Category: camera

Crown Point

On By stefrobrtsIn camera, outdoors, photographyLeave a comment

May, 23

One afternoon in May we decided to grab the camera and go for a drive somewhere where I could get a scenic shot, and have some dinner with a view. We headed over to Gresham, Oregon, and swung by Abby’s Pizza, got a pizza to go, and then continued on to the Portland Women’s Forum Overlook – a beautiful viewpoint on the Historic Columbia River Highway. It has a lovely view of the Gorge all the way to Beacon Rock, and particularly nearby Crown Point, with it’s little gem the Vista House.

It was relatively busy at the overlook. Other picnicers and photographers were hanging around to see the view. I set up my camera and tripod pointed at the view, and waited for the sun to break out of the clouds and light things up. Things were pretty dull at first.

However, by the time we’d finished our pizza, things started to jazz up a little.

That’s more like it. The light on the wall of Crown Point really makes it pop out of the background.

Next we headed over to Crown Point ourselves to check out the Vista House. The sunset was pretty, but I couldn’t get the sunset and Vista House at the same time, and there were a ton of people around. Dave walked around to the other side to check out the view from there.

While I was waiting for him to come back, I realized the battery in the camera had died! That’s annoying. My Sony A7II DSLR really eats batteries compared to the little a6000 I used to shoot with, so I hadn’t stuck any extra in my pocket before we left.

Right about then the light got low enough to shine through the art-deco stained glass windows of the Vista House, so I grabbed my cell phone to get the shot.

It actually did a nice job! This is why on vacations I just use my phone instead of dragging a DSLR around anymore.

So I went home feeling accomplished, with a couple nice pictures, and a dinner our favorite pizza, eaten in one of the prettiest spots in the area.

New Camera, Kitty update

On By stefrobrtsIn camera, mighty, pets3 Comments

Yesterday I did my part to help the economy by picking up a new Nikon 5100 DSLR at Best Buy on a Black Friday sale. In my research to buy a new camera I discovered they are pretty much priced the same everywhere, with sales popping up here and there, and the sales are always the same amount too. I don’t get how that’s legal. Anyway, I decided to go for it and get the latest model in the amateur DSLR line. Unfortunately only one of my old lenses will work with it, but the kit lens seems good.

My first test shot: Mighty – on my desk:

Handheld, without Image stabilization turned on, with just the light from my desk lamp – nice!

BTW, the kitties are doing fine in our new home. I’d kind of like to keep them inside, but I don’t know if they would be too bored after having been outdoor kitties on the farm. On the other hand I don’t want them annoying the neighbors, catching birds, getting hit by a car, or chased by neighborhood dogs. A friend suggested an invisible fence they make for cats that could keep them in the backyard, but they would still catch birds, and the gardens in the backyard are full of birds. The other morning we were making breakfast and watching all the birds playing in the bushes and taking baths in the bird bath – fun! I think if we let these two out the birds would go somewhere safer! So for everyone’s sake, we’ll see about keeping them in for now at least.

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Telephoto lens test

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, camera, navi, pets2 Comments

My new camera also came with a Tamron aspherical 18-200mm f3.5-f6.3 lens. So today I took it for a little test drive. I couldn’t do much because we’re having a howling wind storm with rain coming down buckets, but between downpours I went out on the porch for a quick test.

At 18mm

I think I see a bit of vignetting on the corners, but that might be from the UV filter on the front. I’ll try another test without that next time.

at 200mm – the RR crossing down at the road

also at 200mm, Barclay in the yard

I’m impressed. This will be nice at the wildlife refuge. I can’t wait to go try it out. Of course you’re never close enough when you’re trying to photograph birds!

Back in the office I got a quick shot of Navi next to my desk. What a doll 🙂

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Fun with my new Camera

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, camera, mighty, navi2 Comments

I’m starting out playing around with the ‘kit’ lens – a 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G, which is supposed to be a pretty good lens. I’m still figuring out what all the settings on the camera do, but I’m hoping to have enough of a grip on it to try and take a shot of the sky tonight – if it’s clear.

For now I just practiced on whatever critters out in the yard would hold still for a minute:

Barclay
Navi
Mighty
And the evil 3 Musketeers – I just had to make sure they didn’t spit on my camera while I was concentrating on getting the shot.
These were all taken with a fence between me and them!
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My new camera

On By stefrobrtsIn barclay, camera, mouse2 Comments

Tonight I brought home my first ‘real’ camera, a Nikon D50. I found it on CL for sale along with a kit of lenses.

I can already tell there is going to be a bit of a learning curve, but I’m going to enjoy that part. I was able to get it home and get some decent pictures out of it right off the bat, so I think we’re going to get along just fine.

Now I just need to figure out what all these settings do!

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Canon SX10 IS and a new photo blog

On By stefrobrtsIn camera2 Comments

Last year the CCD went out on my much-loved Canon S2IS, and after spending a bit of time trying to get Canon to fix it for free (they wanted $135 to fix it), I finally had it returned to me and have been using it as the only thing it is fit for – a paperweight – ever since.

I was finally ready to get a new camera to replace it, and I spent a lot of time soliciting opinions, reading up on Digital SLR cameras, learning about lenses. One thing I knew I did NOT want was another Canon. When my S2 broke down I read about many other people online who had the same thing happen. Some got their cameras fixed for free, some did not. I knew someone locally who had the same thing happen to their S3 and they had to pay to get it fixed. I was pretty unhappy with the spotty customer service, and that so many expensive cameras were breaking down and Canon felt they didn’t need to stand behind them.

But after much researching, adding up the costs of new cameras and lenses, and reading the recommendations of people who really really liked their Canon cameras, I finally relented and asked Canon to send me the new info on the Canon Loyalty Program. That’s where you can trade in your broken camera for a new refurb unit. It came down to spending $359 for a Rebel XS DSLR, or $200 for a SX10 IS. The SX10 is the modern equivalent of the S2 – if they’d stuck with the naming convention it would be an S6. It will bump me up from 5 to 10 megapixels, and from 12x to 20x zoom! One nice thing is being able to browse through Flickr and see the quality of pictures people have taken with it.

I bit the bullet and made the order. By next week my new SX10 will be here. I can’t wait, I’m excited to finally have something with more features than the point-n-click I’ve been using. To celebrate my new camera, I’m going to start a new ‘picture-a-day’ blog. That should force me to get out and really use it.

Old tractor

On By stefrobrtsIn cameraLeave a comment

The neighbors were cutting their field yesterday, and the tractor must have broke down. When I saw it there this morning, I thought it would make a lovely picture. I wish my Powershot wasn’t still out of order, I could have done a bit more with it.

My broken Canon Powershot S2IS

On By stefrobrtsIn camera5 Comments

I would show you a picture of it, but obviously I can’t.

Many of the best pictures I’ve taken have been done with my much-loved Canon Powershot S2 IS. It has been a wonderful camera for me, and a nice step up from the ‘point & shoot’ cameras, giving me control over exposures and ISO settings that I never had a chance to experiment with before.

But a couple weeks ago it started giving me a black screen intermittantly. So I thought my rechargable batteries weren’t up to the task anymore, and I decided to replace them. Yesterday I finally got them, installed, turned it on and …nothing. The black screen of death. I get an LCD where I can view the menu and settings, but no picture.

Fortunately I had run across many discussions of this on the net when I was researching the intermittant problem. Seems there’s a problem with the Canon S series which has to do with the optical assembly. Some people reported that canon was fixing the problem at no charge, so I contacted canon and they quickly replied that they only repaired the S1 for free, not the S2. That was going to cost me $130! This is annoying because it’s the same problem by description, and there’s many many people on the net discussing this problem with their S2, and many who managed to get it fixed for free, but canon still wants to get out of fixing it. I expect better when I spend $350 for a camera, even if it was three years ago. To me a known problem that effects a whole line of cameras is the company’s responsibility to fix.

But maybe all is not lost. Because while reading a discussion of this problem on flicker I found the following advice:

==I set the camera in TV mode, set the shutter at 15 sec, click to take a picture and during that 15 secs (like, after 7 seconds) I open the battery cover.. When the battery is inserted again the camera works and I can take pictures. Maybe it needs a little exercise.. If you don’t succeed the first time, just keep trying. It has worked for me, and it made me feel so relieved!===

Now, as a software engineer this sort of thing makes me cringe. How could that possibly ‘fix’ a bad optical assembly? However, since my camera was essentially a paperweight at this point I gave it a try…

And it worked. Ok, that annoys me even more than the camera not working in the first place. But actually it only sort-of worked, because now the camera is back to working intermittantly. So it works roughly every other time I turn it on.

I’m considering sending it to canon and just arguing with them about it until they fix it for free – that seems to be what has worked for other people. At this point I’m not prepared to spend $130 fixing it, or to spend hundreds on a new camera. I could buy a broken s2 on ebay with a different problem and attempt a repair myself (It can’t get any more broken than it already is).