Everyone photographer should have a pocket camera...

Altoids, the curiously strong (and cheap) camera case!!!

It doesn't matter if you have a billion-pixel-best camera in the world-uber-DSLR hopped up on steroids it won't amount to jack squat if you don't have it with you when you need to take a shot. A few times now I've had my shots or videos used in the news simply because I was the only one present with a camera, the shots were not always the best quality but they were often the only ones available. In one instance there was a large accident near where I work, photos I took were used by the local newspaper in an online story and the video was used by a few local stations. One day at work we had some stray moose wander into our parking lot and once again I had some of my footage make it onto the news. Last winter during a -40º C cold snap a spur of the moment experiment let to a video that ended up being used province wide of water freezing before it hit the ground. They played it throughout the winter whenever there was a cold snap ;)

Point and shoot cameras are sometimes looked down upon by us "serious" photographers but there is still a place for them for multiple reasons, the main one being size and portability. Another key advantage is that they don't attract a lot of attention, something very handy for street photography or events where "professional cameras" aren't allowed. A few years back when I visited China I accidentally left my point and shoot back here in Canada. I was so envious of my fellow travellers as they popped candid street photos while I had everyone shying away from the business end of my monstrous 40D. When I first purchased my G10 I read an article of a man who had to cover a university's championship baseball team's trip to the white house, his G10 slipped under the radar because it wasn't an SLR. [On a side note that last link is an interesting read since he accidently snapped his SD card in half whilst trying to dump the shots]

My current camera "family" is like the 3 little bears story, my SD780IS is the baby, my G10 is the middle one, and my 5DMKII is the big one. In this story however the "middle" one isn't necessarily the right one. Each have their place and for this post I'm going to focus on the SD780IS and the G10.

I'll admit I'm a bit biased towards Canon personally but even if you're a die hard fan of brand X it doesn't really matter when it comes to point and shoot cameras. Its not like the SLR world where you have hundreds or thousands of dollars invested in glass that's keeping you loyal to a specific manufacturer. Some of the Nikon cameras coming out are becoming tempting, likewise Pentax has some cool water and weatherproof point and shoots and Panasonic's Lumix series is quite good as well.

Getting the most out of your tiny camera.
CHKD is one of the biggest reasons I'm still going back to Canon for my tiny camera "fix". If you haven't heard of it I recommend clicking the link. Basically its what is referred to as a "firmware extension" that unlocks tons of control in your point and shoot giving you SLR-like features. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, custom bracketing and even RAW! Using the shutter overrides some people have claimed insanely fast shutter speeds above 1/20000th of a second. But the fun doesn't stop there, you can even run scripts on your camera like a motion detection script that some have used to capture lightning, or an intervalometer script to take cool time-lapse shots. These clever MIT students used a cheap Canon A470 running CHDK to take pictures in SPACE!

Perhaps you're a photographer who is just starting out, say you want to get into using some off camera flash ala strobist well if you're running CHDK you can set your on-camera flash to manual to avoid that nasty pre-flash that is preventing you from using those cheap optical slaves. This summer I'm planning on doing a fashion shoot using only my SD780IS just to prove it can be done. If/when that happens I'll post the results here.

Know your limits, then bend or break them
The image quality of a point and shoot may not rival a full frame SLR but if you wield it correctly and know your limitations amazing things can still be done with these cameras.

Generally the really tiny cameras (like the Canon Elph series) all suffer from the same thing, a small sensor and small optics. The very thing that makes them so nice and portable is their biggest downfall. Small sensors don't work well with low light situations or tolerate high ISO's very well. The small lenses they come with often suffer from barrel distortion and pincushion distortion when they are either zoomed all the way in or all the way out. While the lowlight issues can't always be avoided the optical distortion caused by small lenses can be easily corrected using software like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.

One of the frequently overlooked issues with point and shoot cameras that is getting worse with every generation is the mega-pixel race, every year they're cramming more and more photosites into the same size sensor. In more than a few instances its been proven that older version of the same cameras that are lower MP actually produce better images.

For the most part the image quality of most point and shoots aren't going to win any awards but what I told you this doesn't have to be the case? Well one way is to take a bunch of pictures then stitch them into one huge picture. Essentially you fake a large sensor. Confused? Let me explain. Say your point and shoot at full resolution and highest quality takes a really sharp 5x7 but once you start to blow it up to 8x10 or 11x14 it starts to look poor. Now take that same subject but zoom way in (optical zoom only) and take 20 pictures to cover the same area. Now since each of your photos have enough resolution to make great 5x7's when you stitch them together with some software like this you'll have a very large shot that looks sharp. The shot below is an example of trying this technique out, it was taken using a piddly 3.2MP Canon SD200. It was made up of about 50 individual photos and I later printed it sharply at 16x20!

What about the middle road?
Ok some of you may say those little cameras are too tiny, I want something a little beefier. No problem, the Canon G series, the Nikon P600, or the Panasonic Lumix LX3 among others might be right up your alley. All 3 bring SLR-like control to the table, are still pocketable (mostly) and have. Once again I'm biased towards the G10 but this time it is attachment based in that I can use my 580EXII on it. That being said the other two have some nice perks of their own, the P600 for example has built in GPS for automatic geotagging and the Panasonic will do HD video. All 3 still suffer a little from the smaller sensors with respect to ISO noise (try to keep it below 200) but the G10 at least in good light could give some dSLR's a run for their money.

I'm not sure about the Nikon or the Panasonic but the G10 has one huge ace up its sleeve, amazingly high speed sync. Using a wired connection the G10 can sync a flash up to 1/4000th of a second thanks to its electronic shutter. This feat can let you do some pretty amazing things like overpowering the midday sun. There are two ways to do this, either use a very high power strobes full blast like an AB1600 or White Lightning 1800 and crank your aperture up to f16 or higher, or use a few speedlights at low power at a very fast shutter speed.

In conclusion
Don't dismiss these diminutive cameras, keep one in your shirt pocket and keep these tips in mind:

• When possible avoid low light situations
• Try to keep the ISO below 200
• Use the low key nature to your advantage (street photography, concerts etc)
  
• Get large sharp images by taking a bunch of smaller ones and stitch them together
• Use the features unique to smaller cameras like the electronic shutter to you advantage
• Take advantage of the video feature, most point and shoots are near camcorder quality and newer models are
  

Digital Adventures In Infrared

Test image taken with my Canon G10 using an 850nm IR filter, coloured in PS during post.

Infrared photography has always intrigued me, there is something about white trees and dark skies that brings a surreal nature to the images. With the dawn of digital cameras came the apparent dusk of IR photography, IR blocking filters that are installed on the sensors almost rule out IR photography entirely. There are still a few methods left and that is what this post is about.

The IR blocking filters, sometimes referred to as "hot mirrors" apparently are not all created equal. Here is a website that lists various camera's sensitivity to the infrared spectrum, unfortunately it appears to be a little dated but you can see the variance between cameras.

One quick way to see how sensitive your camera is to IR is to point your TV remote at the lens and see if you can see the IR LED light up when you press buttons on your remote. This is only the first step however, even if you see some light it still may not be sensitive enough but its a good start!

Assuming your camera has some sensitivity to the IR spectrum you can try what I did, purchase an IR pass filter for your camera. This filter blocks the visible spectrum and lets the IR light in. Filters are available in various wavelengths, in my case I used an 850nm IR pass filter.

Since we're blocking out quite a bit of the spectrum with the IR pass filter and since our internal filter is blocking a lot of the IR our exposure times will suffer. The image at the top of this article took 4 seconds at F2.8 with an ISO of 200 in the midday sun. Other cameras and filter combinations may yield different results but you should bank on having to bring a tripod, hand holding is simply not an option.

Another, more dramatic option, exists to enable your camera to take IR photos. There are companies which will take your camera and remove the IR filter or hot mirror from the digital sensor. This method has its pros and cons, it will reduce your exposure times greatly but can also limit your camera to only being able to take IR photos. It has also been noted that most cameras will have problems with their auto focus mechanisms due to the change in thickness of the filter over the sensor. Personally I'm not that big an enthusiast that I'll be sending in my 5DMKII any time soon.

IR image faked in Photoshop

If you don't like either of these options you can always try to fake it using an image editing program like Photoshop or Gimp etc. While the results vary as much as the methods and the fact that it can be very time intensive it can yield some interesting images and give you another avenue if other options are not possible.

My Gear
I've been buying more and more stuff from this great Hong Kong based site, the other day I read an article that claimed people had success using IR filters on their G10 by use of a special adapter. I quickly checked out my Hong Kong connection and sure enough I found a 58mm filter adapter for $8 and a cheap IR filter for $19. So for approx $30 I was willing to take a gamble and it appears to have paid off!

Good luck!