Caeden Talks

Our little boy is notorious for being quiet and shy (most of the time). I try occasionally to ask him open-ended questions to encourage him to talk as well as to share his thoughts.

Most of the time, he'd just keep quiet until I gave him some "Yes/No" questions instead.

Last night, as I was lying with him after my wife scolded him for not obeying instructions, I asked him, "Is Caeden ready to sleep?"

"Yes."

"Did you listen to Mommy today?"

"No."

"Was Caeden a good boy or a naughty boy today?"

"Naughty boy."

"Does Daddy and Mummy love you?"

He replied, "Yes, but they make Caeden cry."

...

Manganese Batteries

I found these batteries a couple of weeks ago selling at Daiso as the batts in my daughter's musical rocker ran out.

I've heard of alkaline, NiMH, NiCd, ZnC, Lithium etc but not Manganese batteries though.

So being curious, I bought a set (it came with 3 batteries - not something that you see everyday) to try them out.

I did a search on Google and found this on a Panasonic website:

"Manganese Battery is ideal for devices that require a small and continuous supply of power such as clocks, remote controls and radio cassette recorder. Manganese Battery is an essential item for most people around the world with the increase of battery-operated devices."

So far, they're still powering the rocker so I guess the above statement holds.

For pics of my kids and our adventures, visit http://shootmykids.blogspot.com/

My SX20 Part 2

Just stumbled across a post by a fellow Canon-er (SWriverstone) who had explained the pros (and cons) about ultrazooms such as the SX20:

1. If most/all of your images will end up on the web (e.g. you don't plan to print lots of large images for wall-hanging and gallery display), then the quality of a DSLR is really a non-issue. The quality of superzooms is MORE than enough for excellent 800x600 images online. But if you *do* plan to be printing a lot of large images (bigger than 8x10") then you'll need the superior resolution and quality of a DSLR.

2. If compactness/portability is important... and you don't want the hassle of switching lenses, then the superzoom is definitely the way to go. Some have commented that superzooms like the Canon SX10 are almost as big as a DSLR...but they're still *not* as big (especially when you add a long-range zoom to the DSLR).

3. Superzooms give you virtually all of the manual control of aperture, shutter, and focus that DSLRs offer. They also offer advanced features like exposure and focus bracketing, and even white balance bracketing (on some models).

4. Depth-of-field control is somewhat more limited with a superzoom, but this primarily applies to shorter focal lengths. The great thing about superzooms is focusing at 20x zoom on an object just 10 feet away...which gives you amazingly narrow DoF for some beautiful results.

5. Superzooms shoot video; most (if not all?) DSLRs don't. If you ever want to shoot some video, this is a consideration.

6. RAW format images: most superzooms won't shoot RAW (the Canon SX10 doesn't, but I think the Panasonic does?). For me, this isn't really an issue, because almost all of my shots end up on the web (see #1 above).

7. Low light - no question, DSLRs perform better here with less noise. But I've found my superzoom (with image stabilization) does perfectly well when (again) the final result is destined for the web.

The bottom line is that if you are NOT a working, professional photographer, there's a LOT to be said for going with a superzoom.

In my opinion, (and I'm not a working professional photographer), the gains achieved by going with a DSLR are simply not significant enough to warrant the increased price and reduced compactness.

For their price and their relative compactness compared to a DSLR, superzooms are a fantastic deal with enormous range and flexibility.

The most important thing is to know what you want from your camera, what it can do and set appropriate expectations on it. You might be pleasantly surprised when it delivers more when least expected.

My SX20

After lots of deliberation, pondering and goading, I finally settled on the Canon SX20 and got it on 23 Dec 2009.



To save 20% off the market price, I even got a "grey set" at $529.

The camera was put to the test immediately during this festive season.

Other than missing a gathering with friends on the 22nd, this camera was used for several occasions during the past 2 weeks:

a. Hayley's First Haircut
b. Photo archival of Caeden's old Art and Craft projects
c. Christmas parties
d. My cousin's wedding
e. Caeden's Birthday at school
f. Family Outing to SSC
g. Friend's Kid's Birthday

After using it these weeks, here are my key observations of the SX20:

1. HD Recording

I really liked this function. The movies came out gorgeous even in normal indoor lighting. The stereo sound came out crisp and clear, especially those taken indoors. Light-years ahead of the mono recordings that I had from the mju 850.

However during my boy's birthday celebration, which was held indoors under normal lighting, the camera had trouble focusing and kept searching for a focus lock (I could see the dust on the lens during the focus search due to its macro function) for an extended period of time.

This "problem" happened only when I was recording the singing of the birthday song (although the camera did search for focus from time-to-time but recovered it in less than 1-2 seconds). I suspect the yellow uniforms that the kids wore could have confused the sensor but haven't been able to replicate this issue though.

2. 20x Optical Zoom

I didn't really believe some of the reviews that I read on the Web about the ability of the camera to capture stuff that were actually too far for the eye to see.

I caught some butterflies flitting in the trees just outside my home one morning and took a couple of shots at wide-angle (28mm), 20x optical (560mm) which are displayed below. These were taken handheld.

The third picture is a crop from the optical picture showing a close-up shot of the butterfly.





The butterfly pic is obviously quite grainy (On Sports Setting - 1/640 f5.7 ISO640) but still presents some fine details that would have been missed if such a zoom capability was not present.

3. Shooting at high ISO settings

I like natural lighting and try not to use flash whenever possible. But one of the issue that I faced during these few weeks whilst taking pics using natural light is that I had to use high ISO in order to obtain proper exposure. Reviews on the SX20 stated that the noise levels increased drastically once ISO was set above 200.

I found myself using ISO 800-1600 most of the time at low shutter speeds (1/15 to 1/30) when taking pictures:



Judge for yourself if these pics came out well.

I also wanted to find out if the resolution at which the pictures were taken could affect the noise levels, so I did several shots at 12mp, 8mp, 5mp and 2mp of my son's cupboard:




Can you see any difference in the pics?

In my opinion, not much unless you want to enlarge pictures beyond A4-size (which I don't most of the time) or crop your pictures to improve their composition (which I also don't normally do).

4. Handling and Ergonomics

Weighing in at about 700g (1.5lbs), it is not exactly featherweight when compared to the FZ35 that I had been evaluating before choosing the SX20. In spite of the heft, I found the large grip of the camera fairly easy to hold and the four-way buttons were quite ergonomic and intuitive to use.

I also liked the articulated LCD as it allowed me to take pictures at hip level (without bending over) to take shots that would otherwise have been difficult to compose.

That being said, trying to take pictures (and waiting patiently for a nice shot) whilst taking care of an extremely active four-year old and an "expectant" wife with a five-month old daughter is never an easy task.

5. Power Supply

The SX20 uses 4xAA batteries, which is a double-edged sword. Some people swear by Lithium-Ion batteries as these provide the highest density and result in lighter cameras.

But I think they'll do fine as the manual states that more than 300 shots can be taken with the LCD on. I've yet to reach the point where my batts run dry as I pop them into the quick charger just before leaving home.

It's probably easier to obtain AAs that proprietary batteries when overseas (or even inside our own country). I've yet to hear anyone say that they couldn't find AA batteries. Besides, I have a four year old kid that loves trains and cars; so I have plenty of rechargeables lying around that I can quickly swap whenever battery juice runs low.

Conclusion

Given the amount of money spent, I think the SX20 is great value and I'm quite pleased about its performance. I'm looking forward to use it to record valuable moments so that I can view them again when my memory fades with time.