Waldo Nell's Voice

Every morning when I get out of the house on my way to work I am witness to some kind of magical sunrise. Problem is I am always in a hurry to get to work in time so I hardly have time to run back in to the house, set up my heavy artillery (1Ds Mark III) so usually I just shrug it off and go on my way.

When I got the Canon PowerShot G10, this all changed. Grabbing a shot is now as easy as taking the camera out of my jacket pocket and taking the shot. So here is one (less dramatic) example of what I used to miss out on.

Good morning Winnipeg, G10 @ ISO80

On my way to work in the morning, I used to drive past this boring house and boring green tree that really did not grab my attention. This was summer. So along came fall and the house is still boring and the tree even more boring. Until winter arrived. It seemed like all the other trees got the cue to shed their leaves, however this tree lagged behind them. Coupled with the brilliant white of the house behind it, a boring scene changed into something truly amazing. So I had to stop my car, get out and grab this shot.

Change, G10 @ ISO100

I took a drive through Assiniboine park, and grabbed some quick snaps of the recent snow fall.

Abstract, G10 @ ISO80

Twin peaks, G10 @ ISO80

Last to go, G10 @ ISO 80

I am cold, G10 @ ISO80

It seems like this tree was not prepared for winter this year. It created a spectacular contrast next to the entrance of the building where I do my daily laboring.

Caught by surprise, Canon PowerShot G10 @ ISO80

Finally! I have been waiting for the first snow to fall since I got here. I mean - in South Africa we do not really know snow. Especially not where I lived. There seems to be something magical (for me) about the first snow. And this year we got it in spades. It seems like the weather held back - even at Halloween we had no snow. But yesterday all that changed. Yesterday it started with sleet... At 18:00 this is how my back yard looked like:

This was the result of a full day of ice rain/wet snow. Not too impressive... So I went to bed and this morning, i.e. 14 hours later, this is how that same scene looked like:
Much better! It has been snowing non stop, and here are some more pictures from the same time this morning.

Wales translation error

I did a very informal, technically incorrect shootout between the 5 cameras owned between myself and my wife and daughter. I tried to keep the basic stuff consistent - such as aperture and framing and distance to subject. But due to the nature of the cameras used it was not always possible. Also note that I left most processing on the default values everywhere. I did no special processing on any file.

The comparison is between my iPhone 3G 2MP camera phone, Olympus 850SW P&S, Canon PowerShot G10 14.7MP, Nikon D80 10.2MP DSLR and the Canon 1Ds Mark III 21.1MP DSLR. ISO was at base ISO for most shots - except for the Canon and Nikon which were at ISO200. Aperture was set to the lenses' optimum values. No tripods were used - all shots were handheld. This was done to show how each camera performed under typical scenarios where you might not have time to set up on a tripod.

Conclusions

1. There is a lifetime of difference between the 2MP iPhone and all the other cameras - indicating to me that
   1. 2MP is not enough
   2. The iPhone's camera sucks
   3. The lens on the iPhone gets dirty very easily since it is not protected - and nobody in their right mind will clean the lens before every shot so this reflects real world results.
2. There is a huge difference between the 8MP Olympus and the other more expensive cameras. The Olympus looks like a point and shoot - the others perform in a different league. But that being said, the results are pretty good considering 8MP has been crammed in to a sensor 1/2.25" in size.
3. The G10 is very close to the Nikon - it actually resolves more detail in some shots, but it cannot quite match the Nikon's dynamic range, which clearly shows how much of an advantage it is to have a 1.5x sensor vs. the 1/1.7" sensor of the G10. Still, the G10 is very close to the (much) more expensive Nikon, and I am confident that in prints up to A3 you would need to look long and hard to find significant differences.
4. The 1Ds Mark III is the best in all these tests, except maybe the last one of the fall coloured fir tree. There is a significant difference between the 1Ds3 and the Nikon and G10, however in my opinion not $7000 worth. The poor results in the last shot of the fir tree, is due to depth of field limitations and camera shake. The G10 with its built in IS allowed me to grab a perfectly sharp image without problem - the Canon could not do this and needed a tripod.

It seems like at Can$550 for the G10 one gets like in 90% of the image quality, for Can$1800 for the Nikon D80 one gets 94% there, and for a whopping Can$8500 one can get 100% of the baseline - the Canon 1Ds Mark III. All I can say - I am glad I have the 1Ds3 since I can do things the G10 can never dream of (like shooting macro at 5x life size or wide angle at 14mm or telephoto at 1400mm or action scenes at 5fps or low light shots at ISO 1600 almost noise free or... But still - the G10 is going to be a very valuable carry everywhere camera for those shots I used to miss out on cause the 1Ds3 is too big and bulky.

My Canon PowerShot G10 just arrived two days ago from my favourite retailer, B&H. So I took it out a couple of times and have some photos I'll upload soon. Here is one teaser so long... Straight from the camera - JPEG, no post processing.