When I get back from our biennial holiday trip to Hawaii, people usually
ask me how was the trip with a grin and a knowing look. This was a bit of
an off trip. The weather was very rainy and muggy and our accommodations
were more of a difficulty than usual. When the tsunami hit right after
Xmas day, the news was full of recollections of past tsunamis in Hawaii,
which now fortunately has a top-flight warning system. Meanwhile about six
inches of rain over New Year's at least lessened my guilt about watching
football all day long. As the low areas flooded, I kept looking out at the
ocean, telling myself over and over "The rain won't make it
bigger." Having lived through a flood, a lot of rain still creeps me out.
At least Iowa whipped LSU in one of the most exciting finishes I ever
saw. Go Hawks! Too bad about the Rose Bowl.
But this trip was for the kids and to renew family ties. Our kids get to
see their cousins every two years, same as the rest of us, but they seem so
different after two years time, you feel sorry for all they have missed,
even though we all have missed so much. But you find yourself just trying
to appreciate the opportunities and the time you have. The rest of us stay
the same, of course (HA!), but you also notice the changes among the
elderly ones as much as the young. Two years seems too long to be away.
I had hoped to shoot five rolls of Kodachrome 25. I only burned 2, using
mainly a Tokina 17/3.5 and the 24 shift, plus a little macro with the
50/3.5 -- stuff I couldn't do with my C-8080. Otherwise the light didn't
suit Kodachrome most of the time or is was too slow for the purpose.
I saw the Kodachrome thread in December. My first roll has made it back
with the Hampton Park, MD, return address. No evidence that it was
processed in Kansas, but who knows?
I took a laptop and used it only to do preliminary edits and
post-processing of digital images and for storage. I'm glad I did no more
than some very basic levels adjustments. Once at my home PC, which has all
the color management gewgaws, the images were easier to evaluate for final
tweeks. In general, I have come to the conclusion that the default
contrast, saturation, and sharpening settings in the C-8080 are no longer
to my liking. The contrast seems to be a little high, the saturation could
be a bit greater, and sharpening is right on. The contrast is the most
serious problem and caused a couple images to lose detail that might have
retained it otherwise based on the exposure I used. As for sharpening, I
would rather have a little headroom to optimise USM than have it all done
in the camera. It appears that Olympus set the defaults to produce images
which are pretty much "there" coming right out of the camera. I suppose
that's good marketing, but beware the defaults and test test test. I wish
I had done more testing, though it's hard to find sea foam cascading over
black rock in my neighborhood.
My son is very happy with his C-5060. The optical viewfinder and it's
limitations for composition doesn't bother him at all. He doesn't use
it. His first instinct with it is to look in the LCD and he thinks that's
what you're supposed to do with a digital camera. This camera is perfect
for him. My wife would mostly use the viewfinder of her digital Stylus and
he would berate her, saying "It's a DIGITAL camera! Look at the
screen." I won't use a camera that has to be worked through the LCD panel,
but he's totally with it. Makes us all happyl
We don't have a Costco in my town, so I was eager to get a few prints made
while we were near one in Honolulu. Aside from the hassle of just driving
anywhere in HNL, it was a very easy matter of plugging in the CF card and
selecting the shots. A cousin on Molokai raises fighting cocks but has no
pictures of them. I spent an afternoon photographing them. He'd say,
"Take that one" then "This one." They all looked exactly the same to me,
so I tried to get them in different positions, doing different
things. They are tethered to their little shelters and you have to walk on
the paths between them or they will peck your legs. When you get used to
their patterns, they don't seem like such stupid birds. There are a couple
he can pick up and pet. I tried and they wouldn't let me. I asked if he
ever gets attached to them and he said that as soon as you do that, that's
the one that's going to get killed. I hate to think about that. They are
beautiful creatures. Will post a shot or two.
Anyway, he now has about 25 Costco prints of his birds. The prints turned
out beautifully. I was so impressed. These were pretty much right from
the camera too. Of course the light was almost perfect for the
purpose: bright overcast. At $.19 a 4x6 print, it was more expensive than
having a roll of film processed, except that these are all keepers. I have
many processed and printed rolls of film in which there are NO keepers. I
don't expect to shoot much print film ever again and I can't say that I
will really miss it.
Joel W.
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