One more small collection of color images from the Q2 before I move on to something else.

Unlike some photographers who only drag their cameras out when someone is paying them to do so. Or when they are reviewing cameras for cold, hard cash. I take a camera with me every time I leave the house or the studio. I am a firm believer that muscle memory, hand skills and menu memory are as perishable as mayonnaise on a hot day and that just having a camera in your hands is photo-therapeutic. If you don't have a camera in your hands more often than every other week I'll just assume that you don't really like to make photographs you have just unwittingly volunteered to store depreciating assets at your house. 

I take a camera with me in the car to swim practice. Today I couldn't make up my mind so I brought along two. One was the fp and the other was the Q2. After practice, after a shower, after a convivial conversation with a few fellow swimmers in the parking lot of our club, I went over to the car and selected the Q2. I walked back into the pool area and spent a few minutes trying to find some new angles or new ways of shooting the pool that are different than what I've done before. Just a few minutes there. And just a few minutes of photographing blue sky when I arrived at the coffee shop a little while later. If I'm going to get my teeth cleaned I take smaller camera, like a Leica CL with a tiny lens. And if I'm going out photographing a street festival I take a bigger camera and a lens that autofocuses. 

Lately, when I'm heading out with no photographic agenda I'll just take along the camera that's both highly comfortable to walk with (not too bulky, not too heavy, not at all complicated) and also one with the potential to make superb images with very little effort. More often than not that camera is a Q2. I've gotten past my early leeriness of the 28mm focal length and have grown comfortable composing there but I've also gotten over the prejudice that using the in-camera cropping feature is cheating. Yesterday, for example, all those black and white images were done with the camera set to show me 35mm framelines, and, since I was shooting Jpegs the camera made the files with that focal length burned in. 

The Q2 has proven itself to be an exemplary tool when it comes to color discrimination, WB consistency and overall sharpness and resolution. It's small and easy to handle. It's light enough so that the shoulder strap doesn't dig into my shoulder after hours of walking and hanging out. And it's very much weather resistant so that reduced my anxiety if I'm going out and I know, or I think I know, that it might rain/sleet/snow/dust storm. 

I know it's heresy and sacrilege but usually, for non-commercial work, I use the camera in Jpeg mode. I choose the highest quality setting offered. Sometime I even opt for smaller file sizes! On purpose!!! I know that I will end up using a fraction of the images I take and mostly I will only use them once or twice. On Instagram or here on the VSL blog. The idea that everything you shoot has to be captured in uncompressed raw files is just nuts. And I think it creates a mental straight jacket that prevents happy, creative thought. Some stuff just isn't destined to be archived for eternity. Or even for next week. And we get to decide. 

But the reality is that the Jpeg files are mighty good. And if you are starting with a relatively lightly compressed Jpeg files from a nearly 50 megapixel file I can pretty much guarantee that if your technical technique is up to snuff you'll pretty much be able to do anything you want to with those files. No sweat. I mean, come on! Just about every device on which we see our photographs functions in a 6 or 8 bit color space. And usually the hosting venue is viciously compressing our work anyway. 

I know that the building images just below were taken in the afternoon, before our arctic cold front, because the light is coming from the west. I really liked seeing the reflections of the buildings the lake in front of me. It's a fun effect. I usually set my camera to the little sun icon during daylight hours on clear days. The color temperature isn't changing on the objects I photograph but sometimes, when using Auto WB a predominate color in the frame can mess with the overall white balance. Not so if you take the time to set the correct WB. 

I have eight other cameras I can use but I keep coming back again and again to the compact Q2 for casual photography. And I like the results more each time I come back home. One day I will probably succumb to the lure of the Q3. There's stuff in that camera that intrigues me. But for now the Q2 is checking all the boxes. 

The new Google building. Completed just in time for the layoffs. 

I've walked and run the trail around this downtown lake for over 50 years now. 

I'll keep running and walking it until my knees protest. So far they haven't made

any complaints. I like that there are multiple courses based on which bridge you

want to use in order to cross over and make a circle back to your starting point.

There is a 2.9 mile loop. A 4.2 mile loop. A 5.5 mile loop. A 7.5 mile loop and then a 

longer one, the distance of which I don't remember off the top of my head. I'm a swimmer so 

I'm happy enough with the 4.2 mile loop. I call it cross training. 

On the same walk I came back on the downtown side of the trail and cut through

my favorite area on my way to get coffee. The folks at this boutique are taking it up 

a notch. All fun.  This frame at 28

this frame with the 50mm crop enabled on the camera. 

I used to think that a high resolution sensor would get way too noisy as the ISO 

setting on the camera went up. This was shot at ISO 12500 and I think it still looks 

pretty good. Especially after I set the noise reduction in the menu from low to standard. 

I'll try to move on from the Q2. When I do portraits for work it's almost always

with much longer lenses and much bigger cameras. I have yet to do a paying assignment 

portrait with the Q2 but I'm ready to follow Paul Reid's example and start attempting some

art portraits with the camera.

Paul Reid on YouTube

Paul Reid on taking your camera everywhere!!!