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is an occasional journal of Oregon, from arts and books to public policy & transportation.
All content © 2006- by Alexander B. Craghead, except where otherwise noted.
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Cafe Unknown
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By Jack Bogdanski of Portland, Oregon. (Like he needs any other introduction by now? -- A.B.C.)
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"Why buy a mattress anywhere else?"
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A journal about photography, roadtrips, trains and life, with occasional detours into movies, baseball, music, family and more.
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Good photos usually have good stories to go with them.... The goal of The Photographers' Railroad Page is to provide an outlet for top quality photographs and their story.
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Throwing Ourselves on the Grenade of Bad Food to Save You
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The musings of a farmer with a typewriter and camera
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Documenting Portland, Oregon architecture, history, and culture through photos, postcards, and words.
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Observations on faith, photography, trains, baseball, the city where I live (Fullerton, Calif.), anything that I find funny (a lot of things) or irritating (some things) and various incidents involving friends and family.
Under the Weather
...the open road, fatherhood, family life, music, railroads, photography, popular and unpopular culture, sex, violence, religion, the oppression of consumerism and capitalism and the general bullshit that makes up modern life.
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A blog to counter the myths, lies, and demagoguery others use against sound city planning to further their own ends, fair and foul - but also to urge the profession itself to pull back from the occasional wretched PC exces.
VanPortlander
Living in Vancouver; working in Portland. I have some thoughts.
Whiskey, Texas
...life and experiences in Texas and the Southwest. Recurring themes: Photography, railroads, fading ads / ghost signs, fallen-flag railroad logos, boxcars, bicycling, Texas music, pop culture, sports, road trips, literature, kids and family.
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Meet the G9
Although I am a die-hard film shooter, I've been pondering buying a digital camera for some time now. Top on my list has been the Canon Powershot G9. (Canon info here, Digital Photography Review thoughts here.) Part of Canon's extremely well made G series of point-and-shoots, it is a top of the line machine: slim, sleek, and extremely capable. Labels: Art, Photography, Technology
The Canon Powershot G9, courtesy khedra @ flickr
So I went out and bought one. As a friend of mine said to me when he heard the news, "it's a sign of the apocalypse!"
Now that I've had it a few weeks, I thought I'd put up a few images and share a few thoughts.
All of the following images have been resized and tweaked in Photoshop Elements 3.0; none required more than some levels adjustments and a light use of the unsharp mask. Overall I like my images more contrasty, so the tonal range is a bit more limited here than what the camera produces straight up. All were shot at ISO 400; this is the typical ISO I favor for film, so I felt it was a good starting point to evaluate the camera.
A petition gatherer on a westbound MAX Blue Line train on April 8th, 2008. Shooting people shots, street photography, and the like was the focus of this purchase. Using the G9 was far less intrusive than the n80 with its massive battery grip. Composing from the view screen, however, means I'm still a bit slower.
The driver's side headlamp from a Triumph Spitfire. This was an attempt at a macro shot, and I used the camera's manual focus mode to fine tune a shallow depth-of-field image. Here I felt the LCD panel was helping a lot. Additionally this was using the camera's built in "black and white mode". I haven't yet compared this to channel mixing and the like.
Another shot using the camera's built in black and white mode: here, detail from the truck of a flatcar in Roy, Oregon. The original had far more tonal range; I've taken my usual contrast upping method to it.
One of TriMet's 200 series MAX cars, waiting at the Hatfield Government Center in Hillsboro, Oregon, on the afternoon of April 11th. I was very happy with the good tone and smoothness in this image.
A burnt out building in Portland's Central Eastside Industrial District. Note that even at f/7.1 -- near to the cameras maximum f/8.0 f-stop -- there is some sun flare from shooting towards a bright object. 
Posters advertising a PBS special in part of Portland's Central Eastside Industrial District. The light was rather poor, and the camera didn't fix that. It also didn't make me breakfast the next morning. I better talk to my shrink about this.
A stairwell from the B. P. John Building on the campus of Marylhurst University. This was handheld at 1/30th, not all that shocking really. What was more shocking is that I also got decent, usable images shot at 1/8th of a second. So far the minimal light performance on the camera is pleasing me.
None of these images is part of a real test of the camera's limits. As Summer progresses I'm sure I"ll put the G9 through more trying circumstances and see how it fares. Initial reactions, however, is that the camera performs very very well -- but it's not a professional camera. When I'm really pushing the limits, the n80 with its elegant control layout and its proven, known responses is still the winner. And when I think of making long-term, serious images, its still my first choice.
However -- and this is a big however -- the world is more and more digital. When it comes to sharing photos of your latest project, or wanting a snapshot camera for a day trip, or needing to get an image shot and emailed in short order and still have it be useable for print, the G9 is awful hard to beat. Plus the camera allows me to keep shooting without cost or equipment concerns, keeping my skills sharpened. No, it's not one of the four horsemen, but it is a useful addition to my photographic toolbox.
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