I haven’t tried a rechargeable battery set for some time, they used to be a bit flaky, underpowered and, with ni-cads, had the ‘memory’ problem, where you needed to completely discharge them each time to get maximum use out of them. The new sets all seem to be Ni-Mh, perform much better and can be recharged at any point without causing damage.
I went for the Powerex MH-C9000 WizardOne charger after reading some very good reviews. It’s one of the most expensive models, selling for about £50.00, and has every feature you could want and more. In addition to charging batteries it will also break in new sets, analyse the condition, discharge and refresh them. You can set charge and discharge rates to optimise the life for each cell.

I bought two types of battery, a couple of sets each of 2700mah AA Powerex and 2000mah AA Eneloops. The Powerex batteries are, in theory, a bit more powerful and should recycle a flash in a shorter time than the Eneloops, in practice I can’t really notice the difference. The Eneloops have the advantage of coming partially charged and ready for use, they also hold a charge better than the Powerex. Once charged up they will stay that way for months, whereas the Powerex will lose a percentage of their charge each day. Each type has its fans, but they both seem to work extremely well. On Saturday I photographed an eight hour wedding and used one set of Eneloops, they were still working at the end of the day. They are supposed to take up to 1000 charges so, at roughly £10.00 per set, should save me a lot of money and reduce my contribution to toxic landfill.

I bought all this at Tantronics, an online battery specialist. The prices were good so I gave them a ring to get some information. I ended up speaking to Janet, who was very helpful and really knew her stuff. She guided me through all the different products, described several different chargers and batteries, explaining that I didn’t necessarily need to spend £50.00 on a charger unless I wanted to. She warned me that the Powerex charger was quite complicated and liable to keep me up all night reading the manual. When it arrived it didn’t seem too difficult (I’ve read software manuals and lived) and does a really good job. Anyway, in my experience, you can never have too many buttons on a gadget.

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I’ve never really done much with a macro and I was surprised how tricky this lens is to use. You have very little depth of field, so have to stop the lens down as far as possible to make the best of it. This means you often end up with quite a low shutter speed, and at this magnification the slightest twitch can ruin the image. I will be taking a tripod if I use this on a job.

Auto focus is almost completely useless at such close distances. It’s not that the lens has problems focusing, it’s more that you have to be very selective with your point of focus and AF just makes that process more difficult. I don’t know if this is a widely used technique but I found that rather than try to focus on an exact point, it was easier to focus roughly and then move slightly backwards and forwards until the chosen spot was sharp. After practising holding my breath I got a few sharp shots (which won’t be winning any awards).
One thing I noticed while taking close ups is that everything in the world is covered in tiny bugs, yes everything, even you I expect!

If I was shooting more macro work I think I would be looking at the Nikkor 105mm 2.8 ED IF AF-S VR lens. A longer focal length means you can get farther away from your subject, I found that I had to get very close with the 60mm, to the extent where you could end up blocking the light falling on your subject. The vibration reduction on the 105mm would also be really useful. With the amount of macro work that I currently do I can’t justify the expense.
One other alternative is the Panasonic Lumix LX3 digital compact, which apparently has a great macro function. I know some wedding photographers are using these as an alternative to a macro; cheaper than a good lens, less bulky, more manageable depth of field and you get a whole new camera as well. I’ve been trying to get my hands on one of them for weeks but there doesn’t seem to be any left in the UK. Tell me if you find any, cos I want one.

The mysteries of the dandelion

A dandelion in action

A holly bud

A small blue flahr

Moss on a gravestone

Spider mites enjoying a day out on the lichen

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I’m full of good intentions when it comes to carrying a DSLR around at all times, but somehow I never quite manage it (too lazy). So I’d love something digital that would fit in my pocket, or at least into a small bag, and give me decent results. A couple of offerings have appeared on the market recently that seem quite tempting, the Canon G10 and the Panasonic Lumix LX3. They both have the main features I want, a good lens, manual controls and the ability to shoot RAW files, so I thought I’d have a look.

Both cameras have great reviews (for compacts) so I started by looking at the Canon G10. If it was down to shape and styling this would be my baby. It has a really solid metal body, good zoom range, 28-140mm equivalent, and produces a whopping 14.7 megapixel file. It’s a bit bigger than most compacts but I quite like that, it feels great to handle and the controls are easy to understand and use.
The Lumix LX3 is a slightly different beast. It’s smaller for a start but still has a high quality metal body. It has a faster f2.0-f2.8 Leica lens but a shorter zoom range, 24-60mm equivalent. It has a slightly smaller 10 megapixel sensor, or I should say, a slightly larger sensor with less pixels.

There seems to be a competition amongst manufacturers to try cram more and more megapixels into compact cameras. Although this gives you better resolution, which in theory is a good thing, putting all those megapixels on to a tiny sensor creates much more noise. The problem increases as you use higher ISOs, meaning that they perform very badly in low light conditions. Canon have piled a huge 14.7mp into the G10. At low ISOs the quality from this camera is astounding (see this review at Luminous Landscape for a comparison of the G10 with a top end Hassleblad). Unfortunately, as you increase the speed, the strain on the sensor starts showing in the form of noise and smudged details from ‘in camera’ noise reduction. Panansonic seem to have taken a step back from the megapixel race with the LX3 and produced a camera that works quite well at higher ISOs. Combined with a faster lens, giving further low light advantage, this is beginning to look like the more desirable combination to me. There’s another good Luminous Landscape review of the LX3 here. Prices for the Lumix are also slightly lower than the Canon, but not enough to sway a purchase.

This is not intended to be a proper review, I haven’t actually tried or seen a print from either of them yet! My only hands on experience has been five minutes in Jessops. If you are interested there’s plenty of information out there. DP Review has reviews of almost all current DSLRs and compacts .

I don’t think I can control my camera lust for much longer so I will probably have one of these by next week. I’ll post some images as soon as I have some. In the meantime, if anyone has tried either camera, I would be interested to hear your opinions.