Sony DSC W300 review

I'm a keen photographer, not a great one, but keen. Over the years I've captured a few shots, perhaps 10, that I'm happy with. The transition from film to digital has been tinged with grief and nostalgia for the feel of mechanical film cameras.

The "money" shots, have mostly been because I was there and had a camera with me. (Was it Robert Frank who gave the advice to aspiring photographers asking about equipment, "F8 and be there"?)

I also appreciate "exhibition quality" photographs. After comparing a fine ink jet print compared to my best darkroom effort, I threw out the chemical darkroom.

When I want great quality, I use a DSLR. For every day, I use a pocket point and shoot. 99% of my images are shot with the pocket camera.

Recently it was time to hand down my camera and after careful consideration I opted for the little Sony DSC W300. Here are my comments after more than 500 shots.

It's a lovely looking camera with a titanium coating that I think resists scratching while being light weight. Small and flat enough to really fit in my top pocket was one of my primary requirements.

Only a 3X zoom which is not outstanding but the lens is a maximum of f2.8 so it's worth it. (Those huge zooms are incredibly slow even though the font element might look big).

13.6 megapixels is more than I need so I run it at 5Mp normally.

Starts up reasonably fast, not as quick as a film camera though.

The display on the back is great, the UI is a little bit flashy, with animation and so on. Sometimes I hunt around for things but generally I find them. The main features: macro, flash, and self timer are directly available except for exposure override (+- EV) which requires you to go through the menu button and then possibly more pushes.

The dial has the useful functions I want including High ISO and higher ISO. (More on this later).

Battery life seems very good. I would take it away for a week without worrying.

There's a bunch of fancy functions like recognising faces and focussing on them, even recognising faces and focusing on children's faces rather than adults! (Really, I kid you not). But generally I don't use these.

The best feature is that it has an optical view finder. Very small but there. Being able to hold the camera steady against my face is a great feature for me even if it isn't very accurate.

Complaints

Doesn't take standard memory. Like SD. I had to buy some mysterious Sony Memory stick to put in this thing. For the features I was prepared to suffer this pain but this is a real negative. Just give me an SD slot next time!

The cable for plugging into the computer is not only proprietary, but I always plug it in the wrong way up first.

It looks almost the same on both sides and there is no visual clue as to which way is "up".

Photos

This is all academic, until you see some shots. I took the shot in this early blog post in a lift under very strange lighting. The point is, I had the camera on me.

In daylight, the photos look great:

What's really impressive is that in near dark like the shot below, available light f2.8 1/20th sec, ISO6400, pictures are still somewhat usable:

Overall, I'm happy with this camera. As I said above, I hate the storage card, the cable and I'd like to tweak the options that are available directly on the buttons. I love the high ISO, screen, and viewfinder.

This review was inspired by the other camera I considered, the Ricoh digital reviewed by Alastair.

A seminar with Michael Reichmann

I had the great pleasure of attending a seminar presented by the author of one of my favourite photo web sites, the Luminous-Landscape. Despite a great turnout here in Sydney, Michael circulated around and I was able to have a personal chat, ask a few questions and even snap a picture.

Michael showed a series of images, many were familiar from his web site, and spoke about his view of where we are in photography today.

Basically, it's a very exciting time. Technology is advancing faster than ever. In the film days, Nikon would release a new "F" camera about every 8 years, now it's almost every 8 months. Are they getting better, yes, do we need to buy every new model... no.

The talk ranged over all the hot topics in photography, is digital higher quality than film (yes), is it ok to adjust the scene or clone out powerlines, an interesting debate.

Some interesting insights about the new techniques of selective colour de-saturation, high dynamic range, and focus bracketing, were shared.

Michael is a pragmatic photographer with a straight forward, ethical approach. I am grateful for the effort he puts in to sharing his experiences and promoting this fantastic subject.

Dismantled my darkroom - a sad day

I'm a habitual early adopter in every area except one, photography. I stuck with film long after it was becoming clear that digital was superior. Digital isn't better in every way, but that's a whole other topic...

Looking back at my prints I can see that I was somewhat blind to the dust and scratches that would not go uncorrected in these digital days.

I've had a darkroom in the house, on and off, pretty much since I was in my early teens. Many deeply satisfying hours have been spent huddled over the enlarger, with my fingers in the chemical trays, and walking with dripping prints to the laundry to wash. I will miss just having the room there, even though a year has gone by with no activity.

Digital equipment goes out of date within months, some of my darkroom gear is technology that hasn't changed in 40 years.

I'll still keep a few film cameras, they are pieces of industrial art. I wonder if there is a film processing service that develops the film and sends back a really high quality negative scan? Last time I tried Kodak Photo CD it was very disappointing.

The Nature of Photographs - mini book review

Spotted this wonderful book this morning. "The Nature of Photographs" by Stephen Shore, subtitled "A Primer".

The reproductions of photographs is fantastic in this high quality publication from Phaidon. Works are by the author and many others including Robert Frank, Walker Evans, Cindy Sherman, Lee Friedlander, André Kertész, William Eggleston, Garry Winogrand, Bernice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, Alfred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus, Eugene Atget, and even the great John Szarkowski is in there.

Well structured and simply stated, this book has given me a good structure for appreciating photographs. Packed with insights that in retrospect seem obvious. For example, the artist starts with a blank page and must fill it, the photographer starts with the clutter of the world and must simplify it.