After a few days with the new camera
Jun. 17th, 2006 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinI'm still on the first battery charge. This is some seriously nice battery life.
The image stabilization really, really works—I've noticed that newer cameras are starting to have this even in pocket point-and-shoot models, and this is a great idea because they're going to be the ones with the biggest camera-shake problems. It's not magic; there's still a warning that pops up beyond about 1/30 second that camera shake could be a problem. But in practice I've been able to take handheld shots at up to 1 second that actually came out OK, especially if I use burst mode and just pick the best one.
One thing this camera doesn't have that my old Nikon did is Best Shot Selector, which I used obsessively, where it would take several shots and automatically keep only the one it deemed the least blurry. But with a big, fast SD card you can probably do better picking the best one yourself, and the image stabilization tends to cut down on the number you need to take to get a good one anyway.
At the wide end, the lens on the Canon S2 IS is really no faster than on a little pocket digicam; it's about an f/2.7. However, the image stabilization makes it possible to use slower shutter speeds (by a couple of stops, according to bigger photo geeks than me who have done the experiments), which in some ways makes it the equivalent of a faster lens. Where the relative bigness of the lens comes in is at the long telephoto end: it's faster at 12x than many littler cameras are at more modest zoom levels.
Be warned, though: If you're shooting moving subjects like animals or people, the longer exposure times you can otherwise use will increase the amount of blur, since the camera can't compensate for that. (I've had a lot of fun using shutter priority mode and deliberately taking excessively short shots, then brightening up the picture on my computer; the results are noisy and desaturated but motion-blur-free.) On the other hand, the stabilization does mean you can hold the camera in your hand and follow the subject without worrying too much about shake. There's a "panning" mode that only corrects on the vertical axis, so you can pan the camera to follow a horizontally moving subject and not have it work against you. I haven't tried this. I have tried switching it into "shot only" mode, where the IS only kicks in when you actually take a shot; this supposedly produces better results, but I can't really tell so far. I'm not sure if "shot only" applies to video or not.
One thing I noticed immediately is that the autofocus works much better in low light than it did on my old camera. I've seen people complaining about it online, but I'm not sure what they're complaining about; the output from the camera sensor does seem to be very slightly softer in general than from a typical 5MP camera, and maybe that's what they're identifying as "out of focus". It's got a green autofocus assist beam, but this annoys my cats enough that I turn it off sometimes, and the lens seems to do all right even without it, even in lamplight. I like the ability to move the autofocus area around with fairly fine control, though some reviewers have complained that a simple 9-point focus would be faster to adjust. I haven't really used the manual focus, though I do have the problem of activating it accidentally when I'm trying to turn on the macro mode, since the buttons are right next to each other.
The video mode is great—I should really say "video capability", since Canon's hardware and firmware people labored mightily to make it as non-modal as possible, which is cool in itself. But since, unlike my old camera, it shoots talkies (stereo ones, even!), I'm dismayed to discover that I make really, really loud breathing noises that register on any nearby microphone. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
audioboy is well aware of this already from the studio work on "Chicken Heart".)
The image stabilization really, really works—I've noticed that newer cameras are starting to have this even in pocket point-and-shoot models, and this is a great idea because they're going to be the ones with the biggest camera-shake problems. It's not magic; there's still a warning that pops up beyond about 1/30 second that camera shake could be a problem. But in practice I've been able to take handheld shots at up to 1 second that actually came out OK, especially if I use burst mode and just pick the best one.
One thing this camera doesn't have that my old Nikon did is Best Shot Selector, which I used obsessively, where it would take several shots and automatically keep only the one it deemed the least blurry. But with a big, fast SD card you can probably do better picking the best one yourself, and the image stabilization tends to cut down on the number you need to take to get a good one anyway.
At the wide end, the lens on the Canon S2 IS is really no faster than on a little pocket digicam; it's about an f/2.7. However, the image stabilization makes it possible to use slower shutter speeds (by a couple of stops, according to bigger photo geeks than me who have done the experiments), which in some ways makes it the equivalent of a faster lens. Where the relative bigness of the lens comes in is at the long telephoto end: it's faster at 12x than many littler cameras are at more modest zoom levels.
Be warned, though: If you're shooting moving subjects like animals or people, the longer exposure times you can otherwise use will increase the amount of blur, since the camera can't compensate for that. (I've had a lot of fun using shutter priority mode and deliberately taking excessively short shots, then brightening up the picture on my computer; the results are noisy and desaturated but motion-blur-free.) On the other hand, the stabilization does mean you can hold the camera in your hand and follow the subject without worrying too much about shake. There's a "panning" mode that only corrects on the vertical axis, so you can pan the camera to follow a horizontally moving subject and not have it work against you. I haven't tried this. I have tried switching it into "shot only" mode, where the IS only kicks in when you actually take a shot; this supposedly produces better results, but I can't really tell so far. I'm not sure if "shot only" applies to video or not.
One thing I noticed immediately is that the autofocus works much better in low light than it did on my old camera. I've seen people complaining about it online, but I'm not sure what they're complaining about; the output from the camera sensor does seem to be very slightly softer in general than from a typical 5MP camera, and maybe that's what they're identifying as "out of focus". It's got a green autofocus assist beam, but this annoys my cats enough that I turn it off sometimes, and the lens seems to do all right even without it, even in lamplight. I like the ability to move the autofocus area around with fairly fine control, though some reviewers have complained that a simple 9-point focus would be faster to adjust. I haven't really used the manual focus, though I do have the problem of activating it accidentally when I'm trying to turn on the macro mode, since the buttons are right next to each other.
The video mode is great—I should really say "video capability", since Canon's hardware and firmware people labored mightily to make it as non-modal as possible, which is cool in itself. But since, unlike my old camera, it shoots talkies (stereo ones, even!), I'm dismayed to discover that I make really, really loud breathing noises that register on any nearby microphone. (
audioboy is well aware of this already from the studio work on "Chicken Heart".)![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Figthing the light
Date: 2006-06-20 04:53 am (UTC)Some test shots -
f1.8, 1600ISO, 1/20s, 50mm
http://photos.timchuma.com/DetonatorsvsRemains240406/photos/photo32.html
f3.5, 1600ISO, 1/20s, 18mm, +2 exp, Shade WB
http://photos.timchuma.com/ChildrenoftheNight/photos/photo66.html
Re: Figthing the light
Date: 2006-06-20 12:00 pm (UTC)Re: Figthing the light
Date: 2006-06-21 05:34 am (UTC)Re: Figthing the light
Date: 2006-06-24 02:41 am (UTC)focusing
Date: 2006-07-11 01:24 am (UTC)so I am trying to pretend like I am an expert - curious what cameras out there use as my pocket one definitely uses a passive mode
no subject
Date: 2007-01-13 09:14 pm (UTC)