Michal Čihař - Blog Archives for Photography

As I have Pentax camera, I wanted to be able to extract information from maker notes it stores to EXIF. As only tool which seems to be capable of this is ExifTool and it is a Perl beast which I really don't want to use from Python, I need to add support for it to some existing library.

I found two which could be used - libexif and Exiv2. Because of availability of Python bindings I choose Exiv2. The reason why I also prefer this is upcoming XMP support for which I was looking recently. The only disadvantage I can see is that libexif is more widely used by applications. Why the hell couldn't be just one library doing this?

Anyway if you're interested in Pentax maker note support for Exiv2, you can find it in their bug tracker and it will hopefully appear soon in their svn ;-).

On Friday I finally made the decision - from the two cameras that left in choice, I bought Pentax K10D. And first experiences are quite positive. In fact I didn't find anything really disappointing during first weekend of usage. I only learned, that I should better check manual choices I've made in the past, because changing white balance at interior, going out and taking photos there does not really produce great pictures.

The camera feels really good in my hands and I was able to figure out most settings without reading manual, but I think now it is time to do so :-). Maybe it will help me to get even more out of it, especially in controlling manual modes.

I have to admit that most of photos were left to automatics and I just tried what I can do with it. Combined with trips to Kyoto, Nagoya Castle and Inuyama, it is no wonder that I took almost 1000 photos during weekend.

Thanks to everybody who helped me with their suggestions, it really helped me in the decision!

That's the question I'm trying to solve right now. From wide range of cameras, I reduced to this choice, but the decision is now quite hard. Both have their advantages and disadvantages and there is not easy to choose as it was to cut down previous list.

I used Google a lot in last weeks to find some experiences with both cameras, but none of them really helped me.

Pentax pros:

• Shake reduction in body (saves money on lens).
• Dust removal from sensor.
• Modes like TAv.
• Manual tuning of white balance looks much easier to use and provides many options.
• Dust-proof weather resistant body (although I won't have matching lenses at beginning).
• Manual flash control - it won't pop up when I don't want.
• Dedicated RAW button (I probably will take most photos in JPEG, but I want to be able to switch without going deep into menu).
• In camera RAW development (I'm not sure I will use this).
• Won lot of awards this year, so it should not be a bad camera, right?

Pentax cons:

• Underexposure in some conditions (maybe I just set something wrong on camera in shop).
• Lower lenses availability in Czechia (but I'm in Japan for next few months, where it is not that big problem).
• No option in kit lenses.

Nikon pros:

• Faster AF.
• More lenses and accessories available (but I'm not sure if I really need them).
• Scene modes (but I might anyway stick with manual settings).
• A bit cheaper here.

Nikon cons:

• Feels slightly less comfortable in my hand.

From the list it is visible that I was able to find more pros and cons on Pentax. Nikon seems to do its job pretty well, but does not provide any extra gimmicks. This is also reason why Pentax is winner for now. I'll buy the camera sometimes during next week, so things can still change.

After searching for new gallery and investigating lazygal, I finally decided it's time to give it some real world usage. My current album from Japan is being processed by this damn fast tool.

It needed a bit of hacking, but as the core was already there and Alexandre Rossi is quite cooperative upstream. I managed to implement almost everything I requested in original post. The only thing I'm still not completely happy with is the theme, but I hope I will improve it over time.

From original requirements, I completely dropped links to full size images. There is simply no reason to put here crappy pictures which my only camera I currently have here (built in camera in Nokia 6234) produces. Also once I'll buy new camera (what will be most likely Pentax K10D), I probably won't upload huge 10Mpix images on web server as I don't think it would be good for anything else than wasting my bandwidth.

Being impressed by prices of these toys here in Japan, I decided to finally buy one. This decision was quite easy, but it implies much harder one - which one to choose. Looking at my money availability and what do shops here offer, I have five possibilities: Canon EOS Kiss Digital X (EOS 400D in Europe), Nikon D40x, Nikon D80, Pentax K10D or Sony α 100.

Well it's hard choice. However for now I prefer something with shake reduction, what limits selection to either Pentax or Sony (or some of the others with lenses which do the same). And from these two, Pentax looks like much better choice. As this will be my first SLR, I don't have to stick with same vendor to be able use my equipment, but I'm much more interested in availability of add-on lenses and other stuff. And in this are seem to win Nikon and Canon. So that are points for the other side of the match.

I played with all these cameras in shop, but I really didn't find any of them much better than others. I just take few shots and nothing surprised me there. And I was able to switch them all from Japanese to English quite quickly ;-). So this step did not decide anything. Reading various reviews also didn't help much, as each camera has advantages and disadvantages...

For now my temporarily winner is Pentax, but I think I should find some more convincing arguments before buying it :-).

PS: I know there exists a bit cheaper variant of Pentax branded as Samsung GX-10, but I haven't seen it anywhere here in shops.

I received number of reactions on my photoalbum post. Several were saying "I'm using some great Perl tool which is not actively maintained anymore.". Well I know such tools. I also used BINS some time ago, but it did break something (I don't recall what exactly right now, it's quite far far away in past) and I was unable to fix it. That was reason I switched to Matew.

The other replies were much better. One of them recommended trying lazygal (well it was recommended by it's author). I gave it a try and it seemed to fit my basic needs quite well and extending it's EXIF support was a piece of cake. I will continue to tune it to my needs, but I'm pretty close right now. The hardest thing for me will be to come up with some good looking themes, but I will most likely steal my ones for Matew :-).