My First Week with the Nikon s9100

This shot was one of my first 10-15 shots taken with my Nikon s9100 within the first hour of unpacking it.  Christmas Eve out at the farm, I went on a walk with another photographer.  My zoom blew hers away, though she’d found some sky settings that gave her richer sky colors than mine (perhaps better than was there).  I’ve since found some “sunset” settings and will show those improvements.

This after camera color select for green, then post editing to bump contrast and add nostalgic edging.  I wish this camera had the nostalgic edging (I think the Canon xs230 has it).  I’ve debated exchange for that camera, but several things about this one I liked better:  range of focal length, flash not automatically popping up (more for sound in quiet environments than it’s placement.which doesn’t bother me, having to hold the zoom most of the time with  my leg hand to stabilize the camera anyway–it’s a natural hold).

This shot is downsized to 455 x proportional for wordpress blog, and is unfortunately as large as I can get it here.  Perhaps I can upload to flickr.  I’ve not  used my account in so long I’d have a hard time with my name and password.

Some people are complaining about soft images with these cameras.  I wouldn’t say this is soft.  I wonder if they have something wrong in their settings.  I have it on center focus, so it would have probably been even more crisp with full across the image focusing.  I was zoomed in considerably, which may account for the blurring toward the bottom of the birdhouse.  It’s in morning light with some overexposure from that, but given all, I would call this a good image.  Not the excellence of a DSLR, obviously, but a good image.

Morning light; holly bush.  I have had a hard time getting these berries with a good shot.  Light wants to bounce off the berries in good light.  But, this is macro setting, and flower effect setting, center focus.  I like the blurring of the leaves closer to me.  Someone said they thought the focus always went to the object closest to you, but that is not the case.  It goes to what you are focused on…here, the berries, considerably behind the leaves.

This image is 455X331 as determined by wordpress.  Sorry no enlargements.  It is straight out of the camera, sunset mode.  I can see the clear detail of power lines on my screen, and a jet going by.  This represents accurately the colors I saw.  The sunset mode seemed to help keep from getting grey skies.

This was taken at midnight with one small lamp on in the room, handheld.  I could not believe the image quality for the conditions with no flash.

This was taken at sunset (with the sun on the other side of the house).  It was getting quite dark under this porch, but there is no blurring of the little lights, even hand-held.  I can see branches clearly 75-100 feet away.  Sunset mode (notice light pinks in the sky).  The colors match what I saw….no more, no less.  I liked it.

Before we judge this photo.  I was shooting across about the width or equivalent of 4.5 lanes of traffic/blacktop when I shot this into shade.  The zoom was as far as it could go and still focus in any acceptable fashion, and I was driving, so not a lot of time to meddle with focus or shooting.  Given my distance, the speed of execution, and odd light coming between me and this location from the morning sunrise, I felt it handled those well.  I could clean this up if it’s a photo I really wanted to keep.

This was also a sunset mode trial shot.  I like the graduation of color visible that I saw, the sharpness of the landscape in dim light (sunset was behind me on the other side of the house), and the fact that the moon looks pretty clear given I was doing a purely handheld shot with no bracing.

I adjusted the color for red only in camera, which is a very fun tool.  It was taken sitting on a couch across the room, probably eight feet away.  I may have added a bit of sharpness in photoshop for this, or not, I don’t remember for sure.

This is my brother and niece.  I tried a red color selection and though the effect was fun for Christmas.  It’s a little weird with her hair colored stripped, but cute.  I was watching Alice in Wonderland (the new one) yesterday and found myself noticing a lot of these color selection effects done in video.  They are dramatic and somewhat odd, all at the same time!   I loved the pink highlighted on her cheeks, though.  This is auto with color selection:  red.  I was about four feet away, incandescent lighting, no flash, late afternoon.

This was taken Christmas Day, early evening.  The sun was bouncing off the barn, making it glow against a dark sky behind it.  The photo captured exactly what I saw.  I was 300 feet from the barn, I’d guess.

This was auto or incandescent lighting.  It was throwing a weird color on the photos.  I wasn’t getting it all the time, but did with one series of shots of these two subjects.  After this, I discovered “manual light metering”, which corrected the problem completely.  I have had the seem result with green under incandescent evening lighting in a living room under similar conditions.  I hope I can predict it and meter ahead of time before shooting important photos.  I can fix with editing, but would rather not have to for candid shots.

This was the same room, and the color cleared on that side of the room.  Perhaps having dark behind the previous subjects caused some problems, I’m not sure.  I don’t recall if I used I flash for this, but likely not.

I may have messed with the levels and contrast a bit on this one editing. I loved the photo of me and my man another user took, though, and had to post it.

Dusk.   was very pleased with the contrast on this shot.  Sharpness cannot be adjusted manually, but the camera did a good job of handling it here.  I do wish I could adjust for sharpness in camera…I could do that with my old Sony Cybershot.   I also miss not having a “slow flash” that I had in that camera. 

High contrast black and white mode.  Low light (one small lamp in the room).  I liked how the camera handled this shot.

I may post these larger flickr, but thought I’d at least give some indication of my first week with the camera, my findings, and some feedback.  Just about every point and shoot brand and type seems to find a loud voice of praise and a loud voice of criticism, even in this camara, ranked top 3 for travel cameras, and even with other types of point and shoots everywhere I looked.  For my use and needs, it ranked first, and the images seem good so far, not 100% of them, and I’m still exploring and even looking at other cameras to be sure, but I’ve had fun so far.  Honestly, the manual engage flash probably won me over, as well as being able to have it in my purse pockets with no protruding shapes on the front.  As they say, the best photo is the one you take!  With the best camera in the world, if I don’t have it with me for our candid shots, it’s not a good camera for my use right now.  I’m mainly taking family candid shots and some as I walk around.  I usually don’t like added weight.

I have noticed an odd clicking or grinding when I’m pressing the shutter to take a shot that I’m not sure is normal, but am not sure if it’s worth trying to return it for investigation, either.

I’d be interested in reading others thoughts, experiences, and seeing their photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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