| Early
in October, 2002, I
took another one-day photographic tour after a computer programmers conference in
Manchester, New Hampshire (the same as described in the New Hampshire 2001
Portfolio). This time I drove northwest on highway 89 into the Green
Mountains of Vermont, making a loop through the mountains and spending the
night at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast tucked away in a niche on the
Goshen-Ripton Road. Last year's photo results were so good I decided to repeat the challenge, taking only an inexpensive digital camera, although this year's camera was different. As much as I liked the Kodak DC3200, it was too big to fit into a pocket and had no lens cover. The camera used for this trip was an Olympus D-100, also a one mega pixel fixed lens point-and-shoot. Besides being pocketable with a clamshell lens cover, it also has auto-focus, where the DC3200 was fixed focus. Other than that there is not much difference. The minimum resolution is 640x480, slightly higher than the Kodak's, but the image quality is about the same. The biggest difference in this trip was the light quality. Last
year the air was clear, cold and dry, which resulted in intense vibrant
colors. This year the weather was overcast, rainy and foggy. The colors were muted
and subdued, resulting in a very different kind of portfolio showing a
more quiet and subtle beauty. What a wonderful state Vermont is,
with its unpaved but well maintained roads winding through the mountains
among small towns and farms. I hope you will enjoy the pictures and
catch a sense of what this trip was like. |
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Using Inexpensive Digital Cameras |
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| Being a dedicated technically oriented photographer for
many years, I was amazed last year at how much the emotional content of
the scenes was preserved and transmitted, even though the images were low
resolution from a simple camera. The positive
feedback from others who viewed the pictures has confirmed my own
impressions. Along with being able to share pictures on a
wide scale via a web site, the digicam's ability to take a large quantity of
pictures and view them immediately, with no film and
processing costs, is revolutionizing the way we can use photography in our
ordinary daily lives. I have often carried around various small 35mm cameras over the years in addition to the more serious large format tripod work, but there was always the constraint of film costs and processing work which lurked in the back of my mind, affecting my picture taking decisions. With the digicam there is a wonderful freedom from these constraints and a much more spontaneous photographic experience. There are still constraints, but usually in the form of time and schedules. I am finding this kind of photography to be a very nice counterpoint to the precise, controlled approach in the black and white work. In order to keep processing time at a minimum, I again shot everything
at the lowest resolution, 640x480, in order to fit directly on the
web page without resizing. With a few minor exceptions these are
straight from the camera. Everything was hand held, some in very low
light. I have added some narrative captions to some of the pictures. |
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| Technical Notes | |
| - The camera is an Olympus D-100 (1.3 mega pixel). - Fixed lens, equivalent to 35mm on a 35mm camera. - Auto-Focus, Auto-Exposure. - Powered by 2 "AA" cells or a CRV3 Lithium. - The body has a sliding clamshell lens cover. - Size is 4.25 x 2.38 x 1.25 inches. It will fit in a shirt pocket. - The menu is more complicated than the Kodak's, but not too bad . It can be read without reading glasses. - Highest resolution is 1280 x 960 pixels. - All pictures were at camera's lowest resolution, 640 x 480 pixels. - The camera is equipped with a removable 32 mb Smart Media card. At the low resolution it will store about 330 pictures. |
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| 39 Pictures |
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