Digicam Pics: Neighborhood photos with the Samsung TL500

The Schneider-Kreuznach glass in the little Samsung TL500 has a maximum aperture of f/1.8, which is pretty dang fast for a little pocket camera with a 3x (24-70mm equivalent) zoom lens.

DSLR Pics: Squirrels with the Olympus E-5

Sunday was supposed to be good squirrel-spotting weather. Clear and cold, but no wind to speak of (arboreal critters tend to hunker in their drays when the boughs get to whipping around.)

I put the Panasonic Leica D Vario-Elmar 14-150mm F3.5-5.6 Asph superzoom on the Olympus E-5 for my walk around the neighborhood but mostly came up empty handed.

I'm still looking for a lens hood for this thing, but they're unobtainium.

With an equivalent maximum focal length of 300mm on the Oly's Four Thirds sensor, I had plenty of reach for squirrel snapping, but I lacked for subjects.

At fifteen years old, the E-5 is starting to show its age, but if you keep the ISO at 400 or lower, it still does just fine.

Digicam Pics: Neighborhood people with the Samsung TL500

The bartender at Fat Dan's Chicago Style Deli, photographed with the Samsung TL500. I was shooting in Program mode with the ISO set to Auto, and the camera picked ISO 200 and 1/30th at f/2.3, thereby illustrating the advantages of the lovely, fast Schneider-Kreuznach glass (most pocket cameras will only open up to f/2.8 or so at their widest; the TL500 will go all the way to f/1.8 if necessary) and Samsung's optical image stabilization.

His shirt touts Rocky Ripple, an eclectic little urban village nearby. Nestled behind levees on a floodplain island between the White River and the canal, Rocky Ripple is only accessible by two road bridges over the canal and its denizens often sport bumper stickers on their cars that read "I'm not lost, I live here."

.

DSLR Pics: Urban wildlife with the Olympus E-5

Pairing the ultimate Four Thirds DSLR, Olympus's E-5 from 2010, with the only real quality superzoom in the Four Thirds ecosystem, the Panasonic Leica Vario-Elmar 14-150mm f/3.5-5.6, gives a pretty handy package for snapping pics of urban wildlife.

Mourning Dove

Chipmunk

Squirrel!

Moar Squirrel!

Digicam Pics: 1961 Buick LeSabre with the Samsung TL500

I keep the Samsung TL500 set up to record two files with every shot. The camera records one in RAW format, which for Samsung uses the ".SRW" file extension, and one fine quality JPEG. You can set custom color balances for the JPEG like Soft, Vivid, Forest, et cetera. It took me a little bit of scrolling and testing to figure out that "Classic" was Samsung-speak for "Monochrome".

So that's what I use: One RAW file is recorded and a monochrome JPEG. Being as this is a 2010-vintage pocket camera, it takes it a hot minute to write that 24MB .SRW file. If you just wanted to turn the camera on and pop off a quick shot or two then shut it back off, you'll be waiting a few seconds for the green "Busy" LED to stop blinking before it'll retract the lens and power down.

The Classic setting gives you a pretty stark and contrasty B&W effect.

Digicam Pics: Autumn Colors with the Nikon Coolpix P7000

I've had the little Nikon Coolpix with me as I was walkabout in the neighborhood the last few days. We're past the peak of fall colors, but it's still quite scenic out there.

This house's decor is always on point and changes from month to month: black and white checkered flag motif in May for the 500, rainbows in June for Pride Month, star spangled red white and blue in July, spooky in October, and this harvest motif in November...

Digicam Pics: Around SoBro with the Samsung TL500

The TL500 from Samsung... yes, Samsung was in the digital camera biz for a hot minute ...was their 2010 offering in the "Enthusiast Compact" segment.

Like most enthusiast point & shoot cameras of the period, it offered a physically larger 1/1.7" 10MP CCD sensor, which offers better low-light performance than the more typical 1/2.3" sensor found on P&S.

The star feature on the TL500, though, is the glass. Samsung used German optics company Schneider Kreuznach as their OEM glass provider, and the lens on the TL500 is quite a showboat: It's a 5.2-15.6mm f/1.8-2.4 zoom lens. That's the equivalent of a 24-72mm lens on a full-frame camera with a bright f/2.4 aperture available even at the long end.

Here's the SoBrosaurus at wide-angle...

Here's the full 72mm equivalent zoom on the dino's noggin...

Here's a 100% crop of the second photo. Notice the good detail on the rusty metal surfaces...

I love the color rendition from these old 10MP CCD sensors!

In addition to the usual JPEG filters offered by P&S cameras, enthusiast cameras like the TL500 offer the full array of PASM modes and the option of shooting in RAW. The TL500 even has dual control wheels (a click wheel on the front grip and a rotary dial that doubles as a 4-way D-pad on the back) just like a prosumer DSLR. That's important if you want to shoot in full Manual mode, since one controller handles aperture settings while the other controls shutter speed.

Digicam Pics: Around SoBro with the Nikon Coolpix P7000

Over at Down the Road you'll find a review of Jim Grey's workhorse digicam, the Canon Powershot S95. I can really relate to his enthusiasm for the camera, because it mirrors mine for the Nikon Coolpix P7000. (In fact, the cameras are in such a similar market niche that they were both in a three-way comparison test at DPReview.)

These days, when I almost always have an actual camera on a strap around my neck, the P7000 (it's my second!) doesn't get as much lovin', but I had it out yesterday.

The 6-42.6mm f/2.8-5.6 lens has a field of view equivalent to a 28-200mm zoom on a full-frame camera and a reasonably bright maximum aperture at the wide end.

At 200mm full zoom, the built in vibration reduction in the lens is plenty to offer a nice, crisp view of the SoBrosaurus's noggin, with good surface detail

Check out this mean-looking Audi SQ5 I saw yesterday!

I think I'll carry the P7000 around for a few days and see what it can see...