Looking forward to the summer . . . Metro Atlanta has been kinda’ chilly lately. We love the beach and the ocean and wish we could live near there.
Archive for April, 2007
Saturday, April 7th, 2007 by Richard Nichols
These images were made from a photo of vacuum hoses at the local carwash down the street from our home. The original image was made with my new Canon PowerShot SD1000 camera.
The abstract image above has been run through Alien Skin’s Xenofex’ Classic Mosaic filter.
This second image was enhanced with Flaming Pear’s "boss emboss" filter and then reprocessed with a plugin called Mezzoforce Ice.
This third image is a close up taken from the second image.
Norma and I have recently acquired new Canon PowerShot SD1000 7.1 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras which are about the size of a business card. These miniature technological miracles measure 3.375 x 2.125 inches. 
The tiny cameras hit the market in Atlanta (and perhaps in many other cities) in early March, 2007. They are similar to earlier Canon SD500 and SD 700 models but feature several improvements. A more complete professional review of this camera can be found by clicking here, although I don’t think the author used the camera long enough to become accustomed to the size and camera controls.
Its features include extremely low light sensory capabilities (up to ASA 1600) and its slick shape. It is squared off like a pack of cards with no contours or lumps when the camera is turned off just a small rectangular flat box that fits in a shirt or blouse pocket. I don’t believe that it has image stabilization electronics like the SD 700. For this reason we have purchased monopods which seem to solve most of the camera shake issues that often plague high-pixel-count digital camera users.
Being able to control image-making in very low light situations is one of the greatest feelings . . . fireworks, moon shots, images on the beach at night, night portraits– it’s all good. Insofar as memory goes, one 2 gigabyte flash media card will hold about 800 images at the highest quality setting, or up to 20 minutes of 640×480 video. So far this camera seems to make fairly sharp photos with strong color and good contrast as long as the 3x optical zoom range isn’t exceeded. Digital zoom photos (from 3x up to 12x) degrade in quality (become pixelized and bear artifacts) rapidly, but can make useful photos at magnifications up to 12x. There is no camera raw setting.
After working with photography for many years, I have grown weary of hauling so much equipment around and in my experience, it seems that cops will often stop photographers but not snap shooters. This camera allows me to take it everywhere strapped to my belt next to my cell phone. At any moment I can take visual notes, document computer troubles, create raw material for Photoshop-based photo illustration purposes and make small good quality videos (with sound) of important events.
This camera is a continuing visual education machine– it gives both Norma and me the never-ending opportunity to stay in "photo composition practice." The camera turns on in less than a second, focued and ready to record. Its user-friendly feature set and excellent interface provide us with practice machines that produce amazing output quality.
Anyone interested in digital photography will find this camera an interesting and intriguing bit of image creation technology.
