Mount Washington with a Point and Shoot, Canon G12

I haven't had time to write up the next chapter in the series on Point and Shoots since I was on vacation. However, here's a great example of the possibilities using these simple cameras. My recent visit to Mount Washington was an eye opener. The better shots came from my Canon G12, not my DSLR when it came to landscapes. Mind you the G12 is a pretty advanced piece of kit Point and Shoot wise but it is still a fixed lens camera with a pretty wide angle. These same shots could have been taken with an even simpler camera.

Hope you enjoyed.

Gerry :)

Canon FTb SLR test roll

I was recently given a Canon FTb SLR with 3 lens. This is a vintage fully mechanical SLR with a dead light meter (Batteries made with mercury are no longer available). Last Friday I hooked up the 100mm lens on it and went for a walk in the Montreal Plateau district to test it out. This beast weighs the same as a WW2 German Tiger tank, so my neck got one serious work out!

Here are those amazing images.

Film used was Fuji Superia 400 ISO processed at the local pharmacy and tweaked in Gimp.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Canadian Armed Forces week end in the Old Port of Montreal

This week end in the Old Port the Armed Forces organized an event to showcase some of what they do. They also had on hand re-enactors from WW2 with a working canon and a group of 18th Century French troops. The boys and girls from the Royal Canadian Navy were also offering rides in their zodiac boats in the harbour, lots of fun.

I took the featured shots with my Canon G12 for color and the black and white shots were done on film using a Yashica FX-D with Fuji Acros 100 iso.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Vacation pictures Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré

Spent some time East of Quebec City at the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Basilica and village. I'm not a religious guy but the site is just amazing with great craftsmanship and the locals are very friendly.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Canon G12 remote shutter trigger for under $10

The canon G12 comes with a timer but sometimes this doesn't come in handy. The other day I was trying to make a self portrait with an off camera flash when I realized that the flash didn't work with the timer. A remote would have been great just there. A remote is also useful when you want your hands off the camera but want to be able to shoot at will unlike with the timer.

Not being one who likes to spend money for nothing, read cheap, I looked into a few instructables and found out that making a remote was pretty straight forward. So I went shopping at the electronics store.

I came out with a cellular phone headset and a small project box. I already had switches from a previous project. All I had to do was to cut the headset off, strip the wires, make some holes in the box for the switches and solder everything together. The only hard part is figuring out which wire is which. Simply strip them, plug the jack in the camera and start connecting them one by one to see what the camera does. One will activate the focus, one will activate the shutter with the other wire (or wires) being the ground. I put the switch on top for setting the focus and the red momentary switch triggers the shutter.

That's it that's all and for less than $10.

Until next time.

Gerry :)

Trooper #2 Day 22

"Are you smiling because your head is already cut-off? That's sick."

Trooper came with me at the restaurant.

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)

Canon Powershot G12 an honest review, first impressions.

The Brick

 Why am I calling this an honest review of the Canon G12? Because I forked the $429 bucks for it. Some of my blog readers also contributed thru their donations and I owe them a big thank you. You won't be getting a corporate song and dance here.

Notice the level at the bottom of the screen. Very practical.

First impressions are that this baby is rugged! The hard plastic shell protects the camera from abuse and feels pretty nice to the touch. It doesn't feel cheap. I've read a few comments about some of these dropping on to concrete with no ill effect.

Program mode, no flash, no tripod.

If you've ever owned any Canon Powershot camera as I have, you will feel right at home with the G12. All the controls are where they should be with the usual icon and buttons. However, the G12 affords you the luxury of a few more knobs and buttons to shortcut those controls right on the body. ISO, modes, exposure, shutter speed, aperture and manual focus can all be controlled on the camera itself. There is also a button that can be assigned a function of your choice. I use mine for white balance. It's great to be able to take care of all these things on the fly without going deep in the menu. Mind you Canon has one of the best layouts on menus that I have ever tried.

Manual mode with auto focus not given a chance to react!

Did I mention "manual"? Yes, this baby has a real manual mode. You can have as much control or as little as you want with this camera. If you only want to shoot on Auto, I don't know why you would bother with it. There are also a bunch of special effects available in the scene mode. Black and White and sepia of course, but they have also added a tilt shift, fish eye, poster and nostalgic mode as well among others. I haven't seriously played with the fish eye mode yet but the others offer some interesting results.

Scene mode, miniature or tilt shift effect.

3 things stand out for me on this camera that I wouldn't expect from a point and shoot, a flash hotshoe, a viewfinder and a swiveling LCD screen.  The hotshoe is great for a better flash unit on or off the camera, the viewfinder is not that great (but still useful) and the swiveling screen is great for street photography or self portraits. The display also offers a rule of third grid and a level on screen option.

Program mode with Macro setting no flash.

The camera is operated by a Canon specific Ion lithium battery that promises 370 shots with the LCD on. The charger is off camera so I'll be getting a spare battery.

Full manual mode with preset zone focusing.

Start up, auto focus and shutter is lightning fast. One area where this camera has done miracles compared to my last Powershot is low light performance. Wow, it even outperforms my Nikon which is very good in low light.

Scene mode with nostalgic effect (or "film", pretty much the same.)

How does this camera compare so far to the one it replaces? I know it's not a fair comparison, but the Nikon S8100/9100 is the one being set aside in my camera bag and comparing them is inevitable for me. The Nikon has a bigger optical zoom (10x instead of 5X), more mega-pixels (12 compared to 10), a better wide angle lens, cost less and it is more compact. But the Nikon, apart from some exposure control and white balance, is automatic everything. I need more control for what I want to do. This is not a DSLR but it does a whole lot for what it is and the picture quality is outstanding.

Very low light, no tripod, no flash, program mode.

The bottom line is this, would I buy another one if I would *shiver* lose this one? You bet. Keep posted as I get to learn more about this great camera and try to push it beyond, 'cause that's what I do!

Thanks for watching.

Gerry :)