Category: digital photography

Longboard ditch skating

My friend Chris and I hit the Glenville ditch, here in Richardson, for a session last night. Being extremely manly, Chris managed to seperate one of the wheels from the truck on his newschool board, so I shared my longboard with him. He’s a good longboarder, of course, so it was killer.

This was my first real attempt at skateboard photography with my new Canon SD750. The first shots were pretty blurry. Then I started using Auto mode, pre-focusing on the area I wanted to shoot, and then panning with the skater as he rode by. Pre-focusing reduced the shutter lag to almost zero, making it a lot easier to shoot. The result was a much clearer shot of the skater — pretty neat — good photos for a total beginner. Chris got some good shots of me too. Check out the rest by clicking here…

Funny, after so many years of longboarding, that 44″ board doesn’t feel or look that big.

Canon PowerShot SD750

Since I’ve been running a fairly popular website for 8 years, and blogging for about 3 years, and I’m always afraid that I’ll drop my wife’s digital camera as I roll down a hill on a skateboard while shooting pictures of another skateboarder…

…today I got my own digital camera. It’s still too nice to drop, but at least if I do I’m not in trouble. haha — ha —

Anyway, here is what I got — the Canon PowerShot SD750

After researching this for a while, I came to a few conclusions. 1) I wanted something I could have in my pocket. 2) I like the menu system and controls of Canon cameras. 3) Finally, if you read too many camera reviews, it will drive you crazy.

When buying a truely compact digital camera there are some tradeoffs. None of them have a lot of optical zoom. This one has 3x optical zoom. In a camera this size, that’s about as much as you will find. If you read reviews on CNET or similar sites, keep in mind that they can really knit-pick. For example, they harped on the “purple fringe” on some of this camera’s pics. Sure — if you take a shot, and then blow up a tiny section 4x you might see it, but I have to say that so far I think the quality is fine. If you are really that freaked out about having perfect image quality, you need to spend money on a digital SLR, not a compact point and shoot camera. I have to say though that CNET was a really useful site. They gave me just enough good info, without overwhelming me with technical data.


Some other good points: This camera has really big, nice screen. It doesn’t have an optical viewfinder — big deal. Not important to me. The controls and menu system are very easy to use. I like the fact that the text/symbols on the control buttons are actually legible – you can see them. Good stuff.

The burst mode will crank out a series of images pretty fast. Cool. I’ve been playing with the various settings — trying different ISO settings, the Macro setting, etc. The automatic red-eye removal is magic. Very, very cool. The facial recognition actually works.

The Auto mode is great. In manual you can do some interesting stuff. Blah, blah, blah. Obviously I like my new camera. But I’m not a fan-boy. If it sucked, I’d say it sucks. But its a good camera.

Sooooo….if you are looking for a nice compact in the range of $280 – $300, this would be a good choice.

My previous post contains a few of the first images I took.

First shots with my new camera

Here are some of the first images I’ve taken with my new camera. I went outside and found the first thing with color. Click through to Flickr for more info on the settings. For a first attempt, they look pretty good at full size (when you click the image and get to Flickr, THEN click the “all sizes” link right above the image to see the real full-sized image). Zeroing in on tiny features in nature can reveal some pretty amazing structures. Really, I was just experimenting with different settings. I more or less understand all the settings, but I don’t necessarily always chose the right ones.