Canon G10 Camera
I've been a semi-serious photographer for many years and, in the heyday of film, owned virtually every kind of camera on the market--from Sinar, Deardorf, and Toyo 8x10s to Linhof, Sinar, and Toyo 4x5s to Hasselblad, Mamiya, and Rollei 2-1/4s to Nikon, Leica, Canon, Minolta, and Contax 35s. Though my experience with digital cameras is relatively limited, I have to say that--compared to film cameras--Canon's latest "advanced" point-and-shooter, the 15Mp G10, is a model of excellence and convenience. Yes, it is noisier and a touch softer and less dynamic than bigger-sensor cameras, particularly at ISOs above 400. But it is so so easy to use and carry and, with a little bit of Lightroom touch up (or Noiseware'ing above ISO 400), the quality of its images is so astonishingly high that I hardly ever trot out my full-frame SLR and all those expensive "prime" lenses anymore. I'm truly sold on this little automated workhorse, which, thanks to its built-in rangefinder and excellent lens (which zooms from 28mm to 140mm), feels and functions to me like a tiny, lightweight Leica. Currently priced at about $429, it is a superb deal.
Although the G10's is somewhat limited at higher ISOs. It ain't bad. Here, for an instance, is a snap taken in Amsterdam as 200 ISO.
And below is a snap taken (handheld--the G10 has a very effective Image Stabilization system) in Istanbul at the famous Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque) at 800 ISO.
This was shot as a JPEG (while we were in Europe I shot JPEG to conserve space on the G-10 memory card--those 15Mp RAW files really eat up space, even on a 8GB SDHC card). I prefer the post flexibility and image quality of RAW, but the G-10's JPEGs actually look pretty good.
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Comments
JV is correct. I held out until Canon came out with the G10 and concur wholeheartedly. For me, the big plus was that it's easy to tote around.
<<For me, the big plus was that it's easy to tote around.>>
Incredibly so. When I think of all the days and years I've spent carting around staggeringly heavy camera rigs (try backpacking an 8x10 Toyo-View "field camera" and various lenses and film holders and meters some day), I could cry. I'm not saying that I get the same results with the G10 that I'd get with an 8x10 Toyo View (although Michael Reichmann from Luminous Landscape wrote a very interesting article about the relative indistinguishability of prints made from photos taken with the G10 and a $40k 'Blad with a 39Mp back (up to 13x19 magnification). See http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml. I like Luminous Landscape for the same reason that I sometimes like (the admittedly very opinionated and often obnoxious) Ken Rockwell--these guys are excellent working photographers not digital hacks. Sometimes I go to certain sites and come away thinking that its reviewers never took a picture in their lives unless there was a resolution chart or a color bar in the foreground or background. Camera reviews like audio reviews, IMO, should not just be about measurements; they should also be about the real-time, real-life intersection of camera and photographer and subject matter.