uncommons

Jefferson County High School Firstcoming 2009, photographed with the Canon G10, copyright Erik M. Lunsford

A good friend of mine once told the story about a newspaper staff photojournalist who uses (or used, considering the age of the story) a pair of point and shoot cameras on assignment for that photographer’s paper. Startling, I remember, since at the time I was a rookie photographer lovingly enjoying the sight of two large cameras dangling from my neck and couldn’t fully comprehend the reason behind this perceived insanity. I remembered Alex Majoli’s point and shoot stories in Iraq and it hit me — the benefits of these little cameras sometimes outweigh the gross limitations, yielding some very unique and powerful imagery that has its own style footprint and usefulness. Unfortunately I brushed all that inspiration off and moved on, shooting years worth of portfolio material with my digital SLRs that changed only with the paper I was affiliated with. Nikons in Florida, Canons in Missouri.

Fast forward a few years. I’m editing my portfolio with the help of Sid Hastings, and in some sort of bizarre karmaic twist my jaw drops. Our portfolio edit stuns me, because for the first time in my career my portfolio is led with a photograph made on a point and shoot camera. And, I’m not ashamed of that…in fact I’m delighted. Would you like to see? Here, let me help you with the link. It’s the photograph of the St. Louis Cardinals players at spring training.

Here’s how it started. I was filming the players with my High Def camera for some b-roll. I had been waiting three weeks for the players to use this fantastic white wall stuck in the middle of fields. I wanted some stills of it and wasn’t willing to compromise with a video frame grab. So I grabbed the Canon G10 that I carried with me for quick video work, set it to aperture priority with a stop and a quarter under to bring out the colors, and framed the photograph. Prefocusing on the white wall (not hard with the contrast) and using the optical viewfinder, I captured about twenty silent frames while the HD camera continued to roll under me. Since the G10’s shutter is silent, my audio was unaffected.

Fantastic, I thought!

The depth of field with the tiny sensor chip actually helped me by bringing the bat and ball and background players into focus. In addition, nobody knew I was capturing pictures. They’re used to the chattering sound of SLR cameras, not the submarine-silent quality of the point and shoot. Fantastic, fantastic!

Since then, the G10 and I have had a rocky relationship. Editors would pass it back to me for the early morning spot-news shift, and I would have to relearn its quirks. Other staffers would change settings and before I knew it the camera was chirping at me, firing off the AF-assist light at the most inappropriate times, and singing to me with clumsy start up sounds. Now that I have it back for a period of time, I’ve reset the custom functions to what I consider relatively fast for quick operation. It works like this:

Set the camera to manual or aperture priority with continuous AF and capture. Set the focus to the center sensor and underexpose a stop or two using JPG capture.

Prefocus.

Prefocus.

Prefocus.

Use the AF-Assist light only when necessary, and always turn the flash off. When flash is needed, set it to minimum output and only use it within a foot or two of the subject.

With those settings dialed in, I’m finding more uses for this little camera. It gets me into some tough access situations, because it doesn’t scream big camera. It’s silent, which is key. And, it also focuses quickly in the dark, a trait that my SLRs stumble on.

Here’s the kicker. It isn’t a fix-all. There are still shortcomings. It’s slow, it’s got a sensor jammed with way too many pixels and too much noise (which apparently might be relieved with the new G11 successor), and the optical viewfinder takes me back like a hundred years. Yet, it continues to amaze me.

Here’s where Alex Majoli comes in again. Walking around with the G10 sans my SLRs makes me feel a little, oh how should I say it, naked? What if that prized photo pops right up out of the ground and I don’t have the Mark II & 24-70 ready? That’s where you have to swallow hard, prep the compact camera, and go to work. You might be amazed what these little cameras can do for you. Push the limitations of the camera’s benefits, and use it for specific purposes. Take the photo above as an example. I was shooting a high school dance in a pitch black room. The Mark II was straining to see in the dark. The little G10 zeroed in the focus, and I captured such unexpected frames that surprised me. Above, with the G10 set at F2.8 @ 1/8 th of a second, I caught the flash from a nearby camera, highlighting the girls on the left. Combined with fantastic depth of field (it’s like seeing clear in the dark), the frame pops off the canvas.

Now, if Alex can shoot prize-winning mag work using his setup of point n’ shoots, then I can down that silly thought of feeling like a tourist and make pictures that a SLR couldn’t get. Now, don’t ditch the SLRs by any means — that would be foolish. Daily work belongs mainly to rugged staff kits, but more and more there’s a place in my heart for these little compact cameras.