Trying something new

So the first new thing I am trying out is my Lumix DMC-LX5, it's a point and shoot camera which is willing to let me take control too.

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The second thing we are trying out is the HDR function on the camera, and seeing how images compare with and without HDR.  The pansies above seem to be helped by the HDR, we can see detail in the foliage which was lost in shadow otherwise.  We also have a more uniform color of the petals.

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Looking at the house though, I'm not so sure I like the HDR.  Sure we keep details in the trees, that shady tree on the left would have been just a silhouette.  Now look at the bay window on the house.  The detail seems bleached out, and so it's not so good.  I'm on the fence.

The third thing we are trying is a blogging plug in for my newly acquired Lightroom.  For all these years I've just been using either Picasa for a minor tweak, or using the Nikon software.  Now I have a none Nikon camera that part of the equation is changed.  The plug-in is unregistered, and so is limiting me to 300x200 images.

Over Exposure

So yes, it was hard to focus, but the fuzziness is mostly motion blur.  This was a 30 second exposure.

Shooting with an old broken camera.

So not every photo is perfect.  To make life fun I decided to put one last film through my granddad's camera.  I decided to get some black and white.

The camera has shutter speeds of 200, 100, 50, 25 and B.  However it only shoots somewhere around 1/50th on the 1/200th setting.  You can also see some darkening around the corners, another artifact of its aging.

Of course, for the last 20 years I've been shooting SLRs, and have always been able to see if I'm close to being in focus.  Prior to that I'd always had fixed focus, and more recently I've been using auto focus.  So to go back to a camera where I have a viewfinder offset from the lens, and to have to estimate distance to the subject, and dial it into the focus ring was fun, and frustrating.  It did give some interesting results, and wasted a few frames as well.

The following photo was taken on this camera 20+ years ago.

This last photo was taken on my cell phone, and is of the camera that was used for the rest.