One inch sensor cameras

[bykfixer]

Mrs Fixer got a pet bird over the weekend. Now I likes me some bird pix. That is my favorite subject to photo. Well in the wild anyway. Those are here and gone scenarios often times in seconds. I like photographing flying insects for the same reason. But they are usually outdoors in daylight. Shutter speeds are usually really fast so if you can brace your rig on something solid a nice crisp photo is not hard to accomplish.

Indoors? Now that is a lot different. You either turn on every light in the house or deal with long shutter speeds. Long like 1/2 second, which is an eternity in quick picture settings. In order to get shutter speeds quick enough to capture a still looking bird who is anything but still, I cranked up the iso on the TS100 to 800. At 800 the noise filter is still gentle enough to not be so harmful to details while providing crops that aren't that bad. In other words I frame the subject a bit larger than I hope to see on my screen, snap a photo and if the outter edges of the scene are affected by noise cancelling, just trim the photo to the area I did want in the photo.

A monopod rested against a solid object is definitely a good thing in low light scenes with an object that moves or does not. Low light in the case of the TS 100 with its tendency to have big f numbers (as in small openings) would be mid day in 12 x 12 foot room with only two windows to provide light. So even at the largest opening (f2.8) the one inch sensor cam struggles to provide fast enough shutter speeds at low iso.

When it was all said and done a few nice photos of the bird were achieved using aperature mode. I'll try a scene mode (sports) at some point due to its habit of picking fast shutter speeds, compare what iso that mode chooses and compare with how things turn out using aperature mode.

Here is the bird coming to check out that shiney thing (the camera)……
Just in case it's a snack so there was a wee bit of motion in the scene.
Shot with f4.1, 1/10 second shutter speed, iso 800, ev-1, zoomed to about 100mm from about 5 feet away.

Photo sent to my iPhone via SD card to lightning adapter, shrunk to 800 res at 'resize photo' app and using postimg to here.

 

[bykfixer]

I arrived home thinking there was something I meant to do later today, but what was it?
Oh yeah, try sports mode with the TS 100. So I did. New pet bird pix using sports mode had the camera choosing iso 2500 to 3200 and upon close inspection, not bad. Not bad like my 10+ year old stuff anyway but not great either.

So my next thing was to raise and lower iso values to see at what point things get ridiculous. Surprisingly at 6400 things actually improved noise wise and detail wise. I discovered that trying to get the camera to do a stop motion of fan blades of a fan running on medium. At 12800 using aperature mode, zoomed in to 250mm it gave a shutter speed that showed 3 distinct blades in motion. At 6400 all three were a blur but the outter edges of the fan blade guard were detailed really well. Way better than 800,1600 and 3200. Very pleasant surprise.

Scene modes aren't my bag but if you know how a particular scene mode causes the camera to perform mechanically they can be really beneficial at saving the day. A low light setting at your kids school play for example, using a portrait setting for example prompts to the largest available aperature while it tries to enhance bokoh. That in turns quickens shutter speed some.

Anyway I'm definitely going to keep the iso 6400 in mind.

Edit: for those who don't know what bokeh is, it is a term used for blurring a scene behind a subject. If the point of a photo is to highlight a particular subject, say a cow or your child a blurry background helps from causing the viewers eyes from wandering around the photo. Now if the point of the photo is to show said cow is walking down a city street then ideally a blurry background aint necessarily a good thing. Yet a pretty cow in a general setting like a field, having a blurry back ground can be a good thing.
End edit.

 

[bykfixer]

Today was a test of shutter speed maxing out. At a max 1/2000th second I found a few daylight scenarios where that was not fast enough using -1.0 ev, aperture priority with maximum opening and letting the camera pick shutter speed. One scenario where iso of 125 was not even 'slow' enough.

The scene was under a tree taking a photo of leaves on the tree aiming towards the direction of the sun. Not at the sun though as it was behind some other trees. What I was prepared for was a nice photo of leaves with a really really blown out sky or a nice blue sky and a silouette of the leaves. I mean it was a monster of bright versus shadow scene. Yet the sky was blue and the leaves looked like what I saw. Looking towards the sun the leaves were in a shadow with some detail and the camera actually did a pretty good job of getting both correct.

It took a bit of trial and error since the maximum shutter speed was way too slow at an f5.6. At f7.1 was the edge so I picked an f8.0 and got a shutter of 1/1600th at iso 125. So again I learned what it won't do while adapting to what it will do.

The photo prior to shrinking the aperture hole
Note the leaves have little detail, which is what I saw in real life but the sky was a real pretty blue in real life.

After going to f8.0.
The leaves still look similar but the sky looks great.
Nothing like an SLR could capture but I was satisfied with what this adjustable point & shoot provided.

Here's some random nearby power pole.
That was 90 degrees right of the sun. Another challenge for this camera that f6.3 did the trick for the sky but the power transformer is darker than real life. An ev of 0 instead of 1.0 might have solved that but I like -1.0 for my default.

I really like the SD card to iPhone adapter. After shrinking to res 800 and posting on a forum the photos tend to appear darker for what ever reason. Sigh……

 

[SCEMan]

It's difficult to compare images across different monitors so...

In the bright sky with shadowed areas scenario, I've had good luck with the HDR mode on my RX100. It's saved countless "one-time-only" shots for me while on vacation. Might be an option for you. You can also set spot metering and move the spot around until you get an exposure you like. Of course there's also exposure auto-bracketing too.

 

[bykfixer]

I had forgotten about bracketing. Thanks for reminding me.

This thing does some kind of post picture focus too but that and HDR will be tried later down the road.
HDR would have been great for the light pole pic. Thanks for the tip.

 

[etudiant]

I've been of two minds about my Sony RX100 VI, a 1" sensor pocket zoom.
I love the lens, it delivers sharp images pretty much from across the board, from 24mm equivalent to 200mm.
I hate the menus, they stand in the way of using the camera fully.
So badly arranged and documented that 99% of the customers will just say forget it and leave everything on full auto.
That only allows the camera to perform at a fraction of its real capabilities, which are really impressive.
I also hate the color science applied.
Sony has perfected the 'clinical color' look, everything looks drained of life. There are many presets which modify that basic profile, but none unfortunately that simply ditch it.
It is possible to retune the sensor response and adjust each color channel individually, provided one has a free month to work the problem.
Sadly I do not, but it is no fun to take photos if the images fall so far short of the reality. The better half is not impressed either.

 

[bykfixer]

I looked mighty hard at the Sony but felt the extra zoom with smaller aperature was the way to go.

Once me and the camera learned to play together it was a choice I don't regret.

The other day I went outside the office for my 2:30 smoke break and decided to snap a few photo of a crape myrtle that had bloomed nicely over night. While trying to beat a thunderstorm I was in a bit of a hurry. That was the main reason for buying an adjustable point and shoot. I had shot 15-20 photos before my SLR would have even been set up. Using iso 400 paid off. Even zoomed in to where the f stop was over 6 my shutter speeds were pretty quick. But after some trial and error I found using about 50mm was best for what I was after.

A few turned out nice even though the storm had everything moving about in the breeze. Shutter speeds froze the blooms surprisingly well. The only blurry pix were the camera thinking I wanted to focus on the back ground.

Here's an example.

A nice bloom with a major contrasting color back ground.
Using the computer screen allows settings to show too.

The crop aint half bad either.
Keep in mind the 5k+ res photos are squashed to 800 for this site and shared from a host. Real life is way way nicer.

 

[bykfixer]

I tried this camera while working at night but the narrow aperture kept causing slow enough shutter speeds to rule out hand held photography. Not having a tripod with me I just chose not to use it much. At higher iso's it did ok for 4x6 or similar but for say, 19" prints noise was an issue. Not a bad one but certainly enough to have to set in front of a computer screen and do some tailoring. To me an adjustable point and shoot is all about being fast. If I wanted super nice prints the large gear would be required. SLR, full sized tripod and time. The photo opportunties were quick and gone so I just chose not to persue night time photography during a period of working the midnight shift.

Back to days, I found myself at a national monument recently. Actually two. One was a Civil War graveyard and I got some nice photos of head stones in series or just basic country side scenery. Then at the birth place of an American president during Americas formative years I saw this big ole dead tree that must've been special or something as the completely hollowed out stump was featured prominently among other sites at the place. Previous testing with the camera paid off as I understood how to get a huge depth of field or in the case of this one prompting small apertures, a shallow depth of field based on positioning.

My iPhone 7+ camera actually did better in extreme contrast of lighting situations but the depth of field was pretty much fixed to everything you see is in focus. Now for a nice big scenery that's great. But if bokeh is on the menu that was not happening. With the phone cam you get close to an object, get it in focus and everything far away is also in focus thanks to the pinhole aperture. But the Panasonic can blur the background. In cases where the background is dull and lifeless but your focal item is the charm that's great. Like having a muted pull down screen similar to portrait studios. So a cool fungus growing on a fence post with an ugly warehouse in the background ends up being a photo of a fungus growth with muted blurry grays as a background, which makes the subject "pop" even better.

It's nice to be able to take a photo where your eyes scan the entire scene, or to have a subject stand out all by itself with a camera you pull out of the bag, turn on, snap some pix and done in seconds. Yet getting to know its "cans and cannots" plays a role. Practice for those magic moments pays big dividends at those times when time is short. Like yesterday when moving from point a to b on a roadway being repaired and seeing a cool picture opportunity but you don't want to block the road more than a few seconds. I found myself following a pilot vehicle at about 8mph and saw some cool opportunities of roadside objects. I'd slow down to a stop, snap a photo in about 12 seconds and get going again without Johnny Comuter doing a road rage thing. An old No Trespassing sign on a vine covered tree, or a monument signifying the birthplace of a historical person. And if need be the sign could pop out of the screen thanks to a bluury background, or could show that the place where the person was born is still a giant corn field.

Here was the old tree stump.

Must be something special about it.

A hole in the tree with live trees in the distance.
If you look at the stump pic, on the left about mid-way up the tree you can see the hole this was taken through.
Both photos are taken with my iPhone of the pictures on the display screen of the Panasonic, and reduced to 800 res for this forum. The photos on the high res laptop screen are much nicer looking.

Here's where the celphone cam is great. Travelling at 60mph on a swirvey road, I saw rays of morning sun sucking up dew from roadside objects and I wanted everything in focus.

Not too shabby considering it was shot through a dirty windsheild while going 60mph, smoking a cigarette, drinking coffee and playing with the volume knob on my radio.