Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology
A recent trip to Sweden saw my Canon PowerShot G11 being put to rather more use than was expected. If I had known what might have been coming my way, I may even have eschewed the principle of lightweight packing to bring along my Pentax DSLR. Nevertheless, the little Canon did what ever was asked of it when light was plentiful.
Once thing that I have noticed in comparison with the Pentax is the Canon’s tendency to overexpose a scene. To a point, this can be explained by the former having proper spot-metering and the latter having the less specific partial metering. In fact, that might explain why a Canon EOS 10D SLR in my possession has the same tendency. Maybe it’s time to make more use of the Sekonic light meter that I have but that adds bulk that doesn’t fit in with the idea of carrying a compact camera around with you.
That leaves getting more practice with exposure corrections at processing time (I do capture all my photos in raw format). Going further, I am finding that the same consideration appears to apply to image sharpening too. It’s almost as if you need to develop a feeling for the results produced by a camera before satisfaction with any acquired photos will follow. Having decent lighting at capture time and not having muck on the sensor helps too as I have discovered with the photos made used my Pentax K10D on a recent visit to Arran and Argyll. The state of the sensor needs sorting (even if it has an anti-dust system on board) but I sometimes wonder if my judgement of lighting is what it used to be or whether my aspirations have gone too high. Maybe I need to slow down a little so as to set aside time for working on getting better results and with the right light, a quantity that should come with autumn and winter. In the meantime, I’ll stick with making the best of the British summer.