One of the things I very much appreciate is the process and actual actions involved with the purchase of a new camera. I've recently made the jump and have previously not documented the process so far on this blog, but I believe it merits mentioning because it has been five years since I did it, and I don't know if I documented the process of purchasing the previous camera. (I did document the purchase of my previous laptop, but that's another issue for another post.)
For those who don't already know, I've got plans to travel to Europe for just about a week and a half coming up very soon – it's happening in less than a month, actually. In service of this, and because I've been interested for at least a year, I began to have very active thoughts about buying a new camera that's smaller and more modern than the one I've been using, primarily because the current camera I have is gargantuan and represents about $3,500 or so in total investments across a system. I am fairly skittish about having things taken from me, so it made sense to try to equip myself with a slightly less desirable looking camera. I've documented some of the thought process on the new SharePoint-based wiki.
And so, the other day, Cat (who is my housemate and is also traveling to Europe) and I went to Phoenix in order to go to a store that has some of the cameras I was looking at in stock. Specifically, I was able to take a quick gander at the PowerShot A1400, and somewhat more detailed looks at the PowerShot G15 and the EOS M.
Immediately, I was struck by just how much bigger the PowerShot G15 was than I thought it was, and smaller the EOS M was than I thought it was. Despite of this, they each end up being really similar in overall size and heft, and both are very respectable cameras. The other thing I was struck by in the retail environment is just how much influence the sales representatives try to have on your purchasing decision. I asked if the representative if the store had a Canon EOS M I could look at, and his first reaction (before actually answering my question) was to ask how I even knew about the EOS M, as though it was not a camera that average people can handle—despite the fact that the Nikon D600 and Canon EOS 5D III and 6D were hanging out just nearby, each several thousand dollars more, not available in conveniently packaged kits.
I kindly informed the rep that I had found out about it on the Internet (and kindly resisted using phrasing such as "this wonderful thing called the Internet") and proceeded to find out that the store's demo instance of the EOS M had run out of battery life – but fortunately for everyone involved, it was on very good sale. This was the kind of sale that makes buying retail cheaper than buying from Amazon. I walked around, further vacillating on the issue before deciding that in my mind, the EOS M had become the underdog. The M's image quality wasn't ever in question, it has a bigger and better sensor than most of its competitors, save the Sony fixed-lens camera that's got a 24 megapixel full-frame sensor – but that's probably not really a competitor of this camera, given that it costs three times as much, or so.
After discussing it a little bit, the rep suggested that I either buy the almost-same-price PowerShot G15, or a Sony that had similar specs but was larger, heavier, and wasn't quite as focused as I wanted to be with this camera. It was pretty immediately clear that the Canon EOS M was considered to be the underdog in this particular transaction, and as soon as that became clear, it became what I wanted.
The process of buying a camera wasn't too exciting after the decision was made, but I got a pair of 32 gigabyte memory cards to go with it, which will eventually need to be supplemented by a single much larger card, and I'll need another battery and a filter for the lens – an order I should make from Newegg or B&H pretty soon, so I've got this stuff before I leave for Sweden.
Using the camera was pleasantly surprising. The thing that had me most worried, almost terrified, of the EOS M is that reviews online suggested it had slow autofocusing. I think what's actually happening though is that it's not very good at focusing in exceedingly low light. It'll eventually do it, even if you need to re-frame your shot in order to make it happen, but it does eventually happen. In more average lighting, a reasonably lit room or in the late morning to dusk timeframe outside, focusing is certainly fast enough. Unlike with the Nikon D300 I bought in 2008, I don't actually need to take still shots while running around at top speed.
The camera is small and light enough that it fits in my sweater pocket and it doesn't even look particularly weird. I could easily close it in under a sweater or coat or put it in such a pocket without having to worry that it looks suspicious or will fall out. When I attach the neck strap, it will hang lightly around my neck all day—I have no problems believing I'll forget it's there.
The other really interesting element of this particular camera is that it shoots HD video, in 1080p24 or 1080p30, and the videos it makes are very crisp and usable. It's a big difference from the video cameras I've used before (where workflow was almost impossible, because of tapes) or the still cameras I've had before (which simply didn't shoot video.) Cat is already in the process of writing the script to a film we may or may not be filming.
The final word on it is that this is a camera that's small enough for me to take it more or less everywhere. It wasn't a burden and I didn't even have to think twice about having it with me and snapping photos of random things while at work today, and as summer approaches, I'll definitely be making some plans to adventure around campus/town/Arizona with it. As it happens, I have a tripod somewhere and I'm sure there are some video blogs I need to make, or whatever.
Expect more dispatches on the subjects of imaging and imaging workflow in the coming weeks. I fully expect to generate more than a hundred gigabytes of imaging data while my housemates and I are in Sweden, and am sure to have a lot to say on the matter of what it was like to ingest and manipulate that information on my various computers.
For those interested, a selection of pictures from today is here and a slideshow view of said selection is here.