I’m afraid I might have a slight case of the new camera bug.
We have several cameras.
Each one has its strengths and weaknesses. I bought the one on the left, a little Canon Elph, to take with me when I traveled for work. The really neat thing about it is that it can fit into a pocket easily. The bad thing is that it is extremely slow. It’s slow to take a picture, which can be maddening if you want to catch a specific moment, and it is slow to cycle so that you can take another picture. It’s so maddening that we bought the next camera to the right, a Nikon S9700.
The little Nikon is still barely pocketable. It has a wide zoom ratio, and it has some nice features that make it a little more than just a point-and-shoot. It also suffers a little from slowness, although not nearly as much as the Canon. Its main drawback is that it has trouble focusing a little more often than it should.
The next camera is an Olympus EPL1, an early mirrorless, interchangeable-lens camera. It’s a decent camera, but it’s also a little slow to cycle from one shot to the next. It has a larger sensor, so theoretically it can take “better” photos than the first two.
The last one is a Nikon D60, one of the older Nikon amateur cameras. It is a very nice camera. It takes good photos and it has little trouble focusing. It’s relatively quick to shoot. Its main drawback is its size. Look at it compared to the others. We end up just not taking it with us because it takes a commitment. For instance, I would never take it into the Dark Side of the Moon bar, where we have been going for jazz Tuesdays.
Tuesday of last week I took the little Nikon S9700. I was wearing cargo pants and it fit reasonably well into the big leg pocket. I fiddled a little with it, turned it from fully automatic to manual and adjusted the light sensitivity (ISO) and took this shot.
We know the bartender, but, I’m sorry to have to say that we have forgotten his name. We’ll remedy that next time we go.
I took another shot after we left. This one is taken from the same location as one I took the previous week with my iPhone. The Nikon shot is quite a bit better.
For example, the streetlight is much better rendered.
We also found this fellow on Broad Street.
The iPhone takes good movies. So does the little Nikon.
I wanted to post this one because it shows the neat cycling colors on the liquor shelf, plus you can hear the band a little — not well, but at least it has that bar ambiance. You can’t tell how loud the band is from this video. My ears were just barely not ringing when we left the bar.
So what does all this mean for a slight case of new camera fever? And why do I have it anyway? Well, since we never take the big Nikon, there’s no reason to keep it. It takes good pictures but if we never carry it, it doesn’t take any pictures. The small Canon has great pocketability, but its picture-taking is just too frustrating. So there’s no reason to keep that. The Olympus is showing its technological age, so I think it needs to go as well. The little Nikon has that big zoom, and it takes reasonably decent pictures. It can also fit into a big pocket. But I want something a little better. A successor to the Olympus, one model older than the current model, remedies most of the old Olympus’s drawbacks and it can be had with an extra tele-zoom lens for quite a reasonable cost. It’s biggest drawback is that in its current form, with a kit short zoom, it won’t fit into any pocket in any clothes that I currently wear.
What I’d like to do, if Leah agrees to it, is to keep the little Nikon to carry around in my pocket (if I’m wearing cargo pants) and get the newer Olympus for some more serious photography. There is even a very short lens available for it that would make it only a little bigger than the little Nikon. It’s even a reasonable price, but maybe a little hard to justify for our current situation.
Leah and I will have to have a discussion of the pros and cons.
Good analysis. And, I agree that the image of the church and post office is MUCH better than the one you posted last week. I’ve got a small “pocket” Nikon like yours and a large Canon similar to your large Nikon. The images from the large Canon are so far superior to the ones produced by the small Nikon that I hardly ever use the Nikon any more despite its portability. I just force myself to bring the large Canon whenever I want to take pictures–or I do without.
Now, what do I do with my several old film cameras? I don’t particularly want to throw them away in the trash, but there can’t be much (any?) market for old mid-range film cameras. What’s a photographer to do?
I loved reading this. I know absolutely nothing about cameras. For some reason I can’t seem to remember what does what when I’m trying to take a photo. I would like to get a new camera, but I don’t even know where to begin. I want to be able to photograph some things in macro close-up, but you know me, I mostly want to photograph the sky. Every camera I’ve had has a hard time focusing on clouds. Also, can’t figure out how to balance light and dark when the sun is rising. I’m interested in the Olympus that you describe. And the Nikon pics here are quite good. Keep us posted.
PS– I checked our blog comment settings. And yes, there is one of those horrible ROBOT things. I may turn it off. I also noticed that there is a little scroll bar to the right that you can move up to show what the ROBOT wants to you click on. Still, I really don’t like the whole ROBOT thing at all. I’ve noticed that some friends have turned it off and comments only appear after approval. Mmmm… is that a better idea? I don’t know.
Scott — I have a couple of old film cameras, one a small Olympus and one a Nikon. We also have some old cameras from my father. I have wondered what to do with them. I’m with you — I can’t see just throwing them away. Maybe there is someone, somewhere who would want them.
Robin — I have been trying to think realistically about what kind of photography I do, and what I might actually want to do with a better camera. By far the majority of my photographs are scenics. I suppose dog and cat photos are second. I have been trying to let that inform my decision. There are a couple of cameras I would probably get if money were no object. They are smallish cameras with reasonably large sensors, but relatively short (say around 3X zooms) with non-interchangeable lenses. I really like they way they look and (based on reviews) handle, but they are significantly more expensive than the Olympus camera I have been looking at. That makes it hard to justify. I think I’m going to end up getting an Olympus EPL7, which is one model older than the current one.
I know you take a lot of scenics as well as sky photos, but you also seem to like to get wildlife photos, like sea birds. Scenics don’t take a long lens, but getting wildlife usually does. I remember when you talked about getting the camera you have now. I seem to remember that it had a pretty good zoom ratio. Does that type of zoom do what you need it to?