erosion control

I just spent a while trying to choose between leaving this image and replacing it...in the end, I went with this one because it's more unlike my usual pictures, and because it was already up.

Today an odd thing happened - I learned something from a camera forum! I found out that my little camera has a lot more usable dynamic range that I had realized, accessible by "overexposing" the images (from the perspective of the embedded jpeg) - there is a good deal of headroom in the raw.

A bit embarrassing I didn't notice before, but oh well. My previous camera (an SLR) allowed me to set the contrast on the jpegs low enough that the jpegs would only blow out when the raw did - so it was pretty easy to use all of the headroom. This camera can't do that, so I have to blow the jpeg highlights by a calibrated amount (I think 2/3 stop is going to be correct) to use the raw's full range.

This does, however, fix my biggest problem with this camera, which was considerable noise in the shadows on shots with a wide dynamic range. As portable as it is, now that I know it can deliver good shadows, I'm completely sold.

Though I wouldn't mind another decent lens - it's quite good, but there's still really only one in the whole system.