A serious difference of opinion.
No, Andreas. I’m not talking about our e-mail discussion that we are having about my new theme. 
This morning during my walk I got to witness a beautiful sunrise. As I came around the corner, turning east, I saw a line of traffic, looked up and saw brilliant red skies with that lovely red light painting the bottoms of the clouds. I stopped in my tracks and thought: Man, I wish that I had my camera with me. I also thought of a small little poem that I’d heard. This is the North American version:
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight,
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
My second thought, after the camera, was this might be a rough day for sailors of that bit of weather lore is true. Keep walking. The traffic wasn’t stopped because of the beautiful light show, of course. There was a school bus holding up things. Suddenly, I remembered that I had my cell phone with me. Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! It has a crappy camera in it, but some photo is better than none at all, right? The best camera is the one that you have with you. Hmmmm.
So, I took my camera out, wiped off the “lens” and proceeded to take 3 photos of that beautiful red sky. 1. 2. 3. They all looked crappy. See the photo to the right!
I think that this camera is suffering seriously from a lack of red pixels. OK. So maybe this wasn’t going to work. Keep walking. I turned the corner, heading north; now, the sunrise was to my back. I kept turning around wanting to get a good picture. Might as well try again. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5 more photos. These looked a lot better now that I wasn’t shooting directly towards the sunrise, but wait. The photos are distinctly yellow. Another look. Nope, I’m seeing red. WTF? These photos were taken about 40 seconds apart. The sky was not changing like a kaleidoscope! Sigh. Keep walking.
Anyway, as I returned to the apartment, the last vestiges of pink light still skirted the bottom of the clouds. It was indeed a beautiful walk, although what I saw and what the camera saw seemed to be two completely different things. Who says that the camera never lies?! Hah! Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!
Not to go all Matrix on this but maybe the camera is true and the eye lies? Now my head hurts.
Paul the red sky thing works better for the east coast sailor than the west. It has become a real habit to not leave the house even for the mail without at least the G9 even if the Iphone camera is supposed to do ok
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Paul Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Ray, it certainly was a Matrix moment. I didn’t know who to believe … myself or the camera. Maybe a G9 ,10, or 11 is in my future, though I don’t know about bringing a Canon into the house. My Nikon already went belly-up one time!
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Ray K Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
G9 is the only Canon in a Nikon home (kept in a separate room)
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The problem was wiping off the lens, because there went your red pixels. Actually some phone cameras do have decent sensors but fail with the lens. You offer one more reason to have a pocket camera or always take your camera for walks. As for me, the 18 degrees this morning was not inviting as a walk. Have a super day and weekend.
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Paul Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Well, my camera phone is tre’ crappe’
It maxes out at 1024 x 768. That’s not even 1 megapixel, is it? I seem to be the only guy in town that has a cellphone that is, for the most part, just a cellphone!
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Chuck Boyd Reply:
December 11th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
No, you’re not the only one. I have a Tracfone on my left hip that just makes phone calls but, because I use less than 200 minutes A YEAR, this is all the phone I need.
On my right hip is my Canon SD850. Two weeks in Ireland and Germany produced 1700 pretty darn good pictures. When I reach for my camera…it’s always there.
I quit the megapixel race. Mine has 8.1 and I shoot a large file, with superfine definition.
An alternative firmware called CHDK is installed on my memory card. It purports to fill a gap between my handy dandy and the much larger DSLRs. We’ll see.
Thanks for your great blog and pictures.
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Great pictures to go with a wonderful story.
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Sometimes the best camera that you have are your eyes and memory. Might fade – but as long as it lasts it might bring you more joy than any time wasted on a cellphone”camera”…
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I have the older generation G7 and I would agree that there should be a Canon in your future. You will love the convenience, and that Nikon can handle the jolt. It will keep it on its toes.
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Oh yes, the darn reds
Recently there were several threads over at the Nikon forum on Photo.net, always people complaining about red flowers burning out in the reds.
Same problem here. Francisco Disilvestro made a quite convincing argument for using a huge color space like ProPhoto RGB. I have tried it myself and found that he is right. It helps. It won’t help with totally blown reds, i.e. it can’t bring information back that has never been there in the first place, but it certainly helps and I use it now.
As to camera phones, no, I don’t use them. The best camera is the one that I have with me, and that is my D300. Always
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That must indeed be the crappiest camera ever… It can still be usable in an artistic way, though.
I have been using my SonyEricsson cybershot mobile for snaps lately, and it actually performs pretty well in daylight. Haven’t tried sunsets, and will probably not do that either. I would feel terribly handicapped if I only had this one to rely on.
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Paul Reply:
December 14th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Yeah, Ove. Let’s just say that it is a camera that would alllow, no force, your artistic side to come through. However, it’s better than no camera at all … I think.
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