Canon G9 – test of image quality after “Lens error, camera restart” incident

In my last posting I worked through what I did when my G9 suddenly experienced a “Lens error, camera restart” incident – go here for more details. At the time I did a quick image quality test to check that all was well. I have now done a more detailed test and here is my experience.

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I am about to go away for a week and want to take a compact camera with me and the G9 would be ideal, but after the recent incident I was only willing to do this if I could convince myself that the image quality had not been impaired by the fairly robust treatment I had had to give the lens to get it working again.

In order to do this I decided to try to replicate an image that I took a few months ago that I was happy with and which had printed up well. This is an image of a window from my local church which has quite a lot of fine detail all over the image – the original image is below.


I looked up the original EXIF data to replicate it; this was ISO 80, f5.0 with aperture priority, auto focusing with a focal length of approximately 29mm.

This afternoon I set out to replicate the image, which is shown below.



Apart from it being a different season (there are leaves on the tree now), totally different light conditions and a slightly shorter focal length (25mm vs 29mm) the image above is good enough for my test.

I synchronised the settings in Lightroom so that the same settings that might affect image sharpness etc were used on both; such as clarity, contrast, vibrance, sharpening and noise reduction etc.

I have looked over the whole of both images and found that the image quality on the post incident image is as good as the earlier one – in fact it may be better… I have checked centre to edge and the two 100% extracts of the same part of the image below show that there is no loss of detail in the post incident image and the auto focusing is working fine.



Conclusion
The G9 is behaving itself again and its image quality is as good as it was beforehand, so I shall be taking it with me on the trip. Read more...

Canon G9 – “Lens error, restart camera” error

I went to use my Canon G9 compact digital camera recently after a long lay off for it while I explored the Panasonic G1. I charged up the battery and turned it on just before putting it in my suitcase for a three day trip – all I got was some whirrs and bleeps and a message on screen saying “Lens error, restart camera”…

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The lens shutter opened, the lens projected a bit then stopped, with the whirrs and bleeps and then a message on the LCD screen saying “Lens error, restart camera”. It then turned itself off. The photo below shows the screen error message (please excuse the finger marks - I was in a hurry) and the one below that the position the lens stopped in.




Not panicking I decided to turn it off, leave it a few minutes and try again - no change. I tried it a couple more times; still no change. I then took out the battery and left it for 10 minutes; still no change.

Since it was now time to catch the train I took out the battery and left it on the shelf with its lens partially extended to sulk and consider its future until I came back and picked up the Panasonic G1 instead.

When I returned three days later from my trip I popped the battery back in and tried again – no change. I tried a few times with the odd prod of the lens to try to encourage it to move. Nothing happened so I left it and had a search on Google for solutions.

The general message I got from various sites was that Canon was unlikely to be interested in fixing it as they nearly always claim that this sort of problem is due to sand/grit etc in the mechanism or being dropped and hence not covered by any sort of warranty.

My camera is about 18 months old, but very lightly used – it has only taken about 500 photos as it has only really been used as a back up to my DSLRs and rarely needed. I have taken a good deal of care of it and when not in use it has been kept in its Lowepro D-Pods 30 case that I reviewed earlier and that review can be found – here. I have certainly never dropped it or abused it.

I’m not wildly patient and after reading about the problem and its solution on several web sites I followed the most comprehensive advice that I found – here.

The 7 Fixes...
I followed the suggested fixes - which as you would imagine are progressively more risky – through to the final level – Fix 7.

Fix 1 - Essentially what I did initially – turn it off and on again.

Fix 2 - Again essentially what I did next – taking the battery and memory card out; putting in a new battery and then trying again.

I rummaged around in the loft to find the USB AV cable as recommended when I reached Fix 3.

Fix 3 - Insert the AV cable in the camera and turn it on – the idea is that this turns off the screen and diverts a little extra power to the lens motor and that might do the trick. It didn’t for me.

Fix 4 - Lay the camera on its back and press the shutter release while turning on the power – this might trick the camera into moving the lens as it tries to focus while powering up – didn’t work for me though.

Fix 5 - Blow compressed air around the lens to try to shift any particles clogging up the works. I didn’t have any compressed air, but I do have a large Giottos “Hurricane” blower which I tried – to no avail.

Fix 6 - Tap the USB cover on the camera against a hard surface a few times – This is getting into serious “you do this at your own risk” territory as it may make things works or solve the problem but damage something else inside the camera in the process. Not feeling as if Ihad much to lose I gave it a go – again to no effect.

Fix 7 - “Try forcing the lens” is the advice. It could really do terminal damage, but if you don’t fancy a big repair bill and the camera is out of warranty then … I didn’t feel that I had much to lose so I did some extensive wriggling of the lens, pushing it and pulling it – all the while listening for the telltale click that says it has reseated itself. I thought I heard it a couple of times and occasionally the lens moved and the lens changed the position it ended up in, but for probably about twenty tries I kept getting the same error message.

Naturally I got a little less gentle as time progressed and eventually the lens closed as I pushed it back in against a flat surface.

When I turned it back on the lens came out and protruded much further than before, but it was still not right. After going through the cycle around five more times the screen lit up and instead of the error message I got a camera settings screen – progress at last.

I pressed the shutter release and the flash fired and an image appeared on the screen – but the image was very out of focus. I tried zooming which worked and then gently (now I was beginning to think that it might be OK I became more cautions) wriggled the lens about.

I turned the camera off and the lens retracted and the shutter closed – when I turned it on it seemed better, although the familiar "Powershot G9" turn on screen did not come up; just the camera settings screen.

After a few more tries the camera started working normally again and the focus seemed OK.

I took the camera out for a quick test and viewed the images in Lightroom at 100% - they seem OK.

Result
After several on/off cycles it is still working fine – so it looks as I have brought it back to life; but more by luck than skill I feel. In reality most of the movements I tried with the lens were firm but not sharp shocks or knocks.
Read more...

Lowepro D-Pods 30 case for Ricoh GX100 compact digital camera

A couple of months ago I posted my experience of the Lowepro D-Pods 30 case with my Canon G9 - Click here to read it. Recently I have been able to play around with a Ricoh GX100 compact digital camera, so I thought it would be useful to report on my experience with it and the D-Pods 30 case, and to compare it with the G9 as well.

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Description and specifications
The D-Pods 30 was designed by Lowepro for small digital cameras. It is made from a black stretchy, water-resistant fabric; it has a Velcro secured belt/SlipLock™ compatible loop on the back, a battery/accessory pocket on the front of the case and a memory card pocket in the inside of the front flap. You can also slip something under the memory card pocket (as shown in the photo below). It also comes with a removable shoulder strap and the table below lists the dimensions. In the UK it costs around £7.99.

	Interior - Inches / cm	Exterior - Inches / cm
Height	4.9 / 12.5	5.4 / 13.8
Width	2.8 / 7.0	3.2 / 8.2
Depth	1.4 / 3.5	2.5 / 6.3

Lowepro D-Pods 30 case with the Ricoh GX100 in it, along with a spare battery in the front pocket and a spare SD card in the memory card pocket. The GX100 has the supplied wrist strap fitted.

What is it like in use?
Well the good news is the GX100 fits nicely into the pouch; it is not nearly as tight a fit as the G9 and it is easy to get the camera in and out. Being a looser fit means that you can not really feel any of the buttons, dials and flash bracket through the case that you can with the G9. This is also partly because the GX100 has a smoother body outline with fewer protrusions than the G9.

You certainly can not use the case with the VF-1 electronic viewfinder attached to the GX100, but it fits OK into the bottom of the case without the VF-1’s supplied case; but I feel that the “naked” VF-1 might well get damaged in transit. With the VF-1 in its supplied case I could fit it in at a squeeze with the Velcro closure tab just making contact, but I felt that it was just as likely to damage the VF-1 as protect it. I suppose for “gentle” transport situations it would be OK – at least the viewfinder would not get lost – but not for carrying on the belt or hanging off a rucksack strap.

The Ricoh DB-60 battery for the GX100 (I also use Hähnel HL-005 batteries with the wide range of Panasonic, Leica and Fujifilm cameras that use the same battery) is much slimmer (10mm vs. 16mm) and lighter (26g vs. 43g) than the Canon NB-2LH battery used in the G9, (as shown in the photograph below) so it fits into the front pocket very neatly without making the whole package too bulky, as you can see in the photo above. In fact I did not really notice the battery in the pocket at all as it fits in nicely just below the GX100’s lens bulge in the case.

The Canon battery on the left - the Ricoh on the right

A SD card fits neatly into the memory card pocket, which is made from stiffer material than the stretchy outer case. If, however, your camera takes Compact Flash (CF) cards then it might be worth knowing that the memory card pocket is not big enough to take a CF card. CF cards will slip in behind the memory card pocket, although it is not as secure as the proper pocket and might easily fall out. The front pocket takes a SD or CF card in a protective case quite securely.

The weight of the whole package (camera, strap, spare battery and SD card, and VF-1) comes in at 386g. Without the VF-1 it weighs 364g. By comparison the G9 weighed in at 500g.

I found it much easier to slip the GX100 in and out of the case when on my belt than the G9.

I have not used the neck strap so have no comment to make on it other than it looks like the standard one that Lowepro supplies with most of its small cases.

Conclusion
All-in-all it is a pretty good choice for a Ricoh GX100. It is a good fit; slipping in and out easily. It is no bulkier than it needs to be and gives good enough protection against accidental knocks and abrasion that occurs when these things rattle around inside bags, glove compartments and sundry other places day-in and day-out.

There is, however, no room for any much larger accessories such as wide angle attachments or with a viewfinder attached (although it can take the dismounted VF-1 at a pinch) – for these you will need a bigger case. Read more...

Lowepro D-Pods 30 case for Canon G9 compact digital camera

Since I bought the Canon G9 I have been using an old HP calculator case (see photo below) to protect it when I’m on the move, but I have now finally received the case I planned to use; a Lowepro D-Pods 30 – this is my short review of it in use.

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Description and specifications
The D-Pods 30 was designed by Lowepro for small digital cameras. It is made from a black stretchy, water-resistant fabric and weighs (without the shoulder strap) around 70g; it has a Velcro secured belt/SlipLock™ compatible loop on the back, a battery/accessory pocket on the front of the case and a memory card pocket in the inside of the front flap. You can also slip something under the memory card pocket (as shown in the photo below). It also comes with a removable shoulder strap and the table below lists the dimensions. In the UK it costs around £7.99.

	Interior - Inches / cm	Exterior - Inches / cm
Height	4.9 / 12.5	5.4 / 13.8
Width	2.8 / 7.0	3.2 / 8.2
Depth	1.4 / 3.5	2.5 / 6.3

Lowepro D-Pods 30 case with Canon G9 in it, a spare battery in the front pocket, a spare SD card in the memory card pocket; also showing the extra slip in pocket behind the memory card pocket. The G9 has an Op/Tech Cam QD wrist strap fitted.

What is it like in use?
Well the good news is the G9 fits snugly into the pouch; it is a tight fit, but being stretchy it is easy to get the camera in and out. Being a tight fit, however, means that you can feel the shutter release button, dials and flash bracket on the top surface of the camera quite distinctly.

While you can fit a spare NB-2LH battery in the front pocket (as shown in the photograph) it does make the whole package rather bulky so I actually keep it in the bottom of the case, with the battery cover on, where it nestles in making the case more streamlined in use. Also having the battery in the front pocket makes it quite difficult to slip the camera in and out of the case – I found that I had to take the battery out, put the camera in and then put the battery in again.

The weight of the whole package in the photo above is 500g (1.1lbs).

A SD card fits neatly into the memory card pocket, which is made from stiffer material than the stretchy outer case. If, however, your camera takes Compact Flash (CF) cards then it might be worth knowing that the memory card pocket is not big enough to take a CF card. CF cards will slip in behind the memory card pocket, although it is not as secure as the proper pocket and might easily fall out. The front pocket takes a SD or CF card in a protective case quite securely.

I have not used the neck strap so have no comment to make on it other than it looks like the standard one that Lowepro supplies with most of its small cases.

Conclusion
All-in-all it is a pretty good choice for a Canon G9, being a snug fit it is no bulkier than it needs to be and gives good enough protection against accidental knocks and abrasion that occurs when these things rattle around inside bags, glove compartments and sundry other places day-in and day-out.

There is, however, no room for any much larger accessories such as a Lensmate, wide angle attachments or optical finder – for these you will need a bigger case.

I have now tried the D-Pods 30 with a Ricoh GX100 - click here to read the post.
Read more...

Update to Canon G9 RAW writing times...

In my earlier posting about my first impressions of the G9 I reported my experience with RAW file write times in single shot mode. I have since repeated the experiments in continuous mode.

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The specifications suggest that the G9 ought to be able to reel off 1.5 frames a second in continuous mode with "fixed" focus - which I take to mean manual focus - and 0.7 frames per sec in continuous AF mode. Since I use RAW mode I was interested to see what times I would actually get.

Repeating the tests in both continuous AF and manual focus modes I found that with the Sandisk Extreme III SD card I was getting a shot every 1.5 secs (which is about 0.7 frames per sec), whereas with the much slower Toshiba SD card I was getting a shot at just under every 3 secs. So definitively here the card speed shows up. The faster card was yielding real world times twice that of the slower card.

I did not find any significant speed differences between continuous AF and manual focus modes for either card, although I did sense that the time between the first and second shot was faster than subsequent shots with the Toshiba card. This would make sense if the buffer is large enough to accommodate a second shot, but that subsequent shot times are governed by card write times.
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Canon G9 ISO 800 Lightroom noise & sharpening settings

When I chose the Canon G9 one of my reasons was that I hoped that lots of people would be buying one and sharing their experience on the web of how to get the best out of it. I am happy to have found some examples of that happening.

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On the Luminous Landscape forum there has been quite a lot of discussion about image noise and sharpening settings in the Develop module of Lightroom, with some from Thomas Niemann (of PTLens fame) for the G9 at ISO 800 being reported and discussed.

I have tried out the settings recommended in Lightroom 1.3 (shown in the screen shot above and the table below) and they work pretty well as a starting point for me, so I have saved them as a preset to repeat at will, although I have added in a Vibrance setting of 17% for this image.

Presence
Clarity	25
Noise reduction
Luminance	80
Color	100
Sharpening
Amount	60
Radius	0.8
Detail	30
Masking	0

There are a few of other blogs with G9 specific information that I have found which look useful:

• LifeSpy with a G9 and My Canon G9, which have quite a lot of overlapping content
• Light Description
• Digital Outback Photo

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Early impressions of my Canon G9

In an earlier blog I laid out my reasons for choosing the G9 above all the other compact digital cameras around. I have had the G9 for about two months now and here are my first impressions of it.

First off I am pretty impressed with the quality of the images it produces and I have printed photos up to A3 which I am very happy with - I am happy with my purchase decision.

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The first thing I did was buy a couple of Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb SD cards and the cheapest 2Gb SD card available at the same shop (a Toshiba) as an emergency spare card, along with a couple of generic spare batteries (£9.99 for two vs. £37.99 each for genuine Canon NB-2LHs); all from the 7dayshop. I have used generic batteries from the 7dayshop for some years and never had a problem - not only are they much cheaper, but they tend to have higher capacity as well; in this case 750mAh vs. 720mAh for the supplied Canon battery.

I don't spend a huge amount of time reading through manuals if I can avoid it, so after a cursory flick through to see if there was anything I really needed to know (which there wasn't) I got on with using the camera. Since I have used Canon cameras for some time most of the controls were reassuringly obvious. I have found, as expected, the separate ISO knob extremely useful as I try to keep the ISO as low as practical with small sensor cameras to keep image noise low. The controls I use most are the flexizone focus control and exposure compensation - both of which have separate buttons to activate and use the 4-way button and rotary control on the back of the camera to adjust.

I nearly always use cameras in Aperture Priority (Av) mode and the G9 has been pretty much permanently set in that mode since I started using it. As is my normal practice I have only used the camera in RAW mode and I am very happy with the RAW conversions that I have done in Lightroom so far.

Parliament Square & Big Ben

I have used it as a general carry anywhere camera so I had it on me when I found myself in Parliament Square late one afternoon when the light was warm and clear. I picked a good shot and processed it from RAW in Lightroom, through CS3 and printed it up to A3 from both Lightroom and Qimage (more about that in a later blog), producing the photo of Big Ben with the London Eye in the background above. At the widest focal length on the G9 and the angle that I was using the camera at to fit the scene into the frame there was considerable perspective distortion, particularly of Big Ben. In a perfect world I would like less barrel distortion wide open as well, but for the type of camera it is I am happy to accept it for its portability. To improve the shot a bit I used PTLens in Photoshop to correct for the lens distortion and perspective a bit - trying not to overdo it and unnaturally "stretch" the image.

100% crop from above photo

I was very impressed with the resulting overall photo, but I was really happy and surprised with the detail that the camera captures at the short end of the camera’s focal length range; equivalent to 35mm. The 100% crop from the Houses of Parliament roof shows what it can pick up – I certainly did not notice the roof ladder when I was looking at the scene. This is exactly the sort of photo I bought the G9 for – a grab shot that I can print to a good size and be happy with.

Wide angle grab shot

One of my reasons for settling on the G9 instead of the Ricoh GX-100 was the longer reach equivalent to 210mm. This came into its own when I was on a walk in the countryside and I looked over a bridge to see a sleek animal getting out of the water – at first I thought it was a cat, but realised that that was unlikely. I ducked out of sight and got the G9 out of my jacket pocket, turned it on and eased my head back over the parapet. The animal was still there so I took a grab shot in case it disappeared then extended the lens to its full length and waited for the creature to show itself again. The light was low and the image stabiliser was essential at the long focal length. I took several shots and was not much the wiser what it was, other than it was like a large weasel or small otter. Back home I downloaded the images – around ten in all before it disappeared. Some were a bit blurred with the creature’s movement but as you can see it showed clearly that it was a Mink; according to Wikipedia, with that white chin patch it might be a European Mink. Anyway I was happy to have the reach, image stabilisation and speed of RAW capture file writing.

Mink with 210mm focal length

So what else have I learnt?

• It is a little bulky, but very pocketable - jacket pockets rather than trouser or shirt pockets though.


• Since manufacturers always seem to quote the weight of cameras excluding battery and card I weighed my set up. My G9 with battery, SD card and wrist strap is 376g, against the quoted figure of 320g exc. battery and card.


• The RAW file writing speed is OK (using the Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb SD); at the top end of acceptable, but very usable. Using a stop watch, with the G9 in single shot mode, I timed the practical time between shots as about 3.5 secs - What I found was that a shot could be taken when the "busy" sign went out on the display, which is before the green flashing LED by the optical viewfinder goes out and just about when the detailed review display comes up (if you have set it to show details information on review). Just keeping your finger on the shutter release does not speed up the time - it just ignores you until you let go and press the release again. By comparison the cheap Toshiba (which, looking the card code up on the web, has a write speed of 3Mb/s versus the Extreme III's 20Mb/s, or 133x) produced times around 5.5 secs. So my practical times are much less than the quoted times for RAW shooting, but for most of my likely uses OK. And for faster times it is worth having a faster card, although the gains are not huge. I think that some of the difference may be in the time the camera takes to focus between shots. Using manual focus the Sandisk times reduced to around 2.5 secs and the Toshiba to 5 secs. So to get quick RAW write times use a fast card and manual focus - auto focus eats up much of the fast card's advantage. But for most shots I will continue to use auto focus. See my update for continuous shooting times.
  


• While not blisteringly fast the auto focus has been good enough for me to use in both low'ish light static and slow'ish wildlife photography.


• There has been some criticism of the shutter lag in manual mode, but I have not used it in that mode and shutter lag has certainly not been a problem for me.


• I took around a hundred photos the other day and the battery level indicator was still indicating a full battery.


• The RAW file sizes vary quite considerably – I have seen files from 11Mb up to 19Mb - in all cases much bigger than the RAW files from my Canon 30D, which range from 7Mb to 11Mb, reflecting the difference between the 8.2 mega pixel and 12.2 mega pixel sensors in the two cameras.


• Around 115 images fit on a 2Gb SD card – I turned off the parallel jpeg recording as I never use them and they just take up more space on the card.


• I don’t much like the neck strap supplied with the camera as I prefer to keep the camera out of the way in a pocket most of the time, so I bought an Op/Tech quick release wrist strap which I am happy with.


• I looked at buying a protective pouch for the G9 and decided on the Lowepro D-Pods 30, but the 7dayshop have been out of stock for the month or more since I ordered it; in the meanwhile I found an old HP calculator case in a drawer and it fits fine so I have been using that.

And why, oh why does Canon bother to supply a memory card at all if they are only going to include a tiddly 32Mb SD card – enough for about two RAW photos!

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Why did I choose the Canon G9 compact digital camera?

Canon G9

In this blog I will briefly lay out why I chose the Canon G9 over the hundreds of other compact digital cameras on the market.

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Why did I buy the G9?
In the era of film cameras I had an Olympus XA which I carried around a lot and used as a sort of film sketchpad. I often ended using only it when on holiday or travelling. A year or so ago I sold off all my film cameras, but could not bring myself to part with the XA; which with its practical sliding clam shell design is still sitting in a drawer waiting to be used. The XA enabled me to take high quality photos pretty much anywhere without the bulk of a SLR around my neck. In the digital era I wanted a camera that I could carry around with me fairly unobtrusively which would produce good enough quality image files for me to be able to produce A3 prints from them – to me this pretty much means a camera able to produce RAW files, along with low noise images and a good lens.

By making the RAW option a key requirement I very quickly reduced the field to the Canon G9, Ricoh GX-100, Ricoh GRD and Leica D-Lux 3. I soon reduced this to the G9 & GX-100 as I really felt the zoom was useful and that the long RAW write times for the GRD (reported to be around 13 secs) made it unusable in RAW mode and ruled out the GRD (needless to say there is now a Ricoh GRD II with a few improvements, mainly in its RAW writing speed, but I still think that I would want the flexibility of the zoom). I liked the D-Lux 3 but felt that it did not have the control I was looking for, as well as being the most expensive of them all.


Canon G9 vs Ricoh GX-100
I read several reviews both on-line (see my blog on photographic information resources) and and handled both the cameras.

Since I am a Canon user (I have a couple of Canon DSLRs and have had a Canon G3 and still have an Ixos) I knew my way around the Canon which counts for quite lot.

Also I could use Canon flashguns and accessories on the G9 which would make it much more flexible for me to use. On the other hand the GX-100 got pretty good reviews and is a lighter neater package to carry around and has a user interface designed for keen photographers. They both have a RAW option supported by Lightroom; image stabilisation; use SD storage cards and have easily available, cheap spare batteries. The table below lists the parameters I thought were most important to me.

	Olympus XA	Canon G9	Ricoh GX-100
35mm equivalent zoom range	35	35 - 210	24 - 72
Max aperture	f2.8	f2.8 - 4.8	f2.5 - 4.4
Weight - g (exc card and batteries)	225	320	220
Dimensions	102 x 65 x 40	106 x 72 x 43	112 x 58 x 25
RAW write times	Wind on time 1 - 2 secs	2 - 3 secs	6 secs
Pixel count - million	35mm film	12.1	10.01
Battery life - shots per charge	1,000s	240	380

My decision making process went something like this:

• Having tried out both of them the GX-100 was definitely the more portable, but the G9 was much less bulky than I remember the G3 being and was good enough to be pocketable.
• The G9 has a bit less image noise than the GX-100.
• I’m not really a wide angle fiend, so the extra long end reach of the G9 over the GX-100 (210 vs 72mm) would be very useful in every day use. The 35 mm wide end of the G9 would be OK.
• The G9 has an optical viewfinder (not a great one but OK if the screen is not viewable), but the GX-100 doesn’t, although it can take external finders if desired (which I don’t at this stage).
• I like the flexizone auto focus on the G9 – I can’t see anything like it on the GX-100.
• I really like the ISO selection dial on the G9 – much easier to change than using a menu system or the button & dial system on my DSLRs.
• The G9 has a more user friendly way of displaying histograms – it seems to be a bit awkward to get them up on the GX-100.
• The pixel count was pretty irrelevant – the images from both seemed to print up OK.
• Battery life was fine – I don’t tend to take hundreds of shots a day with compact cameras and I always carry spare batteries anyway.
• The RAW writing speed of the GX-100 was an eternity; the G9 was OK (but still not wonderfully quick).
• I can use my existing Canon external flashes with the G9 – understandably, but unfortunately, not with the GX-100.
• The GX-100 was a bit more expensive than the G9 – as of Feb ‘08 £350 vs £320 at Warehouse Express.
• The G9 is likely to sell more and have more accessories developed and made for it, along with more free information on things like Lightroom Develop module settings on the web in due course.

The result was that the Canon G9 won by a short head, but I would like a GX-100, or more likely the next generation when it comes out, for its extra portability and I would be tempted if I saw one at a very good price.

While I like the reach of the G9 it is not always necessary as my long experience with the XA proved, so if Ricoh brought out a GRD II with the equivalent of a 35 or 40mm lens, instead of its current fixed 28mm equivalent, then I would be tempted by that too.

If there was a Ricoh GX-100 with fast RAW write times and lower noise in an XA clamshell – now, that really would be difficult to resist.

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Starting to use Adobe Lightroom

I am a keen amateur photographer with a day job, although I sometimes use my photography skills in the day job to shoot images for press releases etc.

At the end of 2007 I decided that it was time to look at my digital photo workflow, largely because I bought a Canon G9 planning to use RAW files and found that my exisiting workflow would not work with it as the RAW converters I used did not support the G9.

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I use Canon 30D and 10D DSLRS along with the G9.

My colour managed workflow was to take RAW photos, download them to my PC (running under Windows XP SP2) using Downloader Pro, then I viewed them and made initial decisions on what to delete and what to work on using Breezbrowser Pro (both these excellent pieces of software are developed by Breeze Systems). I kept track of what I had where by using a pretty organised file structure; renaming files and moving them about within Breezebrowser. I did my RAW conversions in Capture One LE, Photoshop CS to work on the images, printing to an Espon 4800 Pro inkjet printer through Qimage (a truly excellent package once you get to know it).

I had dabbled with early beta versions of Lightroom, but was not too impressed. I had also tried out various cataloging packages, but had not liked them enough to use either.

By the end of 2007, however, I felt that the press was saying that Lightroom had improved enough to be worth another look and so I downloaded the 30 day trial version from Adobe to try out as my Christmas project. I also had a look at Bibble as a RAW converter and tried out the Canon software that came with the G9 - neither of them really did what I wanted.

So this blog over the next few weeks is aimed at sharing my experience of coming up to speed with Lightroom and using it effectively. Along the way I will share experience with the G9 as I get to know it and the Epson 4800, which is an excellent printer when it works, but in my experience frustratingly and expensively prone to nozzle clogging at unexpected moments. Read more...