Yesterday, Smugmug announced and unveiled their new look. It’s not just an update to their previous site – it’s a complete rebuild from the ground up. I spent some time last night working on my page and customizing/organizing some things and I have to say I’m pretty happy with the upgrade. It’s VERY fast, looks great, and is much more intuitive than the previous site. Check out my new page – http://www.calgecko.smugmug.com
One of the things I like is the multiple layers of folders and galleries you can now have – allowing me to better organize galleries of race track photos by location, date and even cars if I want.
Well done, Smugmug – this appears to be a pretty nice update!
I’ve had the new Canon G1X for a little over a week now, and have had some time to play with it and check out the images..
To give a little background, my main camera is a Canon 7D DSLR with a couple of L Lenses (24-70 and 70-300),… I bought the G1X from the great folks at Mike Crivellos Camera to use for traveling and as something a little easier to carry around than my big DSLR setup. I have high standards for image quality after using the 7D for a year and a half now… and the G1X has exceeded my expectations with the quality of images I get out of it. It is a full-featured camera and is definitely aimed towards someone who wants Digital SLR features, functions and quality in a camera that is a little bit smaller and easier to carry around. There are only a couple downsides to the camera as far as I can tell:
Focal distance doesn’t go as far as some people might like
Aperture is variable as focal length increases, and it is f/2.8 at the widest aperture (many people are complaining that it should have been f/2.0)
It is a little heavy and bulky, it’s certainly not as easily pocketed as an S100 or something like that.
It’s a little slow to focus, so for action shots, it won’t be ideal. .but for travel (landscapes, buildings, portraits, etc), it will be great.
Finally, it’s not cheap. At $799, it is an expensive compact camera… but I believe you get what you pay for.
But it’s still much smaller than a DSLR, provides nearly the same image quality as a DSLR with kit lens, and you don’t have to fumble with lenses. Overall, I am VERY happy with my purchase, and so far have been exceptionally happy with the image quality. Part of the reason the IQ is so high, is that it has a sensor that is nearly as large as what is in my 7D.. much bigger than what’s found in most compact cameras.
Back in January, Canon announced a new addition to the G-line of Powershot cameras. Dubbed the “G1X”, it created a lot of excitement amongst photographers for a number of reasons – the HUGE sensor (nearly as big as the APS-C sensor in the 7D, and a little bigger than the four-thirds sensors so popular right now), flash hotshoe, full manual controls, ability to shoot RAW, great noise reduction at high ISO, image stabilization, and more. I’ve been shopping for a camera to supplement my D-SLR (Canon 7D with battery grip).. something that would be a little easier to carry around, but still take great photos. A while back, I got the Panasonic Lumix FZ-150. It was good because it had a huge zoom range on it, but a smaller sensor didn’t provide the image quality I wanted. It was also a little big for sticking in a jacket pocket.
Here’s how the G1X sensor stacks up against the others..
I had pre-ordered the camera from Adorama.com back in January, but it was nearly impossible to get updates on arrival dates from them, and I was seeing other retailers get the camera in stock – so I started searching Twitter, and found a small camera shop (http://mikecrivellos.com/) in Wisconsin who knew they had ONE camera arriving. I reached out to Mike Wilbur at the shop and placed my order for the one camera they were getting. Customer Service was great, and I was really impressed with their response through email and Twitter. The camera shipped to me early this week, and arrived today.
I quickly unboxed it, and one of the main things I was curious about was the flash sync speed. I took some photos as I unboxed it, and quickly put my Yongnuo RF-602 wireless flash trigger on the camera, and hooked up a Lumopro LP160 flash to test it out. VERY happy that it worked up to 1/800 !! My Canon 7D only syncs up to 1/250 .. this is really impressive. I am anxious to get out and take some photos with this camera – it’s got a great feel and weight to it and seems like another great Canon product. Thanks again to Mike at http://mikecrivellos.com/ for the great service and getting this camera to me so quickly!
