My Carry Around Camera

I have a new "Carry Around" camera and, so far I'm having fun.

Let's face it, we are photographers which means we love gear. I know that there are those out there that preach a minimalist approach to the sport, but given the opportunity and an overpowered four wheel drive vehicle to carry the gear most of us would load up on heavy stuff that we will seldom use. My approach to gear has generally been that the transient annoyance and pain of lugging around a heavy kit is generally over balanced by the years of satisfaction which comes from getting the most out of any photographic opportunity. Just so long as the tonnage doesn't limit my mobility.

While recognizing the value of having my full kit, there are situations where a light and unobtrusive “carry around” camera is nice to have on hand. A small camera is great, for street

Depth of Focus

photography where a massive "professional" device will draw immediate attention. I may be paranoid, but I have also used a small camera in situations where I fear that a big expensive DSLR might be a temptation for pick pockets and muggers. Sorry Equador, but I wasn't going to take my 5D out to capture the street fair at night in Quito. To be fair to South America, I also used my carry around to capture the monuments at night in Washington, DC. Perhaps the most important reason to have a capable small camera is to have it with you wherever you go. The classic rule is, " Your best camera is the one you have with you" and I try not to make that camera my iPhone. My brief case always has a small camera tucked inside for those unexpected opportunities that seem to pop up on my way to or from work. Whether i'm out to diner with friends or just taking Nellie for a quick "pooper", if I don't expect to capture an 12x18" fine art image, the little camera works just fine.

 For several years my carry around has been a Canon G11. It is a powerful little

Early 1200 mm trial, West River Dragon

camera with full controls and the capability to shoot in RAW, but I never fell in love with the G11. I recently got a Canon SX50 and, although it isn't perfect, photography is always about trade-offs, so far, I think that, if not in love, I am ready at least for a more committed relationship. I have received a lot of questions about how the camera is performing, so I thought I would offer my early impression and show some examples of the images I have been able to capture. I have never done formal product reviews and this is intended as a summary of early and incomplete impressions, with much more exploration ahead.



 
The Carry-Around Criteria
I should start with a short list of the features I look for in a small carry around. There is no camera out there that meets all these perfectly but it is a good to have some criteria to apply to the search.

Size: The Ideal here is to be able to comfortably slide the camera into your pants pocket. There is some amazingly small camera out there, but invariably the tiny size comes with performance trade-offs including sensor size, zoom range, and controls. I have generally settled for a camera that slips into a brief case or fanny pack, rather than in my pants pocket.

Zoom: 

The zoom ranges is especially important with fixed lens

1200 mm, Spofford Lake

cameras. One of the reasons for my lack of strong affection for my G11 is that the zoom is only 5x (24-140mm). The longer the OPTICAL zoom the better, and beware of references to the “Digital” zoom. All this is doing is cropping the image and you can do that better in post. And of course, with longer zooms, image stabilization becomes increasingly important for sharp images.

 

RAW Capability: 

After I started shooting RAW, I would never want to go back the baked-in restrictions of 8 bit jpg images.

Range of Controls: 

 I want to have full control of the cameras functions including Shutter and aperture preferred, and manual control. ISO, exposure compensation, white balance and focus control are also desirable.

Ease of Control: The more I can stay away from menus the better. With practice the journey through menus on the LCD can become manageable, but I look for as many adjustments on dials and buttons on the camera as possible.

Video: High definition on many of these little cameras is amazing, but quality sound is generally still a major issue. The old saying is true: “A great movie with crappy sound is still a crappy movie”.

Other Features: Cable release input, hot shoe to supplement the usually rudimentary built in flash, Tilt/swivel LCD Screen (I don’t get down on the ground as easily as in the past)


Susan has Turned Returning Her Birthday Presents
into an Art Form
A couple of weeks ago I got a new carry-around camera. I started by getting Susan a small camera that would fit easily in her purse, but would have decent focal length range. We are heading to Alaska in August and, if in no other place, I thought Susan might be induced to take a picture of a Grizzly, safely at the end of a very long lens.  I ended up with the Canon SX 500. It was nicely compact and had a 30x zoom. Unfortunately  it couldn't shoot RAW, but I thought it was a nice compromise for her to have easily at hand. Happily, Susan rejected her birthday present insisting that, “You’re the photographer. Why do I need a camera”. It is usually jewelry that she rejects, but this time, a camera. Ok. Great! I went out and got the camera I wanted, but hopefully one that she might still be able to use from time to time and perhaps in Alaska.

SX50 HS

Canon SX50 HS

After some further research, I ended up with the Canon 50 HS. The camera is a little bigger, but still quit compact and incredibly light. It is a pleasure to carry it around in a small fanny pack. There are a number of excellent reviews of the camera's strengths and weaknesses and I will only mention a few of the features that I have found interesting.

 

Zoom!
The obvious, stand-out feature of the SX50 is its 50X zoom. This thing goes from 24mm to 1200mm!, making its lack of

1200mm and Cropped

interchangeable lens' largely mute. I have included a number of my images at the full 1200mm length and in general I have been impressed. At this length a tripod would be recommended to get maximal sharpness, but, so far, the results from my image stabilized, hand held pictures have been surprisingly good. It is helpful to have good light and a high ISO to allow for faster shutter speeds. Of course high ISO's can be an issue for noise. The SX50 has a small sensor, about 30% smaller than the G11, and at ISO's greater that 400-800 , noise can be more of an issue, but I haven't seen much of a difference from the G11. This can't compete with my full frame camera, but so far I have been able to get good results with appropriate levels of noise reduction.

24 mm

1200 mm Uncropped

RAW of Course
The second, must have feature, is that the camera shoots in RAW. Nuf said.

 

Macro Although the extreme zoom is the stand-out feature of this little camera, I have been espcially impressed with its macro performance. I am experienced with the extremely thin depth of focus from my full size sensor and, although the SX 50 can't match the beautiful bokeh of my 5d Mark II, its tiny sensor can often pull much more of the subject into sharp focus. I can use a single image to capture flowers in sharp focus that would require three or four stacked images from my full frame camera.

Controls

The SX 50 has the full range of controls, and those not on the camera body, are accessible though a reasonably simple menu system. I have learned my own lesson and after a short time actually reading the manual, and photographing my feet, I think I have most of the routine controls figured out. It helps that the control scheme is similar to that on my G11.

 

Bracketing

The camera has the capability to shoot 3 images, applying exposure or focus bracketing. I'm still figuring out how to adjust the range of exposure or focus, but, a few days ago, I did get a reasonable exposure bracket to use in an HDR image of sunset across Huber Farm. The results were not as smooth as my, tripod stabilized, 7 image DSLR version, but still not bad for a hand held three image bracket.

Hubner Sunset, 3 Image Bracket

Gripes
Of course I have a few gripes about the camera. At f3.5, The lens is

Indian Pond Frog Hunting, Chesterfield, NH

slower than I would like. The manual focus procedure is awkward. A focus ring on the lens would be a great improvement. The electronic viewfinder has poor resolution, but is still helpful when bright light makes the LCD difficult to see. I have noticed that the camera has a tendency to blow out highlights in bright light. There is a dynamic range function that is designed to mute this effect, but I'm still trying to figure out how to make it work. Of course resolution and noise does not compete with the results from my Full frame. The images here look pretty good, but remember these picture are small and can't fairly show the results seen in the full images. I look forward to seeing how far I can go in printing large versions of some of these images.

West River Sunset, Brattleboro, Vermont

There are many more pros and cons I could mention. I haven't even begun to explore the High Definition video capabilities of the camera, but I must remember that the purpose of this article was to respond to requests to see images from my new Carry Around. I can say that the SX50 HS is not a perfect camera. Like all small cameras it encompasses compromises in size, function and image quality, but so far I have been satisfied with the results. I can say I have been having fun shooting with this little camera that has such a big reach and, to me, that is the most important thing. I think I have found a new Carry Around.


Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com

Who Needs a Tripod?

Hand-Held City Lights, Boston

I Do, but Sometimes I Have to Make Do



Basin Sails

I have been struggling to get out to enjoy and photograph the beautiful New England spring colors. This weekend has been consumed with moving our son Jeremy to New York

City. Two weekends ago we were visiting our daughter in Washington DC and much of the week after that I was tied down in a conference in Boston from dawn to dusk. I love Boston in the spring, but it was frustrating to be watching it from inside the Sonesta Hotel along the Charles River in Cambridge. I got out when I could, mostly in the evenings, and I was blessed with a couple of clear nights to play with city light photography.

 

One secret to good city lights photographs is to get there at twilight. You want to have a little light remaining in the sky. A completely black sky is uninteresting and also renders anything which is not illuminated hopeless dark. The smooth, deep blue sky provides a lovely contrast to the specular lights from the buildings.

The Light Won't Wait
On my way back from dinner one night, I realized that the light was perfect. Just enough color in the sky, with the lights of the Boston skyline shinning through and reflected in the Charles River Basin. The Longfellow Bridge, also known as the Salt and Pepper Bridge for its distinctive towers, stood out in nice relief. Thankfully, I had my camera with me, but I knew that if I ran up to my room for my tripod, the twilight would be gone. I had to make do with sources of stabilization that were at hand and then use all the available camera controls to get the shutter speed down to something that an old guy like me could reasonably hold steady. It is amazing how many control are available on a digital camera to optimize low light, hand-held images. On this night I needed all of them:


Making Do
I started by looking for something for external stabilization, and found a part of the railing that nestled the camera nicely.  If it wasn't so blustery and cold, and the rail wasn't so dirty I would have balled up my jacket to provide a "bean bag" effect to further damp vibrations. Nestled on the railing and using image stabilization, I decided that I could steady the camera for sharp exposures of no longer than about 0.5 seconds, preferably less.

Thankfully my 5D Mark II can do a reasonable job at higher ISOs, so I cranked it up to 3200. I didn't need crazy depth of field to keep the boats and skyline sharp. f 4.5 worked well and with that I achieved my 0.3 second shutter with reasonable detail in the darker regions.

Of course I didn't have my cable release and I knew that the shake

from pressing the shutter would be impossible to control. The solution was to set a 2 second shutter delay giving me time to steady the camera with both hands.

I held my breath and shot. It was important to take many images with the same setting, since, despite my best efforts, most of the pictures were still blurry, but a few were acceptably sharp.

Enjoying Mistakes
I got what I came for, but as I looked at the other failed images, I

Jittery 5 Second Exposure

discovered some were actually interesting. I especially liked the one that was probably my worst early attempt at stabilization. This one proved to me what I already knew. There is no way to hand stabilize for a 5 second exposure. The squiggles reflect my poor technique and the coffee I had after dinner. This is almost diagnostic of a three cup indulgence, but I swear I only had one. Regardless of the process I really like the festive, Christmasy appearance. So I decided to try a few on purpose.

Zoom 0.8 Seconds

I concentrated on trying to do zooms. The trick was to allow a longer exposure and to start zooming the lens before I hit the shutter. Here again, the lack of a tripod was a issue, but, in these free flowing images, the lack of precision was not much of an problem. 







I finished with a few more straight images pulling back to include
the railing and walk-way. Here I braced the camera into the side of a tree. Again, many failures and a few not so bad. I even caught one with a woman walking on the path. Happily, her movement created a ghost-like effect that blurred the lovely, but suspicious look on her face.

Ghost Walk, Charles River Basin

I would have loved to have had more time to capture Boston in bloom, but as always the challenged was to make the best of any situation. In a way it can be more fun to make do and the results can be even more rewarding.