2023 Weekly Challenge Week 47: Canon Powershot ELPH SD630

One of the most sought-after series of Digicams for the current wave of Digicam hype is currently is the Canon Powershot ELPH series.  I reviewed one of these back in February which was the last ELPH camera Canon ever made the ELPH 190.

Canon Powershot ELPH cameras are by a long shot not the best pocket sized Digital camera you can buy.  They are small, slim pocket cameras that were designed to be affordable and as simple to shoot as possible, giving you no full manual control mode and making even altering exposure in P mode a bit of a hassle with having to dig in a quick menu to set it.  That said, they are pretty typical for Consumer-focused pocket cameras and maybe that is the reason they are so sought after.

The most likely reason that Canon ELPHs are being over hyped and the focus of "influencer tax" (IE cameras that once were available at Garage Sales for under $10) is because of their boxy polished metal design. Good luck finding this camera under $80-90 USD now.

Some ELPH models like the Canon Powershot ELPH SD1000 currently fetch upwards of $200 USD with earlier models that were right on the transition of this "boxy metal shape" like the camera I am reviewing here still fetching upwards of $80-150 on E-Bay and used camera stores/swap meets/other auction sites (IE Goodwill).  

My SD630 isn't in the best of shape physically so it wouldn't fetch a top tier collector price, but hey it works and I paid $7 for a fully working Digicam five years ago in 2018.  A feat which today is nearly impossible today especially for a "popular Digicam Influencer camera" like this unless you find someone selling one at a garage sale or flea market who does not follow said trends.

Its a very strange phenomenon and there are certainly much better small Digicams that can still be purchased for a lot less like the Canon S90.  

Released in 2006 the Canon Powershot ELPH SD630 is a very basic point and shoot camera.  It has a fairly standard 1/2.5" 6mp CCD sensor with a fairly weak to average for a compact point and shoot 3x optical zoom.

The camera has a nice weight to it and non-plasticy feel to it thanks to a metal front plate; which would become an all metal finish in mid generation Canon ELPH series cameras before being reverted to an all plastic shell again to make the cameras smaller and lighter. 

As I mentioned before, the all metal ELPHs are the ones commanding the highest prices, and the SD630 fits squarely in the transitional phase to the all metal square box ELPH camera.

Outside of that, this camera operates pretty much as any other more basic Digicam and gives you the nice bright colors of Canon's CCD sensor. Startup and shutdown time is good, battery life is also pretty solid so I have no complaints there.  But aside from the build and colors from the Canon CCD sensor is about where my desire to use this camera end.

An interesting bit of Trivia is the early ELPH cameras all had a fixed variable aperture lens.  The camera always shot with the lens wide open and used a variable built in ND filter over the sensor to "simulate" the amount of light a tighter aperture would let through.  

What's more even more wild is that it will bake the "simulated" aperture value into the Metadata when you take the photo so when you review it on the camera or bring it into an editor of choice the Metadata will say that the image is taken at F11 for example when it was still taken at the widest the lens could shoot with the ND filter in effect to emulate a F11 stop.

Overall the lens on this camera is okay.  It is not the sharpest, and does have a good amount of distortion in the wide angle which is most noticeable from smearing in the middle to outer edges of the captured frame which is most noticeable in Landscape photos taken with it.

Like a lot of early Canon ELPH cameras (the 190 does not have this issue) the SD630 has an extremely fickle Autofocus system. And this is its major drawback and Achilles Heel. The lens will make a number of minute adjustments as the half stage shutter is pressed before locking focus and taking a picture, which you can both hear and feel when using this camera.

Often times this camera will not finish this cycle before taking a photo, resulting in a slightly out of focus image.  For a week of shooting with this camera 50-75% of all photos I took with this camera were out of focus and I found not useable or recoverable in Post.  

That's pretty terrible even for a Digicam.  Forget about trying to take photos of anything in action too because if you need to take a photo before the sluggish AF system has a chance to go through it's microfocusing routine the camera will let you, but you are not going to like the results.

Obviously the main thing I hate about this camera is its slow and inaccurate Autofocus system, even when compared to other Digicams I have reviewed prior.  When the image does get in focus you get that sought after high-contrast bright colors CCD Digicam look but it is a real pain to get there and I'd have a number of different suggestions I'd offer to someone looking for a Digicam and not spend it on an overpriced early Canon ELPH.

The SD630 has a captic sensor 4 way D pad which will hover over where your finger is before you actually click the button; and since it is a little slow to respond I have found that this can mess up what button you select if you go too fast with it.  It's a weird experience to use and not overall a positive one.

With this, I will share four of the photos that turned out okay from the Canon Powershot ELPH SD630, among the 1 out of 3-4 photos taken that were useable out of every photo I took with it this week.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 46: Sony a99

 My first Full Frame camera was a short lived run with an Original Canon 6D in 2014.  At the time I was, like many other budding photographers, tricked into the notion buying a full frame camera would make me a much better photographer and that if I wanted to get better this was the only way to go.

When I found out that this camera had a lot of features stripped down from the Canon 60D I "upgraded from" (for example: no built in flash, less AF points and the camera was overall just a lot slower to respond) along with not having the reach I was used to I started to realize that Full Frame wasn't for me; and so I doubled down on crop system cameras and over the next several years would become a little overcritical on Full Frame cameras and Full Frame shooters in general; almost to the point where I considered FF photographers par of some sort of Kool-Aid drinking cult.

A few years later in 2017 I decided to give Full Frame another try, and bought a Sony a99.  It was a dying system but I had a number of Minolta lenses that would work with it without having to spend a lot in glass on top of the body purchase. Neither the 6D nor a99 were cheap; but it wasn't till recently that the price of Full Frame DSLRs (such as the Nikon D610 I previously reviewed) would match that of what you could buy an APS-C camera for.

When I bought back into Full Frame, I intended it to not be my main camera but a system I shot, on occasion, when I wanted a very specific "softer focus" look out of some vintage film lenses.  And for this, the a99 does a solid job.  Its a fun Art camera that gets some really cool unique photos.

My particular a99 has a shortcoming that is common in all SLT cameras and that is having an IBIS/steady shot that has broken. This is the biggest reason I haven't shot it a lot is because of this defect which happened seven months after buying it. This was a mere month after my warranty from the place I bought it went out so I couldn't get my money back (go figure).  

Released in 2012 the Sony a99 was Sony's second Full Frame camera and first full frame "SLT"- a hybrid between a Mirrorless and DSLR camera.  It features a high-contrast 24mp CMOS Full Frame sensor which is unlike the "Full Frame connotation" is not a good at low noise at High ISO sensor.  

The a99 falls apart at any ISO higher then 3200 which means at best its low light performance is on par with my Panasonic G9 (a micro 43rds sensor half the size of a Full Frame sensor) and is noticeably worse then my APS-C Nikon D7200 and majorly worse then the newest APS-C body I own the Nikon Z50 for ISO performance.  As noted in the Nikon D610 review the a99 is significantly worse for ISO noise then the D610 as well even if it can shoot at a higher "native" ISO.

That said, it still has a nice useable range of clean ISO both indoors and outdoors so long as you use faster glass when shooting inside and can keep your ISO below 3200.  It still will outperform a first generation Full Frame or older generation APS-C camera in this respect.

On top of the lackluster ISO performance for a FF body the a99 has some other small shortcomings but nothing that would dissuade me from shooting it. 

First the shutter speed in auto ISO is locked at 1/60 of a second regardless of the focal length attached to the camera (and unable to change this). The mechanical shutter also has a dull somewhat squishy sound when fired rather then the satisfying click of other DSLRs and even Mirrorless cameras, it has all of its AF points grouped in the center (similar to the D610 I reviewed last week) and it has a fairly slow FPS drive though the AF tracking is decent.

Because this camera 's sensor output is Unique and it can be shot natively with Vintage Minolta lenses however it has a cult following that keeps the used prices high compared to other Full Frame bodies such as the Nikon D610 and Original Gen Sony a7 which in many cases are otherwise "superior" in ISO noise quality and performance/responsiveness otherwise.

So knowing that this camera is prone to QA issues, and that it is really noisy for a full frame camera along with lacking some basic functionality features why is this camera still sought after?  

There are a number of things that the a99 has going for it that make it this cult classic full frame body, and the original reason I bought it.

First off is the sensor itself.  For a CMOS chip the sensor on the a99 has a very unique high contrastry look to it which is uncommon outside of other much older sensors such as the 5D classic and Canon 1D Mark II or Mark III at a higher 24mp resolution.  

The color science the a99 uses is vastly different then what the much more common Nikon D610 or Canon 5D mark II/III use and that likely sets them apart and will produce more Neutral toned photos SOOC.

Secondly, you can run this camera with 30-40 year old Minolta Film lenses and get much better quality for optics then early EF lenses from the same era. The a99 paired with the 28-135 4-4.5 "Secret Weapon" or 70-210 F4 "Beercan" lens gets some really quality professional looking results with lenses that can be purchased for around $50 a piece.

The last reason the a99 is likely still sought after to this day is that it is its a well ergonomically designed camera, a "Full DSLR sized" package with a lot of the features of a mirror less camera such as an Electronic Viewfinder with exposure preview and Focus Peaking. 

Those who want a mirrorless-like full frame body that is not more "compact" and in the full-size DSLR experience the a99 (and rarer to find a99 mark  II) hits the mark over something like an Original Sony a7 which has the more traditional more compact form-factor.  

In short the Sony a99 is the camera that warmed me up to the concept that "Not all Full Frame Cameras are Evil" or the people who bought into photography just rubbing it in your face how much money they have to spend on Photography equipment, in large part because of its uniqueness. 

It takes some beautiful photos and while this week I did not get anything too impressive off of it; I do have plenty of other photos from it that still make me take a quick take when I see them. But the constant having to clear a message on the screen stating "The Steadyshot has malfunctioned seek repair service" coming up on the screen is really annoying and will push me to sadly likely look to re-home this camera to someone who will use it more then me.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 45: Nikon D610

In the world of digital photography Full Frame is the defacto format that most hobby Photographers aspire to "upgrade to" because they have the preconception and reputation that they are better and "What the Professionals Use". 

Due to intense marketing by the camera manufacturers themselves "Full Frame" has become the biggest buzz-word in the Photography industry used to convince both hobbyists/prosumers and pros alike that they "need a better camera".  

In reality many older Full Frame cameras, (such as the Sony a99 I will be reviewing next week) were actually no better then APS-C cameras for handling high ISO noise inspite of the presumption that "Full Frame is Always Better". As such, not every Full Frame sensor is equal just as not every APS-C sensor handles Low Light "poorly" either..

Because of this, I often get very defensive when it comes to smaller format sensors (such as Micro 43rds) being just as Valid as full frame, and perhaps at one point had a stigma against full frame shooters much as an auto enthusiast may have a stigma against someone who owns/drives a Tesla.

That said the goal of this 2023 project is to just shoot a bunch of cameras I can get ahold of in one year and not trash talk nor put on a pedestal one sensor size over another (which is frequently done in the great debate of photographers and their preferences).  

I'm not going to exclude two more affordable/ older Full Frame cameras from this list that I have access to and will judge them as fairly as any of my other cameras in these reviews; it just took me awhile to get to them. 

So setting any personal Bias aside I may have against Full Frame sensors/shooters I am going to review my two Full Frame entries for this project back to back to round out the very last of the decent weeks for outdoor weather for the year in my home region.  The first being the Nikon D610 which is currently on loan from a close friend.

Released in late 2013 the Nikon D610 is a camera that was ahead of its time, and a reason there are still a good number of them in the wild used by people today.  It featured one of the first Full Frame sensors (a 24.5 mp FF sensor) which really lived up to the stereotype that "Full Frame is Better for Low Light".  

Much like the D70s this camera was a "re-release" of the previous camera, the D600 with some minor tweaks including a fix to a flawed shutter design which were causing the shutter curtains on the D600 to jam.  Production wise, the D610 far oversold the previous D600 which was only on the market for one year.

The D610's sensor is extremely sharp with a nice look to it, though it is a lower contrast sensor SOOC then the Sony a99, but has better detail and noise handling at higher ISO then the Sony a99.

The fact that this camera, for low light noise up to ISO 6400 can still go toe to toe with more modern sensors like the Nikon Z6 is pretty dang impressive.

The first day I shot street photography in Blue Hour with a slowish f4 zoom lens and still got some pretty decent and non iso-crispy shots. I don't credit the fact that this is a "Full Frame Sensor" alone to make up for this point as the Sony a99 I'll be reviewing next week really would have struggled under these conditions.  

Aside from a jump in high iso performance this camera also set a milestone for a Full-Frame camera for one other big reason: It was an "entry level" full frame DSLR camera that still offered a lot of the same features as a full professional camera had and did not restrict them as much as the Canon 6D did.

  

This camera was, and still is one of the "First Full Frame cameras" someone looking to "upgrade their photography to the next level" would be able to afford and purchase and provides a viable alternative for those who want to buy into the full frame infrastructure with the budget of a higher end APS-C body.

It had a lot more focus points (although just like the Sony a99 they only cover the center of the sensor) then the 6D, and was overall faster and more responsive while keeping a built-in popup flash (a rarity for Full Frame cameras).

The D610 features Dual SDXC card slots, a robust Magnesium alloy body, weather sealing and a very similar control set to its sister APS-C camera the Nikon D7100.  The D610 has more in common with a D7100 and even D7200 then one would think and that's honestly not a bad thing.  

It's perhaps the main reason I am trying to figure out a deal to keep this camera for good, not because it is Full Frame but because it is so similar feature and control wise to my favorite DSLR of all time the Nikon D7200.

All of this said, the D610 is not a perfect camera and some of the ways the D7000/D7200 fall "short" the D610 has a few of the same issues.

Liveview focusing on the D610 seems faster then the D7200, but the PDAF through the viewfinder is slower  then the D7XXX bodies I reviewed earlier with the same lens and did misfocus on a few shots.

  

Additionally the fact that the Focus Points were more or less covering the area of an APS-C sensor but on a full frame body meant that if you wanted to use Autofocus to lock onto something on the edge of the frame you first needed to have the object in the center, lock focus, and then adjust the framing.

The preview screen on the back of the D610 is lower resolution then the D7200s as well; which makes chimping a little less valid as its often vastly different then the higher quality image that you will get when the image is brought into your editor of choice in POST.

The biggest challenge I ran into with the D610 is the light metering.  It is not at all great in outdoor lighting and even the D7200 blows it out of the water for accuracy with the a99 being a lot more consistent.  And consistency is the key that is not present on the D610's light meter.  Sometimes it would underexpose and then would over expose on the same shot, making it a lot harder to compensate with exposure compensation and be accurate.

It wasn't off by a lot however, generally a half stop in either direction; so leaving it at +0 EC and letting it get its slightly dark photos along with the slightly over exposed ones was not a huge deal especially if shot in RAW.  But it does take a little more time in POST to even out then some of my other cameras where the light meter is more consistent in daylight hours.  

During my blue hour shooting however the light meter had a lot easier time with getting the exposure I wanted.  So the struggles with metering seems to be specific to specific lighting conditions namely bright outdoor light.

Overall, the D610 is not going to be the best choice for say a wildlife camera where you need split second autofocusing with a good servo AF tracking system (the D610 does tend to "Focus Hunt" quite a bit when in C-AF) but it is an amazing camera still to this day for a Landscape, nightscape or Portrait shooting where you have time to get everything just right before taking a shot; and it's still reasonably responsive for doing Street Photography.  

While the D610 isn't the fastest camera out there, not even when it came out in 2013; it is far from the slowest as well.  For someone who wants the "Full Frame Look" and is ok with "Fast Enough" and not "Ludicrous Speed" the D610 still remains to this day one of the most solid budget Full Frame kits with reasonable "Low Light Performance" (IE the reason most people decide they "Need" a full frame body) one can still buy relatively easy since there are so many of them readily available on the used market.

In the end, just like the Sony a99 the D610 I feel has "character" and is far from being the "bestest camera money can buy".  

As such feel this is a clear reason for me to be able to give a positive review and admit I enjoy this camera, sensor format aside; and hope to one day be able to add one to my personal collection.

2023 Weekly Challenge Week 44: Samsung Digimax L60

 As we enter the final nine cameras to review for my challenge I still have a number of pocket cameras that would fit the "Digicam" classification; and as the weather turns ugly and outdoor light becomes limited it is good to have something I can shoot quick shots with on a lunch break or indoors at a store or a mall with again for these reviews.  Last week's challenge was one of these remaining Digicams the Samsung Digimax L60.

Up until 2017 Samsung was a major producer of Digital Cameras along with their other electronics such as cellphones and Home Entertainment electronics (TVs, BluRay players, Stereos, etc).  

Samsung was also one of the first companies (and still is) to really push the whole "The camera on your Phone is better then any other camera you can buy!!!"

Because of this they are in large part to blame for the downturn in Pocket Cameras and even entry level interchangeable lens cameras.  So it should be no surprise that Samsung axed their Camera department right before 2018 when Smartphone Manufacturers led out on a Crusade to convince the public that they don't need a camera because they have a Smartphone; and Samsung was leading that charge.

But let's turn back our time machine dial to a time when Samsung wanted you to buy cameras along with phones instead of buying a phone INSTEAD of a camera. We only need to turn back the clock to the Mid 2010s for this (so it is a lot more recent then people would think) but for this trip down memory lane we are going back a decade before that to the mid 2000's.

Released in 2006 the Samsung Digimax L60 is a small compact pocket camera from the transition where pocket cameras went from large somewhat un-wieldy bricks that barely fit in a large jacket pocket to small, slim devices that could fit inside the palm of your hand or a slim shirt pocket.  The L60 is one of such first gen of sub-compact digicam (in the same era of the Casio I reviewed earlier) pocket cameras.

The mid 2000's was a golden era for Digital Camera as a number of ground breaking technology advances made it possible to have a camera that you could just as easily carry with you as one could with a cellphone.

As a result when you look up popular "Digicams" that are currently being sought after most (but not all such as the Olympus XZ-1) are of the smaller more compact designs like this one, namely the older Canon Powershot ELPH cameras (of which I own one and is still one left to review).

Many of these cameras trade in the ability to adjust settings, shoot in RAW or have analog control wheels or programmable fn buttons to make them small and easy to use, aka true "Point and Shoot" cameras and they were the first cameras that really brought every-day photography to the masses in before Smartphones drove in.

The Samsung Digimax L60 fits this all to a T.  It has a fairly unassuming 6 megapixel 1/2.5" CCD sensor which while not great is certainly enough to get a nice clean snapshot of a birthday party or quick family group photo for a small print that goes in a collage.

Controls on this camera are no frills and it is one of those "So basic it is frustrating" sort of cameras to use of which I own and have already reviewed a number of cameras that fit into this category.

At this late in my challenge it is hard to find something that sets this particular pocket camera aside from any of the other no frills short zoom sub-compact pocket cameras I have shot this year. I can however say that it is not in the pile of "worst cameras I've reviewed" by far.

The screen is a little dim and hard to use in bright lighting but this is pretty common for early Digicams.  It is still brighter then some even slightly newer digicams such as the Sony Cybershot S950 however so I find it useable in outdoor lighting.

The Digimax L60 has a fairly quick startup and shutdown time which is one of the first things I look for in any kind of pocket shooter. Battery life is solid as well, I was able to shoot it for the entire week of this review on a single charged battery.

Images from this camera are inconsistent which again, isn't uncommon for this era of Digicam. This comes in large part from a slow and somewhat un-reliable autofocus system often taking a photo when the camera is not actually fully in focus.  So I did have a fair number out of focus shots I had to throw out.

As with the first generation of true pocket cameras this camera takes SD only not SDHC, so the biggest card you can put in it is a 2gb card.  Since the camera does not shoot RAW the 6mp JPEG images even in the least amount of compression still fit close to 1000 images on a max 2gb card which is still more then enough for this sort of a camera to hold.

If one can get over the fact that the AF is not perfect and sometimes needs to re-acuire a lock with a second shot this is a fine little "digicam" for someone who wants that look and Aesthetic and something small they can put in a pants pocket or small pouch and go anywhere.  

Since it shoots SD and not XD or Memory stick the memory cards are still fairly easy to get and you can put them into any standard SD card reader (even if they are of the slower, smaller capacity format).

This said the Samsung Digimax L60 fails squarely into the middle of the pack when it comes to my point and shoot camera collection. It is not terrible but it is not great either and shooting it is fairly un-inspired.  It also does not get the clarity or sharpness of something like the Canon Powershot S90 or Olympus XZ-1 and lacks the zoom range of pocketable superzooms like the Panasonic ZS50 or Canon Powershot ELPH 190.  

The only thing that makes this camera "unique" in my collection is that it is the only Samsung camera that I currently own, and maybe that is enough.  It is a time capsule from a time where Samsung actually cared about making dedicated cameras instead of trying to convince you that their newest greatest smartphone was better then your friend's interchangeable lens camera.