A Singaporean [Quitter] in Maesai

My A900 (DSLR) has been in my drybox recently as there were no photography jobs for me and I was spending more time in my analog cameras. (pinhole and  Hassy). So it got a bit neglected.

I think I only managed to get a small job using my A900 during this past new months and that was to shoot an interior of an office and datacentre.  Pretty interesting experience to shoot in such a constraint place :P

So I was actually tempted to sell my A900 as it seems that  I can't find a good use of its ultra high resolutions (24.5 Megapixels for your info).  Then it hit me one day while I got some slides developed and the scans by the shops were horribly wrong. Ughh! I hate to scan them on my own film scanners as the process is slow and normally I need to calibrate my scanner to get the colours correct.  I need something that could be faster and more reliable.

In my cabinet I have a 50mm Macro lens that I bought cheaply in the 2nd hand market.  Its has a 1:1 lifesize capability.  So I actually could find a light source and use my camera as slide copy machine! 

The light source is a bit simple as I already have a lightbox.  But to shoot 1:1 and I have to keep the lens flat and pendicular to the flat film surface was a challenge.  So I went hunting for a macro rail and managed to find a cheap display set with Cathay Photos.  And viola!  I have my own 35mm Film copy machine!

My Setup

So the process is simple.  I first set the correct custome WB and then just slide the Slides below it to copy them.  Aperture I used is f/11 (to get the maximium DOF in case the film were not flat enough) and I used an old lens barrel (that I salvaged from a old fungus infected lens) to weigh down the film and keep them in place.

The results were fantastic (for my standards of course)!  I have 6048x4032 files of my slides and the colours were 90% accurate! And its fast!  Each frame is just takes at most 5 secs to setup and grab.  I actually wished that there was liveliew for my a900 (those with 5D Mk2 should be even faster.. :P)  Another good thing is that I tried copying MF slides at 1:1 (cropped) and the details were mind blowing.   Its also possible to copy black and white and colour negatives.  Especially the grains on these analog film... yum yum..

Will be posting some "copied" results here later.. need more time to copy :P

Update on Wednesday, June 30, 2010 at 10:14AM by Fatboi

Photo gallery is up! :) Click here to view some samples taken with this setup.

First of all, just want to mention that Sony didn't pay me for writing this(I do hope if they see this maybe they will :P).  Wife's friend wants a good PnS (Point and Shoot) camera and of course she immediately recalls I am a photographer and asked me to recommend and buy one for her. 

She is a good friend (best pal actually) of my wife so I cannot dissapoint her.  Her budget is 400SGD so I had a hard time to hunt around until I stumble upon an ad from Sony on a trade-in promotion for the WX-1 or TX-1.  I have an old Canon A90 that has a faulty LCD screen so I decidede to trade it in for the deal.

Went down to MS Colour and got one (with some top up from myself as she has bought tons of stuff for my kids and my wife an I have not really gave her anything). 

So decided to test shoot with the new toy as its a gift and I don't want any issue with it as it will be in Thailand.  So after testing it, I got hooked immediately by how good this little camera is.  I would say its more of a gadget camera rather than the usual PnS cam.  You can read the specs here, I'm not going to go through them but I just want to write how I enjoy using this camera as a photographer.

First feature to mention is the Panorama capture.  Here's a shot of my office below.

Basically, you focus and then starts to swipe in the direction of arrow indicated.  The camera will automatically stich the photo up for you.  Pretty neat and nice!  I had tons of fun shooting in this mode and most of the time the stiches are very well done.

The 2nd feature is the smile detection.  This is old news to some but I tested it and found it surprisingly accurate.  Though you need to smile and hold it there for at least a sec before it triggers the shutter.

The 3rd feature to mention is the handheld twilight mode.  Its a pretty interesting feature where the camera will take six consecutive shots and combine them to get you a more high dynamic range picture. Here's a sample below. Flash is not used at all.  The picture taken with this method is not as sharp but at least you can shoot handheld photos at night.

The next feature worth mentioning is the interface.  The camera literally has only 3 physcal buttons and a zoom lever.  All the rest is on the touch screen.  Yes! Touch screen like the iPhone or those monile phones.  The best is the selecting focusing point.  No longer I need to teach people how to half press the shutter to get a focus.  By touching on the screen, the camera automatically focus on that spot.  Making it a breeze to get a sharp photo.

Image quality is considered very good to me for such a  small compact camera.  High ISO photos are definitely acceptable for print up to 8Rs.  Which is more than enought for casual shooters.

Lastly, I just have to mention it again is the build quality and stylo looks.  Its cool looking and very thin.  Easily pocketable in your shirt pocket.  Making it very portable.  Sony also have some cool leather pouches for these cameras but I'm not sure how much they are charging them.  

Now for the bad things.

Battery life is ok.  Expected due to such small size but definitely can last a day of shooting.  You may need to consider getting a spare batt.

The touchscreen is a bit sensitive.  Sometimes you might accidentally hit on the screen and go into another mode or turning off a feature.

The battery compartment door is a bit filmy and plasticky (the rest of the body is all metal) so I think this is the part that will get spoilt first if you are not careful.

All in all, I find it to be the best PnS digital cam I have used so far.  And I will be getting one for myself soon :P