The Macro Secret - And Everyone Can Afford One

A quick whirl through the internet with the word "macro" in the search will turn up a bewildering variety of equipment and advice. There is science, art, alchemy, and obfuscation in about equal measures. And yet it can all be so simple.

In my weekly review of the warehouse I lit upon a number of Olympus Stylus cameras that were stacked on a shelf. I think they might be trade demo models. They are certainly inexpensive... pocket money cameras. As a speculation, I added one to the studio illustration list and took it away. Charged up the battery and tried it in the studio.

Good Grief, Charlie Brown! This is amazing!

As a little pocket camera it has been designed with a lot of automatic features - it will play between program and auto modes as well as a number of special effect programs. You'll get no hot shoe or viewfinder, but the screen is large enough to see clearly, and there is a tiny little pop-up flash that you can use to trigger other flashes or to provide a macro fill.

You can choose your aperture, thankfully, and this makes the most of the close-up experience. I elected to set the WB to tungsten to match the modelling lights on the studio strobes and let it go at that. And then I played with the special effects. Hey, I'm not above playing - anyone with a studio full of toy cars has a perfect excuse...

The basic shooting is very simple. Point. Hold steady. Shoot.

The results are excellent. The short focal length of the zoom lens means the depth of field is maximised, and the resolution at 16 megapixels is more than enough for subjects with this much illumination. Note the ease with which I got into the dashboard of the Mercedes model.

Some of the effects like the tiled image or the fisheye would quickly become clichéd but the pinhole and the dramatic have a wider application. As they are in-camera you can see at the time of capture whether they actually do work. I did not try soft focus or miniature because it is a miniature to start with.

Note as well the results on a couple of flowers - one of which is very miniature indeed.

At the pocket money price of these cameras, you can afford to dedicate one to your wildflower or closeup shooting and leave the big rig for other things. Your camera club won't even need to know how you beat them!

Grandma's Camera

It is no sin to get older and to have grandchildren. Nor is it wrong to want to have thousands of pictures of them plastered over the house and the internet. It is, however, a dreadful and terrible thing to make those pictures look bad. Nowadays there is no excuse for the out-of-focus image with heads lopped off and the colour gone to mud. Modern cameras can do better than that...

But we older folk sometimes are not entirely up to the minute with the latest technology in cameras. We remember film and the simple camera that coped with outdoor pictures - the family gathered on the front lawn or at the dinner table. We pointed, shot, and let the chemist deal with the rest of the problems. The resultant prints went into albums and on the refrigerator and we were happy.

Well, take the chemist out of the equation - Heaven knows that we'll be seeing enough of them with our swollen, itchy, or leaky bits...we don't need them to be the arbiters of our images as well.

The camera that does it automatically, easily, and with clarity is the thing we need. If there are only one or two buttons to press, all the better - but we must have clean files on our computers or to give to the mall printer so that the grandies look like we think they look. Olympus has one of these that is perfect for us.

The Stylus SH 50 is small enough to be convenient but big enough to be easily grasped. It is precise and fast - press the button and it does the business right then. There is a long zoom lens in case the grandies are at the beach and a wide-angle lens in case we are on holiday  and get to the big scenic lookout. There is a flash that lets us take indoor images perfectly.

It does do video - just point and shoot. The video has good clear sound - in stereo. And it has a priceless asset - there is a shake-reduction device  it that operates no mater how we hold it - if we have a bit of a tremor it does not matter - the camera will smooth it out.

Best of all - it is on special now until Christmas at Camera Electronic for $ 314 complete. Just add a memory card and start shooting.

I'm a Laydee - I'm a Laydee...

Sorry, its one of those television buzz-phrases that just lodge in the mind. But this certainly IS a camera for a Laydee.

Nikon Coolpix S01. Internal memory - 7.3 GB - no card needed. Internal battery - charges off the USB port of your laptop or other digital device. 10.1 Megapixels, 3x zoom lens, touch screen control, even does HD 720p videos.

And the size - that's a real 50 cent piece in the images - and a real hand.

Comes in gloss black or shiny silver. Peerfect for pocket or purse - even an evening handbag.

In-store right now.

Yay - Back In the Saddle With Pentax

Yippee - Tie-Yoh Pentax have got their mojo back.

After years of stylistic bouncing about, Pentax have wisely looked into their past and come out with a design that remembers how good things were.

I mean the new Pentax MX-1 camera. If you remember the Pentax MX cameras in the 35 mm film days, the features that stick in the mind were the solid build, compact size, and great feel of the top and bottom metal body panels. Pentax were wise and chamfered them to allow your hands to feel comfortable. Someone in their design department in the 70's knew their ergonomics - or more to the point, knew ours...

The new MX-1 has continued this tradition - so much so that the top and bottom plates are not just chamfered, but are actual brass pressings with proper chrome. As a result, the camera body has a solidity that is missing in some other brands.

The usual access controls have a solid feel to them as well - three dial wheels as well as the multi-selector. The screen is the horizontal tilt type so macro and low-level shots are easy. There is a 4 x zoom range and a macro facility that is bitingly sharp. There is a built-in flash for dark and an HDR program for lots of other conditions. 12 megapixels.

In all, a really well-thought-out travelling camera - this is the the one for the European vacation.

When Portable Elegance Counts - Fuji

I am a great fan of Fuji cameras - I bought one with my own money after deliberately trying out everything we sell in the same class of equipment. My Fuji has accompanied me on several interstate holidays and to a number of events here in Perth. It provides sterling service as the camera illustrating

the blog here in the shop. I couldn't be happier...

Except.

The Fuji X-10 camera I carry is reminiscent of the shape and weight of one of the traditional 35mm rangefinder cameras. It has the ergonomics of this sort of camera, and I love it for that - but the zoom lens on it does stick out a bit, even when it is housed and turned off. I keep it in a pouch slung over my shoulder, but it would not really fit into the breast pocket of my sports coat.

That is why I am tempted to give it a stablemate - the Fuji XF1. This is a camera that incorporates all the fun features of the X-10 like the EXR sensor, the special programming, the panorama feature, and the very good f:1.8 lens - but it has been engineered to allow that lens to collapse into the body structure for storage, reducing the profile of the camera to true pocket-size.

Here's the front and back views of two varieties of the camera - there is also a light tan one that is extremely attractive.

The joy of the new lens structure is that it is still mechanical  - you twist and pull to erect it and then twist to zoom - no wicky little motors to go wrong. Metal barrel.

As an experiment, I used the black XF1 to take pictures of the red XF1 and the X-10. I should be more than pleased to use this camera on any future holidays. Now to get some better clothing so that I look as elegant as the camera...

Pocket Rockets - From Olympus

Don't worry if the title of this blog seems to mention another manufacturer's product - the term " Pocket Rocket " appears in conjunction with many items - and I first encountered it as a child when reading about the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. The Richard brothers - Maurice and Henri were star players. Maurice was Rocket Richard and as Henri was younger and shorter he was Pocket Rocket Richard. I often wondered if they had any of their natural teeth left in their mouths after so many seasons of professional hockey, but that is another story...

The trio of cameras that you see in this blog are the little fun ones from Olympus. They are small and stylish - hence the arty photographic treatment with the props and the million dollar lighting* - but they may be just exactly what you need for your camera bag - or your pocket.

The purple one is the VR 350. It is the elegant equivalent of a stack of post-it notes and a pen. You see something memorable on holiday, you pop it out of your purse, point and shoot. Even extreme close-up, no problem. See a passing parade? Push the movie button and take HD 720 videos of it as much as you like - sound and all. Wideangle? - 24mm in filmspeak**. Telephoto? 240mm in filmspeak. Wow. Even does automatic 3D anaglyph photos and the Olympus people have included a pair of red/blue 3D glasses in the package, so you can take pictures of dinosaurs looming out of the frame. As one does on holiday.

The silver camera next to the EASY button is the VG 160. We sell a bundle of these to schools be cause they are so easy to use - and so cheap. They still have a 26mm lens in filmspeak and this goes out to 130mm. Movies, macro, and a 3" screen on the back. Silver, black, and bright hot colours. Fits in any pocket. Easy.

The elegant grey camera with the noticeable grip is the SZ -14. This is a step up in the Olympus world as it has a lens range of 25mm filmspeak to 625mm filmspeak. Movies, macro, 3" LCD screen, and a pop-up flash tube just above the lens assembly  - for attractive shadowing on flash exposures. The larger grip is a help when holding the camera out to see the screen, and means that a one-handed use is much more secure. The longer lens extension means that this camera could go on a safari trip with you and bring back pictures of things you don't want to get near to. Lions, bears, politicians...

Remember that while we want you to buy a full DSLR kit with extra lenses and three tripods for every trip you take, you may wish to travel a little lighter. These cameras are your chance to do so, and to bring back some pretty darn good images.

* Two fluorescent tubes stuck on the ceiling. Million dollar might have been a little high...

** Filmspeak. The mathematical expression that equates a digital camera's lens and sensor combination to what it might have been able to do in the GOD if it was a 35mm camera shooting film. It clears it all up, eh?

Uncle Dick