Sir Canon III

Almost four years ago, born unto me was a Canon Digital Elph capable of 2 megapixels. I loved it. I used it every day while commuting to and from work in New York City. The Elph was perfect for what I wanted to accomplish which was a daily view of my commute. In order to avoid being beat up by any fellow commuters (as many know that New Yorkers can be quite surly when their early morning feathers are rustled) I never used the viewfinder but instead kept the camera below my belt (usually). As a matter of fact, a few years went by before someone borrowing the camera to take a picture pointed out that there was a scratch on the glass. I never noticed. I just shot on the fly, in hopes of never being seen and therefore never being beaten up. It worked. I took thousands of images bruise-free.

That camera took somewhere in the area of 3 to 4 thousand images. And while I still own it, it’s no longer capturing the entire image. Instead, it creates a very harsh vignette, leaving most of the image in total blackness. I liken its demise to the human cataract.

I had received another Digital Elph (4.0 megapixels) from Toby for Christmas a fear years back, just incase something were to happen to the first one. And wouldn’t you know? They both stopped working the same week.

This past April, I finally decided to take a step away from the Digital Elph, and buy something with a bit more punch. I bought the Elph’s older brother, the Canon PowerShot Pro1.

I have had my new camera now for nearly two months. And I only now decided to start learning how to use it. While I haven’t experimented much yet with actually taking the picture, I finally figured out how to download and manipulate a RAW image. Needless to say, it totally rules.

I am amazed at the quality these digital cameras have mastered. My only real annoyance, still, are that once my images are exported via Photoshop, optimized for web, they are coming out rather “dull”. In other words what I see on screen, in print, and during import does not match what I finally export. I know this is the nature of digital imagery, at times, but something is getting lost. And I am sure it’s a user error. My goal is to figure out why. Any insightful information, would be grand.

Here, begins my fun with photography. (Again).

(Images can be clicked on to enlarge).

My not so colorful (once optimized) flowers.

TobyJoe waiting on the J Church.