Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Lighten Up, Dude


Today’s modern digital point-and-shoot cameras can sometimes make photography seem awfully easy. The Hollyhock image above was shot with a new Panasonic LX3, a camera about the size of my wallet (which, by-the-way, is empty now, owing to the recent purchase of the aforementioned camera.)

On the other hand, the close-up insect photo (below) was shot with a Canon 5D SLR and a 100 mm macro lens. This camera/lens combination is about four times the size and I’d guess maybe two or three pounds heavier than the Panasonic pocket camera.

For most of the 30-some years I’ve been making my living shooting photographs, the size of the camera mattered when it came to image quality--the bigger the camera (and the negative it produced,) the better a print would look. A pocket snapshot camera was what old ladies used to take pictures of the grandkids’ birthday parties, not something a pro would take on a “real” assignment.

Today, however, small cameras seem to be where the action is in modern digital camera design. Heck, even cell phones these days can produce pretty amazing images.

These small cameras are good news for those of us who have been around the block a time or two. We of the much-abused-spine crowd are learning that photography is a lot more fun if we're not stooped-over, struggling with the weight of a heavy camera bag.