Thursday 13 January 2011

It was always going to happen one day...

I've been saving money for various reasons over the last two or three years but bit the bullet today and ordered a proper camera plus one or two accessories. Hopefully an EOS Canon 60D will be on its way over the Pacific shortly (I hope it doesn't experience the same turbulence that was present the other day). My friend Ant is selling me a second-hand Sigma lense which saves a little money and then I decided to go all the way and buy Adobe's Lightroom software. I might as well get this all out of the way in one go. It makes repairing the damage to my bank account a little easier to figure out if it's all done at the same time.

Lightroom is going to require a bit of learning but I did get my first picture processed by it this evening from my old and broken camera (which is in pieces beside me as I write this - I haven't been able to fix it unfortunately). It was a horribly over-exposed picture of an oil platform, ocean, surf and sky from Carpinteria Beach and the picture still isn't that great, but at least I figured my way through some of the menus!

Here it is:

If you think it isn't very good you should see it before it went through Lightroom. It was a nice test piece and since I've been used to using Picasa for a couple of years now this will require some re-training. For instance, I've still to find Lightroom's "I'm feeling lucky" button...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmmm. I just have 2 Canon Power Shot cameras -- that is all. Point and shoot. Easily fit in my purse and better than a cell phone camera!

Anonymous said...

very envious! Have lots of fun with the new toy:)

Anonymous said...

Yay! I'm sure you'll be very happy Tom! :-)

I have an instinctive "meh" for non free and open source software these days, but I'm a thorough Lightroom convert!

Aloha,
Paul H.

Anonymous said...

PS. the I'm feeling lucky button is the "Auto" of whatever it's called in the Develop section where you set brightness and contrast etc... :-)

Tom said...

Gigi - I'd still like a small point and shoot for those moments a big camera just isn't practical. Canon Power shots are pretty good from what I've heard.

Horsemom - I will!

Paul - we'll have to compare cameras shortly - and I wouldn't mind a few lightroom tips at some point! And yes, I did see the auto button but haven't tried it yet. Picasa's "I'm feeling lucky" button rarely works for me although suspect it's great for family snapshots and things like that. It usually turns sunsets into a horrible mess though.

Tom