1. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Canon S5is Test & More… Any excuse to shoot Copyright © 2003 - 2009 Kenji Tachibana

2. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot A ny Excuse: Curiosity Every time I take a picture, I’m always testing some feature of the camera, my ability to see, or to capture what I think I see. Here are 2 found-shots from my exercise walk in and around the Greenwood Fred Meyers store. I shot them using Canon’s latest super-zoom contender, PowerShoit S5-IS.

3. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot V isual Joke: I go there to do my exercise walk when the weather is not inviting outside. Seeing the tiny brown kid shoe tickled my funny bone. I decided to share the sight with you…

4. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot N ot Quiet: The final shot doesn’t quite tickle my funny bone. It may be because I have been looking at it too long. Or, it just is not there. The adult shoe is not as big as I wanted for the comparison…

5. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot P owerShot: S5 IS The IS part stands for Image Stabilization. It helps to minimize camera movement and it worked well for this handheld shot using a very slow 1/10 second shutter speed.

6. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot M aking Opportunities: Most stores have a ‘No Photo’ policy. And with that knowledge in mind, I worked quickly to set up and shoot the shot. I decided that contrast would be a good story to show scale which was part of the humor. Before

7. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot L ab work: 3 adjustments 1.Levels adjustment 2.Brightness/ Contrast 3.Color adjustments The 3 adjustments were applied to bring up the image P R E S E N C E. Use the keyboard Up and Down arrows to compare this After image with the previous Before image. After

8. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot: R etouching: I liked the curved line for design reasons but it was too bright. So it was toned down and colorized. Now it’s a subtle curve line repeating design elements in the subject. Did you notice it in the previous image?

9. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot P ushing The Limits: I pushed the ISO 1-stop to 200 because of’ the low light ‘emergency’ situation. That allowed shutter speed to move up to 1/5 sec (dangerously slow). Needing a faster speed, I set the camera bias to EC ‘-1’. That allowed me to increase the shutter speed 1-stop to 1/10 sec, still extremely slow for a hand held shot. I would not have attempted the shot without Image Stabilization. Even with all that emergency ‘adjustments’, the exposure setting was still a borderline 1/10 sec at f/3.2. The last ‘adjustment’ was to use the 11mm ‘normal’ focal length. I also added an additional camera stabilization by bracing my back against the next shoe rack.

10. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot G ood Result: Lucky This would make a very fine industrial espionage photo. The PowerShot performed extremely well and surprised me with the example detail to the top right.

11. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I The camera test is 100% but the intended story is about 90%. Details: Hand held shot In order to get this level of sharpness, I cranked the ISO up to 200 and made

12. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Outdoor Skylight Shot Example Parking Lot (Found) Shot

13. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Over-The-Top Shoe: I walk for my exercise. One. This black area is the ‘10% safety-margin’ crop-frame applied to the camera original. Before

14. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Over-The-Top Shoe: I walk for my exercise. One of my indoor walking place is the near by Fred Meyers. I always make sure to walk by the shoe department. This tiny over-the-top shoe always make me laugh. Here is my attempt to share it with you. I used a new camera, Canon PowerShot S5 IS. I’m testing it for the NSCC Media department. AFTER: Cropped, processed, & colorized. This is the same image as the previous BEFORE image..

15. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I P rocessing Steps: The top image has been basic processed to bring out the ‘presence’. Light painted bottom example look more like what I visualized when I found the shot. Light painted technique utilizes selection with feathered edges and a liberal use of ‘painting on the mask’. Processed

16. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot Detail: Digital noise… Detail Both my Panasonic and Canon super-zooms have 8 MP sensors, which is pushing the practical limits of the tiny thumb-nail size sensor chip. The 8 MP is causing serious over crowding which results in excess heat. And that results in digital Noise, which is similar to film grain. The top Detail image shows the noise problem. The grain is making the image less sharp, less contrasty, and less present. The technical flaws are getting in the way of seeing just the object…

17. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Any excuse to shoot P ushing the Practical Limits: With current technology, 8 MP is pushing the practical limits of the compact digital sensor chip. Until the chip size or chip technology changes, fighting digital noise with electronic ‘smoothing’ is playing havoc with trying to maintain photo- realistic image quality. I would rather see more R&D focused on minimizing heat and digital noise rather than in continuing to increase sales by upping the pixel count. Unfortunately, that’s a harder sell for the camera makers. And to some extent, it works for them to create compact digitals that does not compete with their DSLR digitals.

18. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Direct competition N ew Kids On The Block: Sony and Panasonic are the new kids on the block. Sony is pushing hard at the heels of Nikon and Canon, the big boys. They both have to offer and deliver more to be noticed in an already crowded field of digital cameras. Panasonic is not a serious contender yet. So it has less to lose and more to gain by making their SuperZoom prosumer compact digital lead the pack.

19. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Direct competition Competition: It’s good for us In order to get noticed as ‘real’, Panasonic teamed up with Leitz to produce their digital cameras. Leitz is famous for their Lica cameras. And the partnership is good for both companies. Panasonic supplies the advanced electronics while Leitz supplies the advanced zoom design with excellent optics.

20. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Direct competition Panasonic DMC FZ18: My current favorite I started with a Nikon Coolpix Prosumer 900 but, currently with both a longer (18x) super-zoom by Leica and the power of the RAW image file format. Nikon and Canon have both withdrawn the RAW capability from their compact digitals. Panasonic was very wise to offer the RAW capability to their Super-Zoom digital. More than the Leica lens, the RAW is what made me buy the Panasonic Lumix FZ-18. With the the RAW does improve the image quality from FZ18, it still suffers from being ‘grainy’. Although the RAW allows me to make the grain look more like film grain, which was beautiful in some ways.

21. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Competitive market place Sony: A contender Sony does not offer the RAW capability because it’s going for the #3 spot in the DSLR market. Sony does not want its own CyberShot superzoom H series to complete with it DSLR Alpha series. Sony Alpha 100 was the DSLR ‘Camera of the Year’ for 2-years in a row. And they continue to get noticed with all their new models. Besides putting the IS into the body, they offer active LCD preview and live histogram. They are the only camera maker to offer high image quality zoom lens with the preferred 18 to 70mm zoom range as a kit lens choice.

22. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Canon PowerShot S5is Test: Competitive market place : Summary Both Nikon and Canon put the IS in the lens which makes each lens heavier and more expensive. Sony’s offers lighter zoom lenses with superb German optics at a more affordable pricing. If your thinking about moving up to a DSLR, give the Sony Alpha 350 ($900), a serious though. Although I still recommend the Panasonic FZ18 ($329) over any DSLR.

23. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x Fin