Big Brother

iPhone, meet your new big brother. I have been looking at cameras ever since my old Canon point and shoot croaked. I still have not been able to purchase one for myself, but I picked up the Canon G1X for Betsy. I noticed she was bringing home DSLRs from school for shooting artwork. iPhones work, but they really are poor for documenting something as important as your artwork. The G1X is Canon's foray into small form (not so small), large sensor cameras with fixed lenses. It has a large swivel screen, way bigger than that on her now defunct Canon G2. It has excellent image quality for a fixed zoom lens camera thanks to the large, slightly clipped APS-C sensor. It has all the manual and automatic bells and whistles of a Canon Rebel T4i without the bulk and carry bag of lenses. It's only weakness lay in my camp -no macro to speak of. Thanks to that, poor burst shooting, and lackluster focusing speed, sales have been poor. So much so that Canon dropped the prices nearly $300 from its initial offering a year or so ago. It would be a stellar bargain at $450,  although I found it still a value at the price I paid for it. For those in the small Canon market, the EOS M is also at a remarkably low price point right now and is a stellar bargain. 

New camera models are about to be rolled out and I just may purchase a camera of my own, one that can do macro, and I am leaning toward the biggest, tiny sensor size (1/1.7) with good glass for garden shots. The Canon G1X will serve well for studio shots of new work and Betsy promises that I can borrow it whenever I want. There are many excellent cameras out there right now and with new cameras rolling out there will be a good window of opportunity to pick up the previous model for an exceptional price.