My
experience with the Canon Powershot Pro90IS
Well, I satisfied
my craving for a digital camera while in the midst of studying for my ECE final
exam in Dec 2001: I placed an order for the Canon Powershot Pro90IS digital
camera. I ordered from Beach Camera, and hoped that it would come before I left
town for home, but alas, Beach Camera took longer than I had expected to deliver
the camera...
As
I type this, it has been 2 months since I have started using the Powershot Pro90IS.
The Pro90IS a "serious-amateur" grade digital camera, with 10x optical
zoom (37-370mm in 35mm format), and Canon's Image
Stabilisation (IS) lens. It was a toss (when I was still caught in the
webs of indecision) between the Canon G1's superior Carl Zeiss lens and the
Pro90IS's ultralong zoom, and it is still, today, that I sometimes regret not
buying the G1 (or perhaps, any other brand or model) over the Pro90IS. The Pro90IS
is signficantly larger than most consumer grade digital cameras, and gives most
uninformed people a "wow" expression when it comes out of my bag.
Admittedly, the 10x optical zoom is attractive, but having weaned on a 50mm
prime and a film-based camera previously, I had come to expect too much of the
Pro90IS, or any other digital camera currently on the market.
While current
digital cameras are improving by leaps and bounds in terms of the capacity (i.e.
how many megapixels) of the CCD (the charge-coupling device sensor), they have
not improved much in terms of colour saturation and focussing abilities. Most
prosumer digital cameras today (early 2002) can never match film-based cameras
in terms of the vibrancy, colour and saturation of the human flesh tone. Admittedly,
digital cameras do exhibit strong saturation and vibrant colours for non-human
objects, like metallic surfaces, nice green bottles, etc, but they fail terribly
for photos of people, especially subjects with Asian skin, or in flash-lit situations.
Cons:
Human
Flesh Tones
This probably explains
why most (Disclaimer here: I'm referring to non-professional digital cameras,
not your professional-grade Nikon D1x or Canon D30) digital photo galleries
with people in it tend to fare poorer than photo galleries of macro objects,
close-ups, non-humanoids. Digital photo galleries of people as subjects usually
end up with the flesh tone all washed out and unsaturated; and with the more-contrasty
background objects in supersharp focus while the the main subject, the person
being photographed falling out of focus. (* more on this later). This tends
to be a particular problems not only with Asian skin, but with Caucasian skin
colours as well, which turn out to be extraordinarily reddish or pinkish. On
the other hand, the camera (my Pro90IS in this case) has no problems capturing
the vibrancy and colours of non-human objects.
Note that the green soft-drink
bottles are captured in their full glory, but flesh tones are still "not
there" yet.
Poor
focussing ability and speed
Another qualm
of most digital users: the speed of the AF (auto-focussing) and the shutter
lag. The Pro90IS differs from most other digital cameras (with the notable exception
of the Minolta Dimage 5/7, and the Sony F707) in that it uses a continuous
AF, aka the type of AF found in digital video cameras. When the camera
is in on-mode, the lens will continually focus on what it thinks is the correct
focus.
While sometimes
it does give you faster results than if you do the "half-click and wait
for focus to complete" AF of most other cameras (including the film-based
ones), it does poorly with moving objects. The focussing of the Pro90IS can
be likened to a first-generation EOS AI-SERVO mode focussing ability: sometimes
it hits, sometimes it doesn't. The AF is fine and dandy for shorter focal lengths,
but at telephoto, it starts to take forever to lock the focus on, esp if the
subject is not too contrasty. Perhaps I have been using the Canon USM lenses
for too long already, but I really miss the days when the USM lens will just
snap into full focus in an instant. One way to overcome this deficiency would
be to hold the camera pointing to the subject before even reaching for the shutter
button. This means that the lens would already be focussed (incorrectly or correctly)
by the time you half-click the shutter button, minimizing autofocussing time.
However, this just doesn't work for those cases where you want the camera to
be up and ready to take the perfect photo at a moment's notice.
Continuous
AF also means a drain on the battery life. Sad for a battery which lasts quite
long (~120 shots) for the G1 (which doesn't utilise continuous AF), but only
lasts 60+ shots for my Pro90IS.
The Powershot
G1 has a reputed problem with low-contrast subjects. So does the Pro90IS, in
my humble opinion. I have taken quite a number of photos where the human subjects
tended to be out of focus, while the more contrasty background objects are in
full sharp-focus instead. Taking photos of chinese wedding dinners often prove
problematic (actually, even for my EOS 888 and EOS 100 as well), as the camera
will tend to focus on the glasses and plates on the table instead of the human
subjeccts. Well, this wouldn't be a problem if I was able to select a focussing
point, say like in the EOS Elan II/50E, I know specifically I have 3 focussing
points, and I can ensure correct focus at any one of these 3 points. However,
where is the focussing point in the Pro90IS?? I have tried emailing Canon technical
support, only not to have received any replies from them till today. Canon's
official web brochure lists 1 AF point for the Pro90IS, but there is none! The
whole viewfinder thus becomes the AF "point"!
As usual,
one way to overcome this problem would be to zoom in all the way until the subject
covers the entire viewfinder (here is where the 10x zoom comes in handy), lock
in MF (Manual Focus) then zoom out again to the correct zoom ratio and take
the photo. But as I mentioned, this takes time, but time is not on your side
for candid shots. Flowers and insects and still-life can wait, but your human
subjects will be complaining to you why are you taking so long to fiddle with
the camera just to take a picture.
Flash
Issues
I hate the
built-in flash of the Pro90IS. Period.
Underpowered
for telephoto use (not surprising, since it is merely a built-in flash), but
what irritated me most was the lack of "coordination" with the camera
body itself! There have been quite many people in Pekka Saarinen's G1 forum
posting about the poor performance and capability of their built-in flashes,
which makes it a notable defect. In P-Mode, the flash tends to be too strong,
especially if the subject is close to the camera, resulting in washed-out, white
flesh tones. Most of us on the forum agreed that they had to turn down flash
compensation by 2/3 stops or more to obtain satisfactory results. I tend to
use mine at -1 1/3 stops. Furthermore, photos taken with the built-in flash
tended to play down on the saturation and colour of the human flesh tones. Already,
the colour and saturation of human subjects is not very good, now the flash
makes it worse! I have had to resort to taking photos without flash (i.e. the
built-in flash) in Manual mode in order to get some resemblance of "proper"
human colour. However, this would mean using a slow shutter speed (often 1/15,
1/10s), which means that the subjects blur easily. (see above photo). Even Image
Stabilisation (IS) can't help me much at these type of shutter speeds.
Flash output
when in M-mode, fires at full-power, which is another disgusting thing. If Canon
can have E-TTL flash support for their film-based cameras' built in flash units,
why not for the Pro90IS then?? Using the 420EX or 550EX external flash units
does help things abit, but at an additional expense.
- -
While this
page mainly deals with the cons of the Pro90IS, there are many unsung advantages
of going digital, and going the way of the Pro90IS. Coming from film-based experience,
I feel digital cameras still do not make the mark of "being there"
yet. There is still much room for improvement, as so is my photography skills.
With the digital Pro90IS, I have been able to practise with wild abandon, without
worrying about the cost of developing the photos and worrying about the lousy
developing service that my local colour lab provides. That is, perhaps, the
best advantage of using a digital system.
Taken from my plane
ride back to Pittsburgh after the winter break. Polarizer used.
View my Powershot
Pro90IS gallery.
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to: gallery
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