I know it’s been a while since I posted here. While I have been shooting (and my flickr profile attests to this), I really haven’t been challenging myself for the past few months. I spent some time in Los Angeles near the middle of July, but most of my shots were of the snapshot variety. The one time I got to try to take some really breathtaking shots of the city was ruined due to heavy smog. Oh well, better luck next time.

I did get a new toy from the UPS man today. I had been in the market for a new point-and-shoot digital as I found the limitations on my Olympus quite… well, limiting. After careful research I decided to get the Ricoh R8 digital camera. This camera got some really great reviews in terms of features and had better than average image quality. It also has one thing that most cameras do not have – a really close macro function.

In fact, this camera can macro focus with only a space of 1 cm between the lens and subject. That’s some of the closest macro focusing I’ve seen on any camera. To compare, the macro lens for my DSLR requires 12 inches from subject to leading element. The Olympus Stylus 770SW requires 8.4 inches from subject to lens in regular macro mode and 2.8 inches from subject to lens in Super Macro mode. I’m in the process of playing with it, but I do have some pictures to share with you…


I call this one “Gozer Kitty II”. There is a membrane inside the posterior wall of the retinas of many mammals, which is why you get reflections when you shine a light directly in the eyes of a cow, a raccoon, or in this case, a cat. Human retinas do not have this membrane present. The cat looked at me as the flash was going off. I normally try to use as little flash as possible, even on point-and-shoot cameras, but this time I was testing the power of the built-in flash.


This was me taking a picture of my steering wheel while waiting for a train to cross. I had to macro off at this point and was amazed at the level of detail captured so close to the steering wheel without macro. It also shows that I need get a toothbrush on the inside of my car soon.


So while I was scanning some film I picked up the camera and took a picture of my Windows workstation. The screen shots are pretty clear here, better than I expected. My Olympus seems to have problems metering the LCD screens sometimes and gives mixed results. I love how the displays seem to be floating in a sea of black.


Finally here is a macro shot. I know this isn’t a super sharp focus, but I think this camera holds its own very well here. The camera was only a little over 2 cm from these CD spines and was able to get a clear picture of the labels underneath the plastic. My Olympus has what’s called a Super Macro mode that lets you get really close, but it has problems figuring out the subject and so the focus is sometimes hit or miss. On other macros taken earlier with this camera, it got the correct subject about 75% of the time on the first try and was almost always corrected when recomposing the image.

All in all, I think I am going to be pleased with this camera. The image quality is great and once I learn the different features of this camera, I think this will open up some creative possibilities when I find myself without my SLR or DSLR. I know that the camera is just a tool and that it’s the person looking through the viewfinder (or in this case, LCD) that makes the picture, not the camera. But let’s face it, sometimes if the tools aren’t there, the job doesn’t get done.