The Carl Chapman Photography Blog
A number of people have asked me in the last few weeks which point and shoot camera they should buy for Christmas and the festive season.
I have to apologise for not being very active on the blog over the last few months, as I’m on an assignment in China, which has been using up most of my time.
During this time I have had a number of people ask for advice on which point and shoot camera they should buy for Christmas or during the festive season.
I have admit I’m a Canon fan, and like to use the Canon PowerShot G12 as a carry around camera.
A new G series camera has been released around the end of October for the past few years, so I had advised several people to hold out for the new Canon G13.
The G series camera is normally released with the Powershot S series camera, which typically has the same sensor and similar performance characteristics.
The S100 upgrade to the hugely popular S95 was released on schedule with a new 12 MP sensor (up from 10MP) and full 1080p HD video (the S95 had 720p HD video).
The G13 remains absent, so I went back in the the news and noticed a couple of things:-
- Nikon released its equivalent camera upgrade from the Coolpix P7000 to the P7100 in August (see the DP Review). Nikon kept the sensor size at 10 Mp and video at 720p. This means Canon has no competition pressure to release a new camera, allowing them to further deplete the existing stock.
- There have been the natural disasters in Japan and Thailand which have affected the Canon manufacturing chain.
- The guys over at Canon Rumours seem to think the G13 will not be replaced until March or April 2012 at the earliest. (Canon has been dragging out the 5D Mark 2 for quite some time with an upgrade overdue, so I expect they are planning to release the 5D Mark 3 and G13 at one of the big electronics shows in the New Year.
Dec 14, 2011 | Categories: Photography Workflow | Tags: camera, Canon, christmas, G12, G13, Nikon, P7100, point and shoot, Powershot G12, powershot G13, S100, shopping | 2 Comments »
Why does Adobe continue the ridiculous international pricing sham for software downloads?
I am a fan and regular user of Adobe software products, and was looking to upgrade some of my Adobe software suites from CS4 versions. However, after a bit of research on the Adobe US and Australia web stores, I have been left with a bitter taste in my mouth.
e.g Comparing the Adobe US and Adobe Australia web stores and specifying my upgrade options, the pricing I was given is:-
- Captivate upgrade = $319US or $487AU
- eLearning Suite upgrade = $644US or $988AU
- Photoshop Extended upgrade = $349US or $532AU
- Photoshop Design Premium upgrade = $649US or $987AU
The current exchange rate is $1.06US=$1AU, and there is no sales tax on internet purchases in Australia.
My past products have been brought through the Australia web store, so the Adobe website forces me to purchase using this option at the much higher price.
Even if you eventually give in to the extortion and purchase the product in the Australia webstore, you get a message on the screen “You will receive an email within the next US business day confirming the status of your order”.
There is absolutely no reason for the extravagant pricing difference for downloaded products.
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Sep 17, 2011 | Categories: Photography Workflow | Tags: Adobe, Australia, captivate, downloads, photoshop, sham, software | 3 Comments »
Today I experienced a thought provoking event that reminded me no matter how difficult the situation, stay positive and take time to smell the roses, because others around you are often worse off.
People have a lot on their mind these days, stressed out with the global financial situation, rise in the cost of living, the climate crisis, and much more.
However in many cases this stress causes problems to appear larger than what they actually are.
Like many other companies in Australia, business has been slow this year, and recent statistics show the retail industry is at its lowest point in the last 60 years. As I try to get my head around the situation and come up with solutions, issues can appear all encompassing, but the life occasionally has a way of stepping in and bringing things back into perspective.
I was walking down the street today and was approached by an older gentlemen, who explained he was trying to find his hotel room. I was a little perplexed as he produced a small map of the local resort he was staying in, but he had no information on where the resort was, the resort name or the address.
After a few minutes of investigating the map I thought I recognised the resort layout. I suspected all might not be well, so instead of just giving him directions, I walked with him to the resort several blocks down the street.
As we walked he told me how he used to have a prestigious job working in cartography (e.g maps) and he was visiting from out of town.
When we got to the property, I found the layout matched the map, but he did not recognise it, or know where his room was. I took him to reception, and was told he had been missing for several hours.
Apparently he had earlier gone to reception from his room to get a key to change rooms, and somehow ended up three blocks down the street.
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Aug 09, 2011 | Categories: Commercial Photography | Leave A Comment »
I was recently reading the article The Truth about Digital ISO in Digital PhotoPro magazine, and decided to investigate the camera sensor noise profile of the Canon Powershot G12 I use for underwater photography.
Noise plays a big part in underwater photography. Available light levels are lower underwater,with less available the deeper you go. Knowing the noise performance of your camera allows you to push the ISO and get maximum performance.
I started looking at noise in the Canon Powershot series of cameras in my previous post Noise Comparison – Canon Powershot G11 vs G10.
There has been some recent talk on the web about “native ISO”, where the lower ISO of a camera is not necessarily the best for noise performance due to in-camera amplification methods. I have always thought the underwater photos taken with my Canon G12 at ISO160 were better than ISO80 or ISO100, and thought this might have been the effect of native ISO.
After reading the article The Truth about Digital ISO in Digital PhotoPro magazine, I decided to test my theory.
I setup the camera in manual mode, with a shutter speed of 1/60 sec, aperture of f2.8, and fixed white balance. A fixed white balance is required so the camera does not try and change the colour tints of the high ISO noise, giving you an incorrect result.
I placed a filter barrel and cap over the lens to block out all light, and shot a sequence of RAW images at different ISO settings from 80 to 3200.
File Size
The first interesting thing I noticed was the size of the RAW files.
The size of the file increased as the ISO increased with more sensor noise. The ISO3200 RAW file is nearly twice the size of the ISO80 file.
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Jul 11, 2011 | Categories: Photography Workflow | Tags: camera, Canon, ISO, noise, Powershot G12, sensor | Comments Off
Using the new image search function from Google, it looks like my Flickr account is the biggest source of unauthorised use of my images.
I have traditionally used utilities such as Tineye to assist in determining where my images are being used. They do an excellent job of identifying images or portions of an image, but they have not indexed a lot of my photos, despite have a business relationship with Photoshelter who host my image archive.
Google recently released a new image search function which is almost the opposite of Tineye, having indexed a larger percentage of my images, but their partial image recognition is lacking …. no doubt they have people working on improving this.
Check out these links to read more on Google Image search:-
To me as a photographer, the perfect match would be if Google purchased Tineye and combined the technologies… major indexing clout, combined with powerful image recognition.
I decided to take the Google image search function for a spin and see what it could do.
One of the results that struck me most, was a image of the inside of a computer portable hard disk drive posted to Flickr less than one month ago . This image has a Rights Managed (RM) copyright license which has special conditions for offering exclusivity of use, and I know from my records that it has not sold from any of my stock photography sites.
Doing a Google search, I see my image appears on a number of other sites. Visiting each site, I was able to identify the images came from my my Flickr account, as I use slightly different copyright watermarks on each site that I post images.
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Jun 27, 2011 | Categories: Stock Photography | Tags: API, copyright, flickr, google, image search, licensing, photography, stock photography, tineye | 1 Comment »
This weeks Photo of the Week is a Diagonal-banded Sweetlips fish (Plectorhinchus lineatus) on Agincourt Reef, Great Barrier Reef. This species are also commonly known as Yellow-banded Sweetlips, Oblique-banded Sweetlips or Goldman’s Sweetlips.
A frequently visited dive spot on Agincourt Reef has a large coral head which is home to several Diagonal-banded Sweetlip fish, and whenever possible I try to spend some time getting shots of them.
Diagonal-banded Sweetlips fish (Plectorhinchus lineatus)
With a number of different sweetlip species on the reef, I find myself drawn to this particular one for their colour.
As juveniles they have a completely different colour and pattern. As adults they are a very social fish, usually seen in pairs or groups.
Growing up to 50 cm in length, this species occurs in the eastern Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. In Australia it is found on offshore islands of north-western Western Australia and on the northern Great Barrier Reef through to southern Queensland.
The visability was a little low at the dive site on the day, but the top of the coral head was in 5m of water, which allowed a reasonable amount of illumination. It was then a matter of positioning myself for the best light.
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Jun 09, 2011 | Categories: Underwater Photography | Tags: agincourt reef, coral, coral reef, Diagonal banded Sweetlips, fish, great barrier reef, oblique-banded sweetlips, Plectorhinchus lineatus, reef, sealife, sweetlips, underwater photography, underwater video, video, yellow-banded sweetlips | Comments Off
This weeks Photo of the Week is the inside of a computer portable hard disk drive from my Technology Images collection.
With the increasing use of laptop computers around the globe, the external portable hard disk drive has become a popular computer hardware addition for system backup and expanding data storage.
Inside of a computer portable hard disk drive
I have 4 portable hard disk drives for backing up my computer system. Recently I dropped one of these devices on a hard floor and it has unfortunately never worked since …. hence the reason for having multiple backups.
The broken drive had been sitting around the office, and with a typical “plastic block” outer form factor, I decided to pull it apart and try producing some different photographs.
Initially I started taking plain photos on a white background, but then experimented with modifying the lighting.
I found that using flash and partially blocking the light path created a interesting shadow transition across the face of the disk spindle.
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May 26, 2011 | Categories: Commercial Photography | Tags: computer, computer engineering, computer hardware, computer images, computer photos, disk drive, hard disk, hard drive, hardware, IT, memory, technology | Comments Off
The 2011 Cairns Underwater Film Festival kicks off its 5th year with a call for entries to the CUFF Photo Competition. Last year’s inaugural competition set a benchmark for quality and diversity, a true celebration of the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. In 2011 the prize pool has nearly doubled to over $28,000 in prizes including six weeklong dive packages to the Great Barrier Reef & Coral Sea as well as Papua New Guinea and Palau.
Over $30,000 in prizes to be won thanks to the incredible sponsors! Join the celebration of underwater image-making.
The competition offers categories to appeal to all underwater photographers: Wide Angle Nature, Macro, Diver in Harmony with the Reef, Young Photographer, Compact Camera and Creative. An additional award will be given for the image judged ‘Best in show’. Three judges will oversee the competition: Bob Halstead, Jurgen Freund and Xanthe Rivett. Finalists will be screened at the Cairns Underwater Film Festival on the 13th August 2011 and winners announced on the night.
The Cairns Underwater Film Festival is now in its 5th year and is growing in popularity. This year the festival is being run by a team of passionate volunteers and will be screening winners of the 37th World Festival of Underwater Films direct from Marseille, France. The Cairns Underwater Film Festival will delight those who love to explore the underwater world. We are bringing a selection of awarded films from various nations and will also showcase local talent.
All profits from the photo competition and film festival will be donated back to the community through selected volunteer organisations, conservation groups and charities.
Cairns is the main gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, and the Cairns Underwater Film Festival and Photo Competition is a celebration of the beautiful underwater world.
For more information visit:
May 08, 2011 | Categories: Underwater Photography | Tags: Cairns, film festival, great barrier reef, photo competition, underwater photography | Comments Off
