Enlarging G photographs

[Rainyday]

Silly me, I subscribed to the widely held beleif that you can't enlarge G series photographs past 5x7.

Well, I had a coupon and figured oh, what the heck. And I ordered an (gasp!) 11x14!!!!!

It came out sharp as a sword and the color is superb. So, next time I'm going to order (okay, everybody have a stiff drink) a 16x20!!!! I wanna see the world end.

Seriously, G cameras can create some awesome pics and yes, you can enlarge them without creating the endtimes.

[OpenC]

No, no. You must've accidentally slipped in an SLR file. You can't print anything larger than 5x7" without spending at least £5,000 on DSLR stuff. It's categorically impossible for anything which isn't an SLR to produce decent prints.

The older I get, the more I hate the SLR body race (if I'm honest, I think that Canon and Nikon and the like are treating their loyal customers like mugs). I'm finding it very pleasant to step away from it and see what can be done without the constant need to upgrade, and I love reading posts like that one.

Mandatory disclaimer, because people get humpty about this sort of thing:
I'm not denying that SLRs have better sensors and better glass, and can do things that compacts just can't do.. however, there's an awful lot of largely unfounded gear snobbery around these days, which just plays into the manufacturers' hands and allows them to keep fleecing people with new bodies every ten months.
[/imho]

[billhercus]

Funny you should write this. I keep being astonished at some of my G11 output in particular landscape photography - using a technique I read about here - manual focus at 1.34meters (or thereabouts) and f4. Everything is in focus from a few inches to infinity. Pictures are so sharp and print out beautifully at A3 - something that takes a lot more effort and care to achieve with an SLR it seems to me - maybe I must be doing something wrong?

Should the G12 replacement include changeable lenses, I may well be tempted to exchange my lovely 7d, and, gasp, my 100-400mm L et al to go down that route. Then I can keep my Canon flashes and not feel too bad.

In the 80's I remember taking my 35mm film camera + lenses to Jessops and swapping the whole lot for a cracking wee Olympus something or other. Looking back, I can clearly see an increase in number of pictures taken after the swap. There is a lesson here.

Do I detect a slow but measurable move away from the SLR as 'compact' cameras are becoming so damned good?

[booju]

No, no. You must've accidentally slipped in an SLR file. You can't print anything larger than 5x7" without spending at least £5,000 on DSLR stuff. It's categorically impossible for anything which isn't an SLR to produce decent prints.

The older I get, the more I hate the SLR body race (if I'm honest, I think that Canon and Nikon and the like are treating their loyal customers like mugs). I'm finding it very pleasant to step away from it and see what can be done without the constant need to upgrade, and I love reading posts like that one.

Mandatory disclaimer, because people get humpty about this sort of thing:
I'm not denying that SLRs have better sensors and better glass, and can do things that compacts just can't do.. however, there's an awful lot of largely unfounded gear snobbery around these days, which just plays into the manufacturers' hands and allows them to keep fleecing people with new bodies every ten months.
[/imho]

Funny you should write this. I keep being astonished at some of my G11 output in particular landscape photography - using a technique I read about here - manual focus at 1.34meters (or thereabouts) and f4. Everything is in focus from a few inches to infinity. Pictures are so sharp and print out beautifully at A3 - something that takes a lot more effort and care to achieve with an SLR it seems to me - maybe I must be doing something wrong?

Should the G12 replacement include changeable lenses, I may well be tempted to exchange my lovely 7d, and, gasp, my 100-400mm L et al to go down that route. Then I can keep my Canon flashes and not feel too bad.

In the 80's I remember taking my 35mm film camera + lenses to Jessops and swapping the whole lot for a cracking wee Olympus something or other. Looking back, I can clearly see an increase in number of pictures taken after the swap. There is a lesson here.

Do I detect a slow but measurable move away from the SLR as 'compact' cameras are becoming so damned good?


Well said:lol:

My G12 just arrived a few days ago... I was happy to sell my Canon DSLR and lenses...only because for me, I can't afford the gear addiction any more and I like the portability of a G compact and IQ...I am a hobby photographer, not a pro...

Yes, I believe the IQ from compact cameras nowadays has made this switch very attractive for me.

We just got my wife a SX230 HS and she loves it too:D

[Rainyday]

No, no. You must've accidentally slipped in an SLR file. You can't print anything larger than 5x7" without spending at least £5,000 on DSLR stuff. It's categorically impossible for anything which isn't an SLR to produce decent prints.

The older I get, the more I hate the SLR body race (if I'm honest, I think that Canon and Nikon and the like are treating their loyal customers like mugs). I'm finding it very pleasant to step away from it and see what can be done without the constant need to upgrade, and I love reading posts like that one.

Mandatory disclaimer, because people get humpty about this sort of thing:
I'm not denying that SLRs have better sensors and better glass, and can do things that compacts just can't do.. however, there's an awful lot of largely unfounded gear snobbery around these days, which just plays into the manufacturers' hands and allows them to keep fleecing people with new bodies every ten months.
[/imho]

bw!

[OpenC]

Heh, it's a pet hate of mine.

Seriously, who cares about extra focus points, or the fractionally increased number of extra shots you can take per minute in burst mode? When it comes down to it, have the images improved significantly?

A lot of the talk that surrounds digital cameras and particularly digital SLRs is a load of rubbish.. it may be untrained eye from my point of view, but people are suckered into thinking that if they spend a fortune on equipment then quality prints are guaranteed. I've seen a million landscape photographs taken with SLRs which are nowhere near as good as the ones I get from the G12 (another disclaimer: some people hate my landscape work because of the way I treat colours, but I'll make the point anyway). When I had a 30D and carried about £3,000-worth of heavy gear on my back at all times, I could take a better picture than I can with the G12 - but not so much better to the extent that it justified the price of the camera or the inconvenience of carrying it all. I know landscapes aren't the be-all and end-all, and I know that sometimes only big glass will do - but most of the time, for most people, less big glass is just fine.

And on the SLR body arms race: in all honesty, my mate had a 500D when I had my 30D, and when I put my lenses onto the 500D body, I got images which were almost exactly the same. The only difference was the lack of physical controls on the 500D, and one or two extra dials didn't justify the extra £500 that the 30D cost me. I think the digital SLR market is a big scam (not lenses - the camera bodies side of it), particularly at the consumer level that most of us are at, which is really the reason I chose to get out of it. All these advances are marketed, and a new body comes out every 10 months, but are the pictures you get really significantly better than the ones you got from your first DSLR?

Finally, the conspiracy theory. It's merely convention that has stopped Canon and Nikon putting really good sensors onto cameras like mine - and a bit of marketing. If the G12 was a bit bigger and had a 60D quality sensor, it wouldn't be hugely more expensive but an awful lot of people would see immediately that they don't need to buy an SLR and all the glass that goes with it, and a huge part of the market would disappear. Keeping the sensors small on otherwise fantastic cameras means that the image quality is just not quite comparable, and so some people still buy SLRs.

There'll always be a place for big glass, but IMO the point and shoot/compact market is being artificially restricted in order that people have to keep shelling out for lenses.

Rant over :)

[OpenC]

OK, rant not quite over.

By way of example: which of these was 30D and which was G12? They're the two closest shots I could find of the same subject from both cameras; not the same day, though :) Don't let the width of the top one fool you into thinking it must've been taken with a wide angle lens on an SLR - it was stitched from multiple shots.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3128/5848626258_b95fc6384e_b.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6024/5922273127_06383a315d_b.jpg

I haven't printed either of them, and don't intend to. I'm not going to publish them. All I'm going to do is invite people to look at them on the internet. One of them cost about £1,700 (body + lens) to take and meant I couldn't carry anything else on my back but my camera. The other one cost £400, and the camera fitted on my belt. I can see the difference, but maybe only because I took them. The point is, the difference isn't worth £1,300 and the inconvenience. I see people on mountains all the time with SLRs around their necks in the rain, being bashed off rocks, because they've got nowhere to put the damn things :lol:

Or who knows, maybe it really says more about me and my inability to get the most out of an SLR :)

[spear]

Actually I did test my G11 against my 5DII and the results of the G11 were great, but when pix were enlarged it was glaringly obvious that the 5DII was dramatically better. It is not that the G11 images are poor, they are really very good ... it is just that the 5DII results are amazingly good and all those extra pixels do show when you enlarge! The thing is that when I look at old enlargements made from my 35mm film SLR era, I am shocked at how poor they compare to even the G11 enlargements. Technology has really improved things in both print and camera technology.