Black and White Photography Blog, Vol. I

Comment from Craig Nisnewitz
Time: January 17, 2008, 10:20 pm

Nice shot.
Where in Central Park was it taken?

Comment from dave
Time: January 17, 2008, 10:57 pm

You enter the “Formal Gardens” on Fifth Avenue, around 105th street. Take a right and walk a block or so and you’ll arrive at the Dancing Girls. Turn towards Fifth Avenue - and you’ll have this view. — Your friendly New York Tour Guide.

Comment from Craig Nisnewitz
Time: January 18, 2008, 2:46 am

Have not been in that part of the park.
Thanks.

Comment from joshua mahar
Time: January 18, 2008, 3:11 pm

Wait…you jumped into digital again? Seriously, I am behind on these developments.
This is a nice shot.
Cheers

Comment from dalton
Time: January 18, 2008, 4:59 pm

I love the G9, I got a chance to play with one at B&H a couple of weeks ago and it did inspire some serious gadget lust. As soon as I’m done paying off that Hasselbald…

I’m wondering why you would choose to shoot in B&W mode… B&W conversion in Photoshop is so advanced and has so many interesting options, have you tried it or are you intentionally skipping it?

Comment from dave
Time: January 18, 2008, 5:31 pm

I haven’t switched - I just have a foot in both camps - which is pretty usual for me. I flitter around from gadget to gadget. No hope for me I guess but I do what’s fun.

As far as shooting in B&W mode, this is in conjunction with RAW which means that I’m free to do whatever I want with PS, my million plug-ins; etc. it just means that I’m viewing the scene in b&w, with a nice little tic-tac-toe grid that I like, and a live histogram.

Noise is DEFINITELY an issue — on the other hand given the IS you can shoot at slower shutter speeds etc. etc.

All I want to say is that it is a fun camera to use; and that my fridge is filled with HIE infrared film for my next mood swing.

Comment from dalton
Time: January 18, 2008, 7:04 pm

Ah, yes, that was silly of me. Of course the RAW files still contain the color information. I was thinking back to my old digicam that shot B&W jpegs.

Comment from lester
Time: January 19, 2008, 1:24 am

I know those girls. They hang out at Rat Dog concerts selling Grateful Dead paraphernalia. They pretend to be flower children, but actually they’re distant and cold as stone. We had a name for that type back in the day, but in defernce to Dave’s family-oriented website, I won’t say it.

Comment from Craig Nisnewitz
Time: January 19, 2008, 2:48 pm

The photos look very good.
Have you printed them yet? How large can you print them?

Comment from Stephen Bray
Time: January 19, 2008, 4:01 pm

Since you have IS on the G9 I wonder if you might use an application such as Photo Acute both to up-size and manage the noise issue?

Stephen

Comment from dave
Time: January 21, 2008, 12:06 am

It’s just - what an odd size the sensor is - which I guess is normal - 3/4 ratio. It doesn’t fit into any of my print sizes without cropping.

I’ve done a few 11 x 14 without a problem running it through PhotoZoom 2, but the thing is - the native size, is 3000 x 4000 pixels.

Which translates into 10 x 13.333 @ 300 dpi.
or 12.5 x 16.667 @ 240 dpi.

Noise is not much of an issue at 200 - after that - you’ve got to apply some work to it. If you shoot jpgs then you won’t even see this work - it’s just applied for you, and you get that smooth Canon jpg look.

As far as IS goes - very useful. I’d say it gives you another 3 stops of hand held usefulness. Nothing to sneeze at, but if you’re shooting things that are moving it’s not going to do you any good there, though there is a pan gizmo that I haven’t tried yet.

Also interesting is the Face Recognition stuff. I know it sounds crazy, since I can spot a face as quickly as anyone - but it is wild to see it track a face or a group of faces that it’s locked on as the face moves across the screen.

I still need to find out whether it thinks that animals have faces — to be continued…