This $100 Camera Makes Unlimited Film Photos

this compact camera from Canon is currently 16 years old it's from 2007 and today it goes on the used market for just under a hundred dollars across eBay I've been using this camera now for just over a month part-time alongside my other digital and film cameras and the raw images you get from this 12 megapixel CCD sensor produce something unlike what you see from most digital cameras today the combination of this sensor and the Optics built into this camera produce lovely soft film-like images so what I'd really like to answer for you in today's video is whether or not you should consider picking up a camera from 2007 with specs like this the camera we have in question is this Canon PowerShot G9 this isn't a g9x a g7x none of the x-series this is straight up original PowerShot G9 and if you look across eBay today they are selling for sometimes below 30 pounds and always below 100 normally equaling below a hundred dollars but I'm gonna drop a link to the search results so you can check the stock at the moment me the Power Shot line of cameras kind of missed me I had a Canon access back in the day when I was about 11 and then I moved on to Canon dslrs afterwards but alongside the Sony RX100 lineup they produce great hybrid compact cameras for holidays dad cams and some YouTubers so for me personally this camera has been miles off my radar and it's so old I think it's probably miles off most people's Radars this camera actually belongs to my girlfriend's family and only when we were visiting them did it get pulled out of a draw we both had a look at it and then she ended up deciding to bring it home of course I have then been stealing it to go out and shoot street photography with it so in this video I'm going to do two very specific things I'm going to give you my personal opinion on using this camera the good parts about it the obvious bad parts about it I feel and then also we're going to talk about the specs of this camera and why cameras of this age are probably worth investing in if you found one in good condition and just hold on to it for this kind of unique shooting experience and of course there's the added bonus to this camera being a certified dad like that all that's aside I'd like to talk about the street photography gear Paradox that I think we each find ourselves in this is a journey that we each individually go on as photographers as we explore street photography as a genre we begin to acquire gear to you know do the job or to prevent errors mostly and the little advantages we get from you know better AF performance cameras longer focal length lenses constant F 2.8 zoom lenses Etc those advantages soon turn into crutches and then what was once the unlock inability that we get from a brand new mirrorless camera body and fancy new lenses soon become the lazy option for practicing street photography and it removes a lot of the character a lot of the challenge and most importantly it removes a lot of the risk sometimes that lack of risk actually makes taking photos unexciting and that leads me back to this little Duda that came out when I was 11 years old and there is so much wrong with this camera that makes it so much fun to actually use when shooting stream and there's so much about this camera that just takes away any of the shallow depth of field decision you know it takes away any of that oh what setting shall I use on my camera to get the right photo well there isn't that you just just point and shoot mate Point shoot point shoot like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 3 point shoot point shoot very super switch for a compact camera from 2007 this PowerShot G9 provides a really nice high quality raw images of 12 megapixel resolution and it shares a common trait with a lot of cameras from like the mid 2000s of having a CCD sensor rather than more commonly today a CMOS sensor and although these images come from a smaller sensor the combination of the CCD technology with the built-in lens and then also the pixel density on a sense like this actually provide us with really pleasing soft images at a glance looking at the raw images they are very flexible and of high quality as long as you get your metering right in camera the lens provided actually gives an optical zoom of 35 millimeters up to 210 millimeters and while I'm rarely zooming in that much on this camera I have taken the odd one at about 50 millimeters and sometimes around 100 so the most part I'm powering it on and shooting at the 35 millimeter the widest aperture is actually an F 2.8 and the smallest aperture is actually an f8 but to compensate for this they have also included an ND filter within the camera to help balance on those brighter daylight days the lens itself is actually the place that I was surprised by the quality the most I have mixed feelings about what it can do it is an optical zoom up to 210 so it means that you have higher quality you're not sacrificing anything with digital Zoom it's all to be expected from the Power Shot more Pro compact cameras but this problem with the lens can actually lead to quite a nice feature and that is seeing some highlight bloom in certain areas and when I've been shooting with this camera sort of at the same time as my Minolta I then look at images afterwards and I think hang on I'm getting kind of a similar play with highlights here without having to use something like a diffusion filter I have been primarily using this camera during the day on photography walks when I've been using either my 30 five millimeter Minolta x700 and I'm either trying to save shots on the roll of film or I've finished a roll of film this has been in my pocket ready to go but I've also been carrying it with me when shooting with say my Olympus em10 or my a7c just as an extra little break if I feel like I'm kind of doing the same thing with my interchangeable lens camera that has more flexible features and better Optics feel like I'm getting the same results I'll pull this out for 10 minutes and it kind of cleanses the palette in terms of what you're looking for with your perspective a lot of the shots I've been taking on this camera have been more like locked off scene shots odd candid shots but really what I've been seeing at the end of the day is it makes me think about my position like my physical position in relation to the subject and the scene as a whole a lot more than shooting on something with a longer focal length or more flexible Optics or something where I'm kind of a bit more worried about being seen taking a photo with a lighter lens for example this definitely removes a lot of that allows you just to focus on making a photo that you like the autofocus system on this camera is really nothing to write home about so we have face detect autofocus I haven't used to doing Street I've got an AI area autofocus which is pretty much just the center of the screen anyway then you get this flexi Zone and I've been mainly using the flexi Zone that I just push around a little bit like if I see something happening I'll move it to that part of the monitor to then get that in the frame but it's really really rudimentary um and there's something about that that just removes any of that thought process like you know I hadn't even really looked at that and I've been using this for about a month and I've been really happy with a lot of the images I've been taking one of the biggest problems with this that I definitely this is actually a very serious problem is the screen brightness and the actual dynamic range of the display is really not to be trusted if you're using it to sort of exposing your images so it's really important you actually pay attention to the meter we do also have a little ovf like you know a little kind of like not Rangefinder but you know like the old disposable camera style over here and it's tiny when you look down when you look through it so you can use that on like a bright day just for framing something but it feels a little bit silly I can't say I've been using that very much get your VHS camcorder in one hand your power shot on the other hand and now you've got everything you need to either make an indie film project at University or document it out of your kids school play as I have briefly touched on already the heart of this camera is a CCD sensor which if you don't know is a charged couple device versus what we get today in most cameras which are variations of a CMOS sensor which is a composite metal oxide semiconductor without getting into the nitty-gritty of what differentiates a CCD sensor from a CMOS sensor and also why we don't really see any new CCD sensors today one of the main things you need to know is that CCD sensors use a lot more power inside cameras to record photos and they are also more expensive to produce one of the main advantages of CCD sensors that you will have seen in camcorders of the past is the fact that they actually operate what is essentially a global shutter meaning that every single Pixel on the sensor records at the same time meaning you don't get that kind of Jello effect rolling shutter when you film using a digital camera that you might see on like Sony mirrorless cameras for example this is in contrast to this CMOS sensor which is actually a rolling shutter which records row by row preferably as fast as possible the main reason why CMOS sensors were chosen over CCD was because they were cheaper to develop so we've been able to advance the technology with cheaper development up front versus manufacturing expensive sensors that were kind of already good I understand people who may know more than me on this matter might have other opinions or other facts that I've missed out or got wrong I'm gonna drop some sources in the description below this is the best of my knowledge but please do your own research if you want to be able to impress your friends at the pub I also mentioned previously that this is a 12 megapixel sensor and while that might seem like a lot for a compact camera which it kind of is combat cameras today are getting to 20 and above in megapixels but there's also compact cameras from about two years before this that have got one quarter of this megapixel account there is a trade-off when it comes to how many megapixels you pack onto a sensor of a certain size in 12 megapixels on this size with this technology of CCD versus CMOS is definitely Lee a sweet spots if you are in the market for a dad cam an old sort of pro cam like this or something a bit bigger in terms of like a mirrorless camera uh interchangeable lens camera for street photography with Channel like a vintage aesthetic and you've got a bit more budget I've got a couple of videos you might want to watch but first start with this one here where you can see a list of cameras that are under 400 that are definitely worth looking at

Channel: George Holden

Views: 397,696

Keywords: street photography, best street photography camera, sony street photography, lumix street photography, fujifilm street photography, street photography camera, lumix lx100, street photography lens, fuji, panasonic, fujifilm x100v, x100v, lumix lx100 ii, compact camera, ricoh gr, x100f, street photography pov, pov street photography, pov street photography sony a7iii, pov night street photography, olympus, olympus om-d e-m10, micro four thirds, budget camera, film photos, digicam

Id: 3MxxYLmRNl8

Length: 10min 52sec (652 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 09 2023