Do You Have a Point and Shoot For Backup?

[Iron Flatline]

I have two Canon G9s. Awesome. Get the underwater housing for fun pool shots as well!

 

[sween]

Two stories about P&S cameras:

1) The owner of what was once my favorite camera shop (now closed as are most) hung huge enlargements of her work around the shop. Frameless and borderless, she had them done by a local photo lab. Every single one of these gorgeous, and they were gorgeous prints, big poster-size prints, were shot with a P&S. She told me that whenever she traveled, she hated lugging all her gear, so she shoved a Yashica 35mm P&S in her bag and off she went. The results were startling.

2) Ten or so years ago, my wife and I went in search of the ultimate fall foliage shot. We found theeee location. I had two 35mm SLRs along with a medium format TLR, plus a tripod, a bag full of lenses, filters, and several different films. Wifey was equipped with a similar Yashica P&S as mentioned above. Who got theeee shot? My wife, of course. A shot that first won a county competition, then went on to take a second place in a statewide juried competition.

Make of it what you will...

 

[usayit]

The rolls film that goes into a 35mm film P&S and Film SLR are the same. You simply have to make sure that you have decent optics. The sensor (and features) that goes into a digital P&S is quite different from a Digital SLR. Many high quality 35mm film P&S have become collector items simply because of the quality of their design and build. Two such examples are the Nikon 35Ti and Nikon 28Ti (drool!)

As for your second point, I totally agree. You made two points actually: its the photographer (not the equipment) and there is such thing as too much stuff. I personally like rangefinders for that exact reason.

 

[Battou]

Two stories about P&S cameras:

1) The owner of what was once my favorite camera shop (now closed as are most) hung huge enlargements of her work around the shop. Frameless and borderless, she had them done by a local photo lab. Every single one of these gorgeous, and they were gorgeous prints, big poster-size prints, were shot with a P&S. She told me that whenever she traveled, she hated lugging all her gear, so she shoved a Yashica 35mm P&S in her bag and off she went. The results were startling.

2) Ten or so years ago, my wife and I went in search of the ultimate fall foliage shot. We found theeee location. I had two 35mm SLRs along with a medium format TLR, plus a tripod, a bag full of lenses, filters, and several different films. Wifey was equipped with a similar Yashica P&S as mentioned above. Who got theeee shot? My wife, of course. A shot that first won a county competition, then went on to take a second place in a statewide juried competition.

Make of it what you will...

Exactly what Yashica was it out of curiousity?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

My F100 is my point and shoot, I keep it in my car all the time with the 24-120VR on it. When I don't have the F100, my cell phone is ok. It's got AF with macro and makes pretty ok 3MP images.

One man's point and shoot is another man's primary body huh?

especially since my F100 was $75

 

[itznfb]

Many high quality 35mm film P&S have become collector items simply because of the quality of their design and build. Two such examples are the Nikon 35Ti and Nikon 28Ti (drool!)

i used to have a 35Ti.... it somehow got lost when i moved from my parents to my first apartment. i wouldn't be surprised to find it hiding in my old man's camera bag

my buddy just picked up a leica m6.

how great would it be to pack that performance into todays digital p&s?

 

[bigtwinky]

Two stories about P&S cameras:

1) The owner of what was once my favorite camera shop (now closed as are most) hung huge enlargements of her work around the shop. Frameless and borderless, she had them done by a local photo lab. Every single one of these gorgeous, and they were gorgeous prints, big poster-size prints, were shot with a P&S. She told me that whenever she traveled, she hated lugging all her gear, so she shoved a Yashica 35mm P&S in her bag and off she went. The results were startling.

2) Ten or so years ago, my wife and I went in search of the ultimate fall foliage shot. We found theeee location. I had two 35mm SLRs along with a medium format TLR, plus a tripod, a bag full of lenses, filters, and several different films. Wifey was equipped with a similar Yashica P&S as mentioned above. Who got theeee shot? My wife, of course. A shot that first won a county competition, then went on to take a second place in a statewide juried competition.

Make of it what you will...

Would love to see that pic... :mrgreen:

 

[manaheim]

Two stories about P&S cameras:

1) The owner of what was once my favorite camera shop (now closed as are most) hung huge enlargements of her work around the shop. Frameless and borderless, she had them done by a local photo lab. Every single one of these gorgeous, and they were gorgeous prints, big poster-size prints, were shot with a P&S. She told me that whenever she traveled, she hated lugging all her gear, so she shoved a Yashica 35mm P&S in her bag and off she went. The results were startling.

2) Ten or so years ago, my wife and I went in search of the ultimate fall foliage shot. We found theeee location. I had two 35mm SLRs along with a medium format TLR, plus a tripod, a bag full of lenses, filters, and several different films. Wifey was equipped with a similar Yashica P&S as mentioned above. Who got theeee shot? My wife, of course. A shot that first won a county competition, then went on to take a second place in a statewide juried competition.

Make of it what you will...

A buddy of mine and I used to go out together shooting all the time... him with his Sony P&S (a nice one, but still...) and me with my Nikon D100. Invariably, his pictures kicked the crap out of mine.

For about 2 years.

After a while it got to the point where he simply could not get the same shots I was getting.

I figured "Well, it's probably just the settings he's using... here, let me have that camera."

I took a variety of shots with his and mine, trying the same or similar settings (obviously would vary a bit since his focal length was different, sensor smaller, etc.)

Nope. No way. I couldn't make that camera do what I could do with my Nikon DSLR.

Could you still get nice shots with it? Sure. But, when pressed, the DSLR kicked the crap out of it.

As I have said millions of times... someone who knows what they are doing (or someone very lucky!) can make even a total piece of garbage do some very impressive stuff, but there are limits to any technology.

As I have said millions of times... you can bang a screw in with a hammer if you like, but they invented screwdrivers for a reason.

 

[sween]

While I'm not about to give up any of my gear for any reason, I am a very strident adherent of the idea that it's who's behind the lens that makes the difference. If you have decent optics, your skills can do wondrous things.

Many years ago, a mentor of sorts preached that any budding photog should spend a long time with an inexpensive fixed-focus camera, something like a Kodak Instamatic, before plopping down money for a "good" camera. His thinking was, of course, that if you really want to be worth the powder to blow you to hell as a photographer, you need to know all about light and its properties, you have to know composition inside out, and then you have to be able to balance all things to go into a great photo.

It's also worthy of a mention that this gentleman was offering his advice at a time when almost all amateur shooters were doing B&W and processing and printing their own work in whatever type of darkroom they could afford, even it if was a closet with plumbing.

Please, and again, I love my digital gear and no longer use any of my film bodies, either 35mm or 6x6, but great cameras and lenses don't necessarily and unalterably take great photographs. People take great photographs.

FWIW, that print of my wife's is on one of my hard drives, it dates back several computers and the original was scanned on a flatbed that I am looking at right now, but is useless, since no Vista drivers were every made available for it. If I can dig it out, I will post it. If that fails, I will actually take a photo of the photo and post it. It really is a fine photo.

 

[AverageJoe]

I recently traded a G9 for a 350D, I wanted a backup body and wasn't as impressed with the G9's quality compared to the 350D with a decent lens on it. Call me crazy but I'm really happy with the move. I probably could have held out for a 400D but well whatever.

 

[Josh66]

I recently traded a G9 for a 350D, I wanted a backup body and wasn't as impressed with the G9's quality compared to the 350D with a decent lens on it. Call me crazy but I'm really happy with the move. I probably could have held out for a 400D but well whatever.

Not crazy at all. I would take a 350D over a G9 any day.

 

[AverageJoe]

I thought I would get some crap for doing that, glad you see it that way.

 

[nmsnapshots]

I bought a Canon G10 about a month ago as a backup. It's my first Canon, seemed kind of strange at first but kind of like it now...