Off topic: Renting and trying out cameras

Much has been written about the demise of brick-and-mortar camera stores. In our area, we've lost Penn Camera and Ritz over the past few years. Everyone assumes the reason is online competition. It does seem hard to compete with mammoth warehouse operations like B&H and Amazon, with their huge inventories, low prices, quick delivery and sales tax advantage. But the prospective camera buyer who wants to handle a new camera has few options. I'm thinking about buying, so I rented two new models for a few days.

Our recent trip to Nova Scotia convinced me I'd be happier with a lighter kit. I currently carry a Pentax K-5, a Pentax 16-50mm f2.8 zoom, and a Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 macro zoom in a Lowepro Fastpack 200 backpack. It weighs almost 9 pounds; with the laptop I include when traveling, over 11 pounds. Doesn't sound too bad, but carrying it on multi-hour hikes became tiring. The last straw was deciding to leave it home one morning and consequently missing a shot of a bald eagle perched less than 100 feet away on a beautiful rock overlooking an azure ocean. Nuts.

I've watched with interest as mirrorless cameras have become the next big thing. "Big" only figuratively; they are substantially smaller and lighter than conventional DSLRs. The Fujifilm XT-1 and the Olympus OM-D EM-1 (who makes up these names?) have garnered praise, so I rented each for a few days from Lensrentals.com.

I found it hard to get used to the electronic viewfinders. They are wonderfully bright, even in dim light--terrific for available light shooting, as I found when shooting with the Fuji at an outdoor evening event. But in daylight the viewfinders tend to hunt for the right illumination level as bright light and shadow areas move through the view, which I find disconcerting. They also have a bit of time lag that is a little distracting. And probably my 40+ years of using optical viewfinders has conditioned me to such an extent that it's just hard to adapt.

Both cameras fit my hand well, start up fast and are responsive in shooting. Their designs differ somewhat. The Fuji has more physical dials, reminiscent of film SLRs, and I found it pretty easy to use. The Olympus relies more on menus, menus, menus. I didn't use either one enough to form an opinion about their auto-focus, but I did miss several shots relying on it. Might have been user error, since a couple days is not enough time to learn a camera. I was too cheap to spend more than the approximately $200 it cost for a camera and two lenses for four or five days, and life kept me from testing them on several days.

But I took a lot of A-B comparison shots with the Pentax and Fuji, and also with the Pentax and Olympus. To make sure I had good exposures, I used exposure bracketing on all three cameras. When I sat down to look at the images I discovered that Lightroom 4 doesn't support the Fuji or Olympus raw formats. The workaround is to download Adobe's free DNG converter and use it to convert the raws to DNG format (I don't need to do this with the Pentax because it supports DNG in camera.) After that exercise I was able to import them into Lightroom and use its comparison tool to really look at them side by side.

The main finding: my Pentax 16-50 zoom isn't working well. No matter how carefully I tried, its images weren't as crisp as those from the Sigma on the K-5 or the other four lenses on the Fuji and Olympus. There is some history: the 16-50 has been in the shop once. I bought it and the K-5 new at the same time, and something was seriously out of whack. I had purple fringing at a hallucinogenic level. Camera and lens went back to Pentax, who sent me a different K-5 body and the same lens, which they said had been adjusted to meet specs. I think something has changed, and I suspect it is in the 16-50.

It's worth noting that the Fuji has an APS-C sized sensor, like the Pentax, while the Olympus uses a smaller, micro four thirds sensor. I was interested to see whether I would notice a difference. The answer is yes, but only when looking at pretty large magnification. If I often made big prints, I think I would favor the APS-C. And the Fuji is very similar to the Olympus in size and weight, which matter to me quite a bit. Advantage Fuji.

In the end, though, I decided not to buy a new camera. Our next trip is to Italy--God knows, a photogenic place--but our tour operator warns about theft, and repeatedly urges us to pack light. At this point I believe I will rely solely on the iPhone 5s (which I've written about here and here). There is more to life than photography...I'll keep repeating it like a mantra...and when we return I can concentrate on weightier work, so to speak, and get the 16-50 repaired.

If you've read this far, you might want to see some images from the Fuji and the Olympus. Here they are. Remember that these are JPEGs made from the raw files. The only tweaking was Lightroom's low sharpening for screen, so don't read too much into them. You can see some vignetting in the upper left of the Olympus 12mm (bottom shot). All were shot at the Rocky Islands at Great Falls in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.

The details: (Top) Fuji XT-1 handheld, 1/1900 sec. at f4.0, ISO 400, 23mm (SF23mmF1.4 R)
(Second) Fuji XT-1 handheld, 1/450 sec. at f8.0, ISO 400, 35mm (XSF55-200mmF3.5-4.8 R LM OIS)
(Third) Olympus OM-D EM-1 handheld, 1/200 sec. at f8.0, ISO 100, 47mm (LUMIX G VARIO 35-100mm/F2.8)
(Bottom) Olympus OM-D EM-1 handheld, 1/2000 sec. at f2.8, ISO 100, 12mm (LUMIX G VARIO 12-35mm/F2.8)

Nova Scotia II

Leaving Peggy's Cove we traveled west along the southern coast and spent two nights at Heron's Rest*, a gorgeous cottage on a wooded hillside at the end of a gravel road. When we arrived our hostess showed us around. At the bottom of a slope was a gurgling, completely deserted stretch of Petite Riviere waiting for us to jump in and play, which we did in due course. Good thing, too: Hurricane Arthur complicated outdoor activities the next day so our first dip was also our last, but it was memorable. The cottage was built by a shipwright, we were told. After weathering the hurricane inside with nary a creak nor rattle, we were convinced of its storm-worthiness.  

Petite Riviere

Our trip stuck mostly to the coasts, but we took one leg through the center of the western part of Nova Scotia. In the interior is Kejimkujik National Park (shortened to "Keji" by most). We had only part of a day to spend in that beautiful place. We chose to hike a trail to Peter Point, at the end of which one emerges onto a small sandy beach on a pristine lake. Like many spots we visited, it was deserted. That was one of many "oh, wow" moments.

Beach at Peter Point

View from Peter Point

*Heron's Rest was one of several excellent lodgings Susan booked through Airbnb. We really like this approach. We avoid overpriced hotels. There are scads of choices in location and types of lodging. And we have met many gracious, helpful hosts eager to point us toward the best sights, sounds, and food (in Halifax they even gave us bus tokens...thanks, Tim and Colleen!) If you travel, you should try it.

On the subject of travel tips, here's another: travel with someone who loves to travel, loves to plan travel, and loves you.

Susan, Travel Ace

The details:
(Petite Riviere) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/250 sec. at f/8, ISO 800, 34mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)
(Beach) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/50 sec. at f/9, ISO 200, 16mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)
(View) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/400 sec. at f/9, ISO 400, 28mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)
(Susan) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/2000 sec. at f/8, ISO 400, 28mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)

Nova Scotia I

In July 2014 Susan and I toured Nova Scotia. We had often heard that it is a place of great natural beauty, with deep and exciting music and dance traditions. We were not disappointed.

Our first stop outside Halifax was Peggy's Cove, a small South Coast community at St. Margaret's Bay.  The lighthouse there is said to be the most photographed one in Nova Scotia (or Canada, or the universe). It sits atop a hill of exposed granite, and on this day it was wrapped in fog. Perhaps that delayed the tour buses and I was able to get a few shots of the lighthouse alone.

Lighthouse at Peggy's Cove

Like many villages we visited, Peggy's Cove is a working fishery. That isn't surprising, since Nova Scotia is almost surrounded by water and is near major fishing resources. It's one of many factors that make it a fascinating province (others include a contentious political history, settlement by several nations and cultures, a complex geology and a phenomenal tidal range in the Bay of Fundy). I will add photos from others parts of Nova Scotia in later posts.

Boats at Peggy's Cove

Freedom 55

The details: 
(Lighthouse) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/2000 sec. at f/8, ISO 400, 16mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)
(Boats) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/1000 sec. at f/8, ISO 800, 16mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)
(Freedom) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/1000 sec. at f/8, ISO 800, 43mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)

Southwest Utah

Those of us who live in the eastern woodlands sometimes can't see the forest or the trees, so densely do they surround us. Spring has been very wet in Maryland this year, and vegetation has gone wild. So it was exciting to find ourselves in a completely different environment recently when we helped our son relocate to Cedar City, Utah, an attractive town in the southwest corner of the state.

I had some idea of what to expect. As an undergraduate geology student in the 1970's I spent several weeks in Silver City, New Mexico, making maps of a very dry area. I knew vegetation would be sparse (that's one reason they send neophyte geologists to such places: it's easier to see the rocks). But I had forgotten how much variety and drama there can be in arid landscapes. I was reminded on this trip, which included a visually delicious three hour drive south from Salt Lake City, and a stunning return drive at sunrise. But as this was a working trip with a tight schedule, no images were made along Interstate 15.

However, while in Cedar City I took a short drive up Cedar Canyon to make a few shots of the beautiful multicolored hills. Another day I wandered down to a creek near our hotel, where the vegetation was thick and the thistle in bloom. I can understand how photographers spend lifetimes in the American West yet feel they haven't seen everything. It is so compelling, and so vast.

Red Hill near Cedar City, Utah

Thistle and Grass

The details:  
(Red Hill) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/1000 sec. at f/8, ISO 400, 22mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)
(Thistle) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/320 sec. at f/8, ISO 400, 50mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)

Rocks in my eyes

I love textures: fabric, bark, the surfaces of leaves, skin. Texture is everywhere in nature. As an undergraduate student in geology I was trained to identify rocks and minerals partly by their texture. Is it smooth, sandy, crystalline, fractured in a particular way? Geologists get many chances to examine rocks closely.

Sometimes my photography mimics my geology field work. I'm drawn to the textures and surfaces of exposed rocks and the way light plays over them; it spans two of my areas of interest. It accounts for much of the time I spend at Great Falls, Maryland, one of my favorite locations. There are miles of trails through exposed metamorphic rocks, which are not always easy to find in our verdant eastern woodlands.

It's ironic that in the midst of this lush spring, the shots I liked best from my latest trip to Great Falls are of rocks. I even rendered them in black and white, which has been diverting me recently. It seemed to enhance the textures and shadows, whereas the color versions looked a bit ho-hum. The first image is a vertical rock face shadowed by overhead branches. The geologist sees a hint of conchoidal fracture, typical of hard fine-grained rock, and at least two cleavage directions. The biologist would, I suppose, see the splotchy lichens. The second image shows an arrowhead-shaped void partly filled with fine sand and shell fragments. Fractures and much erosion formed the void into a pleasing shape. At the top of the void is a quartz vein that may have contributed to the fracture. Puffy lichen clouds fill the stone sky above it. I was tempted to title it Time's Arrow, as a nod to the geological notion of time, but I don't much go for interpretive names.

Rockface and Shadow

Sand-filled Rock Void

The details:  (Rockface) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/160 sec. at f/9, ISO 800, 36mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)

(Sand-filled Void) Pentax K-5 handheld 1/80 sec. at f/9, ISO 800, 50mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)

Spring

I went no farther than the driveway garden this morning. The peonies are bursting with pink ruffled exuberance. This is the morning we pined for in March when winter seemed endless. It's hard not to love life when it blooms so.

Peony, May 2014

The details: Pentax K-5 handheld 1/800 sec. at f/5, ISO 800, 45mm (smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM)

Screen Saver

Way back in the early days of personal computing, when the lumbering cathode-ray tube display ruled the desktop, a small and nimble type of program evolved. It was called a screen saver, and its function was to prevent an image from staying in one place on the screen for a long time. This was necessary because the CRT phosphors could be damaged by such over-exposure, leading to a permanent "burning-in" of the image. A screen saver would come on after a few minutes of PC inactivity, turning off the screen or, more entertainingly, filling it with moving images.  Flying Toasters was perhaps the best-known but there were scads of others.

Technology marches on as it is wont to do. CRTs are all but extinct, and screen savers no longer crawl endlessly across our displays. But still I think of images that are displayed when a computer isn't active as screen savers (not "Desktop Background" as Microsoft puts it). This came up because I recently bought a lightweight laptop, the Aspire S7, for backing up photo files when travelling. It weighs in at a dainty 2.3 pounds and fits easily into the laptop slot in my camera bag. After loading Lightroom and upgrading to Windows 8.1, it still has about 72 GB free on its SSD, which is sufficient to back up photos on any trip I'm likely to take. It also has a microSD slot, in case I get ridiculously profligate. It replaces my ancient but trustworthy Toshiba Satellite that runs the unsupported, unspeakable Windows XP. RIP, Satellite. You too, XP, I suppose.

Shunning the smartphone-like touch screen of Win 8.1, I opted for the more conventional desktop. Naturally I needed to choose a screen saver image. What better excuse to rummage through my catalog? I returned as I so often do to one of my favorite locations, the Lewes Rehoboth Canal in Delaware. This was one of many images made early on a September morning (cropped to the Aspire's 16 by 9 aspect ratio).

Lewes Rehoboth Canal, September 2012

The details: Pentax K-5 on tripod 1/250 sec. at f/8, ISO 200, 50mm(smc Pentax-DA* 16-50mm F2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM).