It's not the Camera, It's the Photographer

Make the statement "It's not the camera, it's the photographer" during any discussion or debate on the relative merits of one piece of camera gear over another and you will surely end up in some sort of argument. Really.

We don't advocate any attempt to use semi-operational used gear which only possesses the virtue of being cheap to acquire. We don't advocate throwing a top-of-the-line digital SLR (or any other top-rank SLR) at a novice photographer. We do advocate that photographers should educate themselves about the art and craft of photography at every opportunity, and regularly consider how well their gear is serving them. Buy the best you can afford, but buy only what you can afford.

Professional photographer Ken Rockwell posted an article on his web site about this subject. Professional photographer Michael Reichman posted a rebuttal article on his own web site. Unfortunately, neither photographer seems to be able to engage in the debate without resorting to hyperbole. So since I've been making photographs longer than Rockwell (but not quite as long as Reichman), I feel confident enough to offer a moderating opinion.

Pros, semi-pros and amateurs are working with Olympus, Pentax, Sony, Nikon, Canon, Leica, Kodak and Sigma digital SLR bodies attached to all manner of lenses. All of these photographers make great photos with all of this equipment. Occasionally, even great shots taken with compact and so-called prosumer cameras manage to sneak through. Whether or not a photo is sharp enough and large enough to be credibly reproduced at some large size in a high-end coffee table book or on an art poster is not, in my opinion, the measure of its value as a good (or bad) photo, and the lack of gear to capture such a photo is not a measure by which to judge your existing equipment. Sorry Mr. Reichman. On the other hand, moderately attractive balances of composition, color and subject in moderately good focus during the brief and only time of day in which some cheap compact has any chance of capturing a decent photo is not the measure of a truly versatile camera or satisfying photography experience or a useful choice of gear. Sorry Mr. Rockwell. I think Reichman and Rockwell both use excessive amounts of what can only be described as hyperbole which serves to inflame the debate rather than qualify it. They're both doing a good job of attracting traffic to their respective web sites.

Using only the best gear you can afford has a very special effect on most people. As you engage in a photography experience which is based on an affordable start, it has the effect of bringing you closer to your gear in ways which make it easier for you to judge which exposure settings will achieve the best result. The longer you work with your chosen, affordable gear, the more you'll find out about its flaws and the more you'll find ways to make better and better photos. Use that gear for a couple of years and you may never part with it. Ever. The reason? It's mainly because you will certainly use that gear at some point to make some photos which have deep and emotional meaning and value for you. Not meaning and value worthy of posting and adoring comments on photo.net or redbubble.com (although that surely will happen too), but rather meaning and value for you personally. That's the wonderful thing about photography though — it can be shared or not shared.

Our quest for public approval of so much of what we do has extended to photography no doubt. The problem is that photography in and of itself is often a very personal experience. My father-in-law has posted on his photo.net page a rather close-up photo of an elephant. The photo is nice enough, but not great. It's just a photo of an elephant. But listen for a few minutes to my father-in-law's story about how the huge wild elephant surprised them by lumbering out of dense bush just a few metres away, how his guide, photography partner & friend reached immediately for the rifle in case the obviously tense bull elephant charged them, and how the situation diffused rapidly after the bull determined they were no threat and then turned to lumber down to a herd near a watering hole, and the photo causes a different reaction altogether. You turn again to the photo and look at it with new eyes. Wonderful. The point is that the photo could have been taken with almost any vaguely decent camera, but you had to be physically in that location in Zimbabwe to actually make the shot.

That last point is what really separates good photographers from snapshooters. You have to go to your subjects — they don't come to you. Fly, drive, walk, ride or scoot to wherever and bring whatever gear will do the job. You don't bring a compact point & shoot to a landscape trip; you don't bring a huge lighting setup to a kid's party. Buying and using the gear you can afford never means buying the cheapest used gear that still technically qualifies as camera equipment. Rather it means buying the best gear you can afford which is also appropriate to your photography needs. After that, it's all you.

Canon PowerShot G9 Digital Camera Review

Product: Canon PowerShot G9 Digital Camera
Manufactured by: Canon US, Canon Canada, Canon UK
Reviewed by: Howard Carson, March 2008
Requires: An interest in serious photography using a compact form factor
MSRP: US$499.99, CDN$549.99, UK£429

Read the full PowerShot G9 review!

The major PowerShot G7 flaws touted by the pundits were that this marvelous top-of-the line prosumer camera failed to provide several features offered in semi-pro digital SLR cameras costing hundreds of dollars more. The PowerShot G7 didn't offer RAW format the critics complained, and it failed to provide superb low noise performance above 400 ISO. Canon listened to the howling and rancor, then tweaked the design to add some image processing improvements and RAW file saving. The result is the Canon PowerShot G9.

The Canon PowerShot G9 is a 12.1 megapixel digital camera equipped with Canon's DIGIC III image processor, a 6x optical zoom lens and Optical Image Stabilizer (IS). The camera offers a full range of shooting modes (shutter priority, aperture priority, manual, programmed auto, full auto, scene modes, movie mode) and recording modes including JPEG + RAW. Except for the fact that it's blessed with a diopter adjustment, the optical viewfinder is essentially useless at every zoom setting unless it happens to be 12.5mm (equivalent to 50mm on a full frame). Thankfully the viewfinder is completely offset by the 3 inch high-quality PureColor LCD II screen featuring a wide viewing angle, anti-glare and anti-scratch coatings. You also get face detection (the camera automatically picks out, focuses on and adjusts exposure for one or multiple faces in a composition) and primary face selection control. The PowerShot G9 has a standard Canon top-mounted hotshoe which is compatible with the complete range of Canon EOS speedlites.

The Canon PowerShot G9 is identical in every outward respect to its G7 predecessor. The fun begins with some improvements on the inside and ends with a general increase in image quality. If you're wondering how much image quality you can squeeze out of a little camera like this, have a look at this high dynamic range winter photo. The image is as-shot and unretouched, completely noise-free and quite striking at ISO100 and -0.3ev, handheld, IS on. Note the corrosion bubbles just under the surface of the black wrought iron fence, and the enormous amount of contrast between the fading painted black surfaces and the fresh white snow. The midtones are captured well too, with clean, interesting details in the shadows, the dense texture of the split rail fence and the highlights popping off the the ice and snow crystals without being blown out. One example does not tell the tale obviously, but this is a very nice camera indeed.

Read the full PowerShot G9 review!

Cons: Like it's predecessor, it's as heavy as a small brick. The strict adherence to a classic Rangefinder form factor is all well and good, but there's not quite enough to grab hold of except a very conservative grip bump on the right front—no prominent right-side body bulge like that found on the excellent Canon A-series compacts—so the very first thing you should do after marveling at your brand new PowerShot G9 as it comes out of the box is to attach a good quality neck or wrist strap. The playback button is located on a slightly concave chamfer at the top rear edge of the camera and is difficult to press because it's just at or slightly less than flush with the body surface. You need to poke the playback button with a fingernail to get a positive click, so forget about using it outside while wearing gloves. No ISO limit setting for Auto mode.

Pros: The Canon PowerShot G9 is a modern wonder of digital camera technology. For the price, there's nothing else in its image quality class on the market today except for the Leica D-Lux 3. I like sturdy, substantial buttons and dials that work smoothly and provide positive feedback mainly because on a well-designed camera they provide the surest sort of control over important and frequently used functions. The ISO dial is a perfect example and it's great to have it sitting on the top left of the camera body. Image quality is improved slightly over the G7 which means that mid-to-high ISO noise performance is good enough to make ISO800 genuinely useful (and certainly printable). The retro body and control layout introduced in the G7 is a stroke of genius and I'm glad Canon has kept and enhanced the design. The programmed user interface and LCD combine to make menu navigation easy and fast. Canon has hit a home run with the PowerShot G9. Highly recommended.

Read the full PowerShot G9 review!

Canon PowerShot A650 IS Review

Product: Canon PowerShot A650 IS Digital Compact Camera
Manufactured by: Canon
Reviewed by: Howard Carson, March 2008
Requires: An interest in photography
MSRP: US$299.95, UK£289.00

Read the full review on kickstartnews.com

What separates the huge assortment of mediocre point & shoot compact digital cameras from the good ones? Image quality! Canon has consistently come up with designs and technology which continue to keep it in the forefront of compact camera design, usability and image quality. The Canon PowerShot A650 IS Digital Compact Camera is a feature packed, versatile handful designed to please intermediate and advanced amateur photographers and to attract beginner photographers who want something noticeably more complex than so many of the dumbed-down and control-free point & shoot cameras available today.

The PowerShot A650 IS is the top-of-the-line A-series PowerShot model as of this writing. It is a 12.1 megapixel camera with a 6x optical zoom coupled to Canon's patented Optical Image Stabilizer (IS) technology. IS is specifically designed to deliver clear, blur-free images in many low light situations and all through the zoom range. The PowerShot A650 IS is built around Canon's latest generation DIGIC III Image Processor which now provides among other things enhanced Face Detection, ISO 1600 and fast in-camera red-eye correction.

Canon's extremely popular A-series is a curious thing to observe. All of the models in the series are relatively lightweight, use 'AA' batteries (two in most models; four in the A650 IS), and offer a large number of shooting and picture controls. After using the PowerShot A650 IS for a week or so and occasionally perusing the user manual during that time, you'll begin to wonder if Canon made some sort of mistake. The question you end up asking is why Canon decided to pack so many well-designed and easy to use features into a camera at this price point. There's nothing on the market right now which has this much packed into it at this price point and which does so much so well at this price point.

Cons: The 173K pixels in the LCD are sufficient for a variety of purposes but pale in comparison to the bright, razor sharp, high resolution LCDs we're starting to see on cameras from competing makers. The shoot/playback switch operates coarsely—functional but somewhat inelegant—and it's hard to figure out why Canon has stuck with this sort of switch when all the other makers have mercifully moved to playback buttons. The single metal strap lug is useful but barely large enough to accommodate a small steel split ring for those people who want to attach a top quality (UpStrap or Optech) wrist strap. The Optical Image Stabilization (IS) control is located two layers deep in a configuration menu, so it takes more than a few moments to turn it on and off. Might as well leave it on all the time, while also remembering that IS does not always guarantee blur-free photos. The creditable Movie mode can be ruined somewhat by wind noise even in very light breezes. (More in the full review)

Pros: I don't understand how Canon does such a consistently superior job with so many of its point & shoot cameras. Competing camera makers must spend hours every day wondering just how Canon comes up with so many good compacts every year. That's not to say other manufacturers produce junk—far from it. But Canon leads the pack because some people over there are really thinking carefully about the best combinations of features, functions, controls, image quality and usability. The variable flash power setting is incredibly useful for making well-balanced portrait photos and for controling fill light—a wonderful feature to have in a camera in this price range. The Canon PowerShot A650 IS can consistently capture well balanced, richly colored photos in a wide range of shooting conditions. The Vari-angle articulating LCD screen is wonderfully useful and offers decent quality image playback too. Movie mode works well enough to make most people think twice about the need for a separate digital video camera. Movie audio is well controlled, with very little noise and clear recording albeit mainly in relatively calm wind conditions. Prominent grip on the right side fits most hands well and provides good control and handling. Uses popular and competitively priced SD storage cards. SOHO and small business owners looking for an office or carry-around camera for use with clients and on job sites should consider the A650 IS. Image quality is suitable for framing and you'll have to spend a lot more money to take the next significant step up. Highly recommended. Read the full review at kickstartnews.com

Ricoh Announce New R7

Ricoh has updated its R-series of compact digicams with the Caplio R7. The optical specs remain the same as the R6 with a 28-200mm equivalent lens and CCD-shift image stabilization, however the sensor has been upgraded to 8.15 megapixels - up from 7.2 MP - image processing has also been updated to include Smooth Imaging Engine III. Available in black, silver or orange, the Caplio R7 will be available in the UK from September 2007 for around £230.

Sigma Announce DP1 Full Spec Compact

The DP1 has the same 14 megapixel FOVEON X3, APS-C sized image sensor which is used in their SD14 DSLR. It also has hot-shoe for attaching a dedicated external flash and new external viewfinder. It also has a 2.5-inch, 230k pixel resolution LCD monitor, CF slot, and is described by Sigma, as the "world's first full-spec compact.." If it perform like other foveon based cameras, I just might consider this as a replacement for my point and shoot Canon IXUS 750.