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Canon Powershot G1 Background Since we'd dropped our Canon PowerShot S20 a few times, it needed some maintenance (although it was still working!). Since it was going to be out of commission for at least 4 weeks, and since our other camera (Kodak DC210) was inadequate for our needs, we decided to buy a new camera (with a 30-day return policy). We've had the new one for about a week, and already we like it a lot, so probably we'll keep it and sell the S20 when it comes home from the doctor!** Our New Camera You may remember that we described the Canon S20 as having a metal body and being relatively robust; well, the PowerShot G1 is also very solid! The front and sides are metal, and the back and LCD display are made of sturdy plastic. The camera's dimensions are 4.7 x 3.0 x 2.5 inches, and it weighs nearly twice as much as the S20! But just because it's fairly heavy doesn't mean it's hard to hold. There's adequate room for right handed operation, though some of the buttons can be inadvertently pressed by the thumb. Camera Layout - Front
Referring to the photo above, you can see the auto focus (AF) illuminator (for low light focusing), the very powerful flash, infrared receiver (for the remote control unit), and microphone (for movie-making!) Camera Layout - Rear
The back of the camera has buttons to control the flash, spot metering, and macro mode while in Record mode, and thumbnail mode, zoom & scroll, and "jump" (more on this later) in Playback mode. The buttons to the right control menu selection, exposure setting, white balance, and LCD on/off. Several of these buttons do double duty depending on the mode selected. It also has a "joystick" (or "joypad") -- that silver disk on the top right corner that's used for menu navigation and other selection activities. The LCD display can swing out and swivel a number of directions:
It's handy to be able to look at the LCD without having to move the camera itself, particularly when it's on a tripod! The camera can also be held over people's heads and and you'll still see what picture you're taking. If you flip the LCD over, you can stand in front of the camera and see what it's seeing, and the image is automatically inverted so that it displays the right side up. The LCD is high quality -- a very crisp image. If you prefer to use the optical viewfinder, you can close the LCD and it shuts off, which saves the battery. The optical viewfinder is quite large, and it has diopter correction for those of us with glasses. Camera Layout - Top
The LCD info display on the top of the camera is quite detailed. The photo above is displaying that I have set the camera to 1 second exposure, Fine/Large resolution, no flash, single shot, full battery, no CF card inserted, auto white balance, no exposure compensation. In the middle of the picture you will see a "hot shoe" for an external flash, supporting Canon's EX series Speedlites, including the 220EX, 380EX, 420EX, and 550EX models. To the right of the hot shoe is the mode wheel, which doubles as the power switch. The mode wheel sits atop a second switch that flips between Record, Off, Playback, and PC connect. The mode wheel has more choices than the S20 had:
Just to the right of the mode wheel there's a button for continuous shooting mode and self-timer/remote control. In front of that is the shutter release and zoom control. Camera Layout - Data Port Side
We're looking now at the data port side of the G1. Under a sturdy rubber cover are the USB and power ports. To the left of that is the Audio/Video out port, good for hooking into a TV or VCR. Above that is a speaker used during movie playback. The speaker can also be used to play a cheesy manual camera "click" sound, if required. There's also a manual focus button which overrides the Auto Focus (AF) mechanism Camera Layout - Compact Flash Side
On this side of the camera is the door covering the Compact Flash Type II (CFII) slot. The camera comes ready with a 16MB CF card, but we used our Microdrive instead (see below). Camera Layout - Bottom
The bottom has a metal-threaded tripod stand, offset enough to allow the battery to be changed without removing the camera from the tripod! Goodies The PowerShot G1 comes with lots of accessories:
You may remember that we talked about our IBM Microdrive when describing our previous camera. It's a 1-inch square computer hard drive with a capacity of 1 gigabyte that fits into a Compact Flash Type II socket inside the camera. This allows us to take up to 800 high-resolution shots at 2400 by 1536 pixels!
It was also great to get a rechargeable battery along with the camera. The battery may be recharged inside the camera using the supplied voltage converter, but that of course puts the camera out of action -- so we bought a standalone charger and an extra rechargeable battery. The charger kit also includes a car lighter socket cable, and I tested it by recharging a battery during a long drive -- it took just over an hour. Speaking of batteries -- these last a lot longer than the ones we used in the S20 -- I recently took over 600 shots on a single battery's juice, with the LCD screen on all the time! Now that's impressive!
This shows the camera with its lens cover on as well as the tiny remote control -- which is about one-third the size of a credit card and nearly as thick -- and there's one of the rechargeable batteries. How Much? Camera: $750 (Fry's Electronics) Battery Charger: $160 (Mel Pierce Cameras) Extra Battery: $60 (Mel Pierce Cameras) IBM Microdrive - 1GB: $400 (Mel Pierce Cameras) Output So -- once we've taken a batch of photos, what happens next? There are several ways of getting the images from the camera onto a computer:
Method 1 is what we usually choose, since it's the fastest -- several hundred images may be copied in a few minutes. (Methods 2 and 3 are decreasingly slower.) Once we have the images on the laptop, we then copy them to a CD-ROM for archival storage using a CD burner. This allows us to store approximately 300 images per disk. Sometimes we have the CD burner connected to the same laptop which has the Microdrive adapter so that we can create the CD directly from the Microdrive in one pass. Once the original images are safely copied, we then go to work selecting the ones that we will use on our website, cropping extraneous material, rotating, resizing, modifying the colors, and various other manipulations. The final images which appear on the web site are usually saved in JPEG format at 80% efficiency, which reduces the size of the file considerably, thereby reducing the image load time when viewed. The tools we use in this process include Polyview, Photoshop, and FrontPage. Sometimes we like to print the images so we can flash them around the party. In this event, we retain the original high-resolution output from the camera, with some possible cropping. We then print them out on our ordinary Canon S800 printer using Kodak inkjet photo paper at 1440 dots per inch. This yields a print that is indistinguishable from a traditional photograph unless you look very closely, whereupon you can sometimes discern the individual color dots making up the image. Another way of getting printed photographs out of the camera is to take the files to a photographic processing shop, such as any Kodak or Fuji outlet. They have the facilities to read image files from CD, diskette, Zip disk, or even the Microdrive or Compact Flash card. They will then produce normal photographic prints exactly the same as if they had been taken on a normal film camera. A number of internet-based photo processing services have cropped up, such as "ofoto.com" and "Yahoo photos." These sites allow you to store your photos online for others to browse, and they also allow you or your browsees to select pictures to be printed. They'll produce and mail out a set of high-quality glossy photos, same as a photo processing place would do. If you have any questions about this camera, or want some more information about digital image processing, feel free to email Robin:
**We highly recommend you consider taking out insurance on your digital camera. It's not that expensive, and you'll be glad you did the first time you have an accident -- which is bound to happen if you use it a lot! |
