Pride London 2009

As it happened last year, I was just on my way into town to get a coffee at Camera Cafe and take some pictures in town. Once I got out of the station I saw people dressed up and heard music in Trafalgar Square, it was the Pride again. This meant my coffee had to wait so I set out again to try and capture the event. Overall my pictures were not as good as last year or as usual from events but these are the five I like best. All were taken with the GRD at ISO 100 and 200.

Flower Macro

GRD, f3.2, 1/160, ISO 64, JPG

After all the b&w and sepia pictures recently I thought a bit of color would be nice. I did not take a lot of pictures but took this while out for a quick walk in the park today.

Waterlily

LC1, f2.4, 1/1250, ISO 100, JPG, 90mm

Took this while out for a walk in a park nearby today. I have darkened the blacks and added some vignetting to make the white waterlily stand out more.
I really like the LC1 and how it handles, for color work it is great. It is a shame that Panasonic has not released a LC2 and I can only hope they will release a LC2 based on m4/3 but only with the same fantastic 28-90mm f2.0-2.4 lens.

Under a Grey Sky

GRD II, f7.1, 1/640, ISO 200, RAW

Took this picture after work today. The weather was again not very good and it was pretty grey for most of the day.
I wanted to give the picture a very surreal feel, the sharp and soft areas merge together with very bright colors and the grey sky with dark corners from the vignetting. Not sure if I went slightly over the top with this but I do like the result.

Rays Through The Clouds

CX1, f6.2, 1/850, ISO 80, JPG, 200mm

I took this picture while having a drink in a pub near the heath. When I saw the rays coming through the clouds I thought it would make a very good picture. I really like the result but I had to use Photoshop to increase the contrast and brighten the shadows a bit.

Barriers

GRD, f3.2, 1/160, ISO 400, JPG

Got back from Dublin this morning. It was a dull and grey day so very boring for photography. I managed to take a few pictures during lunch and this one I liked in particular. When I walked past this I noticed the orange color in between all the grey and knew it would make a nice picture.

Pick Up

CX1, f6.2, 1/870, ISO 400, JPG, 200mm

I do not like Canary Wharf that much, it is too artificial and too busy during the week. Going out for lunch is not very nice since everywhere it's packed and quite expensive compared with the city. The nice thing however is taht there are always performances and other events during the summer months so you can get some entertainment while having lunch.

Sunday Afternoon Game

CX1, f4.5, 1/620, ISO 80, JPG, 74mm

Sometimes photography is 'only' about being in the right place at the right time and having a camera ready. This picture is one such an example. I am glad I had the CX1 with me and that it was ready to take the picture fast, only a split second later and the light was gone.
The CX1 captured the light and colors prefectly. This is taken in the normal mode and not using the DR mode, still the dynamic range is pretty good.
Still, looking at this picture I no doubt wish that the CX1 would offer a RAW mode or less processed JPGs, too much noise reduction is being appilied and Ricoh really needs to sort this out.

Under the Blue Bridge

CX1, f3.3, 1/8, ISO 800, JPG, 28mm

Maybe not my best picture with the CX1 but I did not have time to take too many pictures today. I do like it and especially the colors. There is too much noise reduction going on though so I hope Ricoh will release a firmware update that allows to turn the noise reduction off. It does look pretty good for a ISO 800 picture and it shows that the new multipattern AWB works very well.

Lines of Nature?

CX1, f6.9, 1/540, ISO 80, JPG, 85mm

I took the CX1 with me today. The first impressions are great, Ricoh always had a great interface but this has been improved even more here. The camera is very fast and I mean in every respect, especially the AF is now faster than on the GRD I. You can read more on my Ricoh GR-Diary News blog in the coming days.

I have edited this picture in Photoshop but will post some out of camera full size samples in the next few days, as soon as I get used to the camera more.

Red Shoes

GRD, f5, 1/400, ISO 200, JPG

Took this while walking around Southbank today. I found it strange that someone just seemed to have left the shoes on the bench like that. What drew me was more that the shoes were red and had a nice contrast to the grey around them.
I did add more contrast and vignetting to the image to get it more to how I saw the picture in my mind. This also brings me to a very interesting post and discussion on Wouter's blog, how much post processing should one do? I have posted a similar question before but find it still an interesting question.

Lost & Forgotten

GRD, f2.4, 1/50, ISO 64, RAW

I took it easy today and just went for a walk in the nearby woods. I am really not very good at taking pictures of nature. I am more of a street and industrial photographer.
I did take a few pictures and quite liked a few but this I think works best. After a long time I even decided to use the RAW mode of the GRD I but it is not really worth the effort or wait, the JPG would have been as good.

Ms Incredible

GRD, f5, 1/500, ISO 64, JPG

Ok, this is a cheesy color cut-out picture but I think it looks better this way and at least it's different if nothing else ;).
Took this today while going out for lunch and I only got the shot because the GRD I was on and is very fast to focus and take a picture.

Overgrown

GRD, f4.5, 1/320, ISO 64, JPG

After the last two days of covering protests I needed some quiet and decided to take a walk through Greenwich Park on my way home and relax there.
Took this picture while walking towards the park.

Pink in Green

GRD, f2.4, 1/70, ISO 200, JPG

After the recent sun we had a rainshower today. I saw this while walking past a hedge and it caught my attention. The pink in the green looked quite cool and I liked the small petal in the big leaf. Made some adjustments to the contrast and added vignetting to make the colors stand out more.

On another note, there will be another official Ricohforum meet-up soon but I thought in the meantime if there is interest we could have another unofficial meet-up. On Saturday 4th April, we could meet at Camera Cafe around 12 since it is very central and move on to take some pictures.
If you are in or near London and are interested to meet up on that date let me know.
If you don't have a Ricoh camera but are interested in Ricoh cameras or just want to meetup you are welcome to join.

Staring At Me

GRD II, f2.8, 1/160, ISO 80, RAW, 40mm

After work I decided to take a walk and take some pictures on my way. I saw this cat and decied to take a few pictures of it. Turned out I took some of my most successfull pet pictures in the process. I am usually not very good at taking pictures, mostly due to me using wideangle lenses and having to get very close but also due to lack of interest on my part.
I used the GRD II with the 40mm lens since it is better at low ISO and color pictures than the GRD I.

The Dragon's Eye

GRD, f2.4, 1/30, ISO 400, JPG

I was not really happy with any of the pictures I took today but then I had an idea for a picture I wanted to try so decided to see how it came out. It did came out almost as I imagined it and I am quite pleased with the result. A better result would have been with a real person but this was not possible to set up in the short time. Although I am not a big fan of portraits, since most people seem to think a photoshopped face in front of a very blurry background makes an interesting portrait. I do have some ideas for portraits I want to try and this was a test.

Stairway to Heaven

LC1, f2.2, 1/40, ISO 100, RAW, 28mm

The weather was very nice today so I went out to get my biggest shoot-out done. I packed all my digital cameras and went to shoot more comparison pictures for the GX200 review. This should have been done a while ago but the weather and other things meant I cold not get it done as I would have liked. It is coming along nicely though and will be done very soon. All I am missing now is a high ISO comparison between all Ricoh cameras but this will be done tomorrow.
This picture is not part of the comparison and I took it to post it on my blog. I stood right in front of a 'No Photography' sign but this was referring to the inside of the house and not the stairway so I took the picture. Not that I am well known for following 'no photography' signs anyway ;).

Why Boats?

GX200, f7.1, 1/320, ISO 64, RAW, 50mm

This will probably be what you are thinking after today's picture. Well, the answer is simple. First, I wanted something different and second, I went to Stanley today and it felt like a beach holiday so decided to share this. Should also bring some more color in my blog. At the same time it is a different part of HK and shows that HK is not only tall buildings, narrow alleyways and markets.
Don't worry, you can find my street shots and b&w pictures in my Dropbox gallery. Also today no camera or gear talk, just the picture :).

St. Paul's

R10, f5.6, 1/760, ISO 80, JPG

There are some days when I'm very inspired and take lots of pictures and like quite a few of them. Then there are days when I am not very inspired or don't have time to take pictures. While I had enough time today and went for a walk to take pictures with both the R10 and GX200, I did not take many pictures and most are pretty bad or at best average.
Take this picture for example, it has very nice colors but is aside from that more a typical tourist snapshot so not very arty or interesting as such. Then again, I took it with the R10 and it is nice to use it sometimes in pure point and shoot mode and be like a tourist. The geek in me is now more interested to see how the picture came out, it is the best case scenario for the R10 or any camera. It is taken in bright light, at base ISO with a fast shutter speed so it should show what the R10 can do best. I based the image parameters on Pavel's recommended settings for the R8/10 (Contrast +2, Sharpening -1 and Color Depth +1). I think the result is very good and as usual the colors came out very well. This is one of the reasons I prefer Ricoh cameras over any Nikon, Fuji, Canon and the likes, the colors are just more natural and not over the top saturated.