Because you can’t really get great photos with one of those.

Yeah.  Right.

The fact of the matter is, today’s P&S cameras most certainly can take better photos than most people realize.  Especially if you’re able to get the camera off the Auto mode and do some of the thinking for it.  A few basic techniques and you can take all the memory photos that you want – photos that you can show people later on and actually see detail, as opposed to pointing to specks and saying that’s such-&-such a character.

The first step is to get the camera into a manual mode.  We’re dealing with a predominately dark arena here, illuminated only by theatrical/mood lights and spotlights.  The theatrical lights aren’t very bright, since their primary goal is to project color.  (If you ever worked with flash gels you know that the color becomes more saturated at lower power levels; higher power levels wash out color and simply go white.)

So when it comes to metering, the theatrical lights should fall 1-2 stops underexposed.  It’s the spotlights that you’re really aiming for.  These are the lights illuminating your subjects.  They are specially designed to track the character of the moment and draw your attention to the storyline.  So follow them – set your variables based on the reading off the spots.

To do this, you’re really looking at either M or Av modes.  Av could be helpful, since your minimum aperture will change as you zoom your P&S, and because the intensity of light will vary depending on the surface the spots are on, how they interact with the theatrical lights, and how they interact with each other.  If you are going to go for Av, however, you’ll need to program in a negative exposure compensation.  Remember, the camera is metering the entire scene for 18% gray, unless you have a spot meter.  18% gray will make the entire scene too bright; negative exposure compensation will maintain the blacks, the saturation in the theatrical lights, and will let you see the character within the beam of the spotlight.

Personally I prefer using Manual mode, with the aperture set for its widest value at the maximum zoom setting – setting it such assures that the balance isn’t thrown out when you zoom either way.  From there set the ISO, and be prepared to have it higher than you might want.  In this case, I had it set to 800.  Now I had plenty of shutter speed, I could have turned it down to 400, maybe even 200, and still hand-held the camera, especially with the IS built in.  But the problem is, this is a performance with quickly moving performers – a shutter speed less than 1/250 or so will start to show motion blur.  At ISO 200, the performers won’t be crisp – they’ll be soft and very blurred.

Two more things to assure some level of success.  First, turn off your flash.  You ever watch the Olympic Games and see the stands awash in flash-bulb explosions?  It’s quite a site, very impressive to watch, but all those flashes are completely and utterly useless to the people firing them off!  You go out and buy a Nikon SB-900 Speedlight, the most top-of-the-line hotshoe flash made by any of the camera manufacturers, and it’s maximum range is 200mm.  Guess what?  From the stands to the playing field is a lot more than 200mm.

The flash built into your P&S camera does not have a 200mm range.  You’re lucky if it’s range is 85mm worth of concentrated light.  These flashes are puny and underpowered, and are meant only to throw light on nearby objects.  So when your’e sitting in your arena seats blasting away with that flash, all you’re doing is draining your batteries and making the person next to you blind.  Not a single photon of that light is reaching the performance floor and doing anything to your exposure.  Turn if off!

And second, if your camera has the option for Manual Focus mode, use it.  Most P&S cameras suffer from slow auto-focus speed, even in strong sunlight.  In performance lighting conditions, your camera will struggle, grinding from one end of the range to the other before giving up.  Throw it in manual mode and set the focus for infinity.  P&S cameras have huge depth of field simply due to the physics of their sensors and lenses; at the ranges you’re going to be using in an arena, unless you’re in the front row, your focus will be at infinity.  And if you’re using one of the newer cameras that shows a magnified section of the screen to verify manual focus, you’ll be able to see for yourself that this is true in use.

So there you have it, some simple ways to “beat the man” and get decent photos at an event with your P&S.  They probably won’t be amazing shots, they certainly won’t be as good as you could do with a SLR and proper lighting – but they’ll be much better than you’d expect, and worlds better than the guy sitting next to you will get, shooting in Auto mode.

Photos shot with Canon Powershot SX120 IS, ISO 800, 1/250, f/4.9

So the G10 is on its way out the door and any plans for a G11 have been discarded. Enter the SX120. A year or so back I had gotten my hands on a refurbished SX100 and during the short time I used it, I was quite impressed. The SX120 is now two generations ahead, featuring Canon’s Digic 4 processor, improved IS, and a 12MP sensor.

What do I like about it?

Size: the SX120 is truly a pocket-sized P&S. It doesn’t need a special bag; it will even fit in my pants pocket if need be (although a jacket pocket is more comfortable).

Zoom: most P&S fall into two categories; 3-5x pocket cams and 20x big boys. The SX120 falls right in the middle, with 10x zoom in a body size that isn’t approaching a DSLR.

Batteries: no Li-ion pack here, the SX series runs on good old “AA” batteries. I use rechargeable NiMHs, but in a pinch plain old Duracells will work, and they’re available at any gas station. (Battery life on the SX120 is somewhat better than on previous models)

Flash: the SX flash folds down into the top of the body, much like the flash on a DLSR. When you want it, you pull it up into position. Call me vain, but it looks cool – and isn’t crammed over in the top left corner, right where most people accidentally cover it with fingers.

LCD: the 3” LCD on the SX120 is huge and beautiful. I’m not crazy about LCD shooting, but if you have to do it, do it big!

Manual Modes: it may be a P&S, but if it doesn’t have M and Av modes, I’m not using it! Come on, Auto modes are for sissies. You don’t want to be a sissy.

What don’t I like about it?

JPEG: since switching to RAW files years ago, I’ve never looked back. I like the options RAW gives me, and I always feel limited shooting JPEG. (But you know what, it’s a P&S. If I wanted RAW, I should have brought a DSLR.)

Megapixels: adding MPs is a marketing ploy; in general (and especially on small P&S sensors) more MPs = more noise. 10MP isn’t bad, but Canon really should have left it at 8MP and instead boosted the noise performance.

Focal range: the SX120 has a 38-300mm 35mm-equivalent range. 300mm is great on the long end, but 38mm isn’t very wide. Definitely won’t be shooting expansive landscapes here (without photo-stitching several shots into a panorama).

Menu system: the menu options are really dumbed down, with the camera doing most of the thinking for you. While I’m not a fan of that, it is what it is.

In terms of performance, the Canon SX120 isn’t going to turn a lot of heads, but it isn’t a slacker, either. It starts up within a couple of seconds and focusing in general conditions is about average for a P&S. Shutter lag is noticeable, but doesn’t leave you tapping your foot. As with most P&S cameras, the burst rate is laughable; the SX120 manages about 1.3 frames/second. You probably won’t be shooting NASCAR races with it.

The Image Stabilization system works well, even zoomed to 300mm, which we’ve all come to expect from Canon. Shooting in lower light levels is possible with this camera, but best done with the lens at its full wide angle to take advantage of the f/2.8 aperture there. When you need more light, pull the flash into position and you’ll find that it’s ample most of the time, although the recharge time between flashes is painfully long.

ISO performance is also about what you’d expect, and falls in line with the rest of the Powershot range. ISO 80 and 100 look nice; ISO 200 is still good; ISO 400 starts to show enough noise to make you hesitant, and anything beyond ISO 400 is better left unused. You can pretty much forget about ISO 1600, although if you encounter Bigfoot by the lake one evening, and just have to get the photo, I’d go for a higher ISO before the flash. Noise reduction software in post will help out, but the molasses-in-January flash recycle rate will make you miss shots.

As I mentioned in the bullet points above, the menus have been dumbed down. There isn’t a lot of fine tuning ability with this camera; it’s more a case of setting the general terms and going with it. For instance, FlexZone focusing is absent; instead you get the center point or Face Detection. Want to format the memory card? Do it from the shooting menu; the playback menu only offers a Delete All option. Oh, and there’s no more Superfine JPEG option; now you get Fine or Standard, although one would assume that’s because the difference between Fine and Superfine was negligible (or so we hope).

Physically, the SX 120 is a pleasing camera to use. There’s just enough of a grip on the front to grab onto. The wrist feels sufficient without getting the way (unlike the neckstrap on the G10, which was reassuring to use, but always managed to get in the way). The dimensions aren’t too big or too small, although the lens housing protrudes a bit from the front, making the camera just too bulky to fit comfortable into your jeans pocket. A jacket pocket, on the other hand, is perfect. And shooting with one hand is no problem.

All your common shooting modes are there, including the three “Creative Zone” manual modes and a full range of auto scene modes, plus a video mode. If you read the online reviews, you’ll see many people complain about the lack of HD video recording. Personally I couldn’t care less if it had a video mode at all, much less HD, but if you’re someone who puts value on this feature, then it might be something to consider.

Canon appears to be cutting costs & waste when it comes to packaging the Powershot SX120. The box isn’t much bigger than the camera, and the reams of paperwork and manuals that used to come with a camera are conspicuously absent – that’s right, no English manual, although they do still include the Spanish version, strangely enough. The English manual is available online from the Powershot website, and Canon is obviously gambling on the fact that anyone who uses this camera is computer-savvy enough to go online and get it. (Which still begs the question of why the Spanish manual comes in the box – it seems they’d either make them both digital, or include them both.) So while I genuinely applaud their efforts “Go Green,” I have to question its effectiveness.

Overall, the Canon Powershot SX120 is a very capable little camera. It falls in the lower (cheaper) end of the “High-End, Advanced Digital Camera” line, so it’s not going to have all the features of, say, a S90, SX20, or G11. But in exchange you get a more compact camera that is travel-friendly and low-maintenance. It is definitely a large step up from the ELPH series, although not such a far cry from the A-series cameras.

You can make no mistake, however, about this being a point & shoot camera. If you expect DSLR performance or quality, you will be gravely disappointed. (That being said, you know it’s a P&S when you buy it.) In my case, that’s why I bought it, because it was a true P&S that I could carry with my, in my pocket, wherever I went. It doesn’t call attention to itself, it’s not a $500 camera I have to worry about, and it’s not going to be used in lieu of a DSLR. It’s my grab-and-go camera.

On a final note, here’s a few quirks that I’ve already discovered:

IS mode: you might be tempted to switch the IS mode to “Shoot only” to save battery life. However, performance tests show that the IS works better when left in “Continuous” mode, netting more blur-free captures.

AF Lock: press the shutter halfway to focus, keep it half pressed, and press the left arrow (MF) button. The focus locks and you can recompose and shoot.

AE Lock: there’s no * button, but the feature is still there; aim the camera at your subject and press the shutter halfway and, while holding it halfway, press the +/- button. The * will show up and the exposure is locked. Keep holding the shutter halfway, recompose, and shoot. (If you let go of the shutter and press another button, the lock is broken.)

Continuous AF: in the shooting menu, this is set to either On or Off. When on, the camera continuously focuses at whatever it’s aimed at until you press the shutter. This is supposed to help prevent missed shots. When turned off, the camera only focuses when you press the shutter halfway, saving battery power. (I keep mine set to Off unless I think I’ll need that feature specifically.)

After further reflection: I’ve used the SX-120 for over 6 months now, and I still reach for it when an event isn’t important enough to carry around the DSLR, but I still want photos.  As P&S cameras go, I stand by my earlier evaluation – it ain’t the best, but it ain’t the worst.  In retrospect, however, I fell victim to the super-zoom feature.  The fact is, optical performance at full zoom isn’t good enough to make it really worth while.  I’d have been just as well off with a standard-range zoom (ie: 28-135mm).

I’ve also found that stopping down beyond f/5.6 is useless – the depth of field doesn’t improve by any real margin, and image quality degrades rapidly.  Surprisingly, it performs quite well wide open at f/2.8, and I find myself doing much of my shooting there (treating my super-zoom camera like a prime lens!).  And because of the physical properties of the lens & sensor, DOF at f/2.8 isn’t very shallow at all, so there’s no real trouble keeping things within the focus range.

But you have to try and look for the interesting perspective.  This is the fair without the people, which means that it’s best to concentrate on the things that people usually get in the way of.  Fortunately, these are things fairs have to offer – animals, giant vegetables, and bright colored lights.  So, doing my best to shield the little G10 with my hand, I took what I could.

They lack the fun, dynamic quality of my Harford Fair shots.  But I still found them worth keeping and working with.  As a chronicle of American life.  As a rite of passage at the end of summer.  As way of seeing what happens on a rainy evening when everyone is inside.

Do you even remember?

I don’t remember. I know that my very first photo must have been about the time I was 5.   I do remember being allowed to take photos with my mother’s camera now and then, when she had it out at parties or events.

What I remember distinctly is being in about 5th grade and having my own Mickey Mouse camera, which used the kind of film that used to come in a cartidge that looked like a bar with a reel on each end. I remember playing outside with one of the neighborhood kids; the camera was ready at my eye, and as she came running around the side of the house, I tripped the shutter.

That is the first time I can consciously recall making a photograph.

I can still remember how excited I was to see that photo. I remember reaching into the envelope full of prints and pulling them out, searching until I found that shot. It full of motion blur from my attempt at panning, but there was my friend, mid-stride, and damn was I excited to see that I had been able to take a moment and capture it just the way I saw it.

The lessons all came later. But the love for the art seems to have been there since the start; perhaps that’s the way it is.

I wish I had that photo with me now. But it has suffered the fate of so many negative strips and slides and 4×6 prints – it is tucked away in a shoebox somewhere in my old bedroom at my parent’s house.

These are the moments that define us, that we carry with us through our lives. In the tens of thousands of photos I’ve taken since that summer day, there are a handfull of other moments that stand out. And each one marks a different starting point.

Someday, I should gather those images together and frame them.

NOTE – After writing this post, I discovered that I actually had another of these photos tucked away on my harddrive.  It’s a scan of a 4×6 print, taken with the Kodak P&S I got from my mom.  I was at least 16 when I took this, because I remember pulling over on the side of the road and leaning out the passenger window to shoot it.  This is the first time I can remember seeing something in nature, visualizing the shot, and then returning with the camera to make the photo.  That’s big stuff!

What’s the good word?  Quite a bit, really.

The new lens is much wider (24mm instead of 35mm) and it really makes a difference.  Granted, there’s less zoom than either the G9 or my old SX100, but since I tend to work wide instead of tele, this doesn’t bother me much.

Noise is still an issue at ISO 400 and above, which is to be expected on a small sensor.  But even so, it’s not terrible at ISO 400, and even ISO 800 is usable with some noise-reduction software applied in post-processing.  At lower ISOs with good light, the quality is great.

The built-in digital ND filter is still there, which I consider a stroke of genius, since mounting regular filters to the G10 can be done, but is a bit of a pain.  It’s great for waterfall and flowing stream shots, as well capturing movement on windy days.

The overall feel is great; solid body, good amount of weight, and the now fully rubberized grip (which is also larger) makes holding it much easier.

The dials all move between settings with a very solid, very satisfying click – you’ll never end up stuck between settings with them.

Finally, it may sound silly, but I like the strap that comes with it – it’s like a mini-DSLR strap, instead of the usual wrist band.  It’s comfortable and functional.

The new DIGIC 4 processor is fast.  Coupled with my Kingston 50X SD card, there’s no lag.  (Although 2GB of memory only gets me 94 RAW images – which is why I have an 8GB SDHC on order!)

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Things I’m not so crazy about – there are a couple.

The new battery is annoying, because it’s a new format.  The G9 used the same battery as the 400D – which for me meant that I could swap between them.  Now I have a third unique battery type and a third charger.  Which means extra money to buy a backup, and extra space taken up in my bag.  Come on Canon, pick a battery and stick with it!

The dials – I’m not crazy about that new setup, either.  Stacking the mode dial atop the ISO makes them a bit awkward.  And I don’t know why EV compensation needed its own dial, when every other Canon has a button or menu setting to change it – which works just fine.

My primary complaint is the setting-switch button, and the settings assigned to it.  On every other Canon, this button moves between the aperture and shutter speed settings when in Manual mode (in Av or Tv it moves between the selectable option and the EV control).  This was a good thing, because there was no cycling through options when it came to adjusting the exposure.  Now they’ve moved the metering selection from it’s old place in the side menu and added it after the aperture & shutter speed, which means that to adjust manual settings you have to cycle through all three!  Whatever genius engineered this “feature” needs to have his head examined!

I cannot even begin to imagine why they did this.  Metering is not an option that most people change repetedly on-the-fly.  There’s plenty of room for it in the side menu (accessed by pressing the SET button in shooting mode) where it used to reside, or even in the main menu.  It belongs in a menu, not in the active controls!  This is one of those changes that really annoys me, because I cannot for the life of me figure out why they did it.  I know I’ll learn to just press the selection button an extra time, but that doesn’t change the fact that it somewhat sours me on what is otherwise an excellent camera.

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As you might have guessed by now, I’m no stranger to the Powershot G-series; in January of 2008 I purchased a G9.  Unfortunately, I only kept it for about six months.  My reasons for selling it were twofold; first, I was able to trade it almost penny for penny for a refurbished 400D that became by backup DSLR; second, I had some general dissatisfaction with the G9 itself.

Let me be very clear here – my dissatisfaction with the G9 was mostly my own fault.  When I bought it I was wowed by its features and immediately began using it as I would a DSLR, and was dismayed by the results.  When I bought it, the G9 was as close to a DSLR as any point & shoot, and was advertised as such.

Close, but NOT the same as.  And this is where I messed up.  I was used to my 30D, which produced very nice, low-noise images.  The G9 showed noise at anything ISO 200 or higher, especially in some of the dim conditions I tend to end up in.  Faced with mounting frustration over it’s limitations and the deal on the 400D, the G9 was history.

And now I’m the happy owner of its successor.  Why did I go down this road again?  Because now I know better.  I won’t be making the same mistakes again, I won’t be trying to use it like a DSLR and expecting the same results in conditions that it just can’t handle.

I anticipate two questions – 1.) Why in the world would I replace a four month old camera; 2.) Why would anyone care?

Answer – there’s actually a reason.  It’s three parts limitations and one part art. 

The SX100 is a great little camera and part of me is sad to let go of it.  It produces very nice images, has a heck of a zoom, and has let me get some shots I wouldn’t otherwise have captured.  As I’ve mentioned before, I bought it to carry around with me when I didn’t feel like lugging an SLR and lenses.  And since it was refurbished, the price was right.

But it lacks three things: a hotshoe, the ability to shoot RAW, and an underwater housing.  Enter the G10, which has all three, and is about as close to an SLR as a P&S will ever get.  

Since I end up in a lot of dim places, getting good light means I have to bring it with me – especially because anything over ISO 400 on any P&S is virtually useless.  The G10′s hotshoe lets me mount a variety of flashes directly to it, or use my Cactus radio slaves and off-camera strobes.  Granted, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to bring four strobes and a P&S to a shoot, but a single strobe and a P&S is considerably smaller and easier to maneuver in any situation.  (A P&S is also more discrete; it fits in my pocket as I walk down a city street, whereas my SLR would be swinging from my arm and making me really nervous. )

Fans of JPEG might argue that RAW isn’t essential; I said that too for a couple of years when I was just starting out.  Then I switched to shooting RAW and have never looked back.  So having a P&S that only shot JPEG was a real drag – it really places a lot of limitations on post-processing options.  The G10 eliminates those limitations, at the expense of large file size.

Finally, Canon produces an affordable underwater housing for it.  Almost all Canon Powershots used to have this as an optional accessory, but lately the list seems to be shrinking (sadly, the SX100 is not on that list).  And while I have no immediate plans to go snorkeling in the Florida Keys, I do have a hankering to play around in some local streams, and with summer coming, in the pool.  Add to which, the housing also protects against sand, snow, and rain, which means that I can go out in any weather I want without having to worry about damaging the camera.  (I could certainly have purchased a housing for my SLR, but the cost of one is prohibitively expensive!)

All of which brings us to the final question, why do you care?

You should care because this was not a decision made based on poor criteria.  I never once mentioned “coolness” or “gadget envy” among my reasoning.  Those are the elements that the manufacturer’s television commercials want to sell you on.  Some movie star has a new camera fresh out of the box and pretty women flirt with him as he futzes with it (in Auto mode, of course).  I call bull….

Changes in gear should be made based on your needs as a photographer.  Those needs may not always seem essential to someone else.  Another photographer could easily tell me that a hotshoe and RAW files are petty reasons to sell one perfectly good P&S and buy a more expensive one.  But those reasons are real to me – I know what tools I need to do my best work.  There’s a time and place to make do with what you have, and there’s a time to get what you need.  I can make do with a living room instead of a multi-thousand dollar studio space; a new camera that costs an extra hundred dollars and gives me three features I’ve been lacking is not something I should struggle with.

This is the point I’m trying to emphasize.  As Eastwood was fond of saying, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”  My old SX100 was limiting my ability to work in certain situations, and to try new ones.  You can’t ever scrub a job and then tell your client, “My camera wasn’t good enough.”  Will I ever be using the G10 for a client shoot – probably not.  But I will be using it to pursue my own personal artistic vision, which means I’m the client.  And I owe it to myself not to accept that excuse, either.

Know your gear, its strengths and its weaknesses.  Know your limitations.  And know which limitations your can make the most of, and which are worth improving.

Macro photography is a lot of fun and allows a view of the world that most people never encounter.  Like most things photographic, the downside to macro photography is price; a good macro lens for your DSLR will cost you several hundred dollars and will almost always be a prime, meaning no zoom ability.  While macro lenses can be used for regular shooting as well, they’re overall usefulness is really limited to a specific set of applications (if this sounds like common sense, that’s because it is – they don’t call it a macro lens for nothing).

I’m an outdoors fan.  Hiking trips already involve backpacks, water bottles, and enough trail mix for a small army.  Add to that a bag containing my DSLR, lenses, filters, CF cards, and spare batteries, and my loadout becomes rather excessive.  If you want an additional challenge, try to fit all that into a kayak!

Enter the P&S; small, compact, light-weight, and simple to use.  Today’s P&S cameras usually come with a full range of auto and manual modes, and as you get into the higher-end models, the manual modes become more full-featured, sometimes even including a hotshoe and the ability to shoot in RAW format (such as the Canon G9 & G10).