Pixels, Point & Shoots and Pitfalls

Pixels are over rated. I recently purchased a Canon SD780 IS 12.2 megapixel digital camera. I liked it because of it’s diminutive size, sleak styling and stealthy all black finish. The fact that it boasts over 12 megapixels was actually low on my priority list. My Canon SD400 and SD30 are both “only” 5 MP and yet they take excellent pictures. Personally, I really don’t see any appreciation in picture quality between the 5MP cameras and the 12MP camera. The real limiting factor in image quality is the lens. The higher pixel rating just allows greater magnification of the image before the pixels (little squares) begin to show up in the photograph. The problem is that in the point and shoot cameras which have a very small sensor, usually 1:2.5 (5.76x4.29mm) the limits of the optical quality in the lens (chromatic aberration, flare, focus, haze, distortion, etc.) become noticeable before the pixels ever begin to show up. A high megapixel rating on a camera with a larger sensor such as an APS-C size (23.6x14.8mm) or larger is much more appreciated and is much more capable of bringing out the fullest quality of the lens. The lenses used on the larger digital cameras such as SLRs and the like are much better in quality than those on the point and shoot cameras and therefore there is a greater benefit to having more pixels. There is a good article on this topic from Shutterbug here Especially take note of the chart on page 2 where the article compares the different sensor types and sizes. The other “drawback” to having too many pixels is a larger file size. If the pictures are only going to be viewed on a computer monitor 5 or 6 MP is plenty. If an iPod is the viewing source an even lower pixel rating is adequate. It is cheaper and easier for the camera manufacturers to increase the amount of pixels in the sensor than to increase the size of the sensor and the quality of the lens. Another thing that will show up much before pixels is noise, especially in low light photographs or when using a high speed rating. In fact, as the pixels are made smaller in order to cram them into a smaller sensor they become less light sensitive. The result is more visual noise. Noise appears very similar to film grain from days of yore. There really needs to be a balance in pixels, sensor size, noise and lens quality. Imagine an 11’x14’’ view camera with a very poor lens. It would produce very smooth photographs with very low grain or “noise” but the optical quality of the picture might suffer from poor focus or distortion. This may be a desirable effect on its own merit (i.e. the Diana camera) but that is a topic for another discussion. Likewise, a Carl Zeiss 50mm 1.7 lens on a subminiture camera would be somewhat of an optical overkill since the tiny negative could never do the lens justice on the enlarging table. And imagine, what could be gained by using an extremely course grain film in a medium format camera instead of an ultra fine grain film in a 35mm camera? Of course there other factors of convenience, necessity or artistic license that may contribute a reason for using various combinations of film, format and optics, but again, that is not the issue here. I would rather have the 12 MP in my Pentax digital SLR where they might be better appreciated! If this is confusing, the bottom line is that I think we have maxed out on megapixels for P&S cameras. That may be a reason why manufacturers are starting to release digital cameras which are a sort of cross over between a tiny point and shoot and a larger SLR. These cameras usually boast a bigger sensor and better lenses than the P&S cameras but in a smaller package than an SLR. They seem to provide a similar market niche for the “prosumer” or serious amateur photographer as the 35mm rangefinder cameras did back in the days of film.

A brief note about the photographs. There are several layers of irony going on here, both in the above text and in the accompanying photographs below. First of all the article is about digital cameras but half of the pictures are of film cameras, and old ones at that! The photos were taken with digital cameras. The clearest, sharpest ones were taken with the very camera I sort of began complaining about, the Canon SD 780. But, like I said, it’s a good camera, I just don’t see the benefit of 12 MP vs 5MP, except the extra pixels do seem to give more room for sharpening up the image in iPhoto. Normally when you over sharpen an image the pixels become more pronounced, but with 12MP there is more to work with. Another irony is that the picture of the big 11x14 view camera was taken with a 3.2 megapixel Rollei Mini Digi. The Minox EC and Minoltina S were both shot with the new Canon SD780. The picture of the Olympus EP-1 is a stock photo stolen from the internet since, unfortunately, I do not have one of these. To make things even more confusing, the picture of the Rollei Mini Digi was taken with a Canon SD400. And, last but not least, the Canon SD400 was scanned on my Epson 1660 Photo scanner!

11x14 view camera

(make unknown, lens made in France)

Minox EC

(I wish this were digital!)

Minoltina S

(about the size of the Olympus below)

Olympus EP-1

(Wish I had one but I can’t even spare the dime pictured above...well, a dime maybe, but not $750)

Rollei Mini DIgi

(medium format turns mini format)

Canon SD400

(becoming the new old reliable)

...and the beat goes on

As the old saying goes, “the more things change the more they stay the same”. When I was a kid, back in the 1960’s British Invasion music was big and the Mersey Beat dominated the airwaves. There was still plenty of good old American music too, especially pop, soul, rythm & blues and folk. But the mid sixties was all about the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Zombies, The Yardbirds and many other British bands. I would listen to them on my little Japanese transistor radio. Now all the kids have iPods. My daugher has an iPod. My son has an iPod. And, oh yea, being a big kid now, I have an iPod. One evening I was holding my iPod in my hand and listening to The Rolling Stones. I had it tuned to the British Invasion channel on Pandora, an internet radio application. Instead of using the earbuds the music was blasting out of the tiny internal iPod speaker like a cheap old transistor radio. As I was listening to this classic rock and roll music on this hand held device with a tinny loud sound I had a kind of flashback to those transistor days of the 60s only a short 45 something years ago.

Power Trio

A power trio of Minox 35s.

Left to right: MB Touring, MDC & GT-E

Back Yard History

Our family lives in a house that was built in 1785. It has most of the original wide plank oak flooring, which has been restored by a previous owner along with the original wood paneling and many other elements. The post and beam construction can be seen from the basement or the attic. Many of the wood beams still have the tree bark on them from well over 200 years! The chimney stack is 12’x12’ in the cellar and tapers down to 4’x4’ above the roof. It accommodates 4 fireplaces, 5 if you count the beehive oven in the cellar, and an oil fired furnace. The main fireplace in the center of the house or “great room” has a small oven off to the side as well as an opening for storing firewood. These are both behind a wood panel door. There are several old wood panel doors with the old style latches and hinges throughout the house as well. Despite it’s age and history, living in a house this old for several years gets to be commonplace and I seldom give it any thought. We’re more preoccupied with the task of daily life, paying bills, walking the dog, cutting the grass, doing dishes, going to work, running errands, etc. So, although we live in this old historic house I am more fascinated by the creamery “ruins” from 1880 at Sloper’s Pond which is about a five minute walk from our house. Perhaps the old creamery is more intriguing, even though it is about a century newer than our house, because it is in ruins. This lends greatly to it’s mystique. Only a few large brownstones that formed the foundation remain, so most of the small building is left to the imagination. In fact, in the few short years since I have known about this place one of the large stones has managed to dislocate itself from the wall. A small sign accompanies this historic site which helps to create an image of a pastoral era of long ago. One begins to imagine the old fashioned process of hand churned cream and butter and the final product being transported on horse drawn wagons covered with hay and sawdust. The ruin reminds me of the “Stanley Mansion” we used to frequent as kids. Stanley Mansion was much larger but because it was also a ruin hidden in the woods it had a similar mysterious quality to it, especially to a kid. This place, just like the Creamery at Sloper’s Pond, has a tremendous potential to be a learning experience. The Stanley Mansion, however, is literally behind the A.W. Stanley School in New Britain, CT. Yet, I wonder if school kids ever go there for a field trip or do the teachers even know about it? Backyard history as exemplified here is a fascinating experience because it brings the distant historical past within closer reach, relating it to our own sense of place.

Note the bolts protruding from this stone slab.

Strewn stones

Two more brownstones

All photos taken with a Canon SD30 digital camera

Shopping For a Digital Camera

Occasionally people ask me what’s a good digital camera to buy. Well, like just about every electronic device these days, the answer can change just about every week. Here is my latest response which will probably change in about two days!

All the digital P&S cameras look good as far as I can tell. So it pretty much comes down to what features you want, like a real viewfinder for example. Most of the digital point and shoot cameras today do not have an optical (old fashioned see through viewfinder) but force you to rely on the LCD screen instead. Even a few of the up scale ( $500 - $800) cameras do not come with a standard viewfinder, but make it a $200 accessory instead as on the new Olympus EP-1 and the Sigma DP-1 to name two. Incidentally, the Minox DSC has a nice viewfinder for a such a tiny camera. The LCD screens however can sometimes be a problem if the sun is glaring onto the screen or if you are taking pictures when it is too dark to be able to see anything on the screen. The optical viewfinders on cameras that do have them are usually very tiny peepholes anyway compared to the kind you might have been used to on your old film camera.

As far as megapixels are concerned, anything 5MP and over is plenty, and virtually all of the digital cameras today are at least 7MP anyway. Unless you are going to make prints bigger than 8x10 it’s not an issue anymore despite what sales people might tell you.

As far as memory cards go, stick with the SD card type. This is becoming the standard now anyway and you will find it on most cameras with the possible exceptions of Sony and Olympus. SD cards are much easier to find and are very inexpensive compared to almost anything else. And use the card over again by deleting the pictures after you load them onto your computer. A one gigabyte card is plenty big enough even if you want to shoot short video clips and should cost about $10. It’s probably better to have a few smaller (1 GB) inexpensive cards than just one big (4 GB) card, that way if you lose one (they are pretty tiny) it’s not a big deal.

For specific recommendations, here are my own opinions but like I said there’s plenty of things out there. On the cheap side, there’s the Fuji J20. The last time I checked it was $109 at Ritz Camera, that’s $10 cheaper than even WalMart or Target. I got one for my daughter and it takes very good pictures. It is 10MP and uses an SD card, has a 2.7” screen but no optical viewfinder. Speaking of Walmart, they have a very capable looking 10 megapixel Panasonic for $99. marked down from $159. Like all the Panasonic digital cameras, it sports a Leica lens, at least that’s what it says on it. It may very well be Leica in name only under license. Who knows who makes it or where. Personally, I like Canon cameras in general. The first digital camera I had was a Canon A5 Zoom in 1999. It worked pretty good until a few years ago. Since then I've had two other Canons and they both work fine. Also, most of the Canons have optical viewfinders, which in case you haven’t noticed, I like.

The Canon SD 780 is real nice, but compared to the Fuji J20 or the Leica….uh, err, Panansonic it’s tough to justify the double in price.

Fuji J20

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS7

Canon SD780

Minox DSC

Karl Hardman Camera

In celebration of Halloween and in honor of the late Karl Hardman I am posting a picture of my Minolta 16 camera that once belonged to Karl. Mr. Hardman was a producer of mostly industrial films but was mainly known for his production and acting role in the 1968 horror classic, Night of the Living Dead.

Minolta 16 from the estate of Karl Hardman

Karl Hardman and Marilyn Eastman

Night of the Living Dead

Passages?

For some reason I find myself photographing bridges of various types quite often. Maybe I just find them visually appealing or maybe they represent something more than just a photo op. I’ve also taken photographs of doors, gateways and the least frequent, windows. Maybe I don’t like to do windows! Perhaps some psychoanalysts might say these images represent a passage, a journey, the journey of life or even a fascination with a passage into the afterlife. Nevertheless, I present them here, good, bad or indifferent beginning with perhaps the smallest set, windows then doors and gateways and ending with bridges.

Me photographing a window.

Photo by Jeff Bellantuono

WINDOWS

DOORS & GATEWAYS

BRIDGES