Yerg*, Le Louvre, Cour Carrée.

The Serious Compacts Flickr Group is flourishing, and we will continue to highlight some of the outstanding contributions from our group members.

The photograph above was taken by Yerg, a 23-year-old French political science student living in Paris. Yerg began photography around 2003. Using a Ricoh GRD and Fuji F30, he has made consistently strong contributions to our Flickr pool. Indeed, we had a difficult time selecting a single photo to feature and settled on a recent favorite. Be sure to visit Yerg's photostream on Flickr.

If you are interested in joining the Serious Compacts Pool, or if you already post there and would like your work to be considered for a feature on the blog, please see this post.

I have exchanged several emails with Mai Hayashi of the Ricoh International Sales & Marketing Group), but it is not yet clear whether they will provide a GRD II unit for comparative testing on Serious Compacts.

Ricoh makes some of the finest tools around for photographers who choose to use compacts. We have provided both technical and field reports on the excellent Caplio GX100 in the context of broad coverage of advanced Ricoh compacts.

If you'd like to see the GR Digital II or other Ricoh digital cameras tested on this site, please leave a comment on this post below. I've sent an email asking Ms. Hayashi to look at the comments here as proof of our readers' interest in Ricoh products.

5/14/08 Addendum - Good news! See comments for details, and please keep your comments and suggestions coming!

In Parts 1-3 of the Shootout, I compared to Sigma DP1 performance to that of the Canon 5D with EF 28mm f/2.8 lens and Olympus E-420 with ZD 14-42mm lens at 14mm. The Fuji F31 was the sole compact competitor in those tests and lived up to its reputation for excellent low light performance.

In the upcoming parts, I will test the Sigma DP1 against the Canon Powershot G9 and Leica D-LUX3.

I frequently have the urge to buy or sell used compacts, usually to fund other gear purchases. While there are many excellent places to buy, sell, and trade camera gear, most or all of these places have one or more of the following limitations:
• Sellers must pay a fee to list items for sale
• Sellers must pay a transaction fee
• Individuals must register to post an item for sale, or a response to an item for sale
• Site is brand specific
• Site is geared towards DSLRs and DSLR-related lenses, accessories, etc

For this reason, we've started a Serious Compacts Buy and Sell area where individuals can buy, sell, trade, or link to auctions of compact cameras and related accessories. The link to the 'Buy and Sell' board can be found in the top menu bar of this page.

Why Buy/Sell/Trade on the Serious Compacts Buy & Sell Board?
Reason #1: There are no fees.
Reason #2: This board is specifically for compact cameras and accessories for compact cameras.
Reason #3: Registration is not required.
Reason #4: Recent listings on the board will be promoted here on the Serious Compacts blog.

TWIP Photo has been offering some nice prizes lately. The winner of their new photo contest, 'Doors', will receive an NFR (Not for Resale) copy of Apple's Aperture 2.1 as well as a copy of Adobe Lightroom and an Aperture 2.0 book. The total value of prizes is more than $500. This is a great opportunity to pick up some pricy RAW conversion applications for free. For contest details, go to TWIP Photo and scroll down to the May 9th entry "TWIP’s Photo Assignment Competition #7 - Doors".

By Mayank Bhatnagar

An exercise often taught to young designers to break their mind block, or to think "out of the box", is to envision their design problem being solved by masters of design. "How would your creative director do it? How would one of the legendary designers do it?" Just imagining someone solve one's design problem with his/her expertise or style is often enough to fill one's mind with ideas.

Coming to cameras or compacts specifically, one can't help but wonder if the camera manufacturers are currently going through a mind block. The variety and freshness of both form and function that one saw in compacts just a few years ago seems to have dried out (Thom Hogan's article at http://bythom.com/compact.htm illustrates the point beautifully), and most compacts look and feel more or less the same; it's like you've seen one, you've seen them all. Upgrades seem a mere formality. Stereotypically speaking, 2006: More zoom + 1 more megapixel; 2007: face recognition + 1 more megapixel; 2008: wide angle + 1 more megapixel (if you know what I mean :-). Sigma DP1, for now, seems to be an exception.

Coming to the point, do camera manufacturers or designers need to think out of the box today and get out of their mould? I believe yes. And a very simple thing they could do is envision an "iCamera"! If Apple were to make a camera, how would they do it? Knowing that Apple rethinks from scratch every product they make, a few things immediately come to one's mind:

- An extremely simple exterior design, very sturdy yet stylish

- ONLY TWO models to begin with: Say one with 24-120mm and the other with 35-300mm 'manually controlled' and image stabilized zooms with manual focus rings, followed by a camera that kills: a compact with a fixed 500mm f2.8 image stabilized lens :-). All with edge-to-edge sharpness. (Some of this technology exists today) So in all, just 3 models! Yaay!

- 8gb of internal memory + slot for flash memory card, 12gb of internal memory for the 500mm model (This technology already exists)

- RAW (.DNG), JPEG and PNG image image formats (This technology already exists)

- iPod like control wheel driven UI (This technology already exists)

- Large, wide screen, hi-rez touch-screen display with very quick, simple and customizable access to menus, which—together with the control wheel—would provide lightning fast access to controls. (This technology already exists in the iPhone and many other cellphones)

- Large (4/3 perhaps or larger), class-leading sensor technology

- ISO 25-1600, no high ISO noise till 1600 but 'extra' noise could be added through a filter for those fond of "old world high ISO digicam or film look" (This would also reduce dramatically the number of "high ISO noise" arguments on camera forums... just kidding :-)

- 10 megapixel (and not one more)

- SLR style viewfinder (and not EVF) + Live view

- 6 frames per second RAW capture in case of the 500mm model with extra-large memory buffer. 2 frames per second for the other two models. (this technology exists)

- Durable shutter with 100,000 shutter cycle (This technology already exists)

- The camera software would be coupled with Photoshop-like filters, which may include:
a) Automatic correction of lens distortions
b) Polariser
c) Hard and soft neutral density and graduated filters of varying intensity
d) Extra dymamic range, which would stitch two exposures of same shot into a high DR photo
e) Bokeh enhancement

- Lightning fast start-up and response time (This technology already exists in SLRs)

- Class leading battery life, say 600 shots with live view. (This technology already exists)

- A comfortable, rubberized grip. (This technology already exists)

- Weather sealed metal body and built-in lens (This technology already exists in SLRs)

- Built-in speedlight in the two lower models that would work with camera software to yield near-perfect flash photographs.

- Downloadable plugins and even softwares to enhance / add camera features. Developer tools to enable third parties to develop camera plugins. Here, the possibilities could be endless.... Eg: IR effect plugin, soft-focus portrait plugin, macro plugin and so forth

- Sync and updates with iPhoto through USB or Wi-Fi (just like iPod and iTunes)
Price: $999, $1199 for the 500mm model Yes, the above would be "Compact" or "Bridge" cameras. Please don't raise your eyebrows, just trying to think out of the box and into an iCamera! And no, this camera would NOT play music :-).

____________________________________________________________________________________

Mayank Bhatnagar is a New Delhi and Jaipur (India) based Fine Art Photographer, Graphic Designer, and Illustrator.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Featured Comment by Bruce Mcl:

I think the camera business right now is very similar to the cell phone business. There is a herd mentality to the manufacturers. They introduce new features slowly and as a group. Each company is allowed to have a little edge in one area of performance. Nobody would dare make a camera that is all around better then competitors, that would break the gentleman's agreement.

Apple would take a hard look at two things: form and purpose.

Purpose: What is digital photography supposed to do? What is being done well, what is being done badly, and what is not being done at all? Certainly keeping track of photos is not being done well. Apple would have built-in GPS and wireless. The camera would be continually uploading photos to a server that organizes and cross references the images by date and location. The charging dock would have faster connections available, and perhaps have a hard disk built into it for photo storage. Think of a Time Capsule that's photography oriented and Internet capable.

The photo sharing web site and the photo editing and organizing software would be a big part of the Apple camera experience. Imagine a very tightly coupled Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Express, with tightly coupled Lightroom as the Pro option.

The form factor would be unique. The sensor and LCD would be horizontal at the top of the camera, which means a mirror or prism is involved. It would be held like a pair of binoculars, with very good gripping for both hands. To take a photo you would peer through the EVF. Optionallly you could hold at waist level and look through the LCD. I think high grade white plastic would be used for the case.

One thing the camera would do well is photograph people indoors. A dual direct and bounce flash would be involved. Apple would find a way to make the flash give a lower color temperature than the typical blue tungsten flash so that the flash lighting would match the existing interior lighting, instead of clashing with at like every other camera in the world.

As far as lens size goes, I think 30-300 would just about do it. I like a wider angle but let's face it, if you don't know what you are doing, wide angle photos can look goofy. Apple will not make a camera that makes the user look like a poor photographer. And even with IS, you are going to get a lot of blurry photos at greater than 300 mm. Unless you have a 50 pound lens of course.

Obviously Apple would include very good video capability, but I don't think that was part of the question so I won't go there.

Since starting less than two months ago, our Flickr community has quickly flourished and now includes contributions from 170 talented photographers. If you're interested in seeing quality photography done with compacts, our pool is a great place to start.

The theme of our first contest was "Natural Textures", and we were fortunate to receive 21 fantastic entries. The voting period is over, and I am happy to announce the winners.

1st Place - "Stacked Lumber" by ndalum78 (27 votes):




2nd Place - "Red Tulips" by fxgeek (22 votes):




3rd Place - "Tree outside Central Library, Hull" by Hiding Pup (12 votes):




4th Place - "Prevailing Wind" by Wouter Brandsma (10 votes):




5th Place - "Crepe" by pbrouss84 (9 votes):



Thanks to all who submitted photos and/or voted, and congratulations to the contest winners!

Mayank Bhatnagar started a thread in our discussion area regarding Canon's plans to use new CMOS sensors in compact cameras. As some may recall, this news was announced last summer. Rumors are circulating that we will see the first Canon compacts with larger sensors in time for Photokina in September of this year. While we've yet to see any good evidence for these rumors, Gordon Buck has posted evidence at Light Description that we will at least see a new G-series Powershot this year. Could the G10 feature a CMOS sensor, somewhat larger than the sensors found in the G-series to date? Or, as some rumors have suggested, could we see two advanced compacts from Canon at Photokina - one a G9 replacement, the other incorporating a larger (?CMOS) sensor?

It is likely that Panasonic, Canon, and Ricoh will introduce replacements for the LX2, G9, and GX100, respectively, in time for Photokina. We have reason to believe that both Canon and Panasonic are working to implement larger sensor designs in compacts, though we don't know when these compacts will be available, nor do we know whether they will supplement or replace existing lines. If anyone has more information, let us know!

I always enjoy reading camera and lens evaluations by Petteri Sulonen and have been waiting for this one since he first mentioned an interest in the DP1. Petteri has now posted his impressions, "A Diamond In The Rough: Sigma DP1". Having read every piece I could find online about the DP1, in English or otherwise, I've come across none more worthwhile than his writeup. If you're interested in reading more about the Sigma DP1, my advice is to start here.
(Thanks to Yerg)

Shawn Barnett has posted his Sigma DP1 review over at the Imaging Resource. This is the first review from one of the major online review sites. Shutterbug has also published their review.