The view from in here

By Terry Lane
October 21, 2004
The Canon Powershot S70.

The Canon Powershot S70.

The aspiring digital Ansel Adams goes into a camera shop and finds there is a camera at almost every price between $199 and $13,000. In such a bewildering situation, the salespeople can look like dangerous predators who have you at their mercy simply because they have the advantage of knowledge - specifically, the knowledge of which camera at any price gives them the biggest mark-up.

So, how to decide? Do megapixels matter? Is the camera to be a serious instrument or a fashion accessory? Is it more important that it fit in the pocket or that it produce masterpieces? Will it be used to photograph moving subjects or static objects?

Most cameras, even the entry-level 3.2 megapixel point-and-press type, take pictures that range from acceptable to excellent. However, the one fundamental feature that separates the good from the bad in digital cameras is the viewfinder.

It is wrong to assume that if the camera has a liquid crystal display screen on the back it needs nothing more. Many cameras have no other method of framing and composing pictures - recently tested models such as the Canon Ixus i, Olympus AZ-1, Pentax Optio MX and Nikon Coolpix SQ have only LCD screens and no optical viewfinder.

LCD screen images become invisible in bright daylight, so framing and composing with such cameras is sheer guesswork.

These little cameras are fashion accessories intended for use at parties. Any camera with only an LCD screen and no optical or electronic eye-level viewfinder cannot be taken seriously.

In the expensive 8-megapixel range from Canon, Olympus, Sony, Minolta and Nikon, the viewfinders are all electronic devices, much the same as those used in video cameras. The view is displayed on a tiny video screen with low resolution and poor brightness and contrast rendition. They are usable in bright light but the resolution of the viewfinder screen is so crude that they cannot show much more than the general framing of the shot.

There is another problem with the new crop of electronic viewfinders - shutter lag.

The image is read from the camera sensor, converted into a video image, sent to the viewfinder and rendered on the screen.

When the picture is composed and the shutter release half-depressed to set focus and exposure, the image seen in the viewfinder is a fraction of a second behind the picture that the camera takes. Imaging finds such cameras frustrating, particularly when following a fast-moving subject.

The best viewfinders are in single-lens reflex cameras, using an arrangement of prism and mirror in the better SLRs and allmirror systems in the lesser models. SLRs don't even display the image on the LCD screen before taking it. They eschew gadgetry.

The Canon Powershot G6.

The Canon Powershot G6.

For those not wanting to pay the high price of an SLR, or preferring the portability of the all-in-one zoom camera, there are alternatives, such as the two Canon cameras reviewed here.

These cameras both have LCD screens and the G6 has a swivelling screen, which can be useful. Canon's cheaper Powershot A95 also has a swivelling LCD, but the Powershot S70 is fixed. All three cameras have excellent optical viewfinders, as does the Olympus 5060, which is in the same price and quality range as the Canons.

The G6 and the Olympus 5060 have the added refinement of a dioptre (focal length) adjustment to fit the viewfinder to people who are long or short-sighted.

Optical viewfinders generally have one small drawback - they don't show the entire image that will be captured by the sensor. Typically, they show between 70 and 85 per cent of the picture. It means there is some guesswork in framing a picture to fill the entire image area.

Cameras with optical viewfinders tend to have shorter shutter-lag. Note the qualifier "tend to".

A single lens reflex mechanism gives the best, most accurate view of the image. Next best is a good optical viewfinder with dioptre adjustment. After that, any camera with a good, bright, straight-through viewfinder is better than any camera with no optical viewfinder at all. Electronic viewfinders are, as one wag has described them, "designed by video game players for other video game players".

So, our advice to buyers is to give the viewfinder a high priority. A 4-megapixel camera with an optical viewfinder is almost always better than a 5-megapixel camera without one.


Canon Powershot S70 and G6 digital cameras

Price: S70 - $1099, G6 - $1199

Rating: * * * * ½

The lowdown: The Canon Powershot S70 and G6 cameras are the 7-megapixel versions of the company's top optical viewfinder cameras.

Think of them as improvements on the already excellent S60 and G5.

There are improvements in the sensors (now 7mp), the ergonomics and the lenses, which have been further refined for the special requirements of digital imaging.

The two cameras share internal processing components and the differences are largely external. The S70 is a compact camera that can just about fit in a pocket.

The G6 is a bulkier unit with a faster lens (f2 compared with f2.8) and a longer zoom range. For some users, having a S70 lens as 28mm equivalent at its widest will be a deciding factor - the G6 is 35mm. But at the other end of the range, the S70 is 100mm and the G6 140mm.

Both cameras can produce pin-sharp prints up to A3+ from images captured at maximum resolution. Both use the cheaper Compact Flash memory cards, but Canon includes cards of only 32mb, which is more of a gesture than a useful feature.

Factor in the cost of a 256mb card. Big discounts are being offered around town, so use the difference between the recommended retail price and discount to justify a bigger memory card.

Extra features on the G6 are worth more than the $100 difference in price: external flash shoe, swivelling LCD monitor, remote control and viewfinder dioptre adjustment.

Likes: Canon's Digic in-camera processing produces images that are almost invariably sharp, well-exposed and colour-balanced.

There is complete manual override on both cameras: Canon calls these models "enthusiast" cameras.

Dislikes: Picture noise is surprisingly noticeable at ISO 400. This, presumably, is the trade-off for the extra resolution of the 7-megapixel sensor.

Parting shot: The S70 and G6 provide top image quality for this type of camera. The next logical step up in Canon's range is the EOS300D digital SLR. Both the S70 and G6 are highly recommended.

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