I have been shooting street photos for a few months. My favoured camera from my G10, G12, and Lumix DMC FZ38 is the Canon Powershot G10. There are cameras out there that many would say do a better job than a G10, with its fairly slow focusing and somewhat noisy image above ISO 200, but that has not bothered me in the slightest.
Street photography is more about capturing moments, interesting faces, documenting the everyday world around us. Its not about recording fine grain architectureal detail, or for that matter subtle skin tones. If it were then the greatest of street photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson would be unheard of.
In his day, Cartier-Bresson used Leica 35mm rangefinders, some of his images are 70 plus years old, from a time when film was black and white and grain on photos was a way of life. Times have changed, technology has moved on. Even a modest camera phone has detail resolution, in colour, to match some of the early film cameras that shot only black and white. Most can shoot a reasonable image in more varied conditions than the early 35mm cameras. Yet still we photographers hanker for more and more expensive kit, with longer and faster lenses to take less than worthy images to document the worlds around us.
I am not convinced that a DSLR with an array of expensive glass serves most photographers any better than a damn good quality "compact" digital camera for most shots. Ok, so some photographers specialize, nature, sport etc. They need the power of a long lens with high resolution glass bolted on to a DSLR body with all the knobs, dials and menus. Most of those are pro photographers or very keen hobbyists with money to burn.
You may notice that none of my cameras is a DSLR. Until I had a bridge digital (Lumix DMC FZ 38), I pined for an interchangable lense camera, reflecting back to my film Olympus OM1 of years gone by. But the Lumix produces excellent quality photos, with its 18x optical zoom in a single unit. Now the G10 is better still on the image quality front, but with a 5x zoom. Yes it has it's short-comings mentioned earlier, but I have learned to work with the camera, and am still learning.
And that's the point. Today, we are bombarded with many ads, mags and ever better tech that it seems to be easier to up-grade to the latest tech rather than learn to use the tech we have. I have no issues with the major leaps in tech that come along, like the move from film to digital. Where I do have an issue is with the mini steps that get thrust down our viewfinders, designed to delude us into thinking that the lastest minor innovation will improve our shots and make us world famous photographers.
I see no reason to ditch my G10/G12 in favour of a "better" camera, I have too much to learn and understand about my current camera. I can put up with the noise on my G10's high ISO shots especially as the majority of my photos are shot in colour and edited to black and white. Anyway, I have not printed a photo larger that A4 ever. So why should I upgrade to a camera that will print 3 or 4 times the size and never use the facility. Oh yes, for the additional detail...... Really? And who will notice?
The G10 is a compact and descrete tool, maybe not the fastest auto focus, but you get to know what it can and cant do only with practice and experience. Like many high end compacts with zooms, the Canon G series has been under threat from the micro 2/3rd onslaught, but isnt that just another way of selling us lots of lenses that will not be used to the full?
The option for me would be the Canon G1X, a G12 on steroids with an even smaller zoom range than the current G's. But at least it keeps things small(ish) and tidy.
Then again, I am happy with what I have until my skills outgrow the camera's abilities, and that's some while off yet.
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