Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Digital Cameras & Shooting Techniques => Topic started by: on April 02, 2004, 05:00:20 pm

Title: canon powershot pro 1 review
Post by: on April 02, 2004, 05:00:20 pm
As mentioned on today's What's New, the Pro One review has been delayed till next week. I've just been too busy to compelete it this week as planned.

Michael
Title: canon powershot pro 1 review
Post by: tom on April 02, 2004, 10:46:56 am
i wonder if the recent musings about the shift in direction (with respect to certain aspects of hardware reviews) suggests that Michael's announced review of this camera is no longer to be expected?

i, for one, anxiously await his POV on this camera, as i am trying to make a final selection among the 8mp current crop.

in any event, i learn more with each visit to this great website; thanks michael
Title: canon powershot pro 1 review
Post by: tom on April 07, 2004, 10:10:13 am
michael, thanks for the review.

 I had formed my own conclusions (to return the pro 1 and keep the a2), for many of the reasons you stated.  I'd like to add a few other things, having lived with all three (sony, minolta, canon) for going on a month.

Overall, most of my gripes with the Canon have to do with handling, and usablity.  For example, i found the electronic zoom to be a serious irritant, in that (and you don't mention this, i don't think) there is a slight delay between turning the dial (is this dial turning operation counter-'normal'?  ie, i want wide to be counter-clockwise from the perspective of the user), and zoom movement.

the often long delay before focus is achieved, coupled with some shutter lag, or general processing slowness?, makes the feel of this picture taking operation very unpleasant for me.  

In continuous shooting mode (normal for me) the LCD is blacked-out for a long time (1 sec?) between shots (raw& hq jpeg), despite turning off the 'review' function.

i also found the controls to be much more illogical than did you.  These are all complicated cameras, with many more functions than necessary, but i feel that canon has done a (surprisingly) poor job thinking through the user interface (review histogram > control dial up button, unlabled?).

in this respect, i'm much more pleased with the Minolta (and the Sony for that matter).  These two make me want to go out and take pictures; the canon discourages this.

Some of us have not taken the plunge to PS CS yet (though soon!) and rely on the manufacturers RAW processing software. The Canon software has numerous usability problems. I can't speak for it's effectiveness compared to CS/plugin, but it too is very frustrating to use. (the minolta software is no great shakes either!  sony's entire RAW package is just not up to the others.).

thanks again for your thoughtful review.  I am very persuaded by your recent thoughts about usability being the defining difference among cameras of a class, since their imaging performance is more similar than different.  In this class of 8mp's, i think i'll be happy using the Minolta.