspiración

The last days of spring blossoms

花にあかぬ浮世男のにくき哉千子続虚栗 

hana ni akanu ukiyo otoko no nikuki kana chine-1688

How spiteful/jealous are men in this world that never tire of cherry blossoms !

Que rencorosos son los hombres quienes nunca cansarse de las flores de cerezo. 

Cherry Blossom Epiphany -- The Poetry and Philosophy of a Flowering Tree (2006)  Robin D. Gil page 598

Spring in Grand Children's Park

Nice place for a house

Whoooo !!

Unicorn. 

Horny Bull.

Zebra

Best levitation photo ever ? 

Sunday Afternoon Sports

Shooting Hoops

HDR mode (oooh !!!)

One of the scariest things I have seen in a kids park.

Fountain show. 

Taken backhanded and upside down to bounce the flash off the pavement.  A little skill and a lot of luck. Aren't all of the best images made that way?

Flags of the world and Buddhist painting, so many symbols.  

Crab dinner.

Balloon

A moment of peace.

Colours and lights. 

Spring is here

More Spring

The End

Spring time flower show

Spring Time and the Flowers are blooming. 

Shutter Speed: 1 / 200

F: 9

ISO : 100

렌즈 모델: Sigma DN 30mm F2.8

1:1 Crop from the Image, nice and sharp.  The Little plastic Sigma lens is great to take out and about. 

Sony NEX-7 High ISO in the street

So I dont really ever have to push the ISO setting on the camera to the limit.  But, what if I did ?

Well that would be the result.  ISO16000, f2.8 the shutter also maxing out at 1/4000 of a second. I could have closed the aperture a bit to get the poster a bit less washed out but I didn't want the model in the poster to distract from the subject of the picture.  This was taken from the hip with the sigma 30mm DN lens if you are interested in that part of things.  That shot should give you an idea of the noise that you get in the dark areas at the top of the shot.

Lets go for a worst case scenario with really high ISO

So I still have the 30mm on the camera and I spot a moment that I want to capture, it is happening fast so I need the high shutter speed. At 16000 I can get 1/160 of a second and freeze the scissor hand to get what I wanted.  Unfortunately I also captured a few old man bellies and I am not sure that I want them in the photo.  So now I am forced to crop the image.

Bear in mind that these are jpeg straight from the camera. Because we are going worst case.  If we were to use these pics for anything else then we would be taking the raw file and fixing up the color etc.  You can see there is a little loss in detail here and there but it isn't too distracting.  The colors in the jacket and on the bag have lost some texture and there is a slight impressionist nature to the color application due to the noise.  That said however, This shot is okay. The feeling of the moment is still there.  So if you are wondering what would happen if you did have to go to max ISO this might answer your question.  I would not however recommend the camera as a low light marvel as in some cases  the noise is too much.  But as I mentioned before, I don't really see the need to shoot at ISO 16000 anyway.  If low light really is your thing and you want a compact mirrorless camera, you might want to put a little time into investigating fast lenses as another way of getting the performance that you want.  These are all at f2.8, if you spend up on an f 1.4 or even the f0.95 glass that is available for these cameras (native or with adaptors) you might find the question of super high ISO becomes irrelevant. 

Sony NEX 7 High ISO in the real world

When I was looking for a new camera I was also a bit stunned by how good almost all of the cameras seemed to be.  To try and find the difference between them I started to look at the extreme end of all of the specifications trying to find some indicator of quality that I could possibly use to tell a camera where the engineers were able to do what they wanted, or where the bean counters had the upper hand.

I hate to say it but, high ISO is not very important.

I thought it was, my Cannon G9 lost me countless shots by not being able to produce good photos above ISO 100.  The quality really dropped off badly if you started moving the ISO dial. That camera was released five or six years ago though and the same problems aren't there for most of the ILS cameras that have reasonable sized sensors.  

The important point is that most of the time you will not really need to use those very high ISO settings. Lets pick a night time scene to illustrate what I mean.  I have seen these dancing plastic tubes mounted on fans in a number of countries so I think that most people will have a good idea of how, and how fast they move.  

This shot was taken at ISO 100 f2.8 and because it is night time the shutter time slowed to 1/6 of a second.  A general rule of thumb is that a shutter of 1/50 ~ 1/60 is the slowest you can hope to freeze motion with in normal situations.  You can see that we haven't done that at all here as the pink guys are looking a bit ghoulish.  Note that the old man on the bicycle at the bottom left came out ok.

 

At ISO 200 f2.8 we get a shutter speed of 1/15, not fast enough to freeze motion but not slow enough to give the impression of motion like 1/6 did.  I think this is quite an ugly result so lets move on quickly.

So lets jump a setting and go straight to IS0800 f2.8 and we get our desired shutter speed of 1/60 and things are almost frozen.  The finger tips off the pink guys are really moving very fast so we haven't quite gotten what we wanted at this sensitivity.

To ISO 1600 f2.8 and we get a shutter speed of 1/125 of a second.  The pink guys have been captured.  Job done.

I really think that anything above ISO 3200 is really just for marketing guys.  There are not that many people who have to deal with lots of movement in low lighting conditions.  I guess if you are doing some event photography in bad venues (the stage should be well lit if it is a good venue) or are taking photos at night clubs (where you could use a flash) then there might be a need for higher ISO.  However if you are a pro and working in those environments you probably have been doing so for a few years and have learnt all sorts of tricks to get the shots you need so that you can get paid.  Certainly you wouldn't be here taking advice from me as I am not any where near the level where people should be paying through the nose for my work.

For 99.99% of situations you will not need to used those ultra high ISOs,  if you really think that you will be shooting in the dark that much, perhaps you should look into a camera that can shoot infrared.

For those people who are desperate for unbiased advice on the low light performance of the NEX-7.  It works just fine and the ability to point the onboard flash at the ceiling does make the high ISO thing not too much of an issue.  I haven't had to shoot at ISO16000 in any normal situation in the street or indoors.

Seoul Hangang

The good thing about riding a bike is that you get to find some nice views of Seoul.  Its nice to share another side of the city, one of the few sides that have few people in it. 

Everything sorted.

The Camera mount was a little bit too tight, but a little fine grit sandpapering to the mount surfaces has sorted all of that out.  It now grips firmly, but not too firmly and we are full steam ahead with the nikon Series E fast fifty.  It isn't going to win any pixel peeping competitions or bokeh battles but it is fun to use and can turn out nice pictures.  I am still getting used to the characteristics of it and I love the photos it produces.  It isn't as good as a modern lens in many respects, but the lack of modernity is something that is appealing.  The blending of technologies that are about thirty years apart does help to get in touch your roots.  The delicate touch on the focus ring and mental calculations, glancing at the barrel to check the settings reminds me of my mother taking photos of us when we were kids and gives me a greater insight into my grandfathers pride of those shots where everything came together to be just right.  

Perhaps the digital cameras are finally settling in to where they should be in the progression of  imaging technology. It is just another type of film, destined to be attached to the same range of interfaces. Point and click, rangefinders, SLRs and the esoteric medium formats etc.  

The little tin men have become models. 

As I am not doing any post processing at the moment so I thought I might play around with the creative modes.  These only work in JPEG mode and as I prefer to shoot RAW they aren't on the table.  Of course, you can take a RAW image and do the effects yourself but it is always fun to play around with this stuff from time to time.  

Toy Camera (cool coloring) Creative Picture Mode 

High Contrast Black and White Creative Picture Mode (it fires three times to take one of these then combines the images). 

Nex-7 with Nikon E series 50mm F1.8

J'Adore la cuisine

Sony NEX-7 with a Sigma DN 30mm F2.8. 

 I am sure you have seen other sites with proper reviews if this lens if you have found your way here.  You are probably thinking that there is nothing special about this lens.  You would be right to think that, there is nothing in particular that sells this lens. It is however a lens that you seriously need to consider.  30mm is a normal lens, and there aren't too many lenses that fit that bill at the moment for the E mount.  Perhaps the best thing about this lens is that it is small, light and non threatening.  With the 18-200 it is pretty hard to wander around taking photos without upsetting anyone, by that I mean losing the shot before you have pressed the shutter button.  It is really just workman lik in the way that it goes about the business of taking shots.  You don't have to worry about any of the manual stuff if you don't want to, which if you are taking photos in a very dynamic environment is a good thing.  In short it is a very nice lens and a good companion to the 18-200 zoom, not as flexible for sure but it is light, easy to use and produces nice shots.