Wednesday, July 4, 2012

To ruin the picture, to let all the light in

I was tired after work, maybe it was the bicycle commute. But after dinner I felt better, and we went for a swim with the daughters. I didn't feel like taking photographs, but managed to take a few anyway, not that they are in any way remarkable, but here are three of them.

I have been pondering the future of cameras, and especially the Samsung EX2F. With the f/1.4 lens and the backside illuminated CMOS sensor this camera is probably two stops better in high-ISO than the LX5. That is quite remarkable.

And even though there are many other things than the lens and the sensor that make a camera, I think Samsung has managed to make quite a tool for those who want a small camera with excellent image quality.

Well, it remains to be seen whether there are some negative things about the EX2F, but this is for me a much more interesting proposition than the Sony RX100, mainly because of the wide 24 mm lens and the fact that the closest focusing distance is 1 cm. And the EX2F also shoots 1:1, by the way.

(Posting title is from the poem Snapshots with Wide Apertures Shown on the Road by Pimone Triplett.)

4 comments:

Christophe said...

My main gripe with the EX1 is the lack of support of the RAW files from Aperture, so I have to go through the burdens of DNGConverter when I import pictures.
Yes, after more than 1 year, Apple is still not supporting the EX1... So this might be an issue as well with EX2F...

It is otherwise a pretty good camera despite a little bit of too much distortion at the wide end for my taste.

A nice "feature" is the filter thread, which associated with a sensor sensitivity to IR allows to capture in IR domain without a tripod. But this might disappear with the new sensor in the EX2F.

Juha Haataja said...

@Christophe: Indeed, the RAW workflow could be a serious handicap.

For me, shooting almost exclusively in jpeg, that shouldn't be a problem. But then there is the question whether one can tweak the jpeg settings so that they correspond to the "real world"; with the LX5 (and LX3) I have been very happy with the jpeg results.

Christophe said...

Well, the most important factor to me in order to get "real world" results is actually the white balance, so not at all related to jpeg settings. Once the WB is spot on, the rest is ok for me, or just a matter of tweaks and taste.
Unfortunately, even modern cameras tend to screw up the WB, especially the green-magenta shift.

Juha Haataja said...

@Christophe: Well, you are right, and screwing up the WB can happen in many and occasionally surprising situations, such as in a forest where the daylight is filtered through foliage. With just a little change in the scenery the result can look completely different.