I am definitely an old-fashioned photographer. I almost always use a full-frame DSLR camera, and 99 percent of the time, I shoot in manual mode (M), always capturing images in RAW format. At the same time, the fear of ISO from my analogue youth still lingers within me – from the days when anything above 400 ASA, with my cheap Agfa film rolls, resulted in such poor quality that it became my maximum limit. Subsequently, I went through several generations of digital cameras before daring to go up to 1,600 ISO today. Even though I’ve had iPhones since they were invented, I have never considered my phone a real camera, useful for anything other than photographing the number of the parking area at the airport so I can find my car again.
Therefore, I have always had a small pocket camera in my fleet of cameras, mostly used for photographing in social contexts. Right now, it’s a Canon G5X Mark II. Although it’s the cheapest and smallest of my three cameras at the moment, it’s also the newest – equipped with the most up-to-date technology. Last month, when I had to go to Southern Norway to do an interview where there was no scheduled photo session afterward, I chose not to pack my camera bag with my usual gear. Instead, my little pocket camera went into the bag along with my toothbrush and the few other necessities for the short trip. A trip where I was a foot passenger on the ferry to Stavanger and subsequently had to travel by public transport – all in the cold and dark month of November.
After the interview, it turned out that I had an hour to spare in Stavanger before taking the bus to Risavika and my ferry home to Denmark. I went down to Stavanger’s picturesque old inner harbour. As expected, the incredibly beautiful old coastal passenger ship SANDNES was there, and in addition, the cruise ship AIDA PRIMA. Originally, I just wanted to take a walk in the area, but at the same time, the blue hour set in, and I immediately regretted not bringing my DSLR camera and a tripod with me. While many, less boomer-like and more optimistic than me, would probably have taken out their smartphones to capture the scene, I now gave my little pocket camera a chance to show what it could do. After a few minutes, where I first tried manual mode (M), then Tv, and P, I gave up entirely and set the camera to AUTO. I used whatever structures I could find along the quay to support the camera since I assumed the technology would choose some quite long exposure times – or perhaps some crazy ISO values, how could I know.
It was only a week later, mostly for fun and with a certain degree of curiosity, that I imported the RAW files from the G5X into Adobe Lightroom. Reviewing the files on my 4K monitor surprised me a lot. Almost all the files were perfectly exposed, the white balance was close to optimal, and a much larger percentage of the shots were sharp than I had dared to hope for. On the other hand, there was much more noise than I had ever had to deal with in my RAW files before. But compared to my first generations of DSLR cameras, the noise was far less destructive. Therefore, I did not give up on the files but instead ran them through Topaz AI DeNoise, some software I had bought a few years ago but had never really needed with my previous cautious approach to ISO values.
This blog entry showcases some of the pictures from that lovely blue hour at the harbour in Stavanger, which I must admit has made me a bit more technologically adventurous. However, I don’t think I’m ready yet for my mobile phone to become my fourth camera anytime soon.
paxpix - maritime photography 