What am I doing wrong (G6 question)?

Following up on Bottom Bracket and Ballen Photo:

The G6 operating times are given at http://www.dpreview.co​m/reviews/canong6/page​11.asp and this is a simplified excerpt:

Half-press Lag Wide (auto AF & AE) 0.6-1.0 secs.
Half-press Lag Tele (spot AF & AE) 0.6-1.5
Half to Full-press Lag (Viewfinder) 0.1
Half to Full-press Lag (LCD Monitor) 0.2
Full-press Lag Wide (auto AF) 0.8
Off to Shot Taken Wide (auto AF) 4.0
Shot to Shot Record review On 2.2
Shot to Shot Record review Off 1.9

The gist: if we find the time for half-press, then the G6 is reasonably fast, with virtually no lag if the LCD is shut down. Nice to know. And the proposed "commemoration second" could be unnecessary.

Some more on sharpness:

First the G6 itself: To say that ergonomics have been improved from G3/5 to the G6 is a complete illusion. For the sake of marketing, the body has been cropped and the left hand has no hold anymore, and the controls are definitely worse. To make up to some extent, the recommendation given in many postings before deserves to be emphasized: a Lensmate adapter permanently attached. It makes a most suitable handle for the left hand, and many more advantages have been mentionned too.

Then, weight: The G6 weights about 1lb/460g, a monopod say about 1.5lb/700g. If the G6 is attached to the closed monopod, without ground contact, this serves as a solid handle too. Now the pair has a lot more inertia, and correspondingly camera shake is far less likely. Nobody can object to this in areas where pods aren’t allowed (museums etc.) BTW: ball head and quick release are indispensable for the efficient use of pods. Pity only there is so little bottom area on the G6 to fix the plate to it.

That 0.2 of a second is longer than one may think, and could well make the difference between a somewhat fuzzy shot and a really sharp one. I still say it is a good habit to take the extra second to steady the camera, and doing so will result in more keepers. I remember an acronym taught to me long ago, when learning to shoot a rifle : BRASS - Breathe, Relax, Aim, Slack, Squeeze. I make it an effort to do the same with cameras. So take that extra second. It is certainly more versatile and portable than lugging a monopod all the time.

As for the ergonomics of the G6, well, it is a compact camera, and as with all things it takes a while to get used to. I have had no ergonomic issues with mine, whether it is with the lensmate adapter or not. And I am not sure why the bottom area of the G6 is deemed an issue. My monopod and tripod plates mount to it just fine.

If you want to see some nice clear shots with a G6 take a look my site, there is a definate camera shake with the above shots, all my shots are taken hand held. But i'm hopeing to one of them benbo trecker tripods soon.

http://www.karlsphotog​raphy.pwp.blueyonder.c​o.uk/

Very nice shots Karl. The two landscape shots are taken from elevated positions. The snowy one looks to be from another hill. What vantage point did you take the other one with?

And would you share the exif info on the beautiful purple flower shot? Thanks.

Thanks for that.

Ok, first of all the 'snowy' is of wild garlic flowers, it was'nt an elavated shot just a tripod. The other landscape one was taken form the top of a hill of rock's. As for the blue flower, (blue-bell) that was taken on macro, AV, f4.5 and fill flash.

I think Andy was referring to MTF, which is a function of sensor size. More info here:
http://www.photo.net/e​quipment/digital/senso​rsize/ and here:
http://www.normankoren​.com/Tutorials/MTF.htm​l
For this reason, the "sweet spot" for digicam image sharpness is considered to be at f5.6 and lower values / larger aperture.

But I agree that second pic is most likely the victim of camera shake.

Somethings definitly wrong. Try a few shots outside in bright light on Auto & JPEG. Dont try any corrections. If the results are good, then it"s something you are doing, and you can try any or all of the suggestions above. If the pix are bad, then something's wrong with the camera.ttp://members.coxnet/h​arrishaft/photography.​html (INVALID EMAIL)