Test of a New Camera

It was Wednesday. The Kickerbikers were riding. It was an opportunity to get in a good ride and to test a new camera.

If you have no interest in cameras just skip the rest of this and go to the photos.

When a pack of riders are streaming by it's not really possible to take individual photos. What has to be done is to hold the shutter down and take a "burst" of photos. I had an old Canon A-560 that did that wonderfully. It took 3 shots a second for as long as I held the shutter. I started using a newer camera, a Lumix DMC-ZS6, which I loved for the improved quality and additional features. However the Lumix would take only 3 shots in a burst or reduce the pixel size to the point where the photos could hardly be cropped to isolate a group of riders or a single rider. When shooting cyclists streaming past you have to use a wide field of view to get them all in the photo. I then crop the photo to highlight the rider and crop out extraneous features such as cars, telephone poles, etc. An example is below.

 
This is the photo before cropping but reduced to 600 pixels wide.
 
This is one rider after cropping ...
 
... and the other.
 

I bought the successor to the Canon A-560, a Canon A-1400, expecting that it would do all its predecessor would and more. Well, good news and bad news. The good news was that it was somewhat smaller, and more capable in some ways. The bad news was that it shot in burst mode at a much higher burst rate, which I really didn't need, 3 shots/second was great. The really bad news was that the burst shots were all at a much smaller pixel size.!

Finally I checked out the successor to my Lumix, the new Lumix DMC-ZS25. Ahh, success at last. In burst mode it has two selectable rates, 2 shots/second or 5 shots/second. Well sort of. In the biggest pixel size it slows down after a few shots. In a smaller pixel size it will maintain the selected rate. This pixel size is still good enough to permit the cropping I use.

Some of the newer point and shoot cameras have unbelievable processing power. If you train it to recognize a face, it will automatically focus on that face in a group or just in a scene shot. Red eye can be removed in the camera. Panorama shots will be stitched together in the camera. No need for special software in your computer for either of these two tasks. In high contrast mode, the camera will take three shots and put them together into one shot. Again, no need for special software on your computer.

On the other hand, the newer models seem dumbed down in that there are fewer choices for the individual. It seems to me they are competing with the cameras in smart phones. If I wanted one of those I'd buy one of those. I want a camera that works like a single lens reflex, not a smart phone.

If you've made it this far thank you. I'll end this rant so you can look at the photos.

 
 
We gathered at the north side of the Visitor's Center.
 
 
 
The ride starts.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fiesta Island for a couple of laps
 
 
 
 
 
 
Now on lap 2
 
 
 
 
 
Nice sleeves
 
Two friends out for their regular, flat ride.
 
Along the San Diego River
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I got behind twice taking photos. The first time I was able to rejoin the group. The second time I got in conversation, actually with a former Knickerbiker, trumpet player, Bruce Cameron, and lost the group entirely. From a phone call I learned the group was heading up Mt. Soledad. I was still by the San Diego River. I might have caught up by taking a shortcut but I opted to go home and check out the photos I already had.

 

All the photos in this story have GPS data loaded into them. You are welcome to try to locate them in Google Earth.
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