New Camera: Day 2

I've had a total of eight hours of sleep over the last two nights combined, so I'm going to rush this entry and go to bed. I wanted to get my next installment of the Princess and Commander Masan scene written and posted over on Messages from Mâvarin, but that's going to have to wait. Friday is probably a better night to schedule that, when I can stay up all night and sleep into the afternoon the next day.

As I mentioned last night, one of the main criteria I used in selecting my new camera (a Sony Cyber-shot) was its purported ability to take decent photos in relatively low-light conditions. Tonight I put the camera to the test in this respect. It didn't work any miracles, but overall I think it did rather well.


This first shot was taken at lunchtime, of chicken tortilla soup. It's a flash shot using the macro setting.


Dusk in the Unnamed Largish Company parking lot. The flash photos came out better than the low-light settings I tried. I played with the tone and saturation levels on this, but I almost always do that anyway.


One of the big frustrations I've had with past cameras is the difficulty in taking a good picture of Tuffy after dusk. The house is never brightly lit, for various reasons (older house, broken fixtures, sixty-watt bulbs), and when I use flash, her eyes get that awful shiny reflection that ruins the shot. Sometimes I color them brown afterward; this makes the shots barely usable. Since I pretty much only see Tuffy nights and weekends, I miss out on a lot of potential dog-blogging.

Can the Sony Cyber-shot help me with this problem? Well, a little bit. This was taken without flash by the light of a nearby sixty-watt bulb under a vintage lampshade. I've adjusted the levels quite a bit, but the colors are still off, it's still a bit dark and the focus is just so-so. Still, it's a nice mood piece, and I like the fuzziness of the background.


Okay, I played with this one quite a bit - for tone and saturation, despeckling and cropping - but even the raw version of the photo was rather striking. I love the shadow the dragon is casting here. This shot simply would not be possible with flash.


You may recognize these props from Halloween, and from one of the "mess" pictures from the Monday Photo Shoot. I have them stored in a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory popcorn bucket. I've tried many times to photograph this faux skull, but it always comes out looking very odd when I use flash. This is the best representation of the way the thing actually looks that I've managed to date.

1:14 AM. I've done worse. Good night!