conon powershot s51s

[Ohio BigDog]

just wanted find out if this is a good choice? any one have would like to see pics from one

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

For your kid's football game, sure!
For your reef tank, mehhh not so much. For that I would recommend a G-10 (or G-11).

On thing to consider is that the S5 IS is a telescope, not a microscope. Secondly it can't shoot RAW-only JPEG. This means your pictures will be really blue. When you come back to ask why your sand is blue, your corals are blue, your yellow tang is blue, and your white wall in the background is blue, we will explain that your camera can't shoot RAW and your expensive tank lights are confusing your poor S5IS. Then we will be thinking to ourselves, "Should have bought a G-10". The Panasonic LX3 is a great choice to. The G-11 came out a couple months ago but I haven't made my mind up about it yet. The higher ISO performance could really help in a reef.

 

[TWallace]

I don't think all the pics will necessarily be too blue. That camera almost definitely has custom white balance. I have a Canon A720IS that I've used in the past for reef photography and the white balance was actually pretty good on it for reef tanks. Granted, it's still better if you can shoot in RAW. But you can always try CHDK on your SD card to shoot in RAW mode. I haven't actually tried that, but I've read good things.

I shoot with a Nikon D90 now, so the only use my little Canon gets is on vacation because I have an underwater housing for it.

 

[Ohio BigDog]

thanks t can u go further on the raw how to on card? thanks JIM

 

[Reef Bass]

I have the S5IS and agree with Titusville Surfer. Not having RAW mode is a frustration. Custom white balances are a pain in the behind and no where near as color accurate as shooting in RAW mode and adjusting the color temp while post processing. If you use daylight bulbs (color temp 6500-7500K or so), then you'll be ok. If you shoot under 20,000K bulbs, you will be frustrated as the colors in your pics won't match what you see. I spent hours trying to do the custom white balance act with my S5IS under my 20,000K bulbs and never got spot on results. Shooting in RAW with my EOS 50D, I spend about 5 seconds moving the color temp slider in Photoshop so that the pic looks like what I see.

For the record, I like the S5IS as a point and shoot under normal conditions. However, high color temp reef tank lighting is not normal conditions.

 

[Ohio BigDog]

thanks im looking at a site that updates firmware on the sd card auto loads it with that card only. and lets u use raw im gonna research it more and have my geek son and his programmer buddys check it out for me ill post results its chdk wiki or something like that. sounds great and they show a video using this camera as well .and way im reading it i can use it both ways just use a different card nothing is done on camera it uses the sd card as a hard drive i guess

 

[jdaniels175]

I have the S5IS and like it. Its not a DSLR, but with the CHDK installed you can shoot RAW, and add other features like fast motion detect ( for lightning shots), an intervalmeter (which is not native) and tons of other user created features. I am by no means great with this but here are a few shots i took. not a lot of post processing on these.

 

[Ohio BigDog]

thanks jd . is it as easy as it looks to install to sd card then just put in and shoot ? any tips on that and useing it would be great thanks Jim

 

[jdaniels175]

yes and no. once you install CHDK to the card , it should load automatically. What CHDK gives you is basically an expanded menu for accessing functions of the camera. So once you have the CHDK installed push the alt key to access the new menus. From there you can do TONS of things that you couldn't before, like turn on RAW saving feature, RAW on only first shot, turn of dark frame subtraction, display a battery life indicator, ambient or chip temperature, display histograms real time, etc, etc , etc. It is actually a little beyond may capabilities, but I am having fun learning. You can also add extra "scripts" that let you do things like fast motion detect. (great for lightning photos). All of the info you need is on the Wiki, or linked to it, although it can take some time to find it. FYI the CHDK works with MANY canons not just the S5is. If you have any more questions let me know, I'll see if I can help.

 

[Ohio BigDog]

thanks got all done just gotta fig all out pretty cool :celeb3:

 

[Ohio BigDog]

jd what do you use to open and edit the raw ? or any body thanks

 

[wetWolger]

jd what do you use to open and edit the raw ? or any body thanks

I personally use GIMP for all my editing. UFRaw is a great addon to gimp to allow you to raw editing.

 

[jdaniels175]

I think Picasa 3 and Lightbox will open the RAW, picasa isn't very advanced as far as processing though. I honestly haven't done that much with the RAW because of my lack of knowledge in the post processing dept. You can also download a DNG coverter (found on the CHDK wiki) for use in older photoshop versions ( i THINK the newer versions support the Canon RAW format).

 

[Ohio BigDog]

cool thanks for all the help

 

[mdavis735]

Here are some shots i took with my canon a590is using a macro lense and chdk.they are not the best because i have alot to learn yet.only the 2nd time i used the lense and never heard of chdk till today.

 

[jdaniels175]

just curious what you used CHDK for in those shots...still learning myself.

 

[Ohio BigDog]

not sure how post pics

 

[Ohio BigDog]

few more

 

[Ohio BigDog]

still need to fig out settings no raw yet

 

[jdaniels175]

in the chdk menu choose raw parameters...the first item should be "save RAW". push the SET button to select. The RAW files are put into a separate folder, CANON 100 on your SD card. So you need to browse to that to download them.