Nabnasset Lake, Westford Massachusetts
The photo above is my first attempt using my new Canon G9.
The camera is Canon’s latest offering in their ‘G’ series — highly capable ‘point and shoot’ (P&S) cameras. But this one I think is a break through.
For lots of information about the camera please go to dpreview.
This camera reminds me of the early days of 35mm reportage as practiced to perfection by Henri Cartier-Bresson. He discover the Leica ‘mini-cameras’ in around 1932 and started using it because of the freedom and portability it afforded. The mini-cameras were dismissed by purists and in fact much of the photographic community at the time as being too small to be ‘real cameras.’ These early Leicas fit in the hand, where very easy to use and were only slightly larger than the G9.
Many photographers today don’t think its possible to do real work with a P&S camera but others love the freedom and portability. So I wonder of a new age of photographic freedom has begun.
Photo journalists are using P&S cameras more now and I think with this camera — 12 mega pixels, ISO 80 – 3200, raw file capability, manual focus made usable by the 3 inch screen of crystal clarity. One really exiting capability is the zoom — optical zoom is 6X giving a 35mm -210mm capability. Then if you want the digital zoom kicks in seamlessly up to 24X! I haven’t tried anything ‘serious with the 24X zoom and I don’t expect the quality to be really great but with this camera in a photo journalists pocket there are many shots to be had that would be impossible with a lesser P&S or a bulky SLR. With 12 meg resolution a digital zoom becomes a useful tool whereas on, say a 5 mp camera it might not be.
I usually don’t write about technology but I felt this was occupying a bit of my time lately and has got me quite excited so…
Next I’m expecting an upgrade to Photoshop — necessitated by my desire to use PS to down load and process raw files from the G9 (those clever devils at Adobe only release software for new camera raw files in the latest upgrade — that’s ok ’cause I wanted to upgrade anyway..)
If you have a G9 or an opinion about P&S cameras please comment!
Edit: Here is a review of the G9.
Images and Ideas from Life and Elsewhere 
3 comments
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October 9, 2007 at 7:18 am
Mark
I own the previous model the G7 and agree its a great, great camera. Its a dSLR in a compact format… the build is solid (as long as you don’t accidently whack that lens tho!) .. and the quality of the shots are fantastic. I really sing this models praises to everyone I meet, and everyone I meet agrees its impressive.
Canon haven’t got it spot on yet tho… lets hope they dump the daft software needed to get files off, and just make it a pure drag and drop, plug and play camera.
glad to hear you’re loving yours… I fire mine always in manual mode, with all the ‘auto’ features removed and even the display turned off… the only thing left on is the autofocus… and sometimes, I almost forget I’m shooting digital 🙂
October 9, 2007 at 11:15 am
Ben
Good to hear you’re enjoying the G9 – I used the G7 before, and it’s a camera that feels lovely to use.
I don’t think there’s any breakthrough in image quality happening with this particular model. There are quite a number of P&S cameras that will give you a nice (even DSLR-like) image in good light.
The gap to DSLR’s will be bridged when and if we get a compact
camera that makes decent images at high ISO’s, allowing use in the dark – the G9 is already getting mushy beyond ISO 200.
If I could get clean images at ISO 800 and usable ones at 1600 in a compact, that would be a breakthrough for me.
March 7, 2008 at 7:25 pm
LifeSpy
I hear what you are saying and brought the G9 to use like a rangefinder, set it up on snap sooting mode woks really well.
I use Lightroom for a lot of my editing which is a good option if you are using CS2 as the images can be opened into CS2 from Lightroom after processing it like Adobe Camera RAW (ACR)
@ Mark, have you not found the camera to slow down with the display turned off?