Late at Lakeside

Really quick post tonight because it was my little sister's birthday today and I feel guilty for being on here away from her party. Earlier on this evening I quickly popped out to Lakeside Shopping Centre to pick up some last minute things for her birthday and thought the light was too good to miss - not to keep the missus waiting too long I quickly ran out of the car park for a few minutes to just shoot what looked nice in the light; I'm hoping I can more time and similar weather conditions for tomorrow evening.

Tattoo and tongue

Not the most productive 2 weeks for the GF1 due to moving, graduating, celebrating and the weather; in fact since the LSPF day out I haven't gone somewhere purely to photograph - so here are some images that I've taken whilst being out and about with family in Essex.

LSPF day out

Today I headed out to the London Street Photography Festival (LSPF) and carried the GF1 with me to give it the first going over in London. Within the first minute of starting out my day, coming out of the tube at St Pancras International, I spotted a man raising an X100 in the corner of my eye; I commented 'nice camera' and then bumped into him again 2 minutes later. We got talking and found that we were both in St Pancras for the same reason (to see Entente Cordiale and start a trip looking around the LSPF).
It was nice to talk photography and walk around the LSPF, sharing views and thoughts on street photography. We exchanged details and here is his website www.iwasneverthere.com
It was real nice going around with another photographer but as a result of our chit chat I wasn't fully focused on shooting (I like to keep some form of eye contact when in conversation).
I did get some shots fired and below is an edit from today.
One last thing, Boris, I'm really sorry if I walked into the frame for any of your images - hope you had fun with the X100 in London, I'm glad we met.

GF(round)1 test shots

Very quick post tonight. Brief summary of the past few days;
- The GRD3 has been returned faulty for ghosting problems on Wednesday (no questions asked by the good guys at Clifton Cameras, full refund after testing in-store).
- New GF1 and 14mm F2.5 lens bought from Cameraland in Cardiff for a decent price on Thursday.
- First real chance to get out with the GF1 today (too much travelling and rain yesterday) and have a play around; however this was interrupted by a bad case of dodgy guts that kept me housebound this afternoon, which also meant I was unable to get my SPN book signed at Exmouth Market tonight, gutted (literally).
- Managed to venture out for 5 minutes at sunset to the local chippy to try out the GF1 in low light.
- I'm very happy with the GF1 image quality and low light capability. Even with this 14mm F2.5 lens that I initially feared might be too slow - seeing the results I'm glad I opted for the wider angle 14mm F2.5 over the larger aperture 20mm F1.7.
- GF1 now covered by insurance so I have no excuses about getting in the thick of it out there in the street.

More test shots tomorrow - guts are now settled.

This town, is coming like a ghost town

So as mentioned yesterday I've noticed a ghosting around some of the images produced by the Ricoh GRiii. I've looked at plenty of sample images over the last day and it appears that my GRiii has a more severe problem with this ghosting effect. This was surprising after reading that all of the lens elements in the GRiii have a multi-coating to prevent/reduce ghosting problems.
All the images below were shot in aperture priority or program shift mode (therefore incapable of using the DR function and doubling up the images). The images are cropped from 100% views and taken from close the the edge of the frame - but not at the outer limits; the bottom cropped photo was (although out of focus) even taken from the middle of the image.
I'm not sure what to do now; I can't see where I could be going wrong with settings/shooting style that would produce this level of ghosting to occur so often. I've been saving and waiting for a digital compact for a while now and thought for a long time about what camera to purchase. I was really looking forward to spending the next few weeks with the Ricoh not leaving my side and getting out to do some street work. I started to shoot street with my last Ricoh, the GR1, about 2 years back and when that died, I kind of stopped with street photography. Without my unobtrusive GR to wander around with and take everywhere in my pocket I left my street work fall to the side whilst I focused on my major project. I tried to fill the Ricoh gap with a Minox 35GT but it didn't feel the same and it was a bit too small for me to handle (plus it was purely manual focus).
So after finally finishing uni, getting back to shooting for the fun of it and not the grades, I'm really bummed out that my camera of choice to restart my street work is a disappointment.
There are many cameras in the higher price range that I would choose over the GRiii but none that I can think of in the £350-£450 bracket that offer a fixed wide angle lens with great user interface.
Because of this ghosting problem I haven't risked heading to London for the LSPF in case something happened to the camera and I couldn't get a refund (also I've not insured the GRiii as I'm probably taking it back - another reason not to take it around London).
If you have experienced the same problem or know of anything to cut down on this level of ghosting please contact me on the email address for this blog,
Many thanks,

Alex

ISO 64 F5.6 @ 1/160

ISO 64 F3.2 @ 1/710

ISO 64 F3.2 @ 1/850

ISO 64 F2.5 1/270

Stanford Staff

Another day with the GRiii and the first real opportunity to get some street photography under my belt at the Stanford fete. About 10 minutes into the day and it started to become clear to me that there's an issue with the GRiii. Whenever the image had an area of highlights I was seeing a lot of ghosting. This post will not focus on the ghosting issue (I'll write something up later about the GRiii).
For now I'm focusing on the plus side because I managed to meet another Staff owner that was willing to have their portrait taken.

Also a big thanks to my sister in-law for allowing me to use her DSLR while I was trying to work out what was wrong with the GRiii - follow her at www.lyndsey-ann.blogspot.com

3-in-1

Tonight I have more test shots from the Ricoh GRiii, another image from my Staff project and the first image from a new project I have finally started - staff and mobile were not taken on the GRiii.

The new project will (as illustrated) be close up shots of people with their mobile phones; it might turn out to be nothing but until I can get 10-12 different subjects then I won't know if it's worth continuing, feedback appreciated (as I'm already thinking it may end up looking like results from a Getty keyword search).

As usual my hope to head out somewhere (this case LSPF) turned into something else so I've not yet been to London. I'm certain that I can get there on Monday though so it'll probably be Monday night before another post with GRiii test shots.

Stanford test shots

After a lot of waiting (and selling) I finally managed to bag me a Ricoh GRiii digital this week. I loved my old Ricoh GR1 film camera for its size, construction and mode dial (sadly it died last year). It's too early to write a full review or pros/cons at this stage so I've just quickly added some images from tonight at the Stanford-le-Hope music festival.
The fast 28mm (equivalent) lens is pretty good from what I can see, obviously it lacks sharpness around the edges but for a sub £350 CCD sensor compact, I'm not looking for amazing to-the-edge sharpness.
Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the London Street Photography Festival tomorrow and visit the Stanford-le-Hope festival in the night so by Saturday I should have a better range of subjects, ISO's and lighting in my images.