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Having picture problems with G2

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fsun62405

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Hi all, I wonder if you noticed the following problems with your pictures taken by your G2:

1) Your subjects with funny half shut, different size eyes......I noticed this on alot of my pictures (on auto focus) especially pictures on myself. I think it has to do with the bright white "AF-Auxiliary" light that shoots out before the picture is actually taken. I wonder if other digital camera does that? I know SLR cameras shoots a invisible light to focus, but a stream of white light as powerful as the flash will surely make eyes blink. A friend of mine told me, if I could get a faster CF card, it will cut down the time between the white light and the shutter so that picture is taken before eyes begin to close! I wonder if he is right....

2) pictures of parallel buildings appear to be slanted. Actually alot of straight line objects are not perpendicular. This may have to do with the wide angle lens. If so, does that mean I should zoom in a little to avoid it?

Thanks for your feedback in advance!
 
fsun62405 said:
light as powerful as the flash will surely make eyes blink. A
friend of mine told me, if I could get a faster CF card, it will
cut down the time between the white light and the shutter so that
picture is taken before eyes begin to close! I wonder if he is
right....
Click to expand...
I dunno about half-blinked eye problem, but it's definitly not related to the speed of CF card. The the moment you press shutter, the picture is transfered to the buffer first, then write onto CF card.... And if the half-blinked eye is really a speed problem, then try a higher shutter speed.. like 1/125 sec...
fsun62405 said:
2) pictures of parallel buildings appear to be slanted. Actually
alot of straight line objects are not perpendicular. This may have
to do with the wide angle lens. If so, does that mean I should
zoom in a little to avoid it?
Click to expand...
You are correct, but if you can't avoid using wide angle, you can always correct slight distortion with Photoshop.

Tony
 
fsun,

The flash on the G2 fires twice, the first flash is to set the flash exposure - the shutter is NOT open for this flash. The first flash often makes people blink just in time for the second flash when the shutter is open. The solution is simple - use the flash exposure lock method described on page 77 of the user manual. FE lock is also valuable to ensure you have good exposure on people in your shots without having them in the center of the frame. ust be sure to warn your subjects that there will be two flashes.

The converging lines in your images could have two sources. Barrel distortion occurs at wide angle and causes straight lines near the edges of the image to curve out in the center (as if the image were projected onto a barrel). But a more likely cause is not holding the camera parallel to the ground. When you point the camera up to get the whole building in the picture, you cause a perspective distortion. The tops of the buildings seem to lean in. Its the same, but opposite, effect you get when you take a picture with a road in it which runs away from you. The curbs at the far end of the road appear to be closer together (they aren't of course). This perspective distortion can be easiley corrected in an editing program like Photoshop.
Cheers--Happy SnappingDon McVee http://www.pbase.com/mcveed
 
Thanks for the advise. The solution on page 77 does help to stop the focus light (AF-Auxiliary Light Emitter) to fire. A pre-flash red-eye reduction light is ok if it is within a second of the actual shutter to catch the subject before the subject's eye blink, a powerful light to help the camera to focus is ridiculous. If SLR cameras uses invisible light, don't know why digital, may be I should say G2 can not do it.

If a fast CF card doesn't improve the picture quality or the shutter capture speed, then why paid the price difference for the ability to take a fast second, third continuous picture?

Tony, thanks for the photoshop tutorial page. It is very useful information.

Lawrence
Don said:
fsun,
The flash on the G2 fires twice, the first flash is to set the
flash exposure - the shutter is NOT open for this flash. The first
flash often makes people blink just in time for the second flash
when the shutter is open. The solution is simple - use the flash
exposure lock method described on page 77 of the user manual. FE
lock is also valuable to ensure you have good exposure on people in
your shots without having them in the center of the frame. ust be
sure to warn your subjects that there will be two flashes.
The converging lines in your images could have two sources. Barrel
distortion occurs at wide angle and causes straight lines near the
edges of the image to curve out in the center (as if the image were
projected onto a barrel). But a more likely cause is not holding
the camera parallel to the ground. When you point the camera up to
get the whole building in the picture, you cause a perspective
distortion. The tops of the buildings seem to lean in. Its the
same, but opposite, effect you get when you take a picture with a
road in it which runs away from you. The curbs at the far end of
the road appear to be closer together (they aren't of course). This
perspective distortion can be easiley corrected in an editing
program like Photoshop.
Cheers
--
Happy Snapping
Don McVee
http://www.pbase.com/mcveed
Click to expand...
 
Fast CF cards are good if you use firewire reader(3.5-4M/sec). And if you use those expensive D-SLR, you will see noticeable speed different in burst/continous mode. On G2, however, has not much noticeable speed different unless you use burst continous mode a lot which you will gain a couple seconds in writing time, and again, it doesn't affect the speed of how G2 take burst images, but how fast G2 can recover and standby for more burst images.

Regards,
Tony
fsun62405 said:
If a fast CF card doesn't improve the picture quality or the
shutter capture speed, then why paid the price difference for the
ability to take a fast second, third continuous picture?
Click to expand...
 
fsun said:
Thanks for the advise. The solution on page 77 does help to stop
the focus light (AF-Auxiliary Light Emitter) to fire. A pre-flash
red-eye reduction light is ok if it is within a second of the
actual shutter to catch the subject before the subject's eye blink,
a powerful light to help the camera to focus is ridiculous. If SLR
cameras uses invisible light, don't know why digital, may be I
should say G2 can not do it.
Click to expand...
Page 77 in my manual says nothing about AF assist light. It describes firing the preflash to lock flash exposure. This is what the E-TTL preflash is supposed to do - estimate the flash exposure. But it does many other things too. As you discovered, it causes some people to shut their eyes, thereby eliminating red eye. :-( Now if you use the Flash exposure lock, people have time to open their eyes and then you need the red-eye reduction.

The AF assist was designed for Red Eye reduction. This is a cheap solution. Yes it does annoy people. The AF assist is also annoying, and yes it would be better to have an invisible infrared AF assist. However, it couldn't double as RER then.
fsun62405 said:
If a fast CF card doesn't improve the picture quality or the
shutter capture speed, then why paid the price difference for the
ability to take a fast second, third continuous picture?
Click to expand...
CF cards don't normally affect picture quality.The G2 has an internal memory buffer which can be written to more quickly than most CF cards. It transfers files from the internal buffer to the CF card. The G2 can still take advantage of fast CF cards. With a standard 4X card, it takes about 9 seconds to write a RAW file. Faster cards can reduce this to 3 seconds or less.
 
but, I think, white light is required as focus assist for contrast based autofocus systems. Split beam systems can use infra-red beams. And of course the brighter the autofocus light is the greater will be its range. So I wouldn't squawk too loud about the brightness of the light.
Cheers--Happy SnappingDon McVee http://www.pbase.com/mcveed
 
Yes, you are right as using a preflash to lock flash exposure (as explained on page 77) doesn't eliminate the AF-Auxiliary light emitter to fire the second time when the actual picture is taken. When I press the shutter button, the af-auxiliary light flash out the beam, a good 1+ sec later, the shutter go off....enough time for the eyes to be half shut or even a twig in the eye muscle resulting in a bad picture. My conclusion, avoid shooting people in low light situation. If it is necessary, use manual focus as it will not trigger the AF-Auxiliary light. I am surprise not much G2 users are getting (or noticing) this "shut eye" picture problem!
gkl said:
fsun said:
Thanks for the advise. The solution on page 77 does help to stop
the focus light (AF-Auxiliary Light Emitter) to fire. A pre-flash
red-eye reduction light is ok if it is within a second of the
actual shutter to catch the subject before the subject's eye blink,
a powerful light to help the camera to focus is ridiculous. If SLR
cameras uses invisible light, don't know why digital, may be I
should say G2 can not do it.
Click to expand...
Page 77 in my manual says nothing about AF assist light. It
describes firing the preflash to lock flash exposure. This is what
the E-TTL preflash is supposed to do - estimate the flash exposure.
But it does many other things too. As you discovered, it causes
some people to shut their eyes, thereby eliminating red eye. :-(
Now if you use the Flash exposure lock, people have time to open
their eyes and then you need the red-eye reduction.

The AF assist was designed for Red Eye reduction. This is a cheap
solution. Yes it does annoy people. The AF assist is also annoying,
and yes it would be better to have an invisible infrared AF assist.
However, it couldn't double as RER then.
gkl said:
If a fast CF card doesn't improve the picture quality or the
shutter capture speed, then why paid the price difference for the
ability to take a fast second, third continuous picture?
Click to expand...
CF cards don't normally affect picture quality.The G2 has an
internal memory buffer which can be written to more quickly than
most CF cards. It transfers files from the internal buffer to the
CF card. The G2 can still take advantage of fast CF cards. With a
standard 4X card, it takes about 9 seconds to write a RAW file.
Faster cards can reduce this to 3 seconds or less.
Click to expand...
 
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