The Early/Mid 2000's was the golden age for the Bridge Camera; a larger point and shoot design that offered the ergonomics and controls/feel of a DSLR with the ease of use of a pocket camera.
Bridge cameras are still made today (I reviewed a more recent one in a previous post) but are in a much more niche market then they were in the 2000s. Most modern bridge cameras like the Nikon P1000 offer a very wide range of optical zoom in a more compact body then what a comparable sized lens for a DSLR or MICL camera would need to obtain the same focal range.
During the early 2000's however bridge cameras were extremely popular and fell squarely into the Prosumer market; offering some features that were otherwise only on a DSLR while having a more attractive price to a consumer and easier to use. The term "Bridge Camera" came from this prosumer adage; they were the "bridge" between a cheap consumer point and shoot pocket camera and a full blown Professional DSLR.
These cameras also offered video which at the time was considered to be a consumer only feature and not something professionals would want in a non-dedicated video camera, boy have times changed. This week we look at the first of three of my 2000's era bridge cameras the Canon Powershot Pro1.
Like a number of bridge cameras of this era this camera used a 3/4" CCD sensor. This sensor size is uncommon in anything but early 2000s bridge cameras but was the "larger sensor size smaller then APS C but bigger then a typical pocket camera" sensor that the 1" and MFT sensors fill today.
Released in 2004 the Canon Powershot Pro1 has an 8mp CCD sensor with a very limited ISO range (50-400). At the time, small sensors rarely could go beyond ISO 400 or 800 so having a max ISO of only 400 was not a deal breaker and actually pretty common for digital cameras in the early 2000s.
The Canon Powershot Pro1 touts a fairly "Average" 7x optical zoom. Which is a good range for Street Photography but falls a little short for being useful for Nature photography unless its a subject you can get really close to it, IE the turtle I got photos of in the example photos at the end of this review.
As a Prosumer camera this camera had a lot of features one would expect in a more pro/prosumer camera including RAW shooting, Priority Modes and full Manual shooting along with an EVF, tilting rear screen and a secondary display above the grip which gave basic information such as the aperture, shutter speed, drive mode, remaining shots and battery life. It also included a hotshoe so it could use external flashguns and sync controllers.
In the mid 2000's the Canon Powershot Pro1 was in a crowded market for 8mp 3/4" sensor Bridge Cameras. During this time companies often used buzzwords and highlighted "features" to make their camera stand out in a crowded prosumer camera market. The Pro1 did this by having "Pro" in the name and claiming to have the first (and only) Canon L series "professional" grade lens on a non-interchangeable lens camera.
In reality the Powershot Pro1 was not any better then its competition and suffered from a lot of issues such as a variable max aperture and severe chromatic aberration (which I did not run into during this test but have encountered with this camera in the past)
Overall the Canon Powershot Pro1 along with other early bridge cameras such as the Sony f828 and Minolta DiMage A2 (which will be reviewed at a later week) are a lot of fun to use because they feel and operate a lot differently from modern cameras. This was during a time where camera mfg were not afraid to experiment with wild designs and features instead of being a lot closer to the same offerings as they are today.
However, the Canon Powershot Pro1 requires a lot of patience to use and as such would never be one of my daily shooters (or likely on my list of cameras to re-review). Its optical zoom is frustratingly slow to zoom in and out, you really need to know what focal length you want to use before framing the shot as otherwise it will be hard to adjust and re-frame before your subject moves.
The touted "Ultrasonic High Speed Focus motor" is a blatant lie as the AF speed and accuracy of the Powershot Pro1 is frustratingly slow. It is about on par with other bridge cameras it was competing with however.
As mentioned before the max ISO of this camera is 400. And its noisy above 200. I locked my ISO to 100 for my test shots so that I wouldn't run into said noise which limited me to using it outdoors during ideal lighting conditions (luckily in early June these ideal conditions are common).
Another common "flaw" with early 2000's bridge cameras the Canon Powershot Pro1 shares is how slow its write speed of RAW files to card was. Unless you want to wait 10-15 seconds between shots (yes it really takes that long to write a single RAW file to the card) you are best sticking to JPEG mode, which is what I did.
I'd expect to repeat a lot of this review when I get to the Minolta DiMage A2 and Sony f828 on the camera operation. But the cool thing about old bridge cameras is the ergonomics are all different so there will be a different "feel" to shooting the other two classic digicam bridge cams I own when I get to those cameras and make it different enough to warrant a review. Of these cameras the Canon Powershot Pro1 feels the most "neutral" and "modern" from an ergonomic and aesthetic point of view.
That all said, the strength common to these 2/3" CCD bridge cameras is their unique sensor. Sure, they lack the ability to do low light but they have amazing color rendition and contrast. If you are patient enough with this camera and shoot it in lighting conditions that it likes it can produce some of the best looking "classic DigiCam" quality photos you can expect to get.
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