You’re not gonna believe this but… I just got myself a compact camera, Canon PowerShot G10 to be exact.
I have wanted a small portable camera for a long time now. The 40D is no lightweight, neither is the 24-105mm zoom lens. Put these together and you’re dealing with a big and heavy camera. There are also a lot of times a big camera is not practical to have and then there’s also my high threshold for taking a picture in the first place, I mean that every time I pick up the 40D I want to take a serious picture. For example, the hike we did in September. Sure I have some nice pictures from it, but I completely failed to capture feeling of the hike itself. What I mean is that there is a time and place for snapshots and the 40D is no snapshot camera to me, but the G10 however, you just dig it out from your pocket, switch on and snap. No threshold to get over!
I mentioned the Panasonic G1 a while back. I was hoping that it would be small enough to be that portable camera I wanted, but now I’ve seen it compared to other dSLRs and it’s actually not dramatically smaller. Not to forget that I would then be investing in a second system with lenses and accessories and all, so I decided against it.
So G10 it is. It’s been receiving rave reviews and it seems to be a professional photographer’s #1 choice in compact cameras.
Pros
- Nice zoom range 28-140mm (the 28mm wideangle actually beats the 38mm I get on my 40D+24-105mm zoom). Sure I’d like to have more at the long end, but 140mm works. Especially when I have 14.7MP to crop from.
- RAW
- Nice functions like live histogram and built-in 3-stop ND filter
- Conversion lens adapter with a 58mm filter thread so I can use my existing filters with a step-up ring (which I already happened to have)
- Other must-have features like bracketing and manual mode
Cons
- It’s a compact camera, what can I say. 14.7MP on a small sensor, that’s just insane. With today’s technology they should be able to create a kick-ass 5MP compact but unfortunately Joe Public can only appreciate the pixel count and not picture quality.
Also-rans
- Panasonic LX3. Panasonic had the good sense of jumping off the megapixel-wagon and created a nice 10MP camera instead. Unfortunately, it only barely beats the G10 in picture quality but what really put me off was the zoom range. Sure, 24mm wideangle is unique but 60mm at the long end…? It would never work for me.
- Nikon P6000. Just simply not as good as the G10.
First impressions
It’s heavy. I mean, I had read the specs so I knew how much it weighs, but it’s still much heavier than I thought. However, it’s easy to see where the weight comes from – the camera is solidly built and it feels like a real camera and not just some toy. Even the tripod socket is metal, and you don’t often get that with compacts. Secondly, there are a lot of buttons and controls, my 40D seems very simple in comparison. I might even have to read the manual!
The battery is still being charged but I will have to wait until the weekend to try it out in any case, so watch this space!