Canon PowerShot G1 X

Woah!  What a big sensor you have!

This camera marks Canon's first timid step toward what has now become known as the mirrorless camera segment.  In it's slightly bulkier-than-a-G12 body it houses a nearly APS-c sized sensor with a 4:3 ratio, which is a dramatic step up from the relatively tiny sensor in the previous G-series bodies. That means that with this camera you can get DSLR image quality out of one of these cameras at any ISO setting, and because the sensor appears to be basically a cut down version of the 18mp sensor that appears all they way up the line to the EOS 7D, you ought to be able to achieve similar image quality.  All this from a camera that fits in a jacket pocket, and still retains the highly successful design ethos of the G-series cameras.

So why does it seem so many people in forums are displeased with this camera? Well, it seems to me that a lot of folks wanted something more akin to the Sony NEX7, and I'll admit, I'd like to see something like that come from Canon, but this ain't that camera.  

The biggest problem for the G1X is that there are a lot of other cameras on the market, often for less money, and with the potential of interchangeable lenses. Up against those cameras people often worry that they'll be disappointed with a single built-in lens. That maybe true, but for someone like me, the 28-112mm-equivalent f/2.8-5.6 lens covers a lot of the range that I usually work with, and it's certainly of higher optical quality and faster aperture than most kit zoom lenses in that range for entry level DSLRs, so when I look at this camera, I think about how it would fit in with how I shoot, and I think it'd be great for a lot of things.

So who is this camera really for? If you're a super fan of the G-series cameras you'll probably like the G1X. The only thing you might miss using the G1X is that it won't focus as closely as you might be used to with the smaller sensored G-cameras, but you should notice that your pictures look somewhat better, especially as light levels fall. If you're looking for a travel camera that won't force you to compromise on the picture quality of your DSLR, the G1X might be a good replacement if you're shooting with something like a Rebel and a kit lens. If you're a street photographer, the G1 X is probably worth taking a look at, depending on how you work with your cameras. I know Michael Reichmann of Luminous Landscape doesn't care for the fully articulated screen of the G1 X when he's trying to be discreet, but there are other ways of shooting where this doesn't matter.

What don't I like about it? I do think there are better screen designs for this type of camera that would save some space and clean up some of the button layout. I also don't care for the optical viewfinder, and I wish they'd either get rid of it, make it nicer, or replace it with an electronic one. I also don't much care for the scroll wheel on the back of the camera as it's a bit fiddly, but the front dial is pretty nice in comparison. I don't really mind the increase size and weight compared to the other G-series cameras, but it may be a consideration for some people.

So all in all, I find a lot to like about the G1 X, but it might be a tougher call for some people, and certainly, if you're looking at this camera, the nicer Micro Four-Thirds cameras are probably worth a good look as well.

Canon PowerShot SD1000 Digital ELPH

Best looking point and shoot...ever!

I purchased this camera new in early 2007 for almost $400, and looking back now, I can't believe I spent so much money on a point and shoot. This was actually the first brand new camera that I'd purchased since 1996, and I bought it because I needed something to take with me when I traveled visiting friends, going to shows, for taking snapshots when I really just didn't feel like dragging out the big DSLR. I came very close to buying the G7, but when I saw the first press images of this camera, I knew immediately that I was going to buy this as soon as it was available. I'm not usually the sort of person that's terribly image conscious, but the original Canon Elph (back when APS was a film format rather than a sensor size) was what I considered the best looking point and shoot of the 1990s, and here was a wonderful little digital point and shoot that brought back everything I loved, style-wise, from the original.

Of course, aesthetics aside, I do expect a camera to have some basic performance capabilities. I knew from borrowing this camera's predecessor (the SD600) that these little cameras were to a level that I felt the picture quality all the way through the ISO scale was what I considered good enough for a pocket camera. I didn't really need a camera like this with manual control, because I don't honestly see the point in a camera with this small of a sensor (DOF wide open is already tremendously deep, and there's not much benefit with respect to resolution from stopping down). At the time, things like 24mm equivalent wide-angle lenses, HD video, image stabilization, sweep panoramas, and the like didn't exist--or at least didn't exist in anything but the top tier of cameras--and weren't even on my list of criteria for picking a camera. The only thing I wished this camera had was RAW capability to get the most flexibility out of it's files, and I still wish it had it.

I took this camera on several vacations and looking back through the photos that I got with it, the daytime snapshots are pretty much what you would expect, with good exposure, low noise, and nice colors. My camera's lens has always been kind of soft at the edges, but for your typical snapshots there wasn't anything wrong with them.

The photos that stand out to me are the ones that are far from perfect. Many of them are motion blurred, taken at high ISO in very low light, and sometimes slightly out of focus. None of that's the camera's fault of course, since I was shooting in some difficult situations: at night on the street, in bars, at shows, late night trips to the supermarket, places that I really should have had a DSLR for the best picture quality. And that's the thing, I would have never taken these photos without the SD1000, because I wouldn't have bothered to have the DSLR with me. Instead I just felt more free to snap away, because I wasn't using a serious camera and didn't expect much of it. And because of that I think these photos capture a much better sense of the feeling of being there than a more perfect photo would have. And some of these...I almost hate to say...are some of my most favorite photos that I took in those years.

So you know, it's worth considering whether you really need to be purchasing all this bulky, complicated photo equipment, when possibly you'd be taking pictures that you'd be happier taking with something much cheaper, and much less fussy. Naturally, I've had people look at those photos and say, "oh, these are terrible, too bad you didn't have a better camera," but they're the photos that I wanted to take, and I'm always happy to look at them again.

Would I buy this camera again?  If it were still 2007, absolutely. Today in 2011, I'd probably be looking at something like the Canon S100 or the Ricoh GR Digital IV, but not for the manual control, mostly just for the RAW capability and a better quality lens with less CA and unsharp edges. I'll always have a special place in my heart for the SD1000, however, and it still works as good today as it did a few years ago even if today's cameras easily out-shoot it.

Canon T80

Another 1980s Canon, although, this time we're talking about a fairly unique, if low end, SLR.

I picked up an old Canon T80 for pretty cheap with the AC 50mm f/1.8, and it's really not a bad little camera.  It's not as big as it looks in all of the pictures you see on the internet, but it's full of 1980s quirk and charm.  But what's so special about this camera, you might be wondering, well, in a word: autofocus, to be specific, Canon's first autofocus SLR.

As you can imagine, being the first means that the AF is somewhat primitive and really requires something with fairly good contrast for it to be able to focus on.  But outdoors in bright light AF is both fast and accurate and not as bad as a lot of reviews on the internet make it sound.  The AF motors in the AC lenses are naturally a far cry from today's silent USM models, but they're not obnoxiously loud either.

The major drawback to the T80 is of course the availability of autofocus lenses for it, not that the selection has bad range, there's just nothing there that's anything more than consumerish.  The AC 50mm f/1.8 is probably the star of the trio of lenses available, but it's optically nothing more than the run-of-the-mill FD 50mm f/1.8 with autofocus added.  Additionally, there was an AC 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 standard zoom and an AC 75-200 f/4.5 telephoto zoom.

The camera is auto-loading and auto-winding, so there's no lever advance.  To look at the film transport mechanism, I'd guess that it's the same system that was used with minor modifications in the later EOS models in the 600 series, and I'd wager fairly robust.  Mercifully, with all this automation requiring power, this camera runs on 4 cheap and easy to find AAA batteries.

Some of you might not be aware, but this camera really doesn't have any manual capability aside from manual focus (which is aided both by an electronic rangefinder and a slightly unique four-way split focusing spot).  You can, in one of the auto modes, select 1/15, 1/30, 1/60, or 1/125 second shutterspeed, but honestly that's about it.  The other auto settings do let you sort of set the camera to the type of picture you want to take, but the more advanced modes that we're used to today like Av, Tv, and M are absent.  Even when you attach another FD lens to the camera, you have to set the lens to A (or O depending on vintage) and use it fully automatically.

To some the lack of manual modes may be a drawback, but honestly, this camera is about point and shoot simplicity with FD-lens quality, and in that regard it definitely delivers.

Canon Sure Shot AF35ML

So here's another Sure Shot from the collection, but a more basic and more sought after one due to it's bright f/1.9 aperture lens.

This is a Canon Sure Shot AF35ML with a fairly nice--and fairly uncommon for this level of camera--40mm f/1.9 lens.  This was the second Sure Shot from Canon so that places it at about 1981 and the same vintage as cameras like the New F-1 and the T-series FD cameras.

I suppose this camera might be thought of as the spiritual sucessor to the Canonet line and something like the QL17 G-III...well, probably it'd be more correct to say something like the QL19, but whatever.

It's autofocus of course, and there's not really any settings that you can control other than the ASA, which only goes up to 400 on the earlier models, however, some later Taiwanese built models went up to 1000.   It's worth mentioning that the ASA 1000 models lack an 800 setting, and since the low-light autofocus isn't improved on these later models, I really question the usefulness of the higher speed setting. 

In the viewfinder you'll find reasonably bright frame lines in addition to little pictograms that light up to sort of let you know the approximate distance that the camera's focused on, and so far I've found it to be pretty accurate (maybe two shots per roll are misfocused, but some of that's surely operator error).

Exposure is generally good, focus is fairly fast, you can even shoot continuously at about 1 frame per second.  It has AF/AE lock as long as you hold the shutter button halfway, so you really do have pretty good control over the final result as long as you take a second to think about what you're doing.

Some comments on the internet say that this is a loud camera, and I'd somewhat have to disagree.  It's not really that much louder than most cameras with a motordrive of the era, and most SLRs aren't much quieter given the sound of the mirror slap.  I suppose if you're used to the near-silent clicking noises of most current digi-pocket cams it is a little loud, but if there's any other ambient noise it's not really that bad.  That said, there is one annoyance that I've found when shooting in low-light without the flash being popped up and that's the warning buzzer telling you that you should use the flash.

The lens is fairly sharp for a point and shoot's lens, but certainly consumerish in its rendering of out of focus areas.  It doesn't seem to flare too badly and does appear to be well coated.  There are filter threads (43mm if I remember right), and the metering cell is located within the lens barrel, so if you wanted to use filters, or maybe a polarizer the camera would automatically compensate exposure.

Here's an (not very good) example showing the out of focus areas:

Anyway, I like the ML a lot.  I think I'd easily say I like to use it more than my Canonet if for no other reason than I like that it uses AA batteries and not those expensive and awkward to use Wien Cells.  Having a built in flash is actually pretty nice as well.

And more examples:

Canon Sure Shot Zoom XL

I have to admit, I've always had a fondness for quirky consumer grade cameras.  After us kids were born my mother bought a Canon Sure Shot AF35M II to replace her aging Kodak Instamatic.  That was my first experience with a 'nice' camera, and it kept working for a long time until my older brother borrowed it.  This is not a review of that camera; this is a review of a much nicer and more unusual camera, the Canon Sure Shot Zoom XL.

Introduced in 1989 this was a fairly expensive premium grade point and shoot.  It featured a 39-85mm f/3.6-7.3 S.C. coated lens composed of 9 elements in 8 groups that supposedly gave results as good as Canon's FD lenses.  I'm not sure how many steps the zoom mechanism has but it's pretty seemless, giving you fairly good control over focal length (although, honestly how much accuracy do you need when your viewfinder only has 84% coverage).  The viewfinder does, of course, zoom along with the lens as does the flash, which is neat.

It has a near infrared AF assist light that lets it focus comparatively quickly even in low light and on low contrast subjects.  Unfortunately the lens isn't faster, but the flash does have a slow sync option so I'm sure you could do some nice things with it.  The metering sensor is a three-zone variety and has a fairly wide working range.

It's possible to take pictures at 2 frames per second, but I assume the camera doesn't have any focus tracking ability to speak of; however, I suppose given enough light, depth of field would be deep enough that it wouldn't matter much.

The remote sitting in front of it in this picture actually stows away at the bottom of the camera.  It of course allows you to get in the picture or to take pictures from a tripod without touching the camera.  It also has an immediate release, a two second delay, and allows you to set three different focal lengths on the zoom.

In it's day, the Zoom XL cost about the same as what an EOS 700 body cost without a lens, or a little more than half what it would have cost for body and a similarly spec'd lens.  It's not really a "compact" camera, but for someone not expecting to buy extra lenses and wanting a high grade camera that they didn't have to know a lot to use, the Sure Shot Zoom XL seems to have been a pretty good option.

Interestingly, I can't seem to find many of these here in the United States, aside from the one that some guy in West Slope is selling on Craigslist (thanks for the links, buddy).  This one came from the United Kingdom, and I actually also won another one on eBay (labeled the Prima F, the typical European name for it) that came from Denmark with an old roll of film still in it.

After shooting a roll of AGFA Vista 400 through the camera I can certainly say that I'm impressed with the lens on this camera.  It's not the sharpest zoom lens I've ever used, but it's certainly capable for being just a point and shoot.  I'd say between this camera and the sought-after Sure Shot AF35ML you loose the f/1.9 aperture of the ML but not the optical quality; you do, however, gain a wealth of flexibility with the zoom and flash modes and even the included remote.  It's also a bit quieter, but definitely somewhat bigger.  Both have their pluses, but the Zoom XL is a pretty solid camera for what it is.

Here's a few pictures that I've shot with it, just for kicks.