Queendom

Why is it that when I work at my desk, both Minky, shown above, and Paddington both love to sleep as close to me as possible. Sometimes they choose a spot virtually right on top of me and it is a battle to actually do any serious work, especially when Paddington gets distracted by the mouse cursor on the screen and he has to catch it. A couple of times I have looked up and seen Paddy fast asleep entangled in all the wires and cable behind the PC. Today Minky has chosen the printer as her cat perch, close enough to me and high enough to survey her queendom.

Geraldine and Pascal

The Canon Roadshow has come around again, and although it was packed this time round there wasn't as many familiar faces in the crowds. It is Matthew's weekend with me and he joined me at the roadshow. Out of the few friends there, here is Geraldine and Pascal.

Canon PowerShot D10

In a little over 3 weeks, Matthew will be climbing onto one of Thai Airways' aircraft and jetting over to Thailand for 12 days, nice.

We have been in preparation for Matthew's trip for some time now and today was the purchase of a camera for him. We wanted a high spec, point and shoot, small, durable, and reasonably priced camera. We played with a large number of nifty looking cameras from Samsung, Nikon, Canon, and Sony. And the winner for us was the Canon PowerShot D10. Why this camera?

Well since Matthew was already used to Canon's settings on the 550D and the S100 it wouldn’t be a big difference for him but it wasn't the be all and end all of our discussion. The D10 was rugged and ugly looking not to get stolen, shockproof to be able to handle a 15 year old boy and elephant rides, a bright blue and silver colour not to be missed, and the best of all waterproof up to 10m to be able to handle the kayaking on the Mae Taeng River.

All New Canon PowerShot S100

What a busy day it has been. It was a rush getting corporate client’s reports out in the morning and then it was off to the doctors for my annual check up and although not all the results are back, there are some major concerns.

But enough sad stuff. Some time ago my fairly new Canon PowerShot S100 would not switch on. At first I thought it was the battery but I had to take it in for repairs under warranty after ruling out the battery. I was very happy with the S100 camera but I was never informed of what actually was wrong with the camera and it sat at Canon’s repair facility waiting for spare parts which got me a little concerned. Canon South Africa then offered me the option of getting a brand new Canon PowerShot S100 digital camera rather than waiting for the spare parts to arrive.

So today my new S100 arrived, hooray! It has a matt black finish instead of the silver gun metal finish of the late S100. Now I can have a small camera on me wherever I go instead of lugging my larger DSL around. I mean ever walked into the doctors rooms with a large camera ready.

They do say the best camera is the one you have on you but the Canon PowerShot S100 is not slouch pocket camera as it shoots in RAW at 12.1 Mega Pixels with many serious features that will make a professional photographer look twice. Plus it has a built in GPS logger to embed the co-ordinates into the image.

Anyway I am just glad to get my baby camera back. Thank you Canon South Africa.

Canon PowerShot S100

This is it my birthday present from Canon, the PowerShot S100 camera. I started my passion for photography by working for a professional photographer for over two years doing post production work with my superb Photoshop skills. This photographer's main bodies were the Phase One with different backs and the Nikon D1.

My first camera I bought was the Fujifilm Finepix S240. It did a good job shooting some fine photos. I also bought a small camera for the pocket as I believed the best camera is the one you have on you. The small camera was the Finepix A203. With these two cameras I started my journey of street photography and the Joburg Photowalkers. On many photowalks I proved that you don't need an expensive DSL camera to take awesome photographs but been surrounded by many Nikon and Canon DSL cameras it was obvious my next purchase would be a DSL camera.

The choice was Nikon or Canon, both had good and bad points but Canon 550D eventually came top of my selection list that had feel quality, performance, initial layout cost and lens cost judging points. Because of my daily photo blog this camera went everywhere with me taking photos of a smorgasbord of topics. After one and a half years of everyday use, nearly 50 photowalks and over 23,000 photographs later the Canon 550D is showing a lot of wear and tear.

My natural progression is to get the Canon 5D MkIII but that is slightly above my pay grade so I thought the best companion to my battered Canon 550D is a smaller camera that I don't have to lug the larger DSL camera around but not to sacrifice the performance that I have to gotten use to with the 550. So this baby DSL, the Canon PowerShot S100 became mine. Mine baby.

The S100 is a fully adjustable small digital camera that has a similar CMOS sensor as my 550D, it shoots in Raw format at 12 megapixels at up to 9.6 frames per second. By fully adjustable I mean I have full control to change the ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and focus points. The only big difference from my 550D is that I can’t change the lens, well I can't go wrong with this nifty 5.2 - 26.0 mm f2.0 - 5.9 lens. The bonuses for me are that the S100 has a built in GPS, it can do HDR photos on the camera without the need of off camera software to merge the images, it is small enough to carry everyday with me and it carries a 2 year warranty. Remember the best camera is the camera that you have with you, and it does help if it is the Canon PowerShot S100.

Canon EOS Adventure Roadshow

Once again it is time for the adventurous Canon Roadshow and this morning cold rain would not hold wild horses at bay as the queue to get in went around the corner. In this photograph you can see some of the crazy Joburg Photowalkers like Mark, Pascal, Geraldine and if you look carefully Craig right at the back of the queue. Please note that Robin was still in bed.

It was good to see Roger as I walked past the registration tables and a good man hug was in order. Many other Joburg Photowalkers, that is the Canon part, were seen streaming into the building such as Alan, Candy, Clare, Desiree, Jacqueline, Johnny, Niamh and Paul. Sadly Robin was still in bed.

Roger the Man,Canon’s DSLR Product Manager, opened the Roadshow to a packed house and introduced the range of Canon EOS cameras and the new models such as the Canon 650D, Canon 60Da (for astrophotography), Canon 5D MkIII, Canon 1D C and the Canon C500. Sadly my camera the Canon 550D has been replaced by the 650D. :-( See the unhappy face here. At least Roger punted the Joburg Photowalkers towards the end of his talk, which made me smile all over again. He mentioned our names including Robin who was still in bed.

After Roger was Abri who introduced the DSC (Digital Small Camera) and printer range. He briefly mentioned my camera that I had my eye set on since it was mentioned at the last road show by Abri. I wanted a small camera to carry around instead of lugging a DSLR around and sometimes security frown upon cameras. The S100 was the perfect camera, small with most of the features of my now defunct camera.

Then it snack time and time to catch up with the other Joburg Photowalkers whom I only catch a glimpse of earlier. After the break the first of the guest photographers Richard presented some of his aerial photographs of the beautiful and not so beautiful landscape around us. Watching the slideshow of his images I thought of a perfect title for Richard’s next book, Fingerprints of Man. Next was Manus from DSLR Training who educated us on talking photos in low light, now this was very interesting and I have leant some new tricks which I have to go try out.

As usual at the end of the Canon Roadshow comes the best part. Well they do leave the best for last. Names of the attendees of the Canon Roadshow get randomly drawn and super duper prizes get given away. And smiles were broad as this time my name gets called out and I was handed a Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. Big Smiles. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday Mr President.

After the Canon Roadshow Craig, Geraldine, Pascal and myself met at The Digital Experience at Fourways Crossing. Now if you need any camera gear no matter what brand, Digital Experience is just the place with the best prices anywhere in Johannesburg. Pascal left with a battery pack for his new Canon 5 D MkIII and me the Canon S100. More about this stunning camera tomorrow as we off to an awesome late lunch at Fournos Bakery.

EOS 1D X in my Hands

Canon UK walked in two recently launched Canon EOS 1D Xs into South Africa for the Canon SA Expo this weekend. And under Canon South Africa's hawk eye gaze I laid my grabby paws on the 1D X. And what a beast it is, I know can't afford it but continuous shooting RAW at 12 frames per second was heart stopping. Forget lens envy this is now Xenvy but how am I going to afford the estimated R65,000 for the 1D X when on my wishlist is a Vespa GTS 300 Super and new camera lenses. I had to leave my fingerprints behind on the 1D X as I walked away with my head drooped. Sigh. Here is Johnny also enjoying the 1D X so much that he wants to pre-order.

Another camera which caught my eye was the Canon Powershot S100. In the near future I will be in the market for a high spec pocket camera because lugging a large SLR around on my current Vespa is quite demanding; even sneaking a SLR into a concert takes skill. Now a small camera can get around those limitations. The S100 will retail about R5,000 and like the 1D X will only be available about March next year, which means that the Canon S95 prices will drop. Uhmmm, another wishlist addition.