The company I work for has
bought an HP PhotoSmart C912 digital camera and I am able to borrow it from time
to time, as do my colleagues. I found that digital photography encourages me to
experiment much more than film does; the extremely low cost per image and the
instant review possibilities certainly account for that. And it would appear that
my colleagues are attracted to the camera as well: it was used on two ski
holidays, is borrowed every week by someone and we now all take pictures around
the office.
The C912 is an SLR-type camera with a fixed zoom lens. This means that the
system is sealed against dust (read Philip's review of the
Nikon D1 to find out how great it is to have dust on
your CCD element). This also means that you will have to make do with the Pentax
power-zoom lens, period. The camera is, by the way, not a true SLR: instead of
having a mirror, there is a beam-splitting prism that directs part of the light
to the viewfinder and part of the light to the CCD sensor. At exposure time, the
viewfinder goes black as does the LCD screen on the back. It produces 2.2
megapixel images, quite sufficient for snapshots, insufficient for serious work.
The camera has some annoying deficiencies and presents a few quirks, but is
nevertheless a lot of fun to work and play with.
The real price
Depending on your shooting style, you may wish to get (at least) a 128 MB CF card
(April 2001: $230 for the Sandisk at
Ritz Camera).
This should be able to hold some 140 images in full resolution, JPEG, best
quality. Note that during longer trips, this will not be enough and you will have
to bring a laptop for editing, or buy even more memory. Do not rely on the
built-in LCD screen for editing: you can't properly determine if a picture is
really in focus. Also note that, as far as I'm concerned, using a lower
resolution or JPEG-quality makes no sense.
Independent of your shooting style, it would be wise to get the optional
lithium battery pack (April 2001: $100 for the kit, including charger aka AC
adapter), and perhaps a spare battery. Running the camera on AA-type batteries is
not such a good idea: LCD screen, powerzoom and built-in flash require a lot of
power.
Add these prices to the $750 (April 2001,
Adorama) for the camera itself, and
you're looking at $1080 for a working solution. Of course, don't forget the PC,
CD-writer, printer and Photoshop -- but that applies to all digitals.
Handling
One
thing I noticed immediately is how well the camera fits my hands. The moulded
shape is well thought-out and controls are generally easily accessible. A large
exposure-mode selector is located on the left, there is a zoom ring on the lens
(as opposed to a "rocker switch" found on video cameras) and the right hand grip
simply fits. All important controls, except manual focussing and focussing range,
are accessible without using the LCD screen menu system. It would have been nice
if the camera had been fitted with a second command wheel so that you would be
able to set aperture with one and shutter speed with the other. Alternatively, a
lens with an aperture ring would have been nice as well.
The optical viewfinder is very nice to use; much better than with most
point-and-shoot cameras, with all the necessary information displayed below the
image. Diopter adjustment is possible by turning the eyepiece. Since LCD screens
tend to be pretty much useless when used outdoors, I am very pleased to find that
the viewfinder of the C912 works so well. For right-eyed people, it is also
located favorably (on the left side of the camera, so your nose won't bump into
the LCD screen).
Very nice touch: this camera is equipped with a sensor or switch that enables
it to determine whether it's held horizontally or vertically. There is no need to
manually rotate images shot vertically after downloading them to your PC.
Needless to say, this feature also comes in very handy when using the TV-Out
jack. Nice touch number two: a remote control is included (take that Nikon,
charging $55 for an MC-30 that's not even wireless).
Somewhat annoying (and definitely distracting) is the weird aperture trick
this camera performs. Probably depending on the level of light, the camera
appears to stop down the aperture (and open up when pressing the shutter release
to focus, then close down again). Equally annoying is the fact that the camera
resets various settings upon power-off, such as zoom setting, aperture and
exposure correction.
As seems to be the case with many other digital cameras: it is not modeless.
It's is either in playback mode or in recording mode. This makes catching a great
shot while reviewing some images quite unlikely. I must say that this has not
been a major problem for me.
It crashes. That is to say, during several hundreds of pictures taken so far,
the camera crashed twice. This not being a scientifically correct camera test, I
am not ashamed to simply state that "I didn't really do anything; it just
crashed, I don't know why". ( And then us IT-people laugh at users calling us
with such sloppy bug reports... )
The camera is rather slow. Perhaps I'm a spoiled little brat with my Nikon
F100, but I think the C912 is unsuitable for fast shooting as it needs some time
to write data to the CF card. You usually can't snap off more than 2 consecutive
shots.
Pentax powerzoom lens
The C912 is fitted with a Pentax powerzoom lens (8.2 - 25.8 mm, f/2.5 - f/3.9,
this is equivalent to 34 - 107 mm in 35mm). This makes the camera unsuitable for
dramatic wide angle shots, as well as for telephoto sports photography. The lens
accepts 49 mm filters.
Although 34 mm is limited, it is still possible to use it for some
environmental portraiture:
Sadly, the wide angle setting of the lens shows a horrible amount of
distortion:
You'd better stick to autofocus with this camera: manual focus is only
possible when using the LCD display and even then you have to use the gamepad on
the camera back to select a focussing distance. Furthermore, you have to use the
menu system to switch between normal focussing range and macro focussing. A bit
clumsy is the fact that the camera does display focal length in playback mode,
but not in record mode. There is no depth-of-field preview available.
The camera has a single, central AF sensor which can be set to wide or narrow
(just like with the F90X or F70, two older SLR models from Nikon). AF operation
is good, albeit somewhat slow. The camera can be set to either AF Lock (camera
must acquire focus, which you can lock by pressing the shutter release halfway
down) or Continuous AF (camera can fire at any instant).
Image quality
The C912 has a 2.24 megapixel CCD sensor, resulting in 1600 by 1200 pixel
images. This format causes a more square image than you would get in 35mm
photography. Personally, I found this rather interesting as many subjects can be
framed quite adequately. In fact, I'll admit that from time to time, I crop a 35
mm film scan to a square size. Perhaps one day a real 'Blad will make my camera
bag truly heavy :-)
The camera can be set to ISO 25, 50, 100, 200 and 400. The higher ISO settings
200 and 400 are not very useful: the images display a lot of noise, especially in
the shadow areas. This is really a pity, since film photography allows us to use
ISO 400 and 800 with very good results (Fuji Press 800 comes to mind).
The images the C912 produces are not really sharp or crispy by default; you
will need to do some work in Photoshop (using the Unsharp mask tool) to make the
images "pop". Incidentally, I give scans from my Nikon Coolscan LS-30 the same
treatment before publishing them on a website.
Flash photography
In general, I find available light photography more pleasing than flash
photography. This applies to indoor flash photography in particular. If you must
use flash, then please do not use a built-in one, but rather an external flash
with bouncer. Combine it with fast film (ISO 400 and up) and a manually set
exposure (e.g., do not let the camera set 1/60 @ f/8 or worse, but set 1/30 @
f/5.6 yourself).
If you must use the built-in flash of the C912, then please experiment
beforehand. Below are the results of a small experiment I did with a very low
amount of available light (1/3 @ f/7.4 on ISO 400). I prefer the "Auto, no flash"
and "Manual, flash" images because they preserve the ambient light. Please note
that results may be somewhat different if you are shooting larger scenes (e.g., a
party) because of the greater difference between background and foreground.
| Auto, no flash
|
Av, flash
|
Manual, flash
|
Auto, flash
|
|
|
|
|
You can use an accessory flash in the C912's standard hot shoe; this will
allow you to have more control over your flash images. Note that you will not
have TTL-flash metering available (as you would have with combinations like
Minolta 700si and 5400HS or Nikon F100 and SB28).
One thing that annoyed me is the fact that the camera would sometimes refuse
to fire the flash in Auto mode even when there was serious backlight. Apparently,
it decided flash wasn't necessary. Invariably, these shots were useless because
of the lack of a fill-flash. I know the camera can be set to "force flash", but
after a couple of shots (and switching the camera off between them), I forgot.
Besides, I think it would be better if the camera always fires the flash when
it's popped up or if the camera would make more intelligent decisions on whether
or not to use the flash.
On the other hand, if there is a fair amount of available light (but no
backlight), you can rely on the C912 to use flash quite nicely in Auto mode. The
camera controls white balance and exposure very adequately.
PhotoSmart system
The camera can communicate via IR with HP JetSend devices, such as the HP
PhotoSmart P1100 printer. This means that you use the review mode of the camera
to select the images you want printed, push a few buttons to activate the
camera-to-printer send function and plonk the camera down in front of your
printer. Insert some photo paper and the prints will come out.
Alternatively, you can remove the CF card from the camera and insert it into
the HP Photosmart printer (which accepts both Compact Flash and Smartmedia). Use
the menu system on the printer to select the images you want to have printed
(note: there is no preview) and that's it.
And this is what I use:
- Insert the CF card into the printer
- Use the Windows Explorer to copy all images to the hard drive. Warning:
transfering 35 images from a card takes about 9 minutes (printer connected via
USB to a Pentium II 400 MHz machine).
- Start either Paint Shop Pro (for its excellent browse function) or Photoshop
(because I'm used to working with it) to weed out the images I don't want to
keep.
- Edit the remaining images in Photoshop to crop, rotate, level and adjust as
needed and to create website-sized and thumbnail versions of the images.
- Store the images on a CD-R disc.
I then use my own PhotoDB application to store data
about the photographs (caption, keywords and technical details) in a database.
Optionally, I use PhotoDB to create a web gallery for publication on the internet
or for a slide show.
Conclusion
You may think that I have a lot to complain about the HP PhotoSmart C912
digital camera. As a serious amateur photographer, I do and I think I am not
being unfair. It should be noted, however, that at $750, this SLR-type camera is
much cheaper than an Olympus E-10, Canon D30 or Nikon D1. With that in mind, I
think HP delivered quite an impressive camera. Using it as an advanced
point-and-shoot, this camera will definitely be able to create a very nice
digital (family) photo album.
But, the C912 is not a point-and-shoot camera; its SLR-type design and
features mean it's targeted at serious (amateur) users. And in that respect it
simply does not compare favourably to film based cameras. The end result of the
using the camera is a nagging feeling that I can achieve much better results by
simply loading some colour negative film in my 35mm camera. I then have a wider
range of lenses available as well as a wide range of film types.
More images
Here are a few more images, from the Zaanse Schans, The Netherlands:
More information
Background
I am an amateur photographer, used to handling Nikon equipment: Nikon FE, F601
(N6006) and an F100. I use both zoom lenses (AF 24-50/3.3-4.5, AF 70-210/4-5.6)
and prime lenses (AI 24/2.8, AF 35/2.0, AF 105/2.8 Micro). Other preferences
include the use of matrix metering, exposure mode A (aperture priority), tripod,
slide film and film scanner.
I will keep using the C912 (well, provided my employer doesn't object), but at
this moment I will not yet venture into digital photography myself. Quality (or
rather, the lack of maturity at present) and my investment in Nikon SLR gear keep
me from doing it. Perhaps in a few years, an affordable "digital Olympus mju-II"
will be available, or an F100-priced Nikon digital body.
More information is available on
my
website (most importantly perhaps: a few short equipment reviews of
the Nikon gear mentioned).
Product photography was done by
Ruud
Rozemeyer, assisted by me. We used his Minolta Dynax (Maxxum) 700si camera
mounted with a Minolta AF 100/2.8 Macro lens. Film was Fuji Press 800. Great film
for various indoor stuff, but not particularly intended for product photography;
we know. We also learned a bit about brown ceilings and reflections. All other
images were made with the HP C-912 camera. Test images (e.g., to show distortion,
noise or flash results) have not been Photoshopped, except for resizing or
cropping.
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