Canon G12, continued

Canon G12, Marin County  2011

My initial October, 2010 impressions can be found here.

It’s really quite obvious: after using the Canon G12 for a number of months, I can confidently state that it's a great camera.

All those dials! Dials that I use! And features . . . more than I have knowledge of. (I should probably delve into the features. For example, customization functions. But using it in P-mode and adjusting the exposure and ISO as needed seem to work just fine.)

I’ve equipped it with a Lensmate lens shade (mainly to protect the camera’s leaf-style lens protection, somehow damaged on my old G9) and an Op/Tech neck strap. I’m thinking that on horsepacking trips I’ll remove the lens shade and switch out the neck strap for a lanyard.

The problem with the video .mov files, which I had mentioned earlier, was easily solved by purchasing a new $900 Windows 7 computer from eCollegePC. (OK, so I didn’t get the computer because of the video files. Still, it’s interesting the way that non-hardware issues somehow mandate one’s spending money on new hardware.) Oh yes: I still need to convert the Canon raw files to Adobe dng files. But the process is much faster now because of my new $900 Windows 7 computer.

And then there's the G12's “rival,” the iPhone.

Technically, there's really no comparison. The iPhone has 5 megapixels, the Canon has 10. The iPhone only takes jpgs, the Canon produces raw files. The iPhone only has digital zoom, the Canon has optical zoom. And so forth and so on, ad (almost) infinitum.

And yet it turns out that I've taken a significant number of photos using the iPhone, photos that would, at one point, have been taken with the G12. The phone is always there, and the quality is certainly acceptable as long as one recognizes the limitations it possesses.

One (last) interesting thing: I can't help but notice that, with a few notable exceptions, none of the pix I've taken with the G12 have made it into my booth. The thing is, I use it primarily for street photography. So, almost all the Melrose Avenue shots were taken with a G-series camera. And since I’ve discovered to my sorrow that street photography doesn’t sell, it follows that photos taken with the G12 are somewhat marginalized. (Not the fault of the camera!) For landscapes I would automatically reach for the Nikon D90 with its much larger sensor.