A few thoughts on small cameras.

There’s not much point repeating what’s been said better, earlier, and in more detail elsewhere.

If you are one of the few people left on earth interested in the use of compact cameras for professional use who hasn’t read this about Magnum’s Alex Majoli I’m providing the link because you really should have done so by now. But remember, the article is five years old and a lot has changed since then, even the cameras Majoli uses.

Here’s an even older link to some photographs.

If you want some more recent examples of serious work done with compacts you can look here and here and here.
All, I believe, taken with the Canon G9.

And, for good measure, there’s Canon’s own promotional mini-site with tips from members of the VII photo agency on how to get the best out of your Canon compact camera.

That out of the way…

Everyone knows what compact digital cameras can’t do: shoot as fast, focus as accurately and function in low light as well as DSLRs or even Micro 4/3 cameras.
Everyone knows they are small. No point repeating all that either. So what can they do well ? How to get the best out of them ? And, more to the point, how do I integrate them into my professional workflow ? The obvious and the less obvious…

Light-weight backup camera, especially when you have to take a plane somewhere. I reckon it’s getting really difficult to travel with camera gear and that the size of baggage compartments vary enormously from plane to plane. It’s got to the point where I can’t be sure that I will be able to bring on board a bag with two full-size DSLR bodies. The big fear is being told at check-in that some of my fragile kit will have to travel in the hold. After arriving once in Cotonou at three in the morning, nine hours late and all my baggage (except my cameras and money) left behind in Paris, I am very wary of letting anything essential out of my sight. Ten days in Benin with nothing is a very long time.

It’s also getting increasingly difficult to shoot with large cameras in public places. Sometimes it’s good to look like a tourist. Some jobs simply don’t pay enough to justify taking expensive (and generally under-insured) equipment to risky areas.

The day you drop by a client’s office to say “Hi” or deliver a bill and are asked if you have a camera on you because there is a quick unscheduled shot to do, you’ll be sorry you left your heavy DSLR at home. I know, it doesn’t happen every day but it has happened to me and that day the compact I had in my bag paid for itself with just a few exposures.

The depth of focus on compact cameras is enormous. Sometimes this is what you want. The best solution I have found for shooting events where people are dancing in dark areas (i.e. impossible to focus on or even see clearly for that matter) is to use the depth of field calculator to manually set focus to cover my subject’s depth and then use Pocket Wizards to trigger a mobile, hand-held, off-camera flash. With this technique you simply dance around your subject, camera in one hand, flash in another. Very informal, very fluid.

Intimacy: sometimes I will use a compact camera on an interview / portrait job to distinguish between the “informal” pictures I will take while the journalist I am with is interviewing the subject and the “serious” ones done during the photo shoot proper. You can never really tell which will work out best. some sitters open up when they don’t feel intimidated by your gear. Others seem to need to see that the pro has obviously “pro” equipment.

Some tips?
Read the manual.
Read the manual.
Read the manual.

Heard that before? Yes, but it’s even more important with compacts because the maufacturers seem to want to present their equipment as simply as possible. There are often some very cool functions hidden away in the user menu. Research will pay dividends!

Beware of dust! Just because you can put your camera in your pocket doesn’t mean you should. Those zoom mechanisms suck dust into the camera and onto the sensor. Once it’s there, there is no way – short of a trip to the repair shop – that you will get it out. And because the sensor is so small, even a tiny speck of dust is going to be very visible.

Finally (this is only #1, after all)… It is my opinion that getting the most out of compact digital cameras requires better post-production technique that if you are working with files from cameras with larger sensors. More on that in a future post. For the time being, try investing in a Macbeth Color Checker and Adobe’s (free) DNG Profile Editor to create custom profiles for your czmera that you can use as presets in Photoshop or Lightroom. This – I guarantee you – will improve the quality of the images you produce with your camera more than any other single step in your workflow.

The photograph above was taken with a Ricoh GX100. I have owned an uncomfortably large number of compacts over the past few years. My current model is the Canon G11 which – as with all the others at the time – does some things well, others less and is currently the best choice for me.

Some thoughts on small cameras # 1

19 Jan Filed under Canon, G11, Technical. Tagged cameras, Canon, photo, photography, Small Cameras, technique. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment. Leave a Trackback (URL).

One Comment

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Posted 4 Aug ’10 at 5:45 am | Permalink

Thanks for an idea, you sparked at thought from a perspective I hadn’t considerd before . Now lets see if I can do something productive with it.

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By David Paul Carr » Some thoughts on small cameras #3 on 17 Mar ’10 at 11:44 pm

[...] of what I’ll say to them is in previous posts here (Thoughts on small cameras #1 and #2). This post is a little of the [...]