hello…goodbye

HELLO Canon!

goodbye Sony!

It’s official, my ‘old’ Sony camera is officially out of the picture – pun intended.

One of the first things I do when acquiring new hardware is to tinker with it. Rattle it around, shake it, to dis- and re-assemble is key. Okay I didn’t disassemble the G7 but I tinker with these things a whole lot. I don’t like reading manuals and I prefer to see what the hardware can do that is intuitive or native thinking for me. If I think there is a way that something should be done, or that a camera – in this case – should be capable of a certain function or feature, then I just start pressing buttons, scrolling up/down menus and changing options until I find what I want.

First thoughts are ‘YES!’ With two dedicated dials up top and the scroll-click-wheel type thing on the rear, most functions are available within one or two tiers of a menu. Much more efficient than my V1 where I had to click into a menu, scroll left, then up or down and click again; or where some camera functions where hidden depending on what shooting mode you were in. The G7 is more standardized, in other words.

What I was initially averse to that I’m now finding to be extremely useful is that the G7 is much more restrictive on the types of photos it can take. Or, what the G7 lists as ‘Functions Available in Each Shooting Mode’ are much more limited than the V1, which in a way forces you to think more about your shot and in effect, to take a better photograph. The V1 was more ‘open’ in this respect, which is pleasantly welcome in some moments, but these aren’t no point-n-shoot cameras in the first place.

The G7 is a few ounces heavier, and doesn’t fit my right hand on its own as well as the V1. It’s either a camera with a strap for protection against dropping it, or its a two-handed camera. With the V1 I could grab onto the grip on the front, and use my opposable thumb – you know, that important odd-out digit that distinguishes us from so many other creatures – to grip against the viewfinder on the rear, allowing my other fingers to access most of the buttons; with the G7 I can’t do this, because it just doesn’t fit my fingers like so. But the G7 is a delight otherwise, and has some beautiful built-in features, including…

Native widescreen photographs! I actually hadn’t recognized this as a listed feature, because I glossed over “3648×2048” as just another format size. I love the 16:9 ratio. It’s how my eyes see. They’re side to side and see across a horizon that is nearly twice as wide as it is tall, not 4:3. 4:3 makes sense for portrait photography or anything vertical to me, as your image plane is about an up-down sensibility, or in the case of portraits because of the composition of the human face, but for most other shots… woot! 16:9 widescreen! Niiiiiiiice.

Here are two semi-identical shots, that illustrate this comparison:

Obviously it will always depend on the image you are taking, but where and whenever possible I’m likely to think in landscape-widescreen format.

Also a 2Gb 150x SD card was way more cheap than memory cards for Sony cameras have or probably ever will be, because they’re a more accessible card format. For this I am extreeeeeeemly thankful.

Oh, and did I mention it has an accelerometer in it!


Related websites:
Read up on your opposable thumb
The Powershot G7, not to be confused with the G7 Howitzer
Accelerometers are kewl.