How about an all black-on-black version? That would make it a contender.

Yeah. All black would be much preferred. And if I get that model I'll probably get the all-silver one because I just don't really care for what I now think of as the raccoon version with the black over the eye. And let me make one thing crystal clear to you, brother thalo (about as sharp and clear as the pixels that this camera seems to produce): If some babe throws herself all over me because of how my digital camera looks, I may or may not accept the thrown offer. But any girl turned off by how a camera looks is no girl I could ever care about. IT'S A FRIGGIN' CAMERA, NOT A FASHION ACCESSORY!

If you ask me, no girl should like a boy if he's carrying around a camera like a fashion accessory. That's too much like a purse. On the other hand, I'm not talking about cool looking fashion-conscious bicycles because that's a means of transportation and everyone knows it's more than okay to get chicks wet between the legs with cool means of transportation, whatever they are. Maybe not a tricycle, but maybe so since there are so many tricked-up skateboards around. But let's leave the digital cameras out of this. Let's just let them be the instrument for taking nice pictures that we can all share with each other. And on a good day perhaps we'll catch a vibe of Ansel Adams and get a real feeling for doing something artistic.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm all for good product design. There's no reason something has to look butt-ugly. But let's keep some perspective here, C-Net. That damn little box is for taking pictures, not getting girls wet between the legs. Unless that *is* what it is all about. In that case, never mind.

Amazon.com has the camera for $218.00. And I think Sears and Circuit City (at least online) has a similar price. I see that I can get a fast-charger and 4 rechargeable double-A batteries at Best Buy for $40.00. And they have a 1 gig memory stick for about $19.00. It's probably more for the SDHC cards. And hopefully TMO or Brother Rico will chime in with why I should want the SDHC. Probably because it's faster, I think.

I think what I'd like to do first off is bore you all to death. And I hope I do bore some of you because I have always felt more comfortable without a big audience. But a small group like we have here, ahhh, that's perfect. I think the general technique for me would be to post a relatively small thumbnail of a picture. Maybe bigger than a thumbnail, but definitely smaller than a full-blown shot. 100 x 100 pixels maybe? Not too much. It's not a friggin' slide show. But gotta show some detail. Gotta get across the form. And then I will just run off at the mouth about what I was thinking when I shot the picture or whatever thoughts occur to me from looking at the picture.

I think I would kill myself if I was Japanese. Or, to be more specific, I would kill myself if I lived in Japan. Or maybe some parts of Europe where it's wall-to-wall people. One place I like to go is about five or six acres of absolute wilderness with the most On Golden Pondish type of pond that you would ever want to set your eyes on. And I have yet to ever see anyone else there. Oh, there are signs of people there, for sure. But we have yet to run into each other. And if I couldn't get away like that sometimes, I would just go nuts. I think that's also why many people like to get lost in a good book, because it does seem to be a nice escape. A book is a quick and easy way to tell the rest of the world to take a hike while you get pleasantly and intimately lost in your own mind adventure. As you can imagine, cell phones for me are like wolfsbane or wooden stakes. They are the opposite of mindspace. They are the DEATH of having one's one mindspace. What do people do who live in a crowded city? Do they do the normal thing and maybe take five in some quiet corner and smoke a cigarette? Hell no. It seems the first thing they do is spin up the old jabber engine and keep on jabbering as if the silence, like a black hole, would suck them in and extinguish them forever.

But I understand, at least partially, the jabberers because I do so in my own way as well. I suppose we only plunge into things like serenity or books or fishing holes or quiet ponds because it's twice the fun sharing the adventure with someone else -- at least after the fact. One of the points of clearing a mind is having that mind in tip-top shape in order to more fruitfully interact with other people.

Okay, I could live with the black one if I had to. It could grow on me. But I still think I prefer the uni-color one. I wish that single color were black, but they don't have that available.

The racoon version is the only thing that saves that camera functionally. It keeps the reflective (silver) parts from being right up against the lens. Which is a brain fart, design wise. These are cameras. The last thing you want is a reflection from the camera body to fuck with your pictures.

It's funny how when you say you love minimal and functional, people--like brad--instantly think "fashion accessory." That's so odd. Is it becoming that simple, barebones and functional is cooler than overdesigned? Finally? I hope so.

The last thing you want is a reflection from the camera body to fuck with your pictures.

You're saying there's a functional aspect to it? Hmmm. Let me take another look at those pictures. Well, looking at the enlargements from Amazon.com, it's hard to tell if any of the silver is in a place that could cause light to be reflected or glare into the lens. But you cause me to pause and consider. Hmm.

It's funny how when you say you love minimal and functional, people--like brad--instantly think "fashion accessory." That's so odd. Is it becoming that simple, barebones and functional is cooler than overdesigned? Finally? I hope so.

LOL. Dr. Freud, I done think you picked my brain. But I was mainly bitching about C-Net's seeming overemphasis on the looks. I guess I'd just love to run into a review that said something like, "Hey, folks, this camera looks like a piece of shit but it works like a charm, great interface, great features, and great pictures." Hey, then maybe "looks like shit" would become the new cool. But I'm not against fashion statements. There's no escaping that. Would I rather drive the sleek, attractive, stylish Amsterdam or Pee Wee Herman's bike? I'll take the Amsterdam, of course. And I could have bought a bright blue bike but I preferred the black Vista Cruiser because I was trying to make my own statement -- or I was just more comfortable in Johnny Cash black. But I just thought that C-Net article (and others as well) focus a hell of a lot on the looks of the camera. For me, looks are secondary, at least when it comes to a friggin' camera. But I like industrial design. Certainly your enthusiasm for that has much increased my appreciation for such things.

Okay, I'll go with the Raccoon. If anything, it will make for some good jokes down the road...or down the trail.

Holy crap, football players put shoepolish under their eyes, and their faces are far less shiny and silver than camera bodies.

I know you were riffing on c/net, lol. To me, fashion statements are Paris Hilton's $9000 Hello Kitty purse, or OS X's stupid Aqua interface. Running shoes... with all their BS molded shapes and juxtaposition of textures. And of course, overdesigned digital cameras. people who are afraid to make them a friggin' box with a hole, which is what they are. So normally I appreciate designs that are sleek and minimal.

I like the powershot's design. The silver is more attractive, but it's not as functional. Functional would be all black. The Raccoon is better functionally, but isn't as attractive. In cases like that, I think you go with what's going to WORK better. In this case, silver is stupid... so go with what has the least of it.

Okay, I pulled the trigger at Sears right now (meaning I bought a camera, not that helicopters are now hovering over the mall counting bodies) and got the Silver Surfer rather than the Raccoon. I would have bought the Raccoon if they had one, but they didn’t. In person the Raccoons look better than they do in those web shots (saw one for $250.00 at Walmart). But the truth is these cameras are so small that eyepatch could be pink and we’re not talking about a lot of color.

And it’s really not monochrome. Where the black eyepatch would be there is a matte silver which looks very cool. I liked the clean look of the Surfer initially. And still do. But I would have been fine with the black as well. Sears had the Surfer for $219.00 which was about 2 dollars more than Amazon.com. So I bought local.

I’m charging the battery now so I doubt I’ll be able to play with it until tonight. I bought a 1 gig memory card for it for $24.00. I guess it wasn’t too long ago that such things were a hundred dollars or more. I guess I’ll buy a case – or maybe even a velvet pouch of some kind would work. I’m likely going to have it in one of my pockets or hanging around my neck on a lanyard tucked inside my shirt. I didn’t get everything I would have liked. I would have liked to have motion stabilization. But most of my shots are going to be of the composed kind. I’ll just brace the camera on the bike seat or a rock. Not a big deal.

I know you were riffing on c/net, lol. To me, fashion statements are Paris Hilton's $9000 Hello Kitty purse, or OS X's stupid Aqua interface. Running shoes... with all their BS molded shapes and juxtaposition of textures.

Yeah. That’s all I really can do regarding fashion is riff you…or anyone. I know nothing about such things other than what I like and what I think is just silly. And silly usually sells and gets the girl, so I’m not blind to the bower bird principle of the effectiveness of colorful shiny things. That’s life. And I guess unless there was superabundance we could never appreciate less-is-more.

And of course, overdesigned digital cameras. people who are afraid to make them a friggin' box with a hole, which is what they are. So normally I appreciate designs that are sleek and minimal.

Well, in that respect, I think you’d like this camera. Hell, a biker chick (or a nappy-headed ho) could probably make a nice set of silver earrings out of these cameras. Four ounces is pushing what an ear can hold, but I think you could make a kind of fashion statement with an ultra compact digital camera. I’d be shocked if this hasn’t already been done.

I’ll post a couple pictures when I get a chance. Which body part do y’all want to see? Oh, wait. Wrong forum. But I’d like to first test out the macro feature. That’s what finally sold the camera to me because one of the macro shots I saw was very sharp, and it was nearly sharp corner-to-corner. But I’ll probably have to take some time and read the manual a bit to see what’s what.

Apologies for the size. The first picture (Macro 1) is downsampled 25% from the original in Photoshop. The second (Macro 2) is an "actual pixel" cropping from the the original. These are both otherwise unretouched. Other than choosing the macro mode (which is usually the same flower icon on cameras), this is pretty much point and shoot. I haven't delved into the manual yet. And this is a somewhat of a hand-held shot. I was braced a little on a surface, but I was hardly still. I think the flash engaged as a sort of fill. Damned if I know what kind of evergreen bush this is.

Macro 1


Macro 2


At first glance, it actually looks like they have some nifty OS X software for the camera. I'm just taking a stab at this in between jobs (lol...yes, Markle, occasionally I do work). I'll try to give you a better look-see at the software.

Macro 3 is also downsampled 25% form the original and is totally hand-held. This is just a look as some of the patterns that I find interesting when you get down on your knees and view things.

Wow, Nelson, those are pretty beautiful pix. Good eye. I'm impressed.

Meanwhile, I've been reading crappy reviews about my Lumix, and it's scaring me. It looks like the camera I want, but if it's plagued with noise problems, I dunno. Still mulling it over. It's not as clear a decision for me as the bike, lol.

Your on your way now Nelson. Another thing which these P&S do is video. The quality is not that great but for what it is I think for some reason you may enjoy using it as it will allow you to get visual feel for the setting and it also records sound at the same time. So you can use it as an aid to do short annotation along with the still images. It will also allow you to record your thoughts to remember clearly later what you might have been experiencing beyond what a still image captures.

You may have realized this already doing macro on a P&S you must be at the widest angle of view to be at the closest possible distance.

Like I said getting the camera any camera is more important ultimately than which camera. They are all relatively the same in image quality some are just easier to use and have better tweaks. So snap away brother. Of course I would have liked you to have gotten the Pana TZ3 but if price was the deciding factor then the Canon will do just fine.

Thalo like I said if you are reading the reviews at DPR on the LX2 the reviewer is a moron. Frankly they are just gadget hounds with no real photographic skills. They zoom in 100% crops on images that no P&S is going to survive and declare failure. Read the conclusions Pro and Con the reviewer gives and it sounds like he has a mental disorder. How can he claim high resolution sharp results with plenty of detail then say Noisy sensor. Which is it it is either good resolution and sharp results or noisy sensor how can he claim both. Plus the claim of slow macro focus is total bullshit because I own the camera and the one thing they improved on was the autofocus in particular the macro focus. I had the LX1 too. The LX2 has a feature set that can not be touched by any compact camera at every level including image quality but the reviewer only gives a recommended with a covet of just. Please give me a break.

My experience is ignore the reviews. I can send you sample images if you would like.

As for the L1 it is a good camera. I think it is overpriced by a long shot. The K10D at it's price is a much better camera with far more controls than the L1 including a bigger sensor weathersealing to name a few.

Thanks brother Rico,

I think at this point, I'm going to go with the LX2, just because of the price, and the fact that I'm in love with the industrial design. I had a feeling the reviewer was reacting somewhat to all the surprising PRO features of the Lumix, and then wondering why you couldn't push them to the absolute limits of their capabilities and then get the same results as you would from a $3500 camera. Much of the criticism was movie shooting, and fuck that, I don't care at all about that. I'll get a digital video camera if I need to make movies.

I think for me, for web work, and a few easy print jobs, I'll be OK with this camera. It's really for those instances where the client can't afford my normal photographer's day rate, and I have to say look, it won't be as good, but I can snap a few shots with a digital camera, and then massage them in Photoshop.

I silo most product shots anyway, add my own shadows.

And hey, I figure when I'm ready to spend money on a more decent camera, I'll get the Pentax, and then this one will graduate to my fishing (or bicycling) camera.

The other thing I need is to take pictures of my work. The macro on this camera seems like it's going to be fine for that. I'll take the paintings outside in natural light, and hang them in front of a white sheet. I also might use it for is taking pictures of landscapes for later paintings. Just reference shots for composition and light and color. I like to work at closer to the 16:9 aspect, so that's gonna be cool. Nobody ever sees my reference photos, so they don't have to be perfect-perfect. Color accuracy is the thing I care most about. Just enough of an idea of the natural light and disposition of warm and cool colors, so I can kick them up and exaggerate the natural tones in paint. I tend to flatten and bump up the contrast as well, painting thickly.

And then last on my list is just family photos. Except the thalos really aren't a photo-album kind of family. We're more storytellers and hand-talkers.

A room indoors that receives good light not necessarily direct light works great photographing art work. As long as the work has nice even light using the camera on a tripod will give very satisfactory results. I like using natural light as it gives better color accuracy imho. You can get a bunch of color balanced lights to seem like a pro but in the end you can not beat mother nature. The different aspect ratios makes for a very versatile camera for photographing art work. There was some numb nut gallery owner on Leica's forum that bought an M8 to photograph art work. He was all upset because he was not getting good results. Somebody needed to slap him silly hand him a DLUX3 (brother to the LX2) and get that M8 out into the street were it belongs.

You may find the LX2 actually excels at product shots. Setting up a still life with proper lighting the LX2 will shine in these circumstances. Filling the whole frame with the product you will get very fine detail that easily will print full page. Macro is one of the strengths of the Leica Vario Elmarit on the LX2. If product shots are what you usually use an outside Photog for they may not be to pleased if you get an LX2. Unless they are using a 20 or 30 mb medium format digital back the LX2 quality will be hard to beat.

The 16:9 wide angle really works well for landscapes. It will function just as you want it too for preliminary sketches. As with all P&S cameras when the subject gets further from the camera the less detail will be captured. The joke about the DPReviewer is he stresses how the LX2 is best for landscape. It does a better job than most all other P&S but a true landscape camera it is not. It excels close up like in street scenes were subjects are relatively close. Not to scare you off but a P&S just can not compete with a DSLR for true Landscape photography. As I said though it will function beautifully for your intent for all the reasons you listed.

I'd worry if I were a landscape PHOTOGRAPHER, but I'm a painter. Sometimes I don't even print out reference photos on photo paper, just plain inkjet. Sometimes that's all I need.

If I go out painting alla prima, I'll sometimes take a few snaps and then finish in the studio. Because you never get the light back that you had, it changes minute by minute... second by second.

I'll try indoors with natural light. My living room gets nice light in the daytime through the porch windows. And I have a big expanse of white wall (needs a painting, actually).

I know the DSLR is better for when I need true photography. I do want the Pentax. But I'm starting to need a camera right this minute, and I don't have a spare grand plus (Pentax, lens, media, case, etc.). But $500? Plus maybe a 2 gig card? I think I can handle it. Just to get something right away. Then when some paychecks start rolling in, I can get more pro.

I still have to learn how to use this camera, but this is definitely not a camera I would buy for taking snapshots of people and trying to capture impromptu action. The flash is underpowered and it helps to have a slightly larger camera in order to grip it more steadily. And I think some kind of stabilization technology is going to be a vast improvement because it not only, of course, is going to compensate for motion and thus sharpen up the pictures, but apparently it will allow the camera to automatically select slower shutter speeds than normal and thus to avoid boosting the ISO which causes so much noise. And brother thalo, I know that some cameras are going to be better than others in regards to noise, and I think Canons are average, at best, but my hunch is that until you spend at least $800 or so (probably more), noise is always going to be a factor. It seems these LCD pixel arrays just love lots of light. They work very well then.

But like I said, for various reasons I would not recommend the Canon PowerShot SD1000 for typical snapshots. A lot of mine came out blurry. And from what I read, this is actually one of the more responsive cameras from the time you press the shutter until it captures the image. But the delay is still enough that it is about useless for trying to play amateur photojournalist or even to catch a kid on a merry-go-round at the exact moment you want.

Don't ask me why, but apparently this is my nephew's imitation of Elvis.

That is brilliant. I can see Elvis all the way.

You seem to be getting the hang of it quickly. Getting used to how the camera responds is the first battle.

A couple people I have shown this camera too have likened it to a spy camera. And the SD1000 is indeed small. But I've seen and held a few Minox cameras in my time (never used one though) and those cameras are even smaller.

I bought an inexpensive (but not cheap) carrying case for it. It's a LowePro brand camera bag. "Ridge 10" is the model. Black and dark gray are the colors, of course. It was the smallest I could find. It's a bit thicker than I'd like, but it will readily attach to a belt or can stuff in a pocket along with a backup battery or two. If I get fanatic about the size I may just cut off the outer pocket. But I think it will be okay as is, and I can see that those two pockets could come in handy. I'm also going to maybe carry around a small tripod. A monopod would probably be sufficient. I imagine I would have to search on the net for one of those. Maybe I'll find one in an electronics store. Hey, if you've ever tried a monopod, they beat the hell out of tripods for most situations.

Brother thalo, your compliments are much appreciate, especially given your background in art. (He was once an art forger, ladies and gentlemen.) It should be fun sharing some photos and I won't at all mind fair critiques. It's the only way to improve.

…and it also records sound at the same time. So you can use it as an aid to do short annotation along with the still images.

That would be a great use of it, Rico. It ain't just cell phone users who are a menace on the roads. I sometimes try to jot down thoughts that come to me on the way to work. I'd love it if Apple made a simple device (or combine it with the iPhone and include a plutonium battery to drive all thousand features) that would take speech and turn it into a text document. Oh, I would find that more useful than receiving nude photos from my girlfriend, assuming I had a girlfriend.

It will also allow you to record your thoughts to remember clearly later what you might have been experiencing beyond what a still image captures.

That would work, although transcribing notes like that would be a pain. And there's a special connection that I think I get to creativity that comes best with writing out my thoughts. I usually sketch them out in broad outline, hit the major points, and then elaborate later. But that feature is too good not to use. Maybe when my nephew is old enough to get his own computer and do email I could send farts to him. LOL. Oh, that's so mature.

You may have realized this already doing macro on a P&S you must be at the widest angle of view to be at the closest possible distance.

I didn't know that, brother Rico, but now I do. Thanks.

Like I said getting the camera any camera is more important ultimately than which camera.

Yes, master.

Of course I would have liked you to have gotten the Pana TZ3 but if price was the deciding factor then the Canon will do just fine.

Don't worry. The way I am with small electronic gadgets, I'll have this thing busted and at the bottom of a canyon in no time and ready for a new one.



Uhhh, thank you very much, baby. You've been a really great audience tonight.

The King lives! You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds sing let's rock...

Thank you. Thank you vurrah mush.

How adorable.

You're gay if you wear your digital camera on your belt. The only thing you should carry on your belt is your friggin' GUN, lol.

I figured out what the delay was between pushing the button and getting a picture. It was the redeye “feature.” It gives some kind of pre-flash but it doesn’t seem to do a hell of a lot to eliminate redeye.

Speaking of tripods, my brothel lent me his 4-1/2” high “pipe-cleaner-like-bendable” Digital Concepts brand tripod. It’s very light and compact and should work well.

Bendable like the tripods from "War of the Worlds"? Rock on.