18 October, 2006

The Trip saves the day - again

Just before going off to Lesvos - the third largest Greek island - for a two week holiday in September, my Nikon Coolpix 5400 started doing some strange things. When reviewing the pictures it would suddenly start scrolling through the pictures and then it was not possible to return to shooting mode or turn the camera off. I contacted Nikon and they told me to remove the battery for 24 hours and this should reset it. This worked but the fault soon raised its ugly head again. There was no alternative but to return the camera to Nikon, which I did just before we left for our holiday.

So, my wife took her Olympus Mju Digital and I took the Trip. We got excellent shots with both but the Trip proved itself yet again to be ideal for most of what we were taking - shots in perfect sunny conditions like this one of the mountain villiage of Agiassos. It does have its limitations though and, when I wanted to take some shots of the knifemaker in his dimly lit shop in Agiassos, the dreaded red flag popped up. I didn't have a flash attached and it would have spoilt the mood of the shots anyway. So I moved the aperture ring from the "A" setting to f2.8 (wide open) and took a chance. There isn't a lot of latitude on the Fujichrome Sensia 100 transparency film I was using but I was hoping there was enough natural light coming through the doorway at least to capture some highlight detail. The results can be seen below. I think the pictures speak for themselves!
















Note the blurred right hand in the second picture caused by the hand moving during the slow exposure (1/40 second). This actually enhances the shot as does the shallow depth of field caused by the lens being fully open.