The old Canon G11 Powershot
Rummaging through a drawer I came across my old Canon G11 Powershot. This would have to be my very first “proper” camera. I remember my dad buying it for me for our trip to South Africa in 2009. I remember vividly opening it and turning it on to see the shutter open and the inbuilt lens zoom out. Wow, a real camera I thought. My dad was a news photographer who obviously had all the fancy gear for the time and when I got this little camera I thought I was just like him. So on a plane I jumped as a 23 year old with my trusty “proper” camera to photograph the big five in South Africa! Incredible trip but not so incredible photos despite my “proper” camera. It turns out you kind of need to know how it works to use it well and most of the time “auto” doesn’t cut it!!! Back to Australia I came to learn how this bloody “proper” camera works. I reckon this was about the time I really dove into photography but it wasn’t until another 10 years I’d actually study photography properly!
The Canon G11 Powershot was released in 2009 as a compact digital camera aimed at advanced amateurs and professionals. At the time it had improved high-sensitvity performance thanks to the 10MP CCD sensor. This little beauty had the potential to attach external flash, shoot in manual, 5x wide angle zoom and offered HD video recording at 640x840 resolution. We may all laugh at this now with the advancements in technology especially phone camera technology but for its time it was top notch for a compact digital camera.
Anyway back to the drawer…. I found the little G11, charged her up and inserted a SD card and it worked!! My son was about to head to Canberra for a school trip so I handed him the camera (as my father had done to me some 16 years previous) and said take this with you and have fun. A little crash course on aperture and shutter speed and he was on his way. When he got back we uploaded his photos and began the editing process. To be honest most of the images were fun, memory keepers and nothing to write home about, but there was one. My son was on a bus and snapped an image out the window of the Canberra Museum. Wow, its incredble. (the title image of this blog post) A stroke of luck no doubt but goodness i was impressed!!! My son admits to shooting in Tv and upping his speed to allow for the speed they were moving at (he listened - tick) but to capture the building, sharp as a tack, its reflection on the lake at sunset with a blurred image of a person in the foreground - amazing!!! Not in “auto” mode with a bit of luck on his side! Proud mum moment!
Moral of the story - dig up your old cameras, learn how to use them in manual mode and see if you can capture something amazing!
