I’ve attempted to wrestle with this issue on this blog before, but with unsatisfying results. PHS (Push Here Stupid) cameras can be tricky, for a number of reasons. A few years ago, my sister gave Julia a Sony, that new fancy digital camera with all sorts of bells and whistled. It took amazingly good photographs. But cameras in the same line that I’ve looked at later don’t take photographs that are nearly as good. Why? In my opinion, because they are made by Sony. It seems to me that Sony is great at coming out with wonderful product that they then replace with their own lower quality knockoffs. I’d bet a lot of companies do that, but I’ve been particularly burned with what I think is this particular strategy with Sony before. I simply avoid their products these days.

That may have been the case with the camera, which I shall not mention, that we got for Amanda several months ago; lost of people recommended it, but it was crap. It took lousy pictures. I suspect the specific submodel was a knockoff of itself.

But there is one PHS camera that seems to consistently be of higher quality, and that takes good pictures: The Panasonic Lumix line of cameras, which are all made with a Leica lens. If you look at them, though, do make sure that the one you are looking at is really made with the Leica lens, just incase they pull a Sony.

There are a lot of models. The ZS20 has high light sensitivity and a 20x optical zoom. The DMC-GF3KK is very small. Some models are image stabilized. The DMC models tend to be higher end and are very well regarded.

Months ago, Ana told me to just get the DMC-LX5. I don’t know why, but I didn’t listen. I regretted it.

There are a gazillian kinds out there, and unfortunately most camera shops I’ve been in lately have only two or three models.

Until other manufacturers commit to using ONLY excellent optics in ALL of their cameras, just stay away from them.

Canon PowerShot ELPH 300 HS 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera with Full 1080p HD Video (Silver)

• World’s thinnest digital camera with a 24mm ultra Wide-Angle lens and 5x Optical Zoom and Optical Image Stabilizer.
• Canon’s HS SYSTEM with a 12.1 MP CMOS and DIGIC 4 Image Processor improves shooting in low-light situations without the need for a flash and
• Full 1080p HD Video for exceptional quality with stereo sound, plus a dedicated movie button for easy access.
• Get high-speed shooting in a point-and-shoot camera: High-speed Burst Mode captures 8.0fps and
• Smart AUTO intelligently selects the proper settings for the camera based on 32 predefined shooting situations.
• Super Slow Motion Movie records video at high speeds to allow slow motion playback.
• Zoom optically while shooting video and keep footage stabilized with Dynamic IS.
• Lowers noise levels at higher ISO settings.

Nikon COOLPIX S9100 12.1 MP CMOS Digital Camera with 18x NIKKOR ED Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Full HD 1080p Video (Black)

Product Features

• 18x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom-NIKKOR ED Glass Lens.
• 12.1-megapixel CMOS sensor for high-speed operation and exceptional low-light performance.
• 3-inch Ultra-High Resolution VGA (921,000-dot) Clear Color Display
• Capture 5 shots per second at full resolution
• 5-way VR Image Stabilization System

Technical Details

• Brand Name: Nikon
• Model: S9100 Silver
• Optical Sensor Resolution: 12.1 MP
• Optical zoom: 18 x
• Display Size: 3.000 inches
• Width: 2.5 inches
• Height: 1.4 inches
• Weight: 0.5 pounds

Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS8 14.1 MP Digital Camera with 16x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Black)

• The DMC-ZS8 features a powerful 16x optical zoom lens.
• The 16x Optical Zoom Keeps the Subject Sharp While Giving the Background a Soft focus.
• The DMC-ZS8 features a 1/2.33-inch CCD with effective 14.1-megapixel high-resolution.
• Images remain clear and sharp even when they are enlarged to A2 size.
• The Sonic Speed AF system includes numerous re-engineering enhancements, including a higher-speed actuator.

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX9 16.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Still Camera with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 5x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and Full HD 1080/60i Video (Black)

• Exmor R CMOS sensor for low-light performance, 5x, bright lens
• Full HD 1080×1920 with dual record of stills and movies
• 3D still image and 3D Sweep Panorama
• Fast capture with 10fps at full 16.2 MP resolution
• iSweep Panorama for one shot landscapes

Do you happen to have one of these? If so, how fast is the damn thing … if you press the button to turn it on, does it turn on quickly? How much lag between pressing the “shutter release” and the actual taking of the picture is there? Is it rugged? Does it suck?

Any info woudl be much appreciated. Thank you very much.

I’m leaning towards the Canon Power Shot, though Julia has one of those Sony’s and really likes it, and the zoom on that Nikon is rather kick-ass. Of course, what I really want is one of these, but I don’t see that happening!

Does Linux have the tools for a professional photographer?

A few months ago I would have answered “no”. After switching primarily to Linux I gradually migrated my computer activities away from Windows. While there are some good open source imaging tools in Linux, there always seemed to be some missing function, forcing me to boot into Windows for serious image editing.

I’d developed a complex workflow for Windows over the years. Irfanview for browsing the RAW files, Adobe Camera Raw and Nikon CaptureNX for converting the RAW images to JPEG or TIFF format. Noise Ninja for fixing images shot at high ISO. PTLens for correcting barrel distortion in architectural shots. PTGui for stitching panoramas and HDR (high dynamic range). And, of course, Photoshop for just about everything else.

When Bibble Labs recently came out with Bibble 5 Pro I decided to try it. Bibble runs on Linux, as well as Windows and Mac, and has a reputation of excellent quality. It’s commercial software, not open source, but $200 is a fair price considering its features. (http://bibblelabs.com/)

But would it be enough to allow me to stay booted in Linux while maintaining an efficient, high-quality workflow? It soon became apparent that this was fast software with a wealth of image-editing features. Browsing, batch processing, asset management and color adjustments all function very well. In addition, the standard version of Noise Ninja is built in and you can upgrade to a registered version at extra cost.

While Bibble can be a key element in a Linux imaging workflow, it doesn’t do everything I need. Two open source programs, however – Gimp and Hugin – fill in the gaps.(http://www.gimp.org/ and http://hugin.sourceforge.net/)

Gimp is a good image editor, although not quite on par with Photoshop. Most of the criticism I’ve read focuses on the lack of 16-bit editing and the fact that the interface requires Photoshop users to re-learn a number of functions. Editing with 16-bit files allows larger adjustments to color and dynamic range than possible with 8-bit files. In my own work I have seen posterization in Gimp when desaturating various colors and 16-bit files could possibly have prevented this, allowing for a smoother transition of tones. That said, however, it makes little sense to output a 16-bit TIFF file from the original RAW file, only to make large changes in color or tonal range in Photoshop. It’s much better to make these changes directly from the RAW file, which has even more room for adjustment.

One of the advantages of RAW files is that they have much wider dynamic range than processed JPEG’s or TIFF’s. You can salvage detail in blown highlights and bring up shadow detail that would otherwise be too dark or completely black. Bibble does this exceptionally well.

Okay, the Linux workflow works well for normal shooting. But what about more difficult tasks? Does it do everything I’d expect from a Windows or Mac workflow? Is it efficient, and more importantly, is the quality of output just as good?

Interior architectural photography, an important part of my work, is technically demanding as ambient light varies wildly in both brightness and color. I frequently change tungsten or fluorescent lights to daylight balanced bulbs, shoot different exposures to capture the full range of highlights and shadows, add supplemental lighting as needed, or even wait for dusk. Sometimes it’s useful to “paint with light” – taking several shots while lighting different regions of a large room in stages.

Linux handles this complex workflow well. Editing the RAW files in Bibble I can adjust the color temperature, highlight and shadow detail and other controls. For more difficult shots I may have to create two or three TIFF files from the same RAW file, or even use different RAW files shot with varying exposures. The output files can then be combined using layers and masks in Gimp, or HDR (high dynamic range) software. For HDR I’ve had good success with Enfuse in Hugin.

A pleasant surprise in Bibble is the inclusion of geometric correction for barrel distortion, eliminating the need for PTLens. This correction is not needed for most photography but is essential for architectural images to avoid vertical lines along the side from bowing out like the sides of a barrel.

Software is unable to automatically detect barrel distortion, so lenses have to be manually calibrated, with the numbers entered into a database. Bibble as well as PTLens, read the EXIF information from the image to see what lens was used and at what zoom setting, then refer to the database to make corrections. Bibble currently has 350 lenses in their database, and add more as customers send in images for calibration. My “workhorse” lenses for architectural shooting, the Nikkor 14-24 f2.8G ED and the Nikkor 24-70 f2.8G ED are both calibrated.

When these corrected images are opened in Gimp I apply the perspective correction tool to make the vertical lines vertical, correcting for the camera pitched slightly up or down. When shooting I’m careful to keep the camera level laterally, using the built-in level in my Nikon D3.

For sheer efficiency, my Linux workflow is signicantly faster than the hodgepodge of programs I’d evolved using Windows. In fairness, however, a Windows or Mac setup with Bibble or Adobe Lightroom would also work well.

What about output quality? To test this I went back to some RAW files I’d processed with Windows and compared the output. The conclusion? The differences were very minor and simply the result of using different parameters in the processing. The Bibble files were initially sharper with more detail, but after applying additional sharpening, the Windows-processed images were almost par. The main difference in the end was slightly smoother shadows areas in the Linux file which I attribute to a small application of Noise Ninja in Bibble.

There is one Windows program I’m happy to keep – Irfanview – which fortunately runs flawlessly under Wine. (http://www.irfanview.com/)

When browsing and culling a folder of RAW files (in my case Nikon NEF) Irfanview is exceptionally fast as it reads the embedded JPEG preview rather than interpreting the RAW data. The preview file is a full resolution file, but compressed with “basic” JPEG quality. When you shoot RAW files and review the images on the camera’s LCD, it’s the preview files you’re looking at.

Irfanview is also fast and intuitive for batch functions such as resizing images and IPTC captioning.

For the first time since switching mostly to Linux almost two years ago, I can do all my image editing in Linux without compromise, even for the most complex professional jobs.