I’m not sure what this post is supposed to be about, a motorcycle ride with Donna’s sister Georgianna, or testing an unfamiliar point & shoot digital camera. I’ll start with the camera.
Our old Canon G9 point & shoot was the family camera until we bought a big DSLR two years ago. I love that G9. It has the Adobe RGB color palette, it can shoot RAW, it has a great telephoto for a little camera, it has an old-school viewfinder in addition to the LCD screen on the back. It can do almost everything the big DSLR does, and most importantly, you need just one hand to use it, which makes it perfect for motorcycle and bicycle action shots: you can strap it around your neck and take photos with your free hand while riding.
After a motorcycle tour two years ago, I started noticed smudges on my photos. Dirt had gotten inside the camera. It was just about then we got the DSLR, so I put the G9 aside and didn’t think of it until a couple of weeks ago, when I used it on a short local ride. The smudges were worse, so yesterday I took it to a camera repair shop. We can’t fix it, they said: the entire inner works need to be replaced, along with the lens, and it just isn’t worth spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on.
Donna got a cheap little Nikon Coolpix digital for a trip she took in 2008. It’s been sitting around since then. I never used it and didn’t know much about it, but rather than comb eBay for a used Canon G9 or Amazon for a new point & shoot, I thought I’d check it out. It doesn’t have a viewfinder and the telephoto lens isn’t as powerful as the Canon’s. It can’t take RAW photos, only JPEG, and it doesn’t have the Adobe color palette, but you can select something called “vivid color.” It doesn’t have a neck strap, only a wrist strap, but guess what: the Canon’s neck strap attaches to the Nikon’s wrist strap. I can hang it around my neck and take one-handed action photos with it, although I haven’t tried that yet.
What better way to practice with Donna’s camera than to take it on a motorcycle ride to the top of Mount Lemmon? Donna’s sister Georgie wanted to go for a ride, so up we went. I had the “vivid color” option selected, and I’m pretty happy with the quality of the photos. Here are a few more:
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I think that little Nikon is going to do nicely. Now to practice using it with one hand.*
*Lest anyone misunderstand this talk of one-handed photography while riding and be tempted to lecture me about the dangers involved: no, I never attempt to look through the viewfinder or at the LCD screen while riding. It’s strictly point, shoot, and hope for the best. It’s not hard, nor particularly dangerous, to take photos with your free hand. You keep your head up, looking where you’re going while pointing the camera straight ahead. If a squirrel darts out into the road, you just drop the camera and put both hands on the bars; the neck strap keeps it from falling to the road. Drive or ride first, take photos only when it’s safe to do so. I do try to not kill myself. Here’s a one-handed action photo I took with the Canon G9 on a Colorado tour in 2013 (if you look at the center top you’ll see a smudge from the dirt that got inside the camera — it’s worse now than it was then):
