But first, a word about the G3

As noted previously in this blog and also just a few days ago, I’ve used a Canon G3 for about five years and it has served me well. I’ve written about my G3 on PowerShotValley and have pictures from it on my HornerBuck website. It’s a good camera: 4 solid megapixels, 4X zoom, ISO from 50 to 400, hot shoe for external flash, some accessory lenses and filters and has a RAW capture mode.

One of the G3 features that I really came to like and use is the articulated LCD screen. This moveable, rotatable and flipable display is extremely handy for getting closeups -- especially macro shots. It can be flipped around completely for composing self portraits. On the downside, the screen is a bit small and difficult to read in bright sunlight.

Although the G3 had a remote, mine quickly went on the blink. Eventually I bought a cheap generic replacement that works as well as the original; that is, not very well. The zoom is not very wide on the short end. The 400 ISO mode is very noisy. External flash works great with Canon ETTL flashes in the G3’s automated modes but ETTL flash does not work if the G3 is set for manual exposure. Although not a large camera, the G3 certainly is not a pocket camera but it is very “grippable”.

Over the years, I learned how to manage and work with the G3. I virtually always shot in RAW mode and processed the RAW files in Photoshop’s Adobe Camera RAW. I avoided ISO 400 if at all possible and applied noise reduction (Neat Image with my own profiles) for every ISO except 50. I used PK Sharpener from Pixel Genius to accomplish capture sharpening, creative sharpening and then final sharpening for prints. When making prints larger than 8x10 or cropping, I up-rezzed in Adobe Camera RAW. I learned to stitch images to gain pixels or simulate the wide angle lens that the G3 lacked. It was all great fun and very educational.

My G3 works just as well as ever but I was beginning to realize that better cameras were readily available.