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I picked up this point and shoot for my wife as part of her Mother’s Day gift. You all know that I am a Nikon fan boy so you are probably wondering what the deal is with me picking up a Canon.

First off, it’s for my wife… joking.

Seriously though, Canon still has the edge in the digital point and shoot market. We used to have all Nikon point and shoots (all the way back when they had a whopping resolution of 2.1mp haha) but we were never happy with them aside from taking eBay photos. We are both professional photographers (the wife and I) so we were always comparing point and shoots to our professional cameras. The biggest issue we had was shutter lag… It always caused us to miss the moment when we were in a pinch.

So I finally said “screw it” and picked up a nice point and shoot that would do the trick once and for all.

So I did my research and it was between the Canon PowerShot S90 and the Canon PowerShot G11… I ended up going with the S90 for various reasons with the biggest factor being how it looks… Yep. You know how girls are where things need to be pretty.

I also picked up the S90 because it has the following:
- f/2.0 Lens!!!! Ummmm yeah that’s what I said.
- Almost no shutter lag (0.430 – 0.490 sec and a pre-focused lag of around 0.088 sec!)
- 28-105mm effective focal length
- AF Assist beam
- Flash Compensation (+/- 2 ev)
- Various White Balance Settings
- Can shoot both RAW and JPEG
- An ISO of up to 3200!!! ()
- Optical Image Stabilization
- Manual, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Program Mode.

After playing with it for a bit, I found that these features were no slouch either:
- Advanced Face Detection. No need for those crummy AF points that Canon has in their D-SLRs…
- 3.8x Optical Zoom. Better than nothing.
- Exposure Compensation (great when using Av Mode!)
- DIGIC IV Processor. Great colors and clean files at higher ISOs.
- Ease of Use. I could change between settings very easy. The biggest pro here is when shooting in Manual Mode! I can change the Aperture via the customizable zoom ring (very cool!), The Shutter Speed via the small thumb wheel and ISO via the SET button in the center. That was HUGE for me! I know other point and shoots can do this too but man they are clunky with a ton of click clicking to get to what you want. It is also VERY easy to enable and disable the flash and stuff like that.

I have found myself using the camera in Av mode simply because I wanted it to still be a point and shoot while being able to utilize that f/2.0 lens!!! Granted the f/2.0 goes bye bye as you zoom in but you can rock f/2.0 still while at the widest focal length.

Resolution wise, the S90 comes in at 10mp. Trust me when I say that resolution is not the only reason to buy a camera of any sort. Unless you need the enlargements, a 10mp camera can get you at least a 16×20″ without “up-rezing” (via special software) and when do you find yourself printing something that large? My 6mp cameras could do 8×10″ and 11×14″ no problem even. So just keep in mind, bigger isn’t always better and it is more of a marketing stunt than anything. If you are a high fashion, commercial or stock photographer then you won’t be shooting on this S90 so what does it matter right?

The camera also takes some nice videos but it does not shoot in high definition :( like many other cameras offer today. That was a bummer.

Now I mentioned before that the G11 was my other option. I did like that it had more zoom (5x zoom) and a swivel screen (only 2.8″ vs. 3″ but nevertheless) but all the other features remained the same. The cool thing about the G11 was the built in hot shoe mount!!! If I had Canon flashes then I would have rocked the G11 but I don’t and I am not going to throw PocketWizards on it anytime soon. Sort of defeats the portability part of a point and shoot. Plus the G11 has a f/2.8 lens and not a f/2.0…

We were going to try the Leica V-LUX20 or the D-LUX 4 but that is one big price tag!

All in all, I give the Canon PowerShot S90 a rave review. I will be sure to post some sample images and video when we play with this camera more and when I get a free second.

I have been really working my you know what off on my www.MichaelAlanFineArt.com site. It has turned into a really big project and I am trying to get that site off the ground. One of the features on that website is a gear review section. So why should you care???

One such review was on the Really Right Stuff camera support products. They make amazing tripods, ballheads and other accessories to lock down your camera system. All in all, steady camera is a happy camera (and an even more happy photographer!)

Here is where you can check out the review:
http://www.michaelalanfineart.com/review-really-right-stuff/

For now on I will just be linking to my Tech Review Tuesday articles to my fine art site instead of copying and pasting them across the board.

Thanks for stopping by!

I recently picked up a Hasselblad H3DII-31 Medium Format Digital SLR.

Here is a YouTube video review of it:

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I will post some sample pics and resolution examples in a bit so check back shortly.

I picked up my Hasselblad over at www.hotwire-digital.com. Be sure to check them out if you are in the market for a Hasselblad and want a support staff to help you out with the camera anytime! They are a great group of people and I would highly recommend them.