74-73-72-71-70-69-68-67 left... Macro!!!

Back to photos...

So as I said in a previous post, I failed. :-( After only 25 snaps I bought not one but 2 cameras! O God, pardon me.

What could I do ?! They where so cute, and such a good deal. Here they are:


Cutties, aren't they? Yep, I really wanted to do macro and I couldn't with the S95. I was looking for a K20D, couldn't find one so I bought a very cheap K10D (I love the K5 so I thought it can be a nice idea to choose a brand and stick to it). Anyway, I bought my K10D and a few days later found a K20D. I am thinking about selling the K10D but it is a pretty good camera actually and, for sure, a briliant back-up for my K20D, so we'll see, maybe to get some flash gears or so.

I have it for some days now. I also bought a 28mm lense I want to use reversed for high magnification. I also bought a "chinese" macro tube for a few $. I am still waiting for the reverse ring I ordered but the 28mm with just one level of macro tube already allows some quite nice close-ups you will discover in the next post.

My 5 best S95 snaps :

One quarter of the way is done... and I will fail :-(

25 acceptable shots, even some of them I really love, with a S95. One quarter of the way done. Every snap of these 25 first aren't great but how many pictures do you remember of Man Ray, Cartier-Bresson or Steve McCurry?

So, it is not one hundred yet but I still learned a lot about the S95 qualities and limitations. Here is what these are (for me):

QUALITIES:
- pocketability
- control (over aperture, shutter speed and ISO)
- RAW/pictures quality after post-prod

LIMITATIONS:
- not interchangeable lense
- minimal focus distance (no macro possible)
- no external flash control

So, yes, as a pocket camera I don't really see, many as good choices as the S95. It is a briliant little point and shoot that gives you control over the pictures you want to take and can deliver a very decent quality. And this camera will stay in my bag, with me, every day. A camera with a hot-shoe or TLL control and lenses upgrade possibility might have hold the trip a bit longer but in the same time, the S95 will still have a place in my bag what a NEX or a Panasonic or a Olympus with changeable lense might not have...

Time for a DSLR now! I could wait more and finish the "challenge", but why ? The purpose was to have fun and to learn ; and I did. But with what I want to do now (Macro shooting, flash setups...) I need to go one step futher. The goal of this challenge was to push me forward, not to slow me down, and it was really good fun. With which camera will I do the 75 next snaps?

I could buy a serious camera like a Hasselblad h4d (I am joking, I could not, not even with a morgage) or a Pentax K5 - this one I could, I had one in the hands this week-end and wow... I LOVE THIS CAMERA. More then a D7000 or a 7D, the K5 is the one for my hand, I could feel it immediatly.
But I will not buy it now. Not yet. I will start with a cheaper camera to be able to start a setup for a reasonable price. I need a body but also one or two flash, a soft box, a macro tube and lenses. I found a second hand K10D quiet cheap and it will most probably join the family soon. The purpose is to learn more about photography and it is time for me to get gears, not to do good pictures (I think I am already able to do good snaps - at least from time to time :-), not even to do better snaps but to do pictures I cannot do with the gears I have.

So in the next post will be the 5 best pictures (or at least my favorite ones) I took with the S95.

79 78 77 76 75 left... an urban walk in Prague

I almost forgot !!!

While playing around with the "miniature effect" of my little S95, I did a few decent shots but as they did not look miniature I could not really put them in my selection that time but some of these shots where actually much better then some that are in my 100 snaps challenge. This also leaded me to another reflexion... but we'll see that in a later post. For the moment let's see these shots I forgot:






As you can see, the "over-saturated colors" and the selective blur can give an interesting effect, even if it doesn't give the Mini-FX.

P.S. I especially like the glow in the Villa and the dog's pictures.

84 83 82 81 80 left... and the winners are...

1st: White flower on green and brown soil - and fly


2nd: My Bibuzz


3rd: the Freaky Tree


4th: Shades...



And last: Blue Flower



Hope you enjoy,
bye.

A walk in the forest...

We went for a walk in the forest... with my fiancée...

So I took pictures of her...



and pictures of the forest...





and picutres of her in the forest...




and after an accidental shot that became cool:


I stared to take pictures of everything! A fly on a flower:


the next one has a name: 'Our lost games'


Here is 'Intergalactic' - it just reminds me of a video clip from the Beastie Boys, dunno why, but I really love this picture. I loved it immediatly when I took it.


this one is called "Minnie is naughty"... guess why...


And I finish as I started... with my love of course :-)




Yes, what a briliant day... and so many pictures, I feel quite lucky to have a comprehensive GF that allows my compulsive behaviour. I am not at the "Japanese tourist level" taking pictures of what I eat (and what people around me eat)... or at least, not toO often ;-)

But from all the pictures I took (around 250... in one afternoon, no joke... :-( sick...) I selected 5 to enter the "100 snaps Challenge" Panthéon... More about these shots tomorrow.

P.S. I feel very bad not to have managed a small place there for my "intergalactic" or the last picture of Jana. We will see, they will maybe enter it one day. After all, nothing is set in stone.

That was fun and instructive!

Ok, it is just a "childish" effect but does it mean you should snob it? Actually every picture for which you try to do a bit more then pressing the trigger can teach you something and it worked for me.

1st, we saw it already, I saw the dramatic difference the sun can do. Ok, everybody knows it, but there is still a gap between knowing and experiencing something.

2nd, the angle in which you shoot. To give this "model" effect I had to be over my subjects as if the would be Playmobils seen by the eyes of the child playing with them. It made me see the city I live in since a while now from a new perspective. And this was fun.

3. I took consciousness of the difference between an eye and a camera. Indeed, I had to be careful not to show buildings in their integrality because then the walls start not to be streight any more. Phenomena that exists for a camera that doesn't have a real "Tilt" lense but not for the eye. This comes from the fact that our eyes are round so our "lenses" and our "sensor" have opposite shapes, but this is not the case of a camera that has a flat sensor... Hehe, I even thought about anatomy... not that bad, what do you think ?

So for my shots I had to be over my subject, to avoid strong light, and to be careful with the buldings in background of the subject. One picture tho doesn't obey to these rules (or at least not to all of them) but the result is still quiet good. It is the panorama of Prague. I think that the result is not bad because 1.the shadows are not very visible 2.if not really "over" the scene, I am still quiet high 3.I am really far of the buildings so the distortions are not visible and 4. trees always look superb for this kind of pictures, I find them so fake (lol).

So you see, who cares what you're shooting... as long as you do.

In the next post I will show you some other shots I took. They are not in my "Challenge pictures" neither are they really miniature shots, they are just little experiences I did while trying to shot my miniatures.

Quiet late now... broubrou.

89...88...87...86...85 left : The Fives

As they are miniatures I thought I can put five of them together ;-) Also if you click on one of them you will be able to pass them like diapos which is practical too. Anyway, here are The Fives: