Alex Robinson

Well I hope everyone had a mint Guy Fawkes, I know I did. This year I decided to skip the overcrowded public displays with fun-killing alcohol bans and have some fireworks fun at home. After all, what’s better than sharing a BBQ, a game of cricket, quite a few beers, a bonfire and a box of slightly aged fireworks with some friends and family? Needless to say it was a good bonfire and we could still see the Rolleston fireworks while enjoying a few cold bottles of Kingfisher.

Not the best photos, but we were drunk and it was dark!

Other than burning things I’ve been busy shooting with Paul’s Nikon 12-24 lens which has been quite entertaining. It certainly gives a different perspective on things, one that I’ve become quite fond of. I like the ability to still zoom into 24mm for shots that require a slightly tighter composition. I have a few quality reservations about the lens though, the sharpness is OK, nothing to get excited over even when shot at ƒ8. The corners never seem to sharpen up quite enough, this is of particular concern to me as I’m shooting a lot of things with flat surfaces at the moment. There’s quite a bit of barrel distortion, though it is mostly correctable in Photoshop (Please Adobe, put lens corrections in Lightroom 3!) Chromatic aberrations are also an issue but at least they’re easy enough to correct in Lightroom. The handling of the lens is very good, the zoom is nicely spaced and the whole lens is sealed so nothing moves in or out while zooming or focusing. I haven’t noticed much issue with vignetting either though I’ve mostly been shooting stopped down in daylight. I can’t comment on lens flares since I didn’t have the lens hood for it, flare was certainly an issue without it. Would I buy one? Probably not to be perfectly honest, the sharpness I don’t feel is up to what a 10+ megapixel SLR can put out, I’m sure it was more than fine back in 6 megapixel days but just doesn’t deliver the standard I expect—especially at the price. That said I am interested in taking a look at the Tokina 11-16 ƒ2.8 since it’s cheaper and supposed to be sharper. Still, I did enjoy using it, I hope I’ll get another chance this week to shoot with it.

Some more Shots with the Nikon 12-24 ƒ4

My final photographic observation for the day is how good the new Canon S90 is, it’s probably the first compact camera I’ve been genuinely impressed with in a while. In my books its much better than the G11, being pocket sized is the clincher for me. What’s the point of a camera thats too big to fit in your pocket but only delivers compact quality? That said, the S90 seemed to produce damn good results, I must say I only had about 15 minutes of shooting before the battery went flat but the shots I got in that time had wonderful, vibrant colour (I was using the positive film simulation mode) and decent dynamic range for a compact. Sharpness was good, viewed at 100% the images were some of the best I’ve seen from a compact and it produced all but flawless 6×4″ glossies (isn’t this what compacts are for after all?). I wouldn’t expect stunning poster prints from it but I would suspect a well taken shot would look crisp at 10×12″. I didn’t bother testing the ISOs, I know it’ll be sucky like all compacts, anything over 400 and you’re wasting your time for good prints—this is no different to 35mm days though, remember how crap the 800 ISO films in disposable cameras are? Handling wise, it blows the G11 and any other compact I’ve used out of the water, once I had it set up right it just flew. Exposure compensation is easy via the rear wheel, I have the programable button set up for ISO and the front ring for focal length settings; being able to flick between 28, 35, 50, 85 and 105mm is great and it even remembers your set position. The screen seemed great too, no problems in daylight for me. I’ve gotta say I’m pleased that Canon pulled out all the stops on this camera, I do think that small sensored compacts have a future because all the micro four thirds and APS-C sized compacts are just too big to fit in your jeans pocket. Maybe one day this will change but for now, there’s no better option for a serious photographers compact that actually fits in your pocket. Pity it costs so damn much!