How to Shoot "Professionally" with the Canon Powershot G10 – Part III.

Keeping Minimum ISO

The lower is ISO sensitivity the better is image quality. The G10 produces best quality images at ISO 80-100, good at 200 and acceptable at 400. Increasing ISO introduces digital noise (grain), reduces image sharpness and colour saturation. I don't recommend using ISO 800 and 1600 for colour shooting.


When shooting outdoors during daylight, set ISO to 80. Switch to a higher ISO only if it is getting darker and your images are getting blurry. Keep the image stabilization always on. It reduces camera shake and allows taking sharp photos at shutter speeds as slow as 1/15 or even 1/8 sec. When shooting at dusk or indoors, Auto ISO works fine.


To keep minimum ISO, use a tripod or flash. A mini-tripod is very useful for a tourist. It is light, fits in your coat pocket and can be put on any flat surface like a table or bench.

When shooting with a tripod, use minimum ISO. Pressing the shutter button can introduce camera shake, so it is a good idea to use a delay. Press this button and select 2 sec. delay, it would be enough.


If you purchase the optional Canon RS-60E3 remote release, you can shoot without a delay.

The G10's built-in flash is very powerful, and can be used not only for portrait and interior shots, but outdoors as well. It can produce interesting creative effects. Here are the examples of the same scene shot with and without flash.

Use HI ISO only if it is too dark, and you can use neither tripod nor flash.


The left shot of the clock tower was taken at Auto ISO and 1/60 sec. (too dark); the middle one at Auto ISO and 0.8 sec (too blurry); and the right one at ISO 1600, 1/30 sec. It is properly exposed and not blurry, but look at the 100% crop below!



You wouldn't want such a quality for your colour pictures, however black & white ones can turn out good. Here are a couple of examples taken at ISO 800 (top) and 1600 (bottom):





Click to enlarge.

How to Shoot "Professionally" with the Canon Powershot G10. – Part IV.

White Balance and Custom Colours

You can't go wrong using Auto White Balance (AWB) most of the time, however, using appropriate white balance presets can improve colour accuracy. Considering weather conditions of Western European winter, the most suitable would be Cloudy. It can also be used under sunlight to make pictures warmer.

It is subjective, but I think that default colours of the G10 are too dull, and default sharpening is too high. Combined with automatic noise reduction it makes small details and sharp edges look coarse and introduces sharpening halos, which are ugly and difficult to get rid of. Here are 100% crops taken at default sharpening:


To fix this I created the Custom Colour setting with sharpening set to -2 and saturation to +2. Here is an example:


Colour modes also can be selected by pressing FUNC button. You may experiment with different mode (black & white, sepia, etc.) but after that I recommend switching back to the Custom Colour.

Toying with Cars and Time

While Dmitry Popov aka Alzheimer drives back in time, Michael Paul Smith creates the time of his own, and his own toy world seamlessly blended with reality.



Via: http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

iPhad

Via: http://www.nu.nl/cache/sevensheaven/

Aputure Gigtube

The Aputure released Gigtube, a very useful accessory, which is much needed by photographers since first DSLR's with live view appeared. It is an innovative remote viewfinder device that includes a LCD screen. Compatible with any camera with a video output, the screen can automatically display an image immediately after shooting it, or can stream the video feed from live view. Moreover, the LCD screen is rotatable for different angle views and this gadget offers the remote shutter release function.


There are several models available for most well-known Canon and Nikon cameras. The one for Canon Rebel series should work with the Powershot G10 also, since remote release sockets are compatible. Not as versatile and convenient as articulated screen on the G11, but still very useful.

Available at Adorama.com

Two somehow related news

1. "This past Saturday, reports the BBC, more than 2000 photographers protested the indiscriminate harassment of innocent photographers under Britain's anti-terrorism laws. The protest took place in London's Trafalgar Square. The photographers say police are intimidating people with cameras in tactics to target possible terrorists."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8476318.stm



2. "Uzbek photographer Umida Akhmedova is awaiting trial and is facing a potential sentence of six months in prison or three years forced labor. At issue is a 2007 work called Men and Women from Dawn to Dusk that contains approximately 100 of her photographs of life and customs in Uzbekistan. (50 of the photographs here.) A special commission tasked by the government prosecutor has analyzed the photographs and charged Ms. Akhmedova with "defamation and insulting Uzbek traditions."

Via http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

Uzbekistan is one of the most notorious regimes in the post-Soviet Central Asia (probably the second worst after Turkmenistan). British police and justice still have a long way to go to catch up with their Uzbek colleagues, but they have made the first steps…

Window Shopping

This is the window of the Holt Renfrew store on Bloor, the most creatively decorated in Toronto.




HDR images taken handheld with the Canon G10. Click to enlarge.