A weekend of photography

I have not been blogging because I have been too busy taking photographs and without further ado I'll give my further thoughts on the DSLR vs compact debate as well as my own preferences for the three camaras I've been using:

Firstly, although the X100 is great, it's much more of a snapshot device, handing to click a few, admittedly high quality snaps and te quality is great but can't stand up to a 5D3 or the DP2M of course. So I can see it will be used for street and when I'm in the act of travelling. But if I'm off out to actually take photographs then it will not be my camera of choice.

The footbridge at Karnala: X100

Yesterday I did a trek in a local jungle reserve and took the DP2M and the X100, it was fantastic not
being encumbered whilst hiking but the X100 tended to stay in my shoulder bag. The DP2M acquitted it'self well hand held so long as the shutter speed was kept over 125th. Aperture wise, the pundits are correct, it's very sharp wide open so no issues ( except  DOF of coure) there.

Banyan trees: DP2M

Today I took the whole kit: 5D3 and a heap of lenses, tripod, DP2M, X100 and asked my driver to take me to Gardeshwar for some Western Ghats landscapes.  Had a great morning and came back and spent a happy couple of hours going through the files. Straight away, the 5D3 came good and I must say I was great to use, I do like a 'big' camera....

'That' hill, Gardeshwar early morning light: 5D3. 24-105L 

However, using the tripod I did have the chance to compare the 5D3's output with the DP2M and sure enough, the '15' MP DP2M ( to my eyes) clearly out-resolves the 5D3. I also tried some HDR and some three vertical frame stitched panos. The Panos are astonishing, and I do quite like the 'hyper-reality effect that HDR/Foveon produces if the light is right. Here's the thing however, and this is a general remark about the DP2M's output: If you want to see the full, jaw dropping rez of the DP2M you need to see the whole file on a big screen or ( and I'm looking forward to this) printed large. On a small screen it's very nice but you just don't get the really Foveon experience. Of course you can crop as I have alluded to earlier and thats very nice and quite handy but the viewer has not idea that they are looking at a small crop from a much bigger picture...

Early morning at Gardeshwar: DP2M tight crop

So, I'm really enjoying the DP2M experience and absolutely cannot wait to get it to the South of France in a couple of weeks time and I think I'm going to have to make some 20x30 prints as soon as I can. Whoo-Hoo!

The place next door: DP2M

I've just posted this on my Flickr site at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeaunse23/8460398721/in/photostream

The full size jpeg shows of the 'Foveon' look very nicely, unfortunately Flickr won't let me upload the 90 MB TIFF!