(Or: The Virtual Henri Cartier-Bresson.)
I have just for the first time taken advantage of a camera's "Custom" setting. Many cameras have a mode called C, which is whatever settings you want it to be. (Some advanced cameras have more than one.)
So I created a "street photography" mode for the Canon S90. I got the idea when I saw accidentally in the manual that the Custom mode would even record a manual focus setting (!), and a zoom setting.
So I made a setting of Program mode, ISO 250, zoom at 28mm-e wideangle, and a manual focus setting at about 2 meters, which at the wide setting gives a practical depth-of-field of virtually everything in front of the camera (due to the small sensor).
The good thing about this is that it gets rid of the focus lag of the camera, and I can shoot virtually instant shots. The wideangly also makes framing easy, even shooting from the hip, and is less prone to camera shake, so I can walk down the street and snap-snap-snap people shots without having to pause for focus and so on. It's a version of the elusive "Decisive Moment Digital" camera, as Mike Johnston once famously called the dream of such a camera. (And when really snappy autofocus arrives in small cameras, we can have this at any focal length.)
And if a situation suddenly shows up where I want this camera, I just turn the mode dial to C, and boom, all these settings are there in a second. (Obviously I can tweak them at any time live, and save the tweak if I want.)
11 comments:
Yes, Eolake - exactly!
That's why many 'street photographers' and news stringers shot with a 28mm lens using 400 Tri-X or Plus-X without having to focus the 35mm camera.
I shot many images that way for AP - where the impact of the content outweighs the need of absolute quality. Many times, the film was printed wet so the prints can go out on the wire fastly.
And still, we kept our horizons level. :-)
No no, that's not the mode now. Or was that last year?
I'm looking forward to using it, I've done very little real street photography in the last couple decades.
That's a really clever idea!!
Yeah, my cams also have this feature; I'll dig into the possibilities more. Thanks for the hint. Street photography seems to be my personal built-in feature, I like doing such stuff (as you can see on flickr).
If it had a hotshoe I'd be interested so I could put minifinder on top. Without it I'd rather spend a little extra $$ and get the Ricoh 28mm fixed compact camera, which has already made several photojournalists swoon over it, like David Burnett:
www.vimeo.com/7101370
Ricoh pioneered the use of the EVF (now also available on the E-P1/E-P2 and GF1) and one is available for it as well.
I bought the first generation digital Ricoh GR camera, but sorry to say I did not think the image quality was worth the double price over other similar cameras. It was not better than what I got from my Fuji F10.
Of course it's the third generation now.
You set the camera just how you want it, press the Menu button, and select the Save Settings (under the camera icon).
A great idea....thanks.
Stumbled across your site. Am a real noon when it comes to advanced photography. Can you provide detailed instructions on how to set this for a S90?
You set everything on the camera just how you want it, and then you go into the menus and make it a custom setting. I don't remember exactly where that is in menus, please look in your user guide for that.
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