Nokia Asha 300, A Blast From The Past

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage Nokia Asha 300, looking back at where I started from.

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It has been a while since I last used the candy-bar feature phone Nokia Asha 300. The phone comes with a fixed-focus 5MP rear-facing camera, with no flash support. Images are at a resolution of up to 2592×1944 pixels.

Nokia Asha 300

I had a good time with both the phone and the camera, but alas, as time dictates, technology upgrades took the better of me.

Looking back, I can't really say no to the built-in camera as it has provided me with opportunities to grab these few shots, with hopefully more to come.

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, Black & White II

The Vintage Enthusiast: Throwback 2009, image making with an 8.3MP CCD Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, post-processed in black and white, Part II.

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The Panasonic DMC-FZ18, besides the DMC-FX33 and DMC-FX55, was one of the first three Panasonic digital cameras to be introduced with the Face Detection feature. This feature detects up to 15 faces in a scene. Then it uses this information to set focus and exposure appropriately, is enabled automatically in portrait or baby scene modes, and can cope with moving subjects.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18

The second feature introduced was the 'Intelligent Auto' mode. This feature enables the camera to analyze the scene and select the scene mode (Portrait, Scenery, Macro, Night Scenery, or Night Portrait) automatically and activates the Panasonic FZ18's optical image stabilization, intelligent ISO, face detection, and continuous autofocus functions as necessary.

Other features of the Panasonic Lumix FZ18 include a 188,000 pixels electronic viewfinder, a 2.5-inch LCD display with a 207,000-pixel resolution,  ISO sensitivity to 1,600 (or 6,400 max. in high sensitivity mode), a range of creativity-friendly options including both aperture and shutter-priority plus a full manual mode, and up to fourteen scene modes to keep things going.

Images are stored in 27MB of built-in memory or on SD / MMC / SDHC cards in either JPEG or raw file formats (with a raw+JPEG option available). Power comes from a proprietary lithium-ion battery that provides enough power for 400 shots (CIPA standard). Connectivity options are NTSC / PAL video and USB, and bundled software includes Lumix Simple Viewer, PhotofunStudio viewer, SILKYPIX Developer Studio 2.1SE, ArcSoft MediaImpression, and ArcSoft PanoramaMaker.

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Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18, Colors I

The Vintage Enthusiast: Throwback 2009, image making with an 8.3MP CCD Lumix DMC-FZ18, looking at images worth preserving, Part I.

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The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18 is available in both silver and black. While the black version may look more professional and business-like, mine was, however, in the elegant silver, acquired from the auction market where color was not the choice.

The front plane of the camera is dominated by the aspherical Leica Vario Elmarit lens that has a killer 18x zoom range (504mm eq.) and a maximum opening of f/2.8. The lens has a 55mm thread on the outer casing for wide-angle or telephoto conversion attachments and a 46mm thread on the inner barrel for filters or polarizers.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18

A large rubberized handgrip complements the front of the camera. This makes it possible to use the camera single-handedly if you so wish, but in the case of sports or action photography or when using a longer zoom range, that might be the way to prevent camera shake. Powering up the camera takes about 1.7 seconds, which might be especially quick in certain circumstances.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18

The DMC-FZ18 is light enough to carry anywhere and it rests naturally in the palm of your hand. Autofocus is fast and precise, and a bit slower at the longer focal length. Exposure is spot on most of the time with a slight tendency to underexposure if bright areas dominate the scene. With its 41 intermediate steps, the zoom lever works very smoothly and it only takes 3 seconds to go from wide-angle to telephoto.

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Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm 1:1.7, Up, Up, and Away

The Vintage Enthusiast: Image making with an MD Rokkor-X 50mm 1:1.7, up, up, and away, any which way.

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Views of the high-rise block from across the street, taken with the Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm 1:1.7 fitted to an E-P5, post-processed on Olympus Viewer 3 (OV3) with final print sharpening done on Google NIK Sharpener Pro 3.

I normally do a quick shoot session with the lenses I am testing and most of the time did not bother much about the setting on the camera, except that they are mostly taken with the lens aperture set wide open.

Olympus E-P5, Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm 1:1.7

Historically, 'Rokkor-X' lenses are normally designated for the North American market, while the rest of the world gets the 'Rokkor' only version. Apart from these minor cosmetic differences, there is actually no difference between the Rokkor and Rokkor-X versions of the same lens.

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Nokia Lumia 720, Sun In Your Eyes II

Mobile Photography: Image making with a Nokia Lumia 720, re-hatching images post-processed from color to black-and-white.

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Did this session earlier, in color, which turned out to be quite spectacular. Now trying to see how well it goes in with post-processed black-and-white. I am looking at it as a learning process to gain a better understanding of the selection criteria of either doing images in color or black-and-white.

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