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 $100 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 twelve 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. If you look across ebay today, they are selling for sometimes
below £30 and always below 100, normally equaling below $100. But I'm going to
drop a link to the search results so you can check the stock at
the moment, to me, the power shot line of cameras kind of missed me.
I had a Canon Ixus back in the day when I was about eleven,
and then I moved on to Canon DSLRs afterwards. But alongside the Sony
RX100 lineup, they produced 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 he get pulled out of the drawer. 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 find 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 certified dad magnet.
All that 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 do the job or to prevent errors,
mostly. And the little advantages we get from better AF performance cameras, longer
focal length lenses, constant f, two eight zoom lenses, et cetera. 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 Practising 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 dude that came out when
I was eleven years old. And there is so much wrong with this camera
that makes it so much fun to actually use when shooting street. And
there's so much about this camera that just takes away any of the shallow
depth of field decision. It takes away any of that. What settings shall I
use on my camera to get the right photo? But there isn't that. You
just just point and shoot, mate. Point shoot, point shoot. Like Tom Cruise in
Mission Impossible. Three point shoot, point shoot. Very simple point shoot. For
a compact camera from 2007, this Powershot G9 provides really nice high quality
raw images of twelve megapixel resolution. And it shares a common trait with
a lot of cameras from like the mid two thousand s 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 millimetres up to 210 millimetres. And while I'm rarely
zooming in that much on this camera, I have taken the odd one at
about 50 millimetres and sometimes around 100. But for the most part, I'm
powering it on and shooting at the 35 millimetre. The widest aperture is
actually an f 2.8 and the smallest aperture is actually an f 8. But
to compensate for this they have also included an Nd Philtre 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 sort of to be expected from the Powershot 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 philtre. I have been primarily using this camera during the day on
photography walks, when I've been using either my 35 millimetre Minolta X-700
and I'm either trying to save shots on a roll of film or I
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 E-M10 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 uptakes, I feel like
I'm getting the same results. I'll pull this out for ten 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 larger lens, for example.
This definitely removes a lot of that and 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 because I do
street. We've got an AI area autofocus, which is pretty much just the centre
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 and
get that in the frame, but it's really rudimentary and there's something
about that that just removes any of that thought process. 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 metre. We
do also have a little OVF, like, you know, a little kind of not
range finder, but 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 the **** out of your kid's 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 the 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 is because they were cheaper to develop. So we've
been able to advance the technology with cheaper development upfront 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 going to 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 twelve megapixel sensor.
And while that might seem like a lot for a compact camera, which it
kind of is, compact 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 count. There is a trade off when it
comes to how many megapixels you pack onto a sensor of a certain size.
And twelve megapixels on this size with this technology of CCD versus CMOS is
definitely a sweet spot. 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, interchangeable lens camera for street
photography with kind of 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.